First Post

6/26/11

Hi everyone,

It has been a great first month here in Cameroon.  I have learned so much, but mostly French and to be honest I still couldn’t tell you how to get from my house to the bus station in French so I have a long way to go.

We first arrived in Philly where we got to know each other very quickly through a lot of icebreakers.  One other person from Minnesota so that was cool, and another from Iowa, but she doesn’t like the Hawkeyes.  I’ll convert her.  Also I was told this story on the airplane by the girl from MN. It goes like this:

Girl 1: ohh theres someone else from MN here too.

Eriika(girl from MN): ohh cool, who is it?

Girl 1: I forget his name, but he is the really really American looking one.

Eriika: ohh, him(points to me)?

Girl 1: Yep

I am taking this as a compliment.  Maybe I’m biased, but looking American has to be positive, right?

After the two plane rides we arrived in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.  We spent 3 nights in a hotel near the Peace Corps(PC) house basically on lockdown and filling out a bunch of forms.  There wasn’t much to do so we played a lot of cards, and made fun of each other’s faces when we had to eat our meals.  The hotel did its best, but my home stay family cooks way better meals so I know it wasn’t just the way meals are here.  After Yaoundé we took a bus to Bafia.  The views are amazing and I will be loading some pictures up as soon as I can, but you will understand why I haven’t yet soon.

HOME STAY FAMILY

I wish I could tell you exactly who is in my home stay family, but I am still only 80% confident I know everyone.  I know my Mom and Dad have at least 2 kids, one is at University and the other is in high school and hangs out with me a lot.  Then there is what I am now assuming to be a niece and nephew, ages 12 and 15 respectively.  Lastly there are some grandchildren who are really young, who greet me every day when I return from school which is great after a frustrating day of French.  Also lots of people have come and gone, and one night we had a very important man over for dinner.  Hey Jack, why was he important? Great question.  He had a guard with a gun so I figured I should be nice.  He was actually extremely nice, and laughed at my French a lot.

Food wise, I definitely got a great deal compared to some other trainees.  I eat a lot of pasta, or rice usually with some sort of sauce and fish.  It is not exactly delicious, but hearing what others eat every night(bush meat and local foods) I can’t complain.  Also every morning I have an omelet and milk which has been great.  I made some over easy eggs one morning and my host sister thought it was pretty weird, but I told her to add a little salt and you are good to go.

Mini-story time:

I figure this is the best way to blog, with just some quick stories that show how I spend my time here.

The first night I was sitting outside with my host dad(it also took we 5 minutes to say “We are sitting outside looking at the moon” in French to him).  All of a sudden their cat starts acting weird and I see a tiny snake by it.  The snake couldn’t have been more than the size of Bridgets pinkie around, but the host brother killed it with a 2x4 which was awesome.  Plus I had a great story for the other trainees the next morning.

Pictures to come with this story: I bought pagne(don’t quote me on spelling) aka local clothes.  If anyone remembers Zubazz from the early 90’s, think that.

One weekend my family went to Yaounde and they were preparing the meal at our place.  So I go see what’s going on, yeah sorry no pics for this one cause I was stopped in my tracks.  These 2 massive rats and one decent monkey were about to be skinned.  It was pretty gross, but also very cool.

Church: Went to mass and it was a lot of fun, but what I didn’t expect is my brothers friend is brothers with the priest so we hung out with him afterward and then all of a sudden I was at his house in Bafia where I swear we had a second mass where they blessed pretty much everything in the house.  It was a lot of fun and we ate very well.

Goals for the rest of training:

1.       Learn French

2.       Hike those hills a couple kilometers away

3.       Go to the forage(where we get drinking water) and back without having to take a break

4.       Not get laughed at how poorly I wash my clothes, this is actually good for me because then my brothers help me so at least half of it gets done well.

That should be a good start, slowly stories start popping in my head.  Also I know pictures say a lot more so next time I will load pictures.