The Misty Mountains

July 15, 2007 - I visited my town for the first time Tuesday. Its a beautiful little town in the southwest province of the country. Its in a valley surrounded by mountains, the only problem is there are no decent roads one can take to get to it. I met my principal and my counterpart (collegue I can rely on for help) and they both seem pretty cool. They took us out for couscous and bushmeat, it was pretty good I didnt end up regretting it. The way back we took motos which was more expensive but awesome. Im in Bafusam now headed back to town tomorrow. I have updates from the 4th of july etc but my usb isnt working right now. Im hangin in there...talk to yall soon.

Nearly a Month

July 2nd, 2007
I realized yesterday that it had been almost 4 weeks since id seen anyone I hadnt met in the last 4 weeks, kinduv blew my mind because I already know some people very well. Im already frustrated with the keyboard so well just go with what Ive already typed. Hope everyones well.

June 30th, 2007
After walking with Anne (mere) to pick up some tomatoes (we had a good laugh when a rooster had explosive diahrea right next to us), I made some omlettes and ran to play basketball. Ive never been such a force on a court full of black guys in my life. Theyre not bad but it was nice to be able to take a little pride back after the beating we get in soccer every Thursday. Because it was cloudy and threatening rain I didnt think about the sun, but apparently you can get a pretty bad sunburn on a cloudy day because I did. After showering and a little nap I went to the bar to study and stayed there for a while (we seriously studied for half of it). Some family friends came over and we had a good talk, I can get some ideas across finally which is nice. They thought the picture of me with long hair was hilarious because I look like a girl, but it was even more hilarious how fat I was. The must have said "Tu manges beaucoup no" a dozen times, but its not an insult here like it is in the states.

June 29, 2007
Man what a day. It started well right off the bat. I went running in the morning, we took some random roads and saw a bunch of the town. When I got back to eat breakfast there was an omlette waiting for me and ma mere (yes I call her that dont get jealous mom) told me to get all my laundry together and her and my sisters would do it, sheets and all. While changing for school I saw some dead spiders and thought, sweet Ill have a picture of some huge spiders for my blog. Not shown, Im workin on it.
For our language class we went to the market to try to bargain. I wanted shampoo and after being offered 650 and 500 I got it down to 400 francs which was probably too much because the guy seemed to happy but whatever I didnt pay full price. I bought a pagne (fabric to get made into clothes) at the marche, tried to bargain down and there was a fiasco where wed agreed on a price and he went back on it, but the girl I was with really wanted hers so we rolled with it. When we got back for our cross culture class we had some real cross culture experience when a drunk woman came into the building and started saying that she wanted to learn english and called one of the voluteers mon cheri and said she would cook him liver. After that I grabbed a bread with egg and avocado at the small shop across the street and went home.
Ma mere wanted to go to Bafusan so we took a cab. Let me tell you that this was not a normal cab, but I can paint you a picture. Imagine my car (some know it as the Ferdrod) plus 5 years and 100000 miles, with 8 people in the car, 4 in front 4 in back. The other guy sitting in the drivers seat is known as the "petite chauffer". Did I mention it was a stick shift? Despite how it sounds I actually felt pretty safe, the petite chauffer kept the stick available and the driver was used to it. I can say that I was very happy to arrive in Bafusan. When we got there we went around the market, looked at pagnes (I got another one, gonna go to the tailor in the next couple days), and the supermarche. I saw some other volunteers quite randomly (Its a pretty huge town) first at the boutiques and then at the supermarche. They bought cheese and ketchup for the burgers on the 4th of July which Im really excited for. I bought shaving cream, the food was really expensive and the only American thing was Pringles. Anyway me and Anne got into another cab for the ride home (10 total this time, 2 babies on laps) and arrived back in Bagante just before dark. We went to get a beer, and who do we run into at the bar but the volunteers I saw in Bafusan and the drunk woman who was hitting on the volunteer earlier that day. She talked quickly and I could understand almost nothing of what she said but it made everyone uncomfortable. Eventually she left and we left and went back to the house, where I had a good meal, watched Heroes in French, and talked with the fam.

June 26, 2007
I had a pretty good weekend, nothing crazy but relaxing. Washing clothes here is hard. First you have to pound a few soapy pieces into the ground for a while, then scrub the important parts of whatever youre washing (particularly smelly or dirty parts). Rinse twice and hang up, and then you have to iron everything because 1) its important to have ironed clothes here and 2) if you dont you can get mango fly eggs in your skin which will turn into a pimple that a fly comes out of. When I get to post I can pay someone to do it for me but til then Im on my own (ish my family helps out a little).
On Sunday another trainee and I made dinner for our families. It was supposed to be speghetti and meatballs but it turned into speghetti with tomato soup and chunks of meat (we couldnt get it ground). The garlic bread was a big hit, the pasta wasnt very good. I had a debacle when after slicing up one of these small extremely spicy peppers they have here (pienot maybe) I rubbed my eye. Ive never been pepper sprayed but it must have been close I couldnt open my eye for a half and hour. That want the end of the pain, let just say I wish I washed my hands before I went to the bathroom. The actual dinner started off a little badly because we didnt have it ready when they arrived which is apparently bad because they left to come back later. Once some wine got drunk it got better, and I would say it was an overall success. Sidenote my friend got some cheese from the market in Bafusan it was delicious, first real cheese Id had in almost 3 weeks.
I gave a 25 minute presentation on momentum on Monday, it went swimmingly. In 3 weeks we start model school and I have to actually teach so it was good practice. For those who dont know come September Ill be a Physics teacher with 100 students in each lecture. Yay. I know that Ill be in an Anglophone province teaching in English so at least I wont have that obstacle. My new language class is good but tres dificil, its all in French. Im struggling but I think itll be good in the end. I've lost a little motivation knowing I wont need to speak French at post, but I get to learn Pidgen whichll be fun. Were in the midst of planning a 4th of July bbq with cheeseburgers and fries, I'm excited. Next time youre eating a burger think of the fact that if I were there and you werent going to give me your burger, I would probably punch you in the face, take your sandwich, run, and not feel sorry.