Can you feel my sweat?

Finally! I have been dying to share the adventure that has been my time in cameroon thus far, and I have finally located the "cyber cafe" in my training town which is called "Mbalmayo" pronounced "ball my o".

To those of you who thought I was dead, not to worry, I am alive and kicking here in beautiful, interesting, crazy, hot, sweaty, freindly, smelly, crowded, cute, interesting, slow, stressful, relaxing Cameroon.

Let me sum up the events of the last 8 days since I left Philly.

We arrived in Yaounde (the large, chaotic capital of Cameroon) last Saturday night. The first thing I noticed when we got off the plane was the wall of humidity and warm air which hit me like a freight train. It felt surprisingly good after spending 14 hours on Air France (can you say free wine? we all enjoyed that!). We collected our bags and in a very efficient, planned out way, we were ushered through Yaounde in our Peace Corps vehicles (they actually have a fleet of Land Cruisers) to our hotel in town. I was pretty tired, so I went right to sleep and was only awoken by the most intense thunderstorm I have ever seen, gotta love living on the equator.

We spent Sunday relaxing, touring Yaounde, and having a nice dinner at the country directors house (which is auite nice). I got to know the Peace Corps stqff in Cameroon which is very impressive, and friendly. Most of the staff is composed of Cameroonian nationals who really believe in the Peace Corps mission, and who certainly know what they're talking about.

The next few days in Yaounde, we spent at the Peace Corps compound in town (yes, compound, with a big wall surrounding it and armed security guards on patrol). We had orientation on health, safety, culture, language (pas de problème pour moi), and technical stuff (the field i'll be working in). The health sessions were pretty painful to sit through, as we learned about every disease, parasite, and worm that can attack us here in Cameroon. Luckily the PC medical staff is quite good, and they healed me quickly when I got sick during my thrid day (dont worry, just food poisoning, but believe me, I was fearing much worse).

On thursday we were brought to Mbalmayo (about 20 miles south of Yaounde). This is where I will be spending the next 9 weeks training and living with my Cameroonian host family. When we got to town, the host families were waiting for us with huge smiles on their faces...

The Esalla family.

I lucked out. I was placed with a wonderful, relatively well off (electricity, running water (usually), large house, stereo, dvd player, two (small) tvs) large, Cameroonian family. In my compound there are about 12-14 people living. 10 of the kids belong to my host parents, and there are a couple nephews as well. My little sister is 1 years old and she is still scared to death of me, being the first "blanc" or whitey she has ever seen. She is sooo cute though. I have many brothers and sisters ranging from 1-24 years old (better watch out for that 24 year old host sister ;)...hahaha just kidding.

My mama cooks great food. Last night we had an abundance of pork in piment (spicy) sauce, beef stew, fried plantains, rice, manioc, mangos, pineapple (the sweetest pineapple you've ever tasted), wine, bread, and more. Needless to say, I might put some meat on these bones of mine in the next three months!, probably not though because I sweat so damn much).

After dinner we watch kung fu movies and "makossa videos" (strange music videos of people shaking their derrière, but good music). Then I go to sleep in my own room, which I share with many lizards and spiders. My bed is covered with a mosquito net which protects me from the malaria. In the mornings I take my bucket bath, eat breakfast and drink coffee, then I walk the ten minute path to my training facility where I begin the day sharing stories of host families with my fellow trainees. I have it pretty well with my family compared to most others, and the fact that I speak french makes it easy for me. I,m also learning the local language.

I'm making many great friends in the Peace Corps and in my host family. The experience has been wonderful thus far.

My internet time is running out, but I expect to keep this updated at least once a week now that I'm in training.