What day is it?

This has been an eventful week to say the least: nightclubs, rusty nails, church in the house, death, vipers, and anteaters.

It’s been such an eventful week that I lost track of time somewhere. Yesterday (Friday), I thought it was Thursday until someone told me it was Friday. How this happened, I don’t know, but I am convinced that I was robbed of a day this week, or there was some sort of lapse in the time continuum, very strange indeed.

Let’s see, where to start.

Ok, last Saturday, after I last updated this blog, I went out with some of my fellow trainees and some Cameroonians. We went to this friendly little bar/restaurant where we spent the next four or five hours relaxing, chatting, drinking Guinness and other kinds of beer, and eating. Many of the American trainees are still uncomfortable with their French, so they weren’t going out of their way to talk to our Cameroonian friends. It was a totally segregated seating arrangement; on one side, the white English speaking Americans, on the other side, the French speaking Cameroonians. I thought to myself “why are we even here with these people if we’re not even going to talk to them.” So I took matters into my own hands, and forced people to change seats. It proved to be successful, my first accomplishment in the Peace Corps! For dinner, we had fish, chicken, VIPER, and rice. All this for about $1.75. The Viper was delicious.

Sunday was a typical day. I spent two hours washing a few articles of clothing. I sure miss washing machines! My hands are definitely getting used to the hard work, I managed not to bleed this time.

Monday I visited the supermarket in town that I will be working with. It was a very typical Cameroonian business in many ways. It is one of the larger businesses in town, yet they have no organization. Their accounting records are a pile of notebooks with sloppy handwriting thrown on the floor in the corner of an office. They want to computerize their operations, but they have no idea: where to get the computers, how much they cost, or how to use them. I want to help them in this area, but I don’t think I will have enough time to do that, since I will only be in town for 6 more weeks.

Tuesday I woke up, walked out of my room, half awake, and to my surprise there were about thirty guys staring at me. What a way to wake up! They were there to unload some wood from Papa’s truck. Here I am with no shirt, eyes half open, with a towel, some soap and roll of toilet paper in my hand. I could see in their eyes, they were thinking “Who is this white guy and what is he doing with toilet paper in his hand?” Some of these guys died this week; I will talk about that later...

Tuesday night, as I stumbled to my bathroom, I stepped on a rusty nail. I quickly rushed to my Peace Corps Medical Kit (the biggest medical kit you have ever seen!) and cleaned the wound, and put a band-aid on it. My next concern was tetanus… which was taken care of the next day...

Wednesday: I got my tetanus shot, and did some other things, but I can’t remember.

Thursday: I ate a sandwich for lunch, the first sandwich I’ve had since getting here. It had egg, sardine, beans, and onions. Sounds strange, tasted grrrrrrreat. Thursday night I came home, to my surprise there was a priest in the corner of the courtyard area, and my brother was confessing (I assume, since he was kneeling in front of the priest, and his head was down). I asked Papa what was going on. They were having a special mass at the house that evening for Papa to help him cure his diabetes and high blood pressure. The medicine wasn’t working, so they resorted to the priest. This was my first experience (that I can remember) at a catholic mass. Inside the house, they rearranged the furniture to make it look like a church of some sort. I got home at 6:30pm, the mass finished at 10:30pm. It was interesting for the first 2 hours, but then I got hungry, tired, and a little bored. We spent the four hours standing, sitting, standing again, then sitting, singing, lighting candles, walking in procession outside, walking back inside, singing etc…Half it was in French, half was in the local language, but I got the picture. After the mass, the priest watched soccer with us and we ate chicken.

Thursday night (around 3am): Papa’s truck crashed somewhere in the woods. He wasn’t in it, but some of his workers were, the same ones I met on Tuesday morning. There were two of them sitting in the back, on the logs. Apparently, the brakes gave out, the truck went over a cliff, the guys on the back jumped off, only to be crushed by the logs that fell out of the truck, they died, the driver and passenger in the front survived. I actually didn’t find out about this until Friday night when I got home from training and realized none of my brothers nor my father was home. They were in the forest, dealing with authorities, digging out bodies, and recovering the wood.

Friday: After training, went to a bar with my friends. A crazy old Frenchman came up to us, and started babbling nonsense. He asked me if I was enjoying Cameroon, I said, “yeah, it’s beautiful, the people are so friendly, etc.”, then he says “soon, you will hate this place, the people are evil, you will want to leave.” He babbled some more, and then I asked him why he was here if he hated it so much. His answer wasn’t clear, but it had to do with making money and bribing people in high places. Crazy old Frenchman.

Today is Saturday. I will play soccer at 3:00 with all the other trainees. Tomorrow, I will go to the forest with my Papa and another trainee to see his whole operation, this is assuming, of course, everything is sorted out with the accident. Sunday night, I will eat anteater, I’ll let you know how it tastes. The porcupine was delicious by the way, kind of like turkey, but greasier and tastier.

There are rumors swirling around about where I will be posted for my two years. I’m pretty sure I will be in West Province. It is the most developed province, and the economic powerhouse of Cameroon. It is also the coolest (literally) area of Cameroon. It is in the hills. Apparently it gets pretty chilly at night, and it rains a lot. It is also on the road to Limbe-the beautiful beach with the 12,000 ft volcano overlooking it. I want to climb this volcano at some point. If I get posted in the west, I will be happy, but Peace Corps is full of surprises, so I could end up anywhere...stay tuned.

I miss everyone, friends and family, but not enough to leave Cameroon. I’m having a great, interesting time so far…you should come and visit!

Ok, that’s all for this week, until next time, au revoir!