Just some things about my life here in Cameroon to-date:
Running Creature Count/ RCC: Cockroaches 13, random dead cockroaches (I didn’t commit the act but somehow they are in my house and they are not alive) 4, little spiders 20, big spiders 11, earwigs 5
Last movie watched out here at post: The Life Aquatic, which i highly recommend :) great film
Top-2 nicest things said to me thus far:
1. After explaining an alternative method of adding fractions to a boy doing his math homework, he said that I was a really good teacher and no one has ever explained math in simple terms like that to him.
2. After taking out my braids one morning and leaving my hair down and curly, one of the nurses at the health center said it looked pretty. No, I said, here in Africa, it's prettier to keep my hair in braids. No, he said, you are beautiful, all beautiful, just the way you are.
Top-2 not-so-nicest things said to me thus far:
1. While walking to work one morning, an anglo-phone man (one who speaks english) greeted me and asked what the things on my forehead were. I explained that my acne is from eating a lot of oil here. He said, and I quote, "You have a lot of pimples. You should do something about that".
2. Over a month after Ashia has passed away, a woman that I don't even know came up to me and said she heard that my dog died. And that she thought I shouldn't have cried, it's not like it was a person.
Top-3 American food cravings:
3. shrimp cocktail
2. fried haddock
1. salmon and lemon sauce
hmmmmmm seafood craving anyone?
Travels with Fadi:
So my mama out here at post is named Fadi. She is a farmer and grows beans, corn and peanuts, but she also works at a weekly market. Every Sunday, she and three other women from our village go and sell things in the city of Dang. This means that every Friday and Saturday, she is busy gathering vegetables and flour from various people to sell on Sunday. It is always an adventure when I'm at their house on those days because we go to all different places and houses to pick up things for her to sell. Most recently, we went in search of millet flour last Friday. Since it is almost Rammadan, she said, everyone wants to buy millet flour to make bruee (water + millet flour + rice + sugar, drink up yum yum). So we're (Fadi, Nini and me) off with two empty sacs and two flashlights on Friday evening after dinner. It has raineddddd all Friday, so we trek through puddles and mud like I have never seen before to house #1. When we arrive, we walk down a hill that is slick with mud and make it to her friend's concession, but he's not there. Oh great, so we climb back up (Nini is holding on to me at this point so she won't fall), and, with now-mud-ladden flipflops, continue on. We arrive at house #2. We enter into the kitchen where some women are boiling millet wine over the fire. On the floor is a week-old goat. Do vino, the women say. Welcome. There isn't much room inside the small kitchen so Nini sits on my lap and picks up the goat to pet on her lap. Fadi's friend has the flour that we are searching for, and so they lay it all out on a sac and begin counting bowl-fulls. As I'm shining my flashlight on the counting process, I notice the women is bare-footedly stepping on something. Oh right, just the skin of the cow that was slatered to sell in town today on Friday. The head, hooves and tail are close-by. Classic. The counting is then done and we head on back through the mud to our neighborhood....
Kids reading National Geographic in my house
So my mother sent me some french books for the kids here to read/learn from. One book permanently stays at Fadi's house; the First 1000 French Words. The kids love it, they look at it every night and we play a game where I say the french word and they find the object on the page. However, I've come across a few minor problems with some of the words. When Nini asks me what a toaster is, I don't know how to explain that in French so that she will understand. And would she even understand if I explained that it's an instrument to cook bread? Nini would say that bread is already cooked. Or teaching the kiddos words like "picnic" "park" or "trashcan" don't seem to make much sense if they will never use these words in their life. So, usually, I just stick with objects on the page that they will recognize and use in the future.
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