Friday, June 10, 2011

Hilton happy hour and hot dog stands!

Yes, yes, these are the many impending glories of the month of June. I'm in Yaounde right now waiting for Joc's arrival. She's already on her flight in from Brussels and should be arriving in just a couple hours!  She better have remembered to get me a Belgian waffle out of the vending machine in the airport, or I'm sending her back to Chicago.

Regardless of how tired she is, we are going to Hilton happy hour tonight!  I can't wait to have a proper drink with potential ice cubes. It will sure beat the warm poisonous beer I drink from time to time in Mandama with my non-Muslim friends...although those beers can taste pretty delicious at the given time too.  It's all about the circumstances. Anyway, Joc and I are staying at the luxurious Hilton tonight and then heading on a train up north tomorrow, so I can show her how insane my life is and laugh at how uncomfortable she is when people offer her random balls of goo to eat and when she's chased down by vicious donkeys. haa This trip is really going to test the hardcore traveler in her! We're starting off pretty light here in Yaounde, but as we ascend up north things are going to get more and more African. Yes, this is going to be uhhmazing.

I also got a special invite to the American Embassy here in Yaounde for 4th of July....on June 29th.  You'd think a governmental organization like an embassy would have their party on the actually day of independence, but whatever, I'm not complaning because I can stay down here an extra couple of days after I drop Jocco at the airport on the 25th. This party is supposed to be pretty swanky, so I have to find an article of clothing that's not ripped and covered in dirt. Hmmm, maybe I'll still something from my sis. It'll be nice to celebrate an American holiday too. The rumor that there's a hot dog stand at the party is especially promising. I also want to meet some cool government officials to see how they got so high up on the food chain.  Gotta keep that networking up!

Work at post has been pretty busy despite the fact that the village empties out during rainy season.  It's like a ghost town walking around at high noon. I expect some coyboy to jump out from behind the village boutique and get in a gun duel with me.  You see how crazy I'm becoming?  Yeah, so now that the rains have started all my Mandama buddies need to take advantage of the insanely short growing season.  Everyone is out in their fields for pretty much the entire day.  Good luck trying to get anyone to come to a health meeting before 4 pm.  Since I like to get the majority of my presentations done in the morning, the new season has been kinda tough for me. I do, however, have my forage committee set up and we hope to start saving up money for the technician to come out to Mandama in September to start checking out our land to see if building a new water source is feasible. We shall see.

Since all my friends are farmers and they disappear during the day, I've decided to become a farmer too. With the help of my favorite village boy, Salamon, we planted American corn, piment peppers, green beans, tomatoes, more moringa trees, cucumbers, and melons in my garden.  In July we're also going to plant some more soy. Even though none of my plants have started producing fruit yet, they are starting to "pousse"...pushing up out of the soil?  Is there a word for that in English? Whatever, I can't speak my native language anymore.

So here's a fun gardening story, I had to burn some of the dried leaves hanging around in the back of my plot the other day with my friend Hadja Amanta. Once we get this party started we all of a sudden see an anaconda sized black snake trying to slither out of the flames, but before he could get anyway he started blowing up, Okay, and I'm not even kidding, FLOATING.  The frickin constrictor became a balloon and started FLOATING!  Hadja and I just kinda stood there gaping.  Then all of a sudden the thing just exploded, like an ashy puff of smoke.  And once again I am asking myself, what the hell is my life? Who knew massive serpents could fly? Random Peace Corps moment.

My presentation in Gawel with my friend Megan went really well.  I'm realizing more and more that all people are the same.  If you give out free samples, everyone will stick around and maybe listen. We not only made moringa powder bouille, moringa sauce, and soy milk, we also gave out moringa trees!  Who wouldn't want to listen to me blab on all day about nutrition when you could get all these goodies, right? But, in all seriousness, though, the women were super engaged and I really think the message got across about the importance of a balanced diet. Megan and I plan to give a similar animation in Mandama at the end of July.

Alrighty, that's it for now. I'm going to go eat some cereal, because YES I can do that here in the great captial of Cameroon. You'll probably be hearing from me in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned for some hilarious adventure stories about my sis and I gallivanting around this crazy land.

Meggg

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