Bienvenue à Sanguéré-Paul!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would just like to add a quick note. I have never been a huge fan of Thanksgiving, but I sure do have a lot to be thankful for this year.

I am thankful to have the most loving family who has done nothing but love me and support me and help me realize my dreams. On good days, on grumpy days, whether I am in the same room or half way around the world. They are always there to talk, to let me vent, to encourage me, and to love me unconditionally. (Especially my wonderful Mommy who has called me almost every night this first week here at post to make sure that I not too lonely or too terrified of the creepy noises in my roof.)

I am thankful to have the most amaaazing friends who even though I don’t get to talk to often, are always there for me. Thank you guys for enduring my continuous rants about things both good and bad, and for continuing to send me entertaining links or stories from your own lives. Love you guys so much!

I am thankful for Cameroon. Yes, the entire country. I am thankful to the people of Bafia and Sanguéré-Paul, who have welcomed me into their communities. I am thankful for the opportunity to live here and work here for the next two years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Life’s a beach.

No, really! I can build sand castles in my front yard! If I pretend that every lizard I see out of the corner of my eye is a crab and that the sound of the bats crawling around in my roof is actually waves, and then of course I’d have to ignore the mating goats that just can’t seem to get enough of each other, well, then yeah! Sanguéré-Paul is exactly like a beach! Minus the water, of course, but then again, I can just close my eyes and pretend as I take my daily bucket bath (agh, who am I trying to impress….it’s more like every two or three days at this point).

Anyways, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, world!

Last we spoke, I deceivingly told everyone to check out my swearing-in ceremony online at some odd hour of the morning. Whoops.

Well let’s see… that was over a week ago now! Tuesday night before the ceremony, I stayed at the house of Lori, and American Peace Corps staff member who lives in Yaoundé. I felt so incredibly welcomed and spoiled the entire night. The minute I walked in the door, her adorable five-year-old daughter was dragging me to the living room to watch a movie with her (something about a magic grandmother, and there were a lot of poop jokes… it was right up my alley). I could smell apple crisp fresh out of the oven, but of course that was to be eaten after we returned from girls night out. Lori, her two daughters, and I met up with Nurse Mishna and her friend, who were hosting Rachel and Mary, and the eight of us went out for Indian food. We then stuffed our bellies full of samosas, paneer, and dhal, until we were at the point where we couldn’t even enjoy the delicious apple crisp that was waiting at home.

I slept soundly and enjoyed a nice hot shower in the morning. A hot shower! Wowzers! A rarity here in the Peace Corps life. I have not felt so clean in over two months! Then I had a delicious breakfast, which included that promised apple crisp. Best host ever.

Anyways, the ceremony. Eh, ceremony schmeremony. But actually, it was really nice, but also really long. There were speeches. Oh so many speeches. I have to admit, I teared up a little bit during the acting-ambassador’s speech and when we took our oath. We all wore matching pagne and performed a song together (Peace Train by Cat Stevens. Sometimes I wonder how far we can push this hippy-dippy-crunchy-granola thing). Mama Lydie came to watch ceremony and then we enjoyed a nice lunch together.

Afterwards, we went back to Bafia for one last hoorah at our good ol’ Hotel New Palace. Then it was a whirlwind of goodbyes in the morning, followed by one last good meal (pizza and a chocolate milkshake) in Yaoundé.

Fast-forward: TRAINS!!!! The train ride up North was awesome-possum! Man oh man, I love trains. It was approximately fourteen hours long, in wagon-lit (AKA sleeper cars with two bunkbeds each). I had top bunk, which meant that I could ride with my head out the window like a dog, and then once it got dark, I could sleep with my feet out of the window. We were all plum-tuckered out from the party the night before, and consequently everyone in my room was out like a light by 8:30PM. In the morning, we all went to the diner car for some omelets and croissants.

Agh. Words can’t even express how happy the train ride made me.

We arrived in Garoua at maybe 6PM, and were greeted my many of the current volunteers. They were so lovely as to arrange shwarma and beer for us all, as well as to create a “heat” themed playlist for the night.

The next day, Madame Tizi, my community host, arrived at the case (AKA Peace Corps transit house) to pick me up and show me the way to my new house!

The first night in my new house was, well, scary. Someone knocked on my door at about 7:30PM, and though that’s fairly early, it was already dark out. I panicked and refused to let him in, and conversed with him through the window, telling him to come back the next morning. (It turns out it was just Olivier, my 16-year-old neighbor who has been a really kind friend to the past volunteers, and who I have received written recommendations about). Anyways, I wasn't aware of who he was at the time, and thus I was a bit nervous for the rest of the night.

I had no food yet, except for a stale mini-baguette from breakfast on the train, and a chocolate bar. So I did what Maria does best – whipped up a chocolate sammich.

Then I started hearing weird noises from all over. I didn’t know yet which noises I should be hearing and which noises I should be scared of. Turns out these noises were somewhere in between the spectrum. The good news: it was not the noise of creepy people trying to break into my house. The bad news: I have a gazillion bats living in my roof.

Anyways, it’s been kind of weird adapting to my new life here. I haven’t really interacted with too many people, other than my community host, my counterpart, and Olivier. I’ve been spending a good part of every day cleaning, as there has been no one living in my house for 7 or 8 months, and everything is covered in dust. I’ve also been hanging out inside while a repairman fixes all the windows and doors (and by "fixes", I mean he is putting them where there weren’t any before...which is everywhere). I’ve also been reading a lot and watching too much Sex and the City (whoops).

Still trying to figure out the food situation – I know a lot of you are probably wondering about that. I learned recently that I have a reputation of being a sugar fiend. And by that, I mean that word has gotten around that one time I ate four chocolate sandwiches in one day (not like the one I made on my first night here, but rather with a delicious chocolately spread). This isn’t true – the most I have ever had was two, I think – but nevertheless, I’ll defend my title. Things were looking good, nutrition-wise, once I bought my gas bottle and some veggies, but then my luggage arrived and I rediscovered that 54-ounce bag of skittles and gigantic jar of Nutella. Looks like I’ll have to make a trip to that dentist in Yaoundé at somepoint in the next two years... Boy, that’ll be something to blog about! Anyways, fortunately my lovely grandmother neighbor has given me food almost every day. So far I have lived in Sanguéré-Paul for six nights. I have cooked one meal (beans), been given four meals, have eaten at Olivier’s house once, and the rest of the time I’ve just been tasting SO MANY RAINBOWS.

Next week I'll be starting to meet with community members to learn a bit more about Sanguéré-Paul. I'll also be starting my Fulfulde lessons with Olivier's language teacher at the local high school! This will hopefully help me to communicate with my neighbors and to buy things at the market. And I might even experiment with some gardening in my front yard, which actually might just turn into building sandcastles. Things are going slowly, and I'm taking it one day at a time (pole-pole, as we used to say in Zanzibar! Or seda-seda, in Fulfulde), but things are definitely going!

Oh, and I would also like to add that today it was 104 degrees. We're currently in the middle of the "cold season". Ha.

I have tons of pictures to share but this computer wont let me to post them, you'll have to wait until another day!

Later gators!