SO MANY THINGS

Things have been a bit craycray here lately!  And by craycray, I mean…well… You know how at how at the end of high school, senioritis was a thing?  And then after that there was college and all-nighters and procrastination and the utter desire to do absolutely nothing at all even though finals were right around the corner?  Well… That’s where I’m at now.  Minus the all-nighters, because these days if I’m in bed any later than 9PM, it’ll be a rough morning for me. 

We’re wrapping up training in less than a couple weeks, and as a result, the productivity wheels have been turning full speed!  (Or at least trying to…)

What kinds of projects and homework do we have here in Peace Corps Pre-Service Training?

Wednesday we had our Independent Exploration Projects (IEPs).  We each had to give a 15-30 minute presentation en français on a topic relating to Cameroonian culture.  My topic was Mount Cameroon and the Race of Hope.  I’m not gonna give you the whole shpiel (unless you really want to hear it), but here are some fast facts:

• Mount Cameroon is the tallest mountain in West Africa and one of the tallest volcanoes in all of Africa (at 4100m).  It’s also a super-duper active volcano.
• There’s a god (Efasa-Moto) who lives on the mountain who takes care of everyone and apparently has a really tasty sugarcane plantation somewhere up on the mountain.
• The Race of Hope is a 24 mile race up and down the mountain.  It’s apparently super tough and nobody but Cameroonians have ever won.  In fact, last year only something like 5 out of the 30ish American participants even finished the race.  Nonetheless, it sounds like something my nutty mother would enjoy (love you Maaa.).  Though you can also do it as a three-person relay.  
• Last year’s race took place on my birthday, and also took place only 13 days after the volcano’s most recent eruption…. So that’s fun, I guess.

Friday we handed in our leaf collections.  Yep, that’s right: leaf collections.  And you guys though I wasn’t a real farmer.  HA.  Anyways, we had to collect a whole bunch of leaves and press them and dry them and then make them all pretty and label them with all their various names and descriptions.  So sciencey.  So agro.  It went pretty alright, except that Epiphany and Patricia helped me pick the leaves and they insisted that I dry and press a hot pepper too, and when I opened up the press-book, there were maggots everywhere.  Yum.

More gardening will probably happen soon.  And by soon, I mean later this evening.  I transplanted a whole bunch of basil and some other plants a few weeks ago, and to everyone’s surprise, they’re doing really well!  However, a lot of weeding has to get done before our garden evaluations take place in a couple of days.  Plus I’ll have to write up a report about my gardening experience went.  How many of you folks have heard about my traumatic frog incident?  Maybe some things are better left unsaid... 

I have another French presentation this week on leguminous plants.  Guess I should probably start learning stuff about leguminous plants.

I’m still taking both French and Fulfulde classes, which I’m loving.  I finally feel confident in my French, which is awesome, but my Fulfulde notebook is a total headache.  I’m loving learning the language, but my Fulfulde classes are being taught in French.  My notebook has three languages, because with just two of the three, sometimes it’s difficult to decipher.  For example:  be = et.   How the heck am I supposed to know which language is which?  Be = et = and.  There we go…much better.  Nonetheless, I’m having a lot of fun with it.  

Sometime soon we have final exams, too.  Arrrg.  

So yeah, it's been a lot of work, but there's definitely been a lot of fun stuff mixed in as well!  For example, Saturday was "Diversity Day":  a whole day of cultural exchange between the  stagiaires (AKA trainees) and formateurs (AKA trainers).  There was singing and dancing and cooking and eating!  What more could you want?  The whole day was just filled with fun.  All of the formateurs came dressed in traditional clothing from whatever region they were from, and we got to sample foods from each region as well.  Though I have to admit, as much as I enjoyed sampling traditional Cameroonian foods and learning traditional dances, the highlights of the day for me were Kraft mac & cheese and the Macarena.  #Murrica.

On Sunday I went with Lianna to visit her host-mom's dad's (host-granpa's?) bakery.  We got a behind-the-scenes tour of the bakery and we each walked out one piping-hot chocolate-filled pastry richer.  Even better yet, earlier in the day her host-mom taught us how to make crepes, which I then loaded up with Nutella-ish sauce.  Best day ever.

Oh, and of course we had a wicked fun Halloween party last weekend!  We all stayed at a hotel so that we could dance the night away without worrying about our usual 7PM curfew.  I dressed as a successful agroforestry volunteer.  Brought along Mr. Carrot to demonstrate my success. 

AndAndAnd this is exciting news!  Today my community host, Sylvie, came all the way down from Sanguere Paul to meet me for our community host workshop.  She greeted me with the biggest bear hug ever.  Despite the fact that she didn't seem to believe that I am actually capable of communicating in French, she was incredibly sweet and it was very comforting to meet the person who will be helping me integrate into my community and to create an action plan.  We have another full day of workshops together tomorrow.

Oy!  So much more to say but so little internets!  And so little time before it gets too dark to weed my garden...but you know, that can always wait until...errm...never.  Still want to tell you guys all about our agroforestry field trip to the West a couple weeks ago, during which WE DID REAL STUFF WITH REAL TREES!!!!!  But I guess that's still just another story for another day.

The next week and a half will be pretty hectic as we prepare for our swearing-in ceremony (if you want to find a way to stream it, it will be on Cameroonian national television sometime on November 20th.  I can't give you many more details than that, except I think it will take place in the morning, Cameroonian time.  So if you want stream it, you'll have to wake up pretty darn early.  So...you probably don't want to do that.) 

I'll try to post again later this week if the internet situation gets better!  Or maybe I'll try to reorganize and proofread all this word vomit right here... but to sum everything up, everything is supah fine and dandy!  So excited to be finishing up training and to finally get to post!  Only 10 more days now!!!

Ta ta for now!