Off to Akono!

Just over two weeks ago, I left my home in Sanguéré-Paul.  Tomorrow, I will be beginning a new adventure in a village called Akono, a small village in the Center region of Cameroon.

Almost immediately upon closure of my post in the North, my program manager called me with this reassignment.  I didn’t know much about the site other than that it is 40km south of Yaoundé, has a population similar to that of Sanguéré-Paul (approximately 3000 people), and that the past volunteer had set up a cookie business as an income generating activity for a women’s group (heck yes!  Cookies!!).

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been living in the Ngaoundéré and Yaoundé transit houses, waiting for the current volunteer in Akono to finish his service so that I can move in as his replacement.  This downtime has allowed me to reconnect with PCVs from other regions and to say goodbye to friends who are finishing their services and returning stateside.  It's also allowed for me to eat far too much pizza while living in the big city (as if "too much" is a thing...ha!) and visit a few tourist attractions (Coming Soon to 'Maria Goes to Africa': photos from my trip to the ranch!  Disclaimer: there were no cowboys).  Most importantly, however, these past two weeks of downtime have allowed me to fully process and accept what has happened, and allowed me to prepare for what is to come.

Like I said, just two weeks ago, I left my home in Sanguéré-Paul.  Tomorrow I will be moving to Akono.  It is almost as if I am starting my Peace Corps service all over again;  once again, I’ll be integrating into a completely different culture, learning yet another new language, and living in an entirely different environment.

At first this thought of starting over again scared the bajeezus out of me.  Its hard to be the new person in town, especially when that means being the sole foreigner, the sole white person, the sole "blanche."

Talking it over with other evacuees, I realized (or at least managed to convince myself) that there's no need to be scared.  Yes, I will be new, but I've done this before -- I've got it down.

My first three months in Sanguéré-Paul, I was nervous to leave my house and really put myself out there.  As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are encouraged to “integrate”:  to really try our best to be members of the community, building relationships and gaining trust (incidentally, this is what makes it so incredibly painful to say goodbye, even after a mere nine months).  Despite the “adventurous” nature of most PCVs, the act of integrating into a totally foreign culture, where nobody speaks your language or can even pronounce your name correctly, can be rather difficult.  I struggled those first three months at post, and thus was initially terrified/frustrated/anxious by the thought of having to relive this integration process.  Yet after having sometime to reflect, I now know that integration will be much easier for me the second time around.  I can do this.

Months ago, I would walk to the carrefour and buy some beans just to force myself to talk to people.  Now, I have absolutely no shame about inviting myself into a stranger's home to share a meal or dancing with random children on the street.  Living in Cameroon (for nearly a year now!!) has given me confidence to embrace awkward and unfamiliar situations.  Being in the Peace Corps has pushed me to learn resiliency and adaptation (throw me in the ocean, and I swear I'll grow gills... or at least learn to speak whale). 

I may be a new face for Akono, but I am no longer new to Cameroon, and I am no longer new to Peace Corps.  Yes, it’s truly unfortunate that I had to leave Sanguéré-Paul, and I will never forget the friendships that I found there, but I am trying my best to look forward to having a second chance.  I now have the opportunity to experience a whole new lifestyle and culture within the same country, and all that I have learned from my failures and success, both integration-wise and work-wise, will only serve to make my transition to a new village easier.  

And yes, maybe it will be difficult and frustrating.  Maybe I will face bumps along the way and have mild (or seemingly-psychotic) emotional breakdowns.  But now I know that those will be completely normal and totally okay given the circumstances of PCV life, and now I know that I have the most amazing support network all around the world, from Marblehead to Montreal, from Alaska to Taiwan, and from Yaoundé to Sanguéré-Paul.

So with all that being said, BRING IT ON, AKONO!  I'm a-comin' your way!  

The final days.

I’ve been putting off this blog post for a while now, because I don’t like to talk publicly about negative things. I generally like to pretend that everything is hunky-dory (because when it's not, I always know it will be soon enough).  However, I think we all know that life isn't always sunshine and rainbows, and I cannot begin to look towards the future until I officially accept what has happened and say goodbye to the past.  That includes acknowledging it here in blog-world.

As I previously mentioned, I received a call from Peace Corps on July 30^th, informing me that I was being evacuated due to increasing security risks because of Boko Haram.  The eleven days that followed – my last eleven days in village – were almost certainly the most difficult eleven days of my service so far.

I had planned on only telling close friends that I was leaving.  It’s difficult to explain that my time is being cut short because of terrorist activity that is still more than 200km away from our village, and I simply didn’t want to go through that process any more than absolutely necessary.  Aside from general protocol (the chief, sous-prefect, mayor, and IRAD), I had planned to inform only my counterpart, my community host, Tabitha’s family, and some other close friends.  That way, I could spend the last few days with the people who had meant the most to me.

First up was Djida, my counterpart.  Fortunately, we had already discussed the possibility of Peace Corps shutting down the North region just the night before.  When he received my text message urgently asking him to come to my house that evening, he already knew in his gut: this was it.

The next morning, Madame Tizi, my community host, came over to check on my health (I was still coming down from my fever and TB-esque cough).  She came in, I made us both hot cocoa, and then I broke the news.  Until this moment, I had been numb.  I had no feelings.  I didn’t know how to process it or what to feel.  We all knew it was coming, we just didn’t know when.  Until this point when I realized I was truly saying goodbye, I hadn’t felt the need to cry, but now, sitting across from Madame Tizi, I began to sob.  

Madame Tizi refused to look at me (Cameroonians attempt to hide their tears far better than I do) and as we continued sipping our hot chocolate, she kept repeating: “ne pleure pas, ne pleure pas.  Don’t cry, don’t cry.”  Unable to contain my emotions, I promised her that we would spend as much time as possible together over the next eleven days, and I promised to bake her a chocolate cake (her favorite American delicacy) every day.  She simply looked at me with disappointment, and told me that now, none of our projects would succeed.  Everything we had dreamt of doing for the community (most projects were planned to begin in September), would fail in my absence. 

She told me that I had ruined her day, that she needed time to digest things, and that we would see each other later.  I visited her house everyday following that; her children came out to tell me she wasn’t home.  I called her several times; she did not answer her phone.

The same day that I broke the news to Madame Tizi, I had to tell Tabitha.  She welcomed me into her home with a giant smile on her face, as usual.  “Djabbama! Welcome!"  “Mi jabbi!  I’m welcome!"  She pulled the wooden bench into the shade, and we sat next to each other, just as we had nearly everyday for the past nine months.

“Comment ça va?” (How’s it going?”)

“Tabitha, ca ne va pas. Pas du tout.”  (Tabitha, it’s not going well.  Not at all.)

I explained everything to her.  I explained that I am being forced to leave, that it’s not my choice and it’s not Peace Corps choice: nobody wants for me to leave, but due to security risks, it has to happen.  I explained that I would be leaving Sanguéré-Paul, but would be staying in Cameroon; I will not be allowed to visit, but I can call every week.

I was certain that I had spent all my tears on Madame Tizi that morning, but when I saw that Tabitha turned her head away from me to start wiping her eyes, the floodgates opened again.  She kept saying, “2014 is not my year.  First my husband dies, then they took my son away to Chad, and now you’re leaving me.  I’ll be all alone now.  2014 is not my year."  This was the most heartbreaking part of it all.  The fact that she was equating my departure to the death of her husband and the loss of her son demonstrated that she felt the same as I did: over the past 9 months, we had become family.

The next few days were draining.  Madame Tizi was still avoiding me and Tabitha would tear up every time she saw me.  Olivier came to my house, and we just sat in silence.  Whenever I saw Christine, she would immediately disappear behind a corner to wipe her eyes. 

I had imagined that I would be spending my last eleven days doing nothing but hanging out and laughing with the ladies that had become my best friends.  Instead, I was spending time alone in my house; whether I was avoiding people or being avoided, I don’t know.  I tried to distract myself by doing a couple of soy workshops with local women's groups, but my heart and soul were simply no longer in it. 

By the fourth day, I broke down.  Tabitha had been too busy working at church and therefore stood me up for our one-on-one tofu workshop in the morning (which was not at all her fault, but upsetting nonetheless).  Madame Tizi had blown me off for our scheduled work meeting later that evening.  I immediately ran to Tabitha’s house and was lucky to find that all of her children were out.  I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, but I started to cry again.

“Tabitha, I have one week left now, and all of my best friends have been avoiding me.  Where have you been?  Where has Madame Tizi been?  Why aren’t we spending every single moment we have left together?!"

She then promised that as soon as her children had been fed and put to sleep, she’d come over and we’d stay up together.  We stayed up til nearly midnight, sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the chocolate cake that I had baked for that meeting that never happened.

From then on, things got a bit easier, emotionally.  Perhaps I no longer had any tears left in either of my eye sockets.  I no longer had time to waste on emotions.  I spent each day running errands, arranging my things, and trying to sell my furniture.  I spent each evening with Tabitha and her children.  (I even managed to schedule a last minute day-trip with Tabitha to see some hippos!)

On my final night, Tabitha stayed over until midnight again while I attempted (but totally failed) to arrange my entire house's contents into just a few suitcases.

The next morning, moving day, I woke up early and started packing again.  My friend Roukaiatu came over around 9AM and helped me sit/jump on my overstuffed trunk so that we could get the latches to close.  She then helped me organize everything into my various bags.

At 10AM, Hannah came over to take my cat.  This was a terribly difficult decision to make, but knowing that many Cameroonians think cats are good eats (the guy who bought my fridge asked me how much I was selling Grumps for, noticing that he was nice and plump and ready to put in a stew), I knew that once I was no longer there to protect him, either a neighbor or the next tenant would make a tasty meal of my favorite furry companion.  It would also be far too difficult to travel with him to my next post (a bus ride followed by a train ride, followed by another bus ride, with the weeks in between spent in Peace Corps transit houses).  I decided to give Grumps to Hannah’s counterpart in Djalingo: a kind Cameroonian woman with an 8-year-old daughter who has a strong affection for all animals.

Over the course of the next few hours, all of my closest friends came by (except Djida, to whom I had said goodbye the night before, and Madame Tizi, who was still ignoring me) to help me pack, clean my house, and claim all the items that would not travel with me to my next post.  This lifted my spirits significantly – it was almost like a party, with five girls just hanging out.  We kept each other laughing as we sorted through all the little trinkets that had accumulated in my house throughout the services of four Peace Corps Volunteers.

With all of my bags finally out on the veranda, the girls said their goodbyes and left me alone with Tabitha and her ten-year-old son, Jamtu.  We sat on the bed in my living room (the only item remaining in the house) and waited for the truck to come to move all of my belongings to Garoua.  We hardly spoke; there were no words left to exchange.

The truck came; the men loaded my things.  I gave Tabitha a gigantic hug, thanked her for making my experience in Sanguéré-Paul incredibly special, and then took my seat next to the driver.

And just like that, it was over.

My Cameroonian Family
Back row:  Me, Olivier, Tabitha, Christine
Front row: Jamtu, Jonas, John

This is it, Sanguéré-Paul. This is goodbye.

About a year ago, I was in my kitchen preparing for my Peace Corps adventure.  My dad said, "hey, did you here about this Boko Haram group that just bombed a church or school in Nigeria?"  I responded, "but that's in Nigeria, Dad.  I won't have to worry about stuff like that, I'll be in the magical land of Cameroon!"

Sitting around the table waiting for lunch yesterday at the Salon du Thé in Garoua, our stomachs suddenly became unsettled when the name "Lindsey" flashed up on Santina's cellphone.  This was it:  this was the call we've been dreading.

Santina stepped outside, while the rest of us quickly brainstormed any possible reason for Admin to call, anything other than the one reason that we knew to be true, the one reason we feared.

Rejoining us inside, Santina muttered the words no one wanted to hear: "we're getting closed."  She handed the phone to Ampson, then me, and then Kevin, so that we could each have our turn to hear the news directly.  Suddenly I no longer wanted the omelet and avocado that sat in front of me.

Each Wednesday, Peace Corps Admin meets with the Security Council at the Embassy to discuss our safety as volunteers at our various posts in Cameroon.  The North region has been on thin ice for a while now.  We were informed about a month ago that the vote was 5 to 4 to keep us open.  The risks posed by Boko Haram were simply becoming too high.  We knew with a count like this, it was only one more incident until the scales shifted against us.

Boko Haram, a terrorist organization whose name roughly translates to "Western education is a sin", has been becoming increasingly active over the past few years in Nigeria and Northern Cameroon.

The first round of Peace Corps post closures began before I even arrived in Cameroon, after Boko Haram kidnapped a French family in Waza.  With this first incident, the entire Extreme North and some volunteers in the North were relocated.  

But Boko didn't stop there.  Since the kidnapping of the family in Waza, there have been countless more kidnappings and brutal attacks.  You may be familiar with the slogan #BringBackOurGirls, which came about after Boko Haram kidnapped over 230 school girls from Chibok, Nigeria.  Boko has also been responsible for the kidnapping of a French priest, two Italian priests and a Canadian nun, and several Chinese workers.  This is not to forget the countless number of lives taken during attacks against Nigerians and Cameroonians.

As Boko Haram continued wreaking havoc, and as that havoc continued to spread across the border into Cameroon, one by one, more posts were closed.  When I arrived in Garoua in November, the North had 19 volunteers.  We are now at 14 (two of whom had already been relocated to Garoua from different posts in the North/Extreme North).  Peace Corps was hoping to keep the rest of us up here for now, while maintaining a low profile, until eventually it was safe to increase our numbers and reopen old posts.   

Though I have never once felt threatened in my community, that doesn't mean the risks don't exist.  I remember once on a bus ride from Ngaoundéré to Garoua, a stone fell off the back of a truck in front of us, shattering the window of our bus.  After realizing we were all safe, the man sitting next to me said (in French) "Shit! I thought that was Boko Haram coming for us!"  During another bus ride, we were stopped at a checkpoint so that police could check our IDs.  One passenger could not find his.  The entire bus agreed, "let's leave him behind.  We don't know who he is or where he's coming from.  Even we, the Cameroonians, are scared for our security."  No matter how safe I feel in my village, no matter how many of my neighbors are looking out for me, I cant pretend that living in the North is without risk.

Unfortunately, with the most recent incident (the kidnapping of the Vice Prime Minister’s wife as well as a village chief and his family), the security risks are simply becoming too high.

I appreciate the way that Peace Corps is handling the situation.  With a few of the past closures, volunteers were informed of their own post closure via other volunteers (gossip travels like wildfire here).  For us, the last Northies standing, Admin ensured that we were the first to hear the news, even before other PC staff.  We have nearly two weeks to wrap up our final projects, pack our belongings, and say our goodbyes.  I have even already been presented with two new post options (neither of which I have accepted yet, simply because neither of them could ever be like my home here in Sanguéré-Paul). 

Now all that I can do is make the most of my remaining 11 days here in my beloved village of Sanguéré-Paul.  I’ll be meeting with various women’s groups for some last minute consultations on their project plans, teaching my friend how to make a compost, and showing some neighbors how to make tofu.  Other than that, there’s not much I can do but sit and enjoy the couscous and good company.  

This is it, Sanguéré-Paul.  This is goodbye. 

Barka de sallah!

I may have woken up with a 102.5º fever, but I was determined not to miss out on a cultural experience.  My semi-postmate Hannah invited me to celebrate the fete de Ramadan yesterday with her and her friends in Djalingo.

Yesterday marked the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting observed by Muslims all around the world.  During this month, Muslims refrain from consuming all food and beverages (including water!), smoking, and having sexual relations, from sun-up to sun-down as a means to cleanse the soul and receive forgiveness from God.  While Sanguéré-Paul is predominantly Christian, the majority of the population in the Grand North of Cameroon (i.e., Adamaoua, North, and Extreme North regions) practice Islam. 

My semi-postmate Hannah invited me to celebrate with her and her friends in Djalingo.

We started the day by setting off for the morning prayer at 9AM.  This morning prayer is for men only (and highly respected elderly women), but we were invited to come and watch.  The mosque in Djalingo was not large enough to fit everybody at once, so everybody walked or drove their motorcycles to a nearby field (sort of like the overflow room across the street from church for Christmas and Easter masses). 

We sat behind the crowd, so as not to disrupt those praying.  Nevertheless, many fidgety little boys could help but to keep turning their heads and whispering "Hannah!!!" 

Preparing for prayer.

This little guy missed the memo...

Two women joined to pray, but seated themselves at a distance.

Hannah and I in our pagne ensembles, posing with our fave police chief and some of Hannah's friends after the prayer.

After prayer, it was time to celebrate.  We walked from house to house, visiting each of Hannah's closest friends in village, and feasting to celebrate the end of fasting.  We went to seven houses between 10:30AM and 2:PM and managed to eat six meals each.  Six plates of rice, each with the same simple oily sauce and a chunk of meat on top, often accompanied by sweet chai and soda.  At our first house, we even had appetizers of bread and beignets.

Let's just say, we carbo-loaded as if we were about to run six marathons (and I didn't even participate in the fasting!).

We simply couldn't refuse, however.  Feeding us was each host's way of showing their hospitality, and everybody was so incredibly warm and friendly and happy for us to be joining them in celebration - overstuffed tummies were truly a small price to pay!

With each family we would sit, chat, and eat before moving on to the next house.  At one house, we even had the luxury of getting to watch a snippet of Winnie the Pooh! 

This is for real.  In Cameroon.

At around 2PM when our tummies were about to explode, we walked back to Hannah's house and lounged around like blobs on the couch as we digested.  At this point, my fever had gone down to about 100, but PCMO requested that I take a malaria test, which meant that Hannah had to poke my finger with a needle while I squirmed and cried like a baby. 

Look Ma, I passed!  No malaria, wootwoot!

It was a lot of fun to meet Hannah's friends and to see more of a village other than my own.  Djalingo is about twice the size of Sanguéré-Paul, and has a very different feel.  Sanguéré-Paul is an agricultural village with large amounts of space between households, whereas Djalingo seems denser.  When I visit my friends in Sanguéré-Paul, we never sit inside (with the one exception being when I visit Madame Tizi, who has a larger house), because household structures are no more than a 10'x10' square hut that makes up the bedroom.  Everyone is outside, all day long, except for when they sleep (and even then, they stay outside!).  In Djalingo, however, we sat inside with each family we visited.  It was definitely interesting to experience these differences in villages that are only 5km apart.

La vie sans lumières

I’ve been absent for a while – sorry about that!  Let me explain...

Northern Cameroon does not have the four seasons that we are used to in North America.  Spring?  Nope.  Fall?  Nope.  Winter?  Absolutely not.

Though it feels like summer every single gosh-darn day with temperatures around 90º in the shade and 110-135º in the sun, the North region of Cameroon experiences two distinct seasons: rainy season (June through September) and dry season (October through May).  We are currently smack dab in the middle of rainy season, which is absolutely fantastic.  Green things are popping up out of the ground everywhere you look, the cows are getting fatter, people are busy working on their farms, and the wells are filling back up.

Catching rain on my veranda earlier this season.

It typically rains once or twice a week.  Each storm is accompanied by wild winds, which seem to temporarily blow away the heat.  The following morning is always a bit chilly (I find myself waking up with my toes tucked under my sheet, and people are sporting jackets and hats…80º mornings are hard to adapt to!).  Day by day, the clouds clear and the temperature rises steadily, until finally it becomes almost unbearably hot again.  Right when you swear that you’re about to die of heat stroke (and perhaps after a prayer to Mother Nature or a little rain dance), the wind comes and the rain falls, washing away the heat.  

I’m absolutely loving rainy season.  My cucumber, squash, and tomato plants are all thriving, I’ve been enjoying sharing veggie seeds and tomato seedlings with friends and neighbors.  And while others button up their unnecessarily bulky jackets, I savor each brisk, rainy morning by sipping hot cocoa while reading a good book.

This all being said, there is a downside to rainy season: frequent power outages.  Electricity is relatively new in Sanguéré-Paul, having been set up within the past 5-10 years.  In fact, many households are still not connected to power lines.  The power lines that do exist are, for the most part, held up by trees.  Consequently, they do not withstand the wind and rainstorms very well.  Within the past two months, I may have had electricity for a total of three weeks.  Oftentimes, the power company will come fix whatever problem they find, and then the lights are knocked out again with a new storm that very same night and the power company will not come back for another week or two. 

Though I definitely live close enough to Garoua to travel to town and charge my electronics whenever I’d like, I’ve decided to savor life without electricity.  I’ve been trying my best to disconnect myself from my laptop.  Each night, I come home and light a candle at 6:30 or 7PM.  If I haven’t already eaten dinner with Tabitha or Madame Tizi, I’ll cook up something simple or, more likely, eat some delicious care package goodies.  Occasionally I’ll pour a glass of wine and attempt to paint by candlelight, which always yields amusing results.  Then I’ll bring my candle into the bathroom for my nightly bucket bath (and let’s be real – a bucket bath by candlelight is about the most romance I’ll experience au village…especially if I warm up my water on the stove!).  Once the day's sunscreen, sweat, dirt, and dust are all washed away, I settle in nice and snug under my mosquito net, accompanied by a good book.  

Without electricity – without being so attached to my laptop – I feel as if my spirit has been refreshed.  Alone at home each night, I often find myself singing to myself, dancing, and doing a whole lot of Sudokus (thanks Pap!).  I am finding better ways to fill my time than staring at a computer screen.  Consequently, even when I do have electricity, I simply don’t feel any urgency to log on to blogger and inform the internet world (A.K.A. Ma and Gramma) of my happenings.

Live without lights, though my Cameroonian friends argue otherwise, has been a refreshing change this rainy season.  I have to admit I am still annoyed whenever I set out for a morning run to find that my iPod is nearly out of battery, but for the most part la vie sans lumières is leading to self-improvement and increased happiness.  

And that, my friends, is why I’ve been so neglectful of my blog for the past month.

A simple exchange.

Every time I walk through the carrefour, no matter how many times per day, I stop to chat with my onion guy, a kind old man with graying hair and few teeth.

He is one of the many community members who truly pushes me to learn Fulfulde, and very obviously appreciates (or at least is amused by) my effort.

Sometimes our exchanges are as simple as a greeting.  On more than one occasion, I’m pretty sure that I accidentally agreed to be his wife (after which he simply laughed at my foolishness by saying “Kai, Mariamma, kaiiii” – “No, Maria, nooo.”)

One of our little Fulfulde exchanges the other day was considerably more amusing than usual.

Maria:  Sannu sobajo,  jam na?  [Hi friend, how are you?]

Onion Guy:  Sannu, Mariamma, sannu!  Jamnitow!  Jam bandu na? [Hi Maria, hi! I'm great!  How are you?]

M: Jam koo dume. [I'm doing well!]

OG:  A humi ha toy?  A humi Garoua na? [Where are you coming from?  Are you coming from Garoua?]

M:  Ooho, mi humi Garoua. [Yes, I'm coming from Garoua]

OG:  A don hota?  [You're going home?]

M:  Kai.  Mi don sooda mongoro.  [Nope.  I'm going to buy a mango.]

OG:  A don sooda mongoro didi?  Mi don nyaama mongoro? [Are you going to buy two mangos?  I'm going to eat one?]

M:  Mi don sooda didi?  [So I'm going to buy two?] 

OG:  Ooho.  Mi yidi mongoro.  [Yes.  I want a mango.]

M:  Mais tu as tignéré!  A yiday tignéré?!  [But you have onions!  You dont want onions?!]

OG:  Kaaaaiiii!  Mi nyaamay tignéré!! [Noooo!  I can't eat onions!]

M: A don defa tignéré?  [but you'll cook the onions?]

OG:  Kaaaiii.  [Nooo]

M:  Okay.  Mi don soota mongoro didi.  [Okay, I'll buy two mangos.]

A minute later I returned with two mangos, handing one to the onion man.

OG:  Usoko!  Usoko jur!!  [Thanks! Thanks a lot!!]

M:  Mais je vais prendre les onions maintenant.  [But I'm going to take some onions now.]

OG:  Oui, ca va!  C’est bien! [Yes, no problem!  That's good!]

M (takes a handful of onions):  Mi hoti.  Sey jango.  [I'm going home.  See you tomorrow.]

OG:  Sey jango, Mariamma!  [See you tomorrow, Maria!]

The little things.

During pre-service training, PCVs hear time and time again about the emotional roller-coaster of an experience that they are about to embark on (or rather, have already begun).  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen the following graph since joining the Peace Corps, well, I could probably retire early (but only by about an hour or two).

This graph doesn't even begin to cover the amount of ups and downs that actually occur.  During the first few months at post, I tried to make a "happiometer", graphing my mood in Excel using a happiness ranking system of 0 to 10.  I quickly gave up after realizing that I am just far too mercurial here: within the span of an hour, I could go from a 6 to a 2 to a 10 and back down to an 8.  Choosing an average didn't seem to do the day justice; it didn't seem right to rank a day at a 6.5 when really it was all over the place.

What the happiometer taught me, however, was that no matter what happened throughout the span of the day, I could reflect back and realize that there were far more positives than negative, that the negatives really were either easily fixable or completely a fault of my own, and that many of the happiest moments came from incredibly simple things. 

The periods of unhappiness or distress, at least during my service, are mostly caused by 1) a feeling of idleness when I wish to be working constantly and seeing tangible results (Solutions:  Find more things to do! Be proactive! Start a garden!) and 2) the constant attention given to me merely because of my skin color: calls of “Nassara, Nassara”, “la Blanche!” or even hissing or kissing noises (Solution: Introduce myself.  "Inde am na Nassara.  Inde am Maria.")

The happiest moments tend to come from the simplest human interactions:  a brief exchange in Fulfulde with my onion man, a group of children shouting "Maria! Maria!" from a distance, or sitting and laughing with Tabitha and her kids.

Today, however, I realized that there are three awesome things in particular that have been complete game-changers in my level of happiness recently.  They are as follows:

1.  Unlimited texting.  

"Unlimited texting?" you might ask... "What’s so special about that?  We’ve had that in America for years!"  Well let me tell you!   

Up until a few months ago, MTN (my cellphone service provider) offered one text at 10 cents (50CFA, but we’ll talk American here.)  However, they offered a special deal where for just 20 cents, you could send 20 messages in the span of 24 hours.  That’s 20 for the price of 2 – not so shabby!  Assuming I remembered to renew this ‘bundle’ each day, I was paying approximately $6 per month on texting, while feeling a bit constrained, constantly choosing my words wisely to limit my characters so as not to go over the 20 text limit.  

Then MTN upped their game a bit.  For only $1 per month, unlimited texting.  BAM!  

Thanks to this bargain, I now feel far closer to my fellow PCVs who are spread all across the country.  Now I can text like it’s nobody’s business, whether it's to rant about frustrations, exchange amusing anecdotes, or just to say "hey!".  It’s absolutely fantastic.  Even my counterpart has jumped on the bandwagon and started texting me instead of calling.

This definitely causes constant upward slopes on the happiness chart.

(I guess this also serves to demonstrate how frugal I’ve become… That $5 per month that I’m saving is a BIG deal.  Seriously.)

2.  Giant campfire marshmallows. 

Okay.  So in each transit house, we have what’s called an “up-for-grabs” box.  This box is where PCVs can dump any unwanted clothes or other items, under the assumption that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.  And boy, oh boy, what treasure did I find the other day in the Garoua Up-For-Grabs?  A giant unopened bag of giant campfire marshmallows!  We're talking GIANT.  Like, 90-calories worth of pure sugar per each delightfully puffy pillow of sweet, sweet happiness.    

Could this be too good to be true?  Did somebody leave these here by mistake?  The packaging may have a bit of a yellow tint to it, but they don’t expire July 31^st, 2014!  (And going by my Mom's guidelines, that probably means they've still got a good 3 years before going bad!)

I asked around to see if they perhaps belonged to somebody else (hesitantly, for fear that somebody might actually claim them).  The only response I seemed to be getting was, “Maria, I really really don’t think you should eat those.”

Pshh.

The past two nights have been full of pure sugary joy.  When the electricity has been out for weeks, what could possibly be more delightful than roasting giant marshmallows by candlelight?  Nothing, that’s what.   

Finding these marshmallows – huge peak on the happiness chart.  I'll be very sad if I find out that it's not a bottomless bag. 

3.  Tea parties with good friends. 

This is not really something new, but something rediscovered.  I forgot how comforting tea can be.

Today was a long day.  I started out with a run at 7AM.  As soon as I returned, before even showering, I set off to work on my computer, helping another volunteer edit his grant proposal.  We finished at around noon, at which point I showered, ate some ramen, and then started washing my laundry.  I don’t know how many of you have ever tried this, but let me tell you – washing sheets by hand is no easy task.  However, it had to be done, because I recently discovered that when it rains, there is a leak in the roof directly over where I sleep at night, filling the bed with musty, rusty water and a very foul odor that I am so happy to have discovered is not actually coming from my own body (it was a rude awakening when it started pouring at 4AM the other day).

After finishing my laundry, I sat down for just a few minutes before Olivier came over.  He was going to help me clean out the termite mound that had formed in the bathroom, the six different wasps nests that had been constructed in various places in my house over the past two months, and the gazillions of spiderwebs.  After ridding my house of most of the creepy-crawlies, we decided to wash the floor.  This meant moving all the furniture around, and eventually led to the discovery of the worst creepy-crawly of all: a scorpion.

Once the house was clean (by about 5PM), we set off to his house.  Tired, dirty, and itching from heat rash and mosquito bites, I was feeling pretty beat.  Tabitha (Oli’s mom) was not home when I arrived, so I sat on the bench with Oli’s sister, Christine.

When Tabitha arrived, it was finally my turn to welcome her:  “Soyez la bienvenue!! …er….chez vous!!!”  (Welcome!!  To your own home!!)  We chatted and giggled and sat for a while, sipping sweet, hot chai.  It was beyond relaxing.

Good company and tea are definitely always upward slopes, if not peaks, on the happiness chart.

These are all simple things, and probably are not things that one might go crazy for back at home (though I always did love marshmallows), but maybe that just goes to show you how the little things in life are all that really matter sometimes.  The little things in life can lead to the happiest moments.