The Road to Perdition
dimanche, janvier 28, 2007
I have nothing exciting to tell you guys this week (Yes, yes. Make your joke. “Do you ever?” HAhahaa… moving on), so I guess I will tell you about our first provincial meeting. To give you a sense of how enticing provincial meetings are to us PCV freshmen, I will let you know that Kelly and I were still trying to get out of it as we were boarding the prison bus in Ngaoundere. The meeting was in Tibati (home of Alana).
Alana… Girl, you know I love you… As a matter of fact, if love were measured in the amount of hours in which one is willing to sit on a prison bus and jeopardize one’s fertility… well, then that would mean that I love you more than anyone in the world. Anyhow, my point is that… unless Papa John’s, The Cheesecake Factory, and/or Chippendale’s rolls up into your hood… I will be seeing you somewhere again… but that somewhere will not be Tibati.
Those stewped bush taxis are meant to hold 20 people comfortably and 25, uncomfortably. I swear that there were at least 6,000 people in our car. For 7 hours, I was squished in this piece of junk… could not move my legs… could not move my knees… could not move my arms… I could not even flex a butt cheek. Horrendous. Also, our prison bus had no glass in the windows… just big open squares… Now, even in the prison busses with windows, I still ingest 50 million lbs. of dust per hour. Without windows… I looked like I had eaten too much spice on Arrakis or something (Yah, yah. I know. But Felipe made the reference too, so I'm not the only dork:p). I was seriously expecting a huge worm to come out of the ground and eat me. Actually, I was praying that it would come any minute and end my misery.
Seven hours… on a prison bus… with no windows. My hair literally turned a bright reddish brown from all of the dust. The rest of them made fun of me, saying that I looked like The Picture of Dorian Gray, cuz every time they looked at me, my hair was a lighter shade of red. It was hard to respond though. The road was so bad, at times, that it felt like someone was rapidly and continuously banging on your back, so all of our words reverberated. At one point, I thought that I could actually feel my organs collapsing. Once we got back to Ngaoundere (after the clouds departed, the angels descended, and we all sang rejoicefully at the paved roads), I was still washing dust out of my hair after my third shower at the mission.
As for the actual meeting itself… Like I said… love you guys… but can our next provincial meeting be done in an online chat room? My body cannot handle anymore abuse, and if I want to dye my hair red… I’ll get some henna :/
TMI- I finally understand why so many PCVs go commando so often… It is amazing that such simple things make us so happy… weekly showers… edible food… etc.
posted by Me at 9:35 AM
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You Know You’ve Been “En Brousse” Too Long When (YKYBEBTLW)…
vendredi, janvier 12, 2007
Me: Tell Amadou I said “What up.”
2. You still look forward to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
3. You eat Tums every day to fulfill your daily calcium needs.
4. You boil AND filter your water, yet still get sick each time you drink it. Sidenote: Bottled water is not sold in your village.
5. You have tried to use your own saliva to swallow your malaria prophylaxis (not recommended… at all) in a vain effort to avoid the aforementioned gastrointestinal issues.
6. You are no longer alarmed when you are awoken in the middle of the night by the bumping and crashing in your kitchen. But you swear to Allah… if those bats ate the last of your fruit again… you will suddenly be motivated to build a solar powered flame thrower (Is that possible? You enginerds, you. Holler at me). Bats. It’s what’s for dinner.
7. You have nearly burned down your house several times with the help of your kerosene lantern and/or butane stove top.
8. You wake up at 4:30 every day. This is what happens when you go to bed at 9:00 in order to conserve candles, matches, and kerosene.
9. You have a permanent scar on your right ankle thanks to the exhaust pipe of the countless dilapidated motos (motorcycle taxis) which you have no choice but to take.
10. You marvel at the hi-tech wonder that is Sudoku.
11. You burst out in spontaneous psychopathic laughter… several times a day… even when you are the only one in the house…
12. You miss “the hole…” and then you laugh some more, as you realize that the TP is just out of arm’s reach.
13. On one of your beloved, yet intermittent, ventures into “the city,” you go to lunch at La Plaza. You are seated next to an expatriate family and overhear one of the sons call the other a “douche.” You think to yourself, “A shower? What kind of insult is that??” You also have forgotten the English equivalent for intricate words such as “hier.”
14. Speaking of showers, you have not had one in almost 3 weeks… and you are still the best smelling person in your village.
15. Lastly, you find yourself unintentionally re-enacting scenes such as the following: My brother on a particularly thrilling day last summer in
Random Bit: In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione had to write an essay for one of her classes, explaining why Muggles need electricity. Guess I’m not a Muggle! Told you, Animal! Booyah!! That’s right!! I said it!! My Logic professor would be so proud of my contemporary intellectual ponderings and conclusions.
posted by Me at 2:54 PM
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Rewind
lundi, janvier 01, 2007
Nigerian Nurse Ann: Sooo… Bird Flu…
Swearing-In: After passing my Language Proficiency Exam, I was sworn in as an official full-fledged volunteer on December 13th. The ceremony was a big unnecessary to-do. The ambassador was there, as well as numerous other Embassy employees and every Cameroonian official in the North. It was kind of ridiculous. We all had to take an oath… something about protecting the USA from all domestic and foreign enemies… erm… sure?
Moving-In: Out of the 32 people originally in our group, there are now 29 (15 Health/14 Agro). Being the Sahel group, we are stationed in the 3 northern provinces of Cameroon: The Adamaoua, The North, and The Extreme North. 5 of us are in the Adamaoua (the most underdeveloped region and home of your’s truly), 11 in the North, and 13 in the Extreme North. So, we all went our separate ways on Thursday morning. Me and my Adamaoua girls loaded all our junk onto a bus at the crack of dawn… Everything… 5 bikes, 5 huge metal trunks, countless bags and boxes… on a bus full of a billion other people. It was pretty crazy, but this was the better part of our journey.
After the 4 hour bus ride to Ngaoundere (the provincial capital of the Adamaoua), we went our separate ways again; unloading all our junk from the bus and reloading it onto separate “bush” cars… which are smaller than the busses, but seem to have way more people… and goats… and chickens. We affectionately refer to them as “prison busses.” These things look like they are straight out of the movie Sarafina. I cannot even put into words what a nightmare it was. The Adamaoua is infamous for many things, among these things are orange/red dirt “roads” from hell and more dust than… um… hhmm… :::insert clever analogy here::: When I arrived at my village, my clothes and my skin were literally orange (minus the part of my face which my sunglasses were covering), I smelled like goat, and I could not feel my legs after having some squished in the same position for so many hours. I just wanted a shower and a nap. Then I remembered that I did not have running water, nor a bed. I entered my house and laid down on the floor. Other than having my house broken into and being robbed… not too much else happened that first day!
Moving On: As I mentioned in my last post, the majority of the people in my village are uneducated, so they do not speak French. So, I spent 3 months beating myself to learn French and it is now of very little use to me:D For the following 3 months, I will be beating myself to learn the native language, Fufulde. The town has taken to calling me “Madame Docteur.” I have tried to explain to them that I am not a Madame, and that I am certainly not a doctor… but the name seems to be sticking :/ C’est la vie.
Important Things: The girls and I met up in Ngaoundere for Christmas. It was obviously not the Christmas I am used to, but it was highly entertaining. We went to this club where Kelly made friends with the bartender, so we got free drinks all night :D Yah, Kelly! And we danced like there was no tomorrow… you kno I broke it down… that’s right. J Cameroonians girls kept asking us where we learned to dance and tried to copy our moves :] We met up again for my bday and New Year’s. We also ran into some volunteers from another staige, so they came out with us too. Good times. Thanks guys :] We miss all of u non-Adamaoua people! Did you get our letter? Happy New Year’s to all:D
posted by Me at 10:33 AM
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