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10/25/08

So I have officially ended my first month with PC and my fifth week of training. It has been a struggle with the language, but also with the classes. My motivation is dropping almost everyday and sometimes I feel the only thing that is keeping me going is my homestay family. I come home from 8 hours at school where I spoke french for usually 4 of those hours and I am a little sick of it. Maybe this is because I am still getting used to a structured environment where for two years I was used to running my own life. I hear what I am going through is normal in what we call stage (sounds like staag in french). My homestay family is great cause they are patient with me but also make me laugh everyday. The other day my oldest sister who is visting from a town in the extreme north asked why I didn't braid my hair like an African women. I tried to explain that I had a tender head, but that definitly got lost in translation. She asked again the two days later and then my other sister told me that one of these days she was going to trap me, sit me down and braid my hair. I finally relented last week and she gave me corn rows. I noticed a change in how the women that I pass on the street greeted me. More people smiled, more guys hissed and people told me I was tres jolie (very pretty). Next time my sister says that she is going to make me wear traditional dress, but I told her not to push it.

I have gotten into a routine here. During the week I have class and when we can after school we go to a bar and have a beer. There are a few bars that we have claimed as our own here. One where we are hidden in the back room so people don't stare and call us Nasaras. And here I am a Nasara (which I believe I explained before as a white person or foriegner) or I have also been getting something like Mista, which I have interpreted as mixed. The other bar is a restuarnt too and has these cool little tiki huts. Two weeks ago some singers from the Chad refugee camp that is down the road from our village held a fundraiser there, which some of the trainees attended. This is also where we have chosen to hold our Halloween party, which I am super excited for cause we are getting it catered and going to put together some cds to play. Saturdays we have class until noon, but then after that we have free time, which I usually spend in Garoua trying to use internet. I say try because the power may or may not be on and I might spend my entire time moto-taxing the city trying to find a place that is open and isn't slow. Sundays are either church, market day, clothes washing or another attempt at the internet in Garoua. The church services are pretty much the same here as they are in the states. Although I can't unerstand a majority of what they are saying I can pinpoint where we are in the service cause it is the same as my church back home. The first sunday I went to church I had four children in tow who all naturally wanted to sit next to me. It was hard paying attention cause they were bored out of their minds and wanted to play with my watch and my purse and any lose strings that were hanging off my dress. But I did take communion, which I hear impressed some other families cause not everyone at the church is baptised. The market day here is amazing. I still yet to travel the entire market, which is literally held a 5 minute walk from my house. You can get anything there, foods, clothing, household items, but so far I have only bought two pairs of scoccer shorts and some pagne (traditional African fabric, which sunny can sometimes be made in China). I still have not negotiated well with the vendors. My sister got me a good price for my pagne, but I got tooken for my soccer shorts. Before I left to buy them I asked my sister how much they were. She told me 2000 franc so when I got there thats exactly what the merchant said so I thought he was giving me the correct price. Turns out they are really around 500 franc each. I think I should have asked my sister how much would she pay for shorts. You just have to assume with some items like clothing that you are going to get qouted the Nasara price and you have to do some good natured arguing to get the right price. I have heard some other trainees say its tough, but it can be fun. I remember bargaining with taxi drivers in brasil and I didn't like it at first cause my portuguese was bad, but after a while it becomes fun. Clothes washing has become a weekly tradition as well. At first I was sweating so much that I had to wash my clothes after two wears, but I feel my body is adjusting and the weather is getting a little cooler. My bucket is my everything here. WheneverI need to take a bath, wash my hair (which is done seperately sitting on a chair next to my bucket and pouring water over my head because I don't really want to stand naked for an hour next to my latrine hole) or wash my clothes I use my bucket. You can only wash about ten or less pairs of clothes at a time and when you got whites and colors on the same day you could be sitting out there for two hours. So bucket washing is like this, let the clothes soak for an hour in detergent and then take your big block of soap and lather up one piece of clothing at a time. then you have to commence rubbing every inch of said clothing together to really get it clean. Then I have to ring out my clothes and place them in clean water and I do that about five times dumping out soapy water each time until all the soap is out of my clothes. Its a workout, if nothing else. Then I hang them on the line to dry, which can happen in a matter of hours, but I have to leave them hanging up in the sun for a few days because there is a fly here that likes to lay eggs in the wet clothing. If you don't give your clothes time to dry and kill the eggs they can burrow into your skin and incuabte there until its time to come out. I am extra extra careful to let my clothes dry for four days before I wear any of them however so please no one freak out.

Next week I get to find out where I will be post for the next two years and I am excited. Well until next time blog family. Please leave comments or messages so I can have something to read when I get to the internet.