Sunday, October 5, 2008

So its been a while blog family. I haven't had access to the internet until just now and I had to take a taxi and a moto taxi to get to a town with internet. Its been about two weeks in my homestay family and things are going realitvely well. I live in a compound style housing situation where you walk in through a huge metal door into a courtyard and off the courtyard are several houses. I live with about six adults and three children, but I have my own room. There is a couple with two small children who are my homestay parents. They are a fairly young couple, the dad is a plumber and the mother a housewife, which is the norm. I also have two sisters, the older one is the one is basically takes care of me. She was a teacher, but now works as a seamstress. She even made me a dress when I brought her some cloth, which they call Pagne. Its an american style dress cause I will have many opportunities to get cameroonian style dresses made in the future. I have a younger sister who is great she is engaged I think or is dating someone, but I am not sure what that entails here. Basically my days are full with school even on saturdays. We are just now getting into the nitty gritty of our learning. Last week we learn water and food contamination and ways to prevent it and how to teach cameroonians with different non-verbal communication techniques. Interesting things to note thus far are that they call all white people or foreigners Nasara, even me cause I am white and they can tell I'm not from around here. THe landscape is beautiful outside the town when you are traveling from little city to city. The moto taxis are a bit scarry, but they gave us helmets which makes us stand out even more. The people are very patient with me and my french skills which are seriously lacking and I will be learning Fulfulde which is the local language here. Got to run my internet is going to run out. PEACE

3 comments:

Juann said...

Kauleen! Sounds amazing. When does school end and your work begin? I'm sure your french will improve immensely in no time; especially since your are in an environment where there's really no other option. I look forward to reading more of your blogs. What you're doing is so very inspiring. Proud of you...and yes, hopefully there's a lot of change in store for the world. All my love, your cousin Julie

Anonymous said...

Well dear, it sounds like you are already enjoying yourself, although I bet you're also fairly confused. Just the norm... on the one hand you have the advantage of a good excuse, (je ne sais pas!) but you also stick out like a sore thumb...


we miss you! I turned in the Fulbright today, so who knows, I might be closer at this time next year.

Unknown said...

My Dearest BFF,

Glad dto see you are in good spirits and are enjoying learning all the new stuff you have thus far! With so much time in the classroom have you had time to just check out your surroundings on your own?