Don't even need flowers, just bring on those showers!

Ashley and I debuted our matching dresses (made from material sent as a gift by a suitor!) at a farewell dinner for two wonderful nurses who have been working at the hospital in Buea since September. The restaurant was a little bit of ex-pat heaven in the country's biggest city Douala, including rolls with olive oil, PIZZA, and ice cream -- all enjoyed under a celing fan, giving me a much appreciated break from trying to keep my face from dripping right off in the relentless humidity.


You know you live in the jungle when after a week your bag of ginger is sprouting stalks right through the plastic. I hang my clothes on the line and bring them in at night for three days after a wash, but they still never get past damp - I am actually shaking fruit flies off my shirts before I put them on. The upside? Rain water is now more reliable than my local taps will ever be!



Out of every school in town, the only one to hold any kind of graduation ceremony was...the nursery school? And somehow, even though there is not a single book in the concrete school house and the headmistress's office is made of plywood, robes and mortar boards came out of nowhere for the four-years olds!
I led the class in the song we had been practicing, "This Little Light of Mine", and the other surprise of the day was that all of a sudden the teacher wanted them to sing it with tall lit candles, as they marched. Never having practiced with anything but our pointer fingers, and with synthetic robes and hairdos all around and no protection from the hot wax, the pre-schoolers were now expected to march in line, singing, and waving their candles. No one seemed very concerned about the glaring safety hazard aside from me - I blew them all out when the kids could not focus one bit, then they re-lit them once we were inside.


 My precious neighbor Rea - she was the class prefect (again, surprising amounts of formality in informal settings - the school does not have running water or a bathroom) and gave a speech!



Another example of how important appearance is here - every little girl had a new hair do for the big day, yet many of them had missed school throughout the year because their parents could not come up with the school fees. I find that outside appearance is generally a far higher priority than quality child development - shiny black shoes instead of a notebook and pencil, for example, even at the high school level.



My Health Club crew marching proudly once again during the May 20th holiday, which commemorates the British and French Cameroons joining as one (in 1972) - notably, not a word about the significance of the day was mentioned in my Anglophone town - bit of a sore topic, the whole matter. But hey, at least we got some light shed on another hush-hush issue - HIV.



After weeks of practicing and writing lyrics, the Health Club ladies' performance of HIV songs was a huge hit! The moves, the messages, it all came together and I got loads of positive feed back, which felt fantastic. In a tradition that felt bizarrely like an underage strip tease show, local leaders from the facing grand stand come down during the performance and smother the singers with money, dropping bills onto the heads, tucking them into their clothes...sometimes you want another American around just to share a "is this really happening?!" look. But hey, with $50 collected from around their feet for next year's projects, this girl's not judging.

Business as usual...almost. This is the official receipt I sent as a picture attachment to the Peace Corps so that they could reimburse my bank account, the account that has a crayon-drawn village map on file for my current address.
My lock has broken four times since moving in - sadly, cheap does not begin to describe the quality of products that are available here. Village labor is also not of the most refined quality. The lock-smith, after hurriedly welding the last lock into my iron door, realized it was ill-fit and jutted out so the door would not even close. So he brutally bashed the whole thing, lock, door, and door frame, with a sledgehammer until it was so dented and missahapen that it now slams shut...good enough? That's usually the name of the game. I realize that quality job training and notions of professionalism and customer service are luxeries not to be taken for granted.


School's out for the summer! (I keep referring to "summer", which means nothing here since our seasons don't exist, they call it "long holidays") which means lots of kids with not much to do. There are few, if any, organized extra curricular type activities for students even during the school year but especially now...which is why I can't wait to help lead a summer camp next week! Coming up - campfires, songs, and all the run-around games I loved in my own summer camp days. Still to be determined: can we recreate tie-dye and s'mores in Africa?


A much enjoyed weekend retreat to the ocean four hours away, where I found a cold current coming from this little river. When finding water is a daily stress, being immersed in unlimited amounts of H2O is a priceless form of therapy!

Tomorrow marks 9 months in country, and I have already hit 6 out of 24 at my post! Thanks for your love and please keep it up!  Remember to write strong evangelical religious messages on any packages to discourage tampering, to the tune of "THIS PACKAGE IS SOAKED IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS" - (first person brave enough to do this gets a blog post dedicated to them!)