Bonjour tout le monde!!!

Bonjour tout le monde!!!
I hope all is well with everyone; thanks for all your comments...I laugh at everything everyone write to me, or smile, or get close to tears and try to share everything you say with the people around me (the weird looks continue). I haven’t gotten any letters anyone has mentioned sending yet. It looks like the mail is just as slow as anticipated. But I anxiously await them and will let you know when they do arrive.

So, on to the updates:
The Peace Corps has established a lot of new rules...none of which any of us are too pleased about. For example: we can only be out after 6 pm on Wed (when we have a trainee dinner party every week AT school) and on Saturday and Sunday. We must inform the training director a day in advance of what exactly we will be doing and get him to OK our plans, this includes family outings (which if you have been reading this you will notice severely interferes with my mother’s plans for my social life). Only 2 people per weekend can leave town to travel, and this must be okayed 3 days in advance...very tricky considering there are 5 weekends left and 42 people all of whom want to travel. Also, we can only drink one alcoholic beverage on any given day (now...this isn’t hard for me, I hate the beer anyway...but I'm not with the man on this either). So in general not too many people are happy about the rules and such...oh well...so little time left here in actuality! Training has been a little bizarre without any set French Class; I ended up doing a lot of "putting myself out into the community to enrich my language skills" aka: taking walks; with other Americans while speaking English and eating chocolate. :) I do however get to write for "Dix Huit Heures" which is our trainee newsletter. I did a numerology article and a report on the number of mosquito bites we have all received (riveting). We received our moped helmets (brand new; thank you US government) and our bikes. We had a 6 hour training session on bike maintenance (dad you would have appreciated this ) and I realized just how much I should have known while using a bike so often throughout my college career (aka how many things I should have DONE to not get myself killed). I also was seeking out this bike I saw with a purple bell...sorry to say the bike itself was a tad too large. BUT I did get a purple lock (when I shared this with my brother he ignored me...apparently it really isn’t important) Ha-Ha. I'm getting into the ( ) here, so I apologize for all the tangents! We also had a few interesting lectures: on corruption in Cameroon (bad news), medicinal plants, guest speakers from a variety of organizations doing nonprofit work in Cameroon, and then we had to give another presentation. This time it was in French. They didn’t tell us that until 2 people had already done theirs in English; and we had all prepared in English. I sucked it up and went anyway...slightly flying by the seat of my pants; and although I'm sure I had a horrible red face and was sweating buckets I think I did well enough.

Family related news:
Now my grandmother’s sister is staying with us and I have gained a new bother. I'm not sure where he came from or how he’s related but he’s definitely living with us! The family thing here boggles my mind. My mothers "cousin" (thus really anyone she knew) died last Thursday. So I didn’t see my mother at home for 4 days straight and there was a HUGE funeral in town, which lasted for this entire time. I didn’t see much, I think I went to the mourning session or something?! It consisted of a room full of old women singing and crying in tune with the music. My mother had me go around and greet each crying women individually and I just felt horrible! Then I sat with them for a few minutes (thankfully only a few) and almost started crying myself. It was pretty intense. I luckily got to leave because it was getting dark, so my sister took me to talk to my dad, then to look at skirts at the seamstress's house, and then home. My family still enjoys showing me off it seems and then my mother asked me if I would like to go see the body THIS Friday...a week and a half after!? I’m not sure about that! I helped my youngest sister with her English homework again (not to be a bad family member and pick favorites, but she is definitely it). I mean we had a discussion about knitting. To define tragedy her teacher told her "a bad situation caused by magical witchcraft". I actually quite like this definition and will now be using it in everyday exchanges. I also decided it would be a good idea to have me brothers have a pushup contest with me sitting on their back...none of them could do it, but they told me it was because I was too heavy!

In town lately there have been a series of bad moto/car accidents....3 in the past week and I think a total of 15 people from the area have died. This is pretty scary. Just imagine what people would think of that number dead from traffic accidents in the US. Apparently one of the trainees saw it on the news and they showed dismembered bodies, etc...I'm just glad I wasn’t watching at that point in time.

Another topic of interest: Food. I have recently become obsessed with the prunes here. They are not AT ALL like prunes in the US. They are purple on the outside with this thin layer of green fruit inside, they are bitter and sweet and salty and amazing all at once. When I first tried them I hated them but now I can’t get enough! I also enjoy a good spaghetti omelet from time to time (that’s right...spaghetti and eggs) but I have yet to try the spaghetti omelet sandwich (add in the bread). There are also these peanuts that are covered in sugar. I eat about 3 packs a day...oh delicious!

To end with the cockroach story you all wait for: cockroaches enjoy dark places - oui? Well...little did I expect them to like my bathroom sink drain. Yes, they have taken up shop there and each time I turn on the water the sink backs up and out come, swimming like champions, the cockroaches! My goal is usually to drown them, so I splash them with water until they stop moving and slide back into the drain. Do not knock how I find entertainment here! So, I think that's about it! I have a meeting with my project coordinator tomorrow during which (I think) I find out my post! AKA: where I will be working for the next 2 years! I can't wait to just know finally. Then on Friday I meet my counterpart, the person I will be working with the entire time at post. On Sunday I leave with this person to spend an entire week at me post! It’s happening so fast!!!
Happy Halloween everyone!!! Never underestimate my costume making abilities...I am a mosquito with only a black marker, an empty toilet paper roll and a sheet of paper :^).

A Cameroonian Wedding - Buying the Bride!

Another week...Its true what they told us in training weeks go extremely quickly and days go by slow...I’m done with week 4 already! I forgot to mention in my last post that I attended a Cameroonian wedding 2 weekends ago. It was the traditional wedding, apparently each couple has 3 separate weddings here: traditional, church; and then some other one I cannot quite recall, I think legal. Of course, being the white people; we sat in the living room of the house where the wedding was held with the parents and closest family members; while all the other relatives and friends had to sit outside (where you couldn’t see a thing that was taking place) there were 4 of us and 2 ended up coming later...we all felt really bad because we took up these important seats. The wedding consists of a really long drawn out skit in which the bride and the grooms families argue over how much money the grooms will give to the bride; and then the brides family proceeds to "trick" the groom by bringing out false brides (other women) hidden under a piece of cloth. This took a good hour and a half. When they finally paid the right price they brought out the correct bride; there was a lot of singing and clapping and then they took the groom away for an hour of questioning while we all sat there listening to blasting Cameroonian pop music from the HUGE rented stereo system. There was also a hired man recording everything...he had a spot light which he would point directly at you when he chose to tape you and us, once again; being the white people, where featured far too often in the film. Finally the ceremony took place; we all ate the traditional Kola Nut (I think it symbolizes health) and then ate from the ENORMOUS buffet table, which featured off all things...3 goats; entire goats cooked up eyeball-filled heads and all; each in their own shiny silver catering bin. The wedding took 4 hours up to this point and we left; but I assume there was a dance late into the night...it was interesting; but actually quite exhausting!

In other news: I had my language test and my performance evaluation this past week. Apparently, and I find this to be completely inaccurate, I am now "advanced low" in French, which means I moved up from a 3 out of 10 to a 7 out of 10 and am now in the independent learning class, so I don’t have a teacher nor any set hours and I am completely responsible for learning French on my own. I don’t think this is good! I need to talk and have other people talk to me...we'll see how this goes...but due to the fact I still can’t get past the most basic of conversations with...nor understand hardly anything my family says...I’m thinking I need a teacher :^). My evaluation went very well. My home stay intermediary (the person who takes care of all issues between my family and me) told me that my mother loves me and constantly says she's so lucky she got me (and I feel the same way about them...so that’s excellent) and my technical trainer said "the Kate you are now is the Kate you should be at post"...so that was wonderful to hear too...and I got an overall score of 98%...not bad eh!? Considering I still feel lost a lot in general... I also had to give a presentation...which if you know me well you know makes me more nervous than most anything else...mine was on seed harvest and storage and I think it went just fine and everyone told me it was the most useful one that had been given which made me a little more confident in my presentation abilities...but not much...I HATE talking in front of people. We have another one coming up a bit later about culture and I’m definitely more excited since I’m going to do "material culture: basket weaving, pottery, and clothing" ha-ha....sounds great eh?

I had another interesting night with my mother on Friday...we walked over a few streets and a moto pulled up (I never know where I'm going or what I'm doing before the exact instant I do it) and she told me to get on...now, I cant ride a moto without a helmet...she knows this...so I tried to blurt it out in my moment of panic at being found out by PC for disobeying rules and it came out something like "I have need for my helmet; I lost my job" but it got the point across and the moto driver gave me his and then drove very "responsibly" (and kept telling me so) the entire way to a bar; where we met my mother’s "brother" who really couldn’t have been her brother at all because he didn’t even know where she lived: he told me "you are not shy"...I took it as a compliment. Then I made us walk home in a light rain the whole way because of the helmet thing and I ended up falling off of the road, blame it on the uneven pavement, and hurting my foot...not bad, but to the extent where it hurt to walk for 3 days, its better now though!!!! I walked here :^) then we continued on to some rich guys house, he’s a "deputy" and my mother is helping to run his campaign (I think, nothings ever very clear here) and I ate dinner with all these expensive looking men who openly talked about me in front of me...I heard "she's young" and "pretty, she resembles her mother"

My grandmother is still visiting us...we played cards and made fried plantains together (which taste almost like McDonalds French Fries) and she made me eat FAR too many, I think I may die from purely the amount of palm oil I consume in this country. My sisters are doing well...continuing to paint my nails in all the colors under the sun and spray me with perfume. I helped my sister draw pictures for some engineering-like class yesterday, and I cut off a fish’s gills and skin with her (this was kind of major for me as I'm sure you can all understand; but she said I did a good job). My brothers are the same as always...they caught another rat...I was disappointed it wasn’t as large as the first. and to end with the continuing cockroach story of the week: I got to school yesterday; opened my backpack during our coffee break...only to have a cockroach sprint out and run across the veranda...they're trying to infiltrate every aspect of my existence!!!!
Thanks again for the calls/emails/thoughts (you better at least have given me a thought) :^) Love from here. Kate

ps. sorry this was so incredibly long!!!

They're eating my furniture!!!

HI ALL
So much happens in a week i have to keep a record of everything in a little notebook and bring it with me to the internet cafe...training is still going well, id say better; i got moved up in my french class because i told the language placement person i was not being challenged and apparently my teacher agreed, so now im in the intermediate class and its much better but not too challenging, thus...perfect! our 4th week is the beginning of immersion week, thus we can only speak french to our trainers and classmates outside of technical sessions in most areas of the building. if we speak english we get extra homework, its like being in 1st grade all over again. tech sessions are interesting; we learned about tree grafting and marcotting, basically cloning, and got to practice it. i was pretty fascinated by this, and since we have to do a presentation on something agroforestry related, im thinking this will be mine. we also build mproved cookstoves in a few traditional kitchens in the community and my familys home was chosen. thus, all the volunteers came to my house and i learned 1; my mother is the most beautiful mother 2; my sister is the prettiest of everyones sisters 3;my house is way nicer than everyone elses...so hey, im not complaining. i also found out this past week that my mother is a princess in the town...now im not sure what this means but i think shes the cheifs daughter, not sure... however, there are a lot of other albinos in town and the fact that 2 of my siblings are makes me think that its a recessive trait in the chiefs family..lots of kids, high percentage of albinos!? i also met my grandmother last night because she wanted to meet an american...she speaks no french; so we shared a lovely plate of eggs which she ate without teeth and i left for school. lovely morning. my oldest sister left this week for the university so i wont be seeing her again but my mother keeps telling me to call her...speaking on the phone when i can hardly understand french in person is not my idea of a good time, so im trying to avoid this. my 2nd oldest sister and i have started reading some old magazines in french together and i learn my french while she learns her english...i think this will be really helpful. my youngest sister cleaned my feet the other day and even picked my toenails clean with a stick from the broom...this was slightly awkward: i have also done a lot more baby holding and being spit on by my cousins son...no more pee thankfully i have joined a writing group with a few PC people and we had our first meeting on sunday; it was really really interesting and nice to be forced to sit down and write about our experiences; etc...perhaps i;ll write a book and force you all to read it. i have also created a band , yes i am in a band, with 5 guys who can actually play instruments. i play these plastic tambourines that my real mom, USA mom (thanks mom) gave me to give to cameroonian children as a gift. we had practice at my house the other day and my brothers requested bob marley, were overly excited and sang bob marley all night afterwards, and then the brother that i think hates me was really nice to me for 3, count em, 3 whole days!!! i told the band we are practicing at my house every week. cockroaches...should have learned from the basement of soil science that where there is one there will be others. i have killed 5, and the worst was when i, idiotically, hung a wet shirt partially in my closet to dry...took it out the next day to have 3 AHHH cockroaches run down my arm while i danced around shaking them to the floor and then smashing them t death. add to this the fact that some termite like things, which my sister called petits fourmis, little ants, are feasting on my desk and quickly turning it to sawdust. these dudes are little but wow are they making quick work of my desk, i am very sad to lose my desk, because then i will have naught but a bed...oh well im keeping the thing till it disappears into a pile of dust. ummm thats pretty much it! we are having a speghetti dinner tonight and im on the garlic bread comittee; so i hqve to go figure out how to build a stove outside to make garlic bread for 42...problem solving skills have never been put to bettter use! thinking of madison as it gets closer to halloween, and pumpkin patches...aw im jealous, Kate

A Post From Kate!

soooo...to start this post, list of things that WOW are interesting to get used to, but are going just fine: roosters calling at ALL hours, nope, not limited to the morning, i often get woken up at 1 or 3 by roosters, and i swear there is a dog that immitates a rooster outside my window at all hours of the night 2) taking cold ICE cold showers at 6 in the morning...this is of course when we HAVE water, which as of now, it's been 4 days without, and i'm starting to not smell that great, hahaha, be glad you aren't here to smell me 3) getting caught in the rain constantly and having your clothes NEVER ever dry, but not having water to wash your hands or drink and thus getting ill every few days! not as bad as some people: one girl has been in the hospital here for over a week, and there are a few other interesting stories of people getting sick...
i've done my laundry twice now and often have a large crowd watch me until they realize how horrible i am at it and someone pitches in to help. they think i am completely helpless and ask me is in america there is a machine for everything they teach me to do. they were incredibly amazed that YES in fact i could whip egg whites with a fork (thank you baking experience) and i am an excellent ironer, and the most exciting thing for them yet was that i can shuffle cards...no one here can do it and i had a crowd of over 15 people making me shuffle cards over and over for them.
we have gotten our tools, as my dad said, and i have planted a nursery at the school i go to and at my house. to plant at my house i had to go to the village garbage pile with my brothers and dig into it with my hands to retreive "le fumier" aka: the manure. yeah, it was ok until i dug up a big chunk of human hair...i wanted to pass out. then i went back to my house with my entourage of people and they did my entire nursery for me after watching me for a few seconds, taking a video of me on my brother's phone (like they enjoy doing when i do anything they deem to be impossible for me) and then deciding i just wasn't good at it.
i have gone to bandefam and baffousam, which are two "neighbooring" towns and enjoyed both, as my dad also wrote about. we went to a "discoteque" here at 4 pm, and danced and i drank 1/2 a bottle of beer (for me this was quite the accomplishment).
training is going to get more interesting next week when we are going into the "immersion" phase, this means speaking nothing but french in and around our school building. my french class got switched and now it's too easy in a way, i always answer every question first and seem to be the only one who is understanding what my teacher says...which is kinda nice, but getting old and i spoke to the language coordinator today about being moved up. i still can't understand a whole lot of what my family says...but they're still puting up with me! my technical training is still very easy for me...we had a soils training class the other day...i pretty much taught it :>)
i miss everyone, and was EXTREMELY happy to get emails today when i finally got to the internet, after 3 days of attempts. thank you so much for the emails!
we had to discuss our "mental health" yesterday by writing about 3 things we were the most bothered by...mine were: missing people from home, being frustrated by the language and missing running. i have not ran or done anything other than walk for 3 weeks now, and i'm feeling very cooped up!
among the volunteers we are planning a lot of events, and had a mexican dinner night last night...which was INCREDIBLE!!! no more plantains or potatoes...wow...i miss salad and tofu and oatmeal (you don't understand) i am enjoying everything as much as i can...and yesterday i finally caught the cockroach in my closet, smashed it with my shoe and showed it to my brothers to prove that yes, even americans can kill bugs.
miss you all so very much...you're going to tire of hearing that
i have a lot of good ideas for gifts for a lot of you in the making...i need to figure out how to send packages now (apparently i have to do some bribing of postal workers)
hope your lives are going well, think of everyone all the time and want to know what you're doing! LOVE

Kate's Magnificent Peace Corp Journey

After talking to Kate she asked me to post on her Blog as she is having difficulty posting to it.

Kate relates that training is going well, but is quite intense. Training is from 7:30 to 4:30 six days a week. She is studying French with a teacher who speaks perfect French very slowly, not at all like the locals. The Peace Corp has supplied her with a few tools including a machete, which is hand carved and not very sharp. Part of the training involves planting a garden and what I understand to be a fruit orchard.

Kate recently visited a bee farm where she had to extract honey. I should have asked her if the bees she dealt with were African Killer Bees, but they must have been as they’ve taken over all of Africa.

Her meals consist of fish and lots of vegetables, some being Kale, Plantains, potatoes and several varieties unknown to her.

A group of Peace Corp volunteers recently visited a larger town nearby. Kate relates that the roads are paved better than some in Madison, but transportation is unpredictable. Two hours waiting for a bus to get there and then taking a taxi van back. The taxi van had 19 people in it with everyone’s luggage strapped on top, but no goat up there yet. The larger town had a “white man’s store” (processed food) where not much was available. She also mistakenly accepted a marriage proposal from one of the men she encountered. But I don't think we'll hear wedding bells in the near future.

Evenings can be a bit cool and she wishes she had taken warm clothes. Of course they can be purchased there. But clothes tend to be discarded clothing from the US. Perhaps that is where the clothes you donated to Goodwill ended up.

She still enjoys the rain but it is difficult to not get muddy. One reason the floors are washed daily at her house. Kate says her family is a bit on the liberal side and does not try to control her as some of the other PC families do with their volunteer. She is grateful for that. She isn’t even required to go to church (thank heavens).

Kate would like to hear from you, either via email, snail mail, posting comments on her blog or even calling her. Any friend who has not received her address or phone number can contact me at legner@dwave.net. Kate's Dad

Hi from Bangante

WOW there is soooo much to write; and I have 1/2 hour and am on the most impossible keyboard in the world. I am in Bangangte and really really like it. It's an incredibly beautiful town in the mountains with little fields all over and chicken running around, which can be a curse as the roosters crow ALL night long. My family consists of 6 kids, but there are usually at LEAST 15 people all over the house. It took 2 whole days to figure out who anyone was. The kids are 16 to 24 years old and one of my brothers and one of my sisters are albino! Which is interesting. My mother is very very nice, she came to pick me up after our first day of school with an umbrella because it was raining, as it does here far more than in Yaound. I don't see my father hardly ever, I don't really think that he lives in the house??? But I don't know! So far My sisters have braided my hair in the "rasta" style, which looks incredibly ridiculous on me. I look bald and they have painted my finger and toenails which I haven't done for years and my cousin glued these fake diamonds to my moms and my teeth, my new nickname is Bling.

I have in the past few days (to give a brief summary) eaten the entire back end of a fish; seen a HUGE and I mean HUGE rat get caught while eating breakfast, I peeled potatoes with a dull knife which was challenging. I have held more babies than ever (everyone must assume they are at my language level) one of which peed all over my leg. I ate some goat meat, unintentionally insulted the chief, got stuck in a lot of mud (but have yet to fall), sat at a bar with old men playing cards, and went to a church where I had to sit through a very anti-american sermon during which everyone in the entire place glared at me. My brother is in love with me and does everything for me, walks me places and buys me cookies: UMMM!

It may be a LONG time before I post again as we have a 6 pm curfew so that leaves us 1 1/2 hours to do anything we need to do. It is kinda annoying. Training is going well, but language is intense. I understand very little of what my family says but my mother has gotten good at dumbing down her French and speaking very slowly. She's pretty much my translator. My room is very nice, lots of closets, a double bed, a desk and a chair and it's right next to the bath room, with a sometimes working toilet. The power is very iffy. I still like the rain and I like my family very much. My mother says to me everytime she sees me "ooooooh Kaaaate" and always greets me with a BIG smile. I MISS EVERYONE. I looked at pictures last night with my family and they all enjoyed seeing all my friends (they took the most interest in you Colin :P ) love to all; please sent me letters; and if you feel like it I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE dried fruit and nuts. Haha just had to throw that in ! Love Kate