Salut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Salut! At some point I'm going to write an entire blog post in my really poor French just to drive everyone a little crazy…but I guess I'll be nice today…

I have much new and exciting house news! First and foremost of which is that I often have water…in increasing increments of time too! It started out being 2 or 3 times a week between the hours of 7 and 8 am, but recently has been pretty regularly on in the mornings. Granted only the pipes to the faucet in the kitchen have adequate water pressure, but it's SO incredibly nice to have enough water to flush the toilet daily if I need to, wash my clothes more often, etc…actually it's taken a lot of pressure off me, not having to analyze how much water I have/use every minute…I'm very very happy! In addition to this, the plumber came over and installed my bathroom sink, it's pretty much just a shelf because the drainpipe goes out onto the bathroom floor, but nonetheless I have a place to put my toothbrush and soap! The electric company also finally came out and fixed up whatever the problem was with my village's power lines…so we have electricity again after 3 weeks without! I went through a lot of candles and a lot of freaking out coming home after dark with the mouse/rat on the loose. Lastly inside the house I have ordered myself some fine wooden shelves for the kitchen and living room (a place for my million books, I've finished over 30 novels already in Cameroon…seriously…I have too much time), they've been a long time coming but hopefully will be installed soon! (these are the highlights of my home life :>) Neighborhood is the same old same old…I had my first theft: my porch lighbulb! (what?!) My landlady and I had an in depth conversation about my work here, etc… (I really like this woman…she's stopped pushing the religion stuff, and has been very helpful just listening to me and understanding) and she's really interested in starting some sort of animal raising project. I think we'll do cane rats (just big rats), rabbits, and chickens, and I'll apparently help clear the area, build cages and teach people how to care for them (aka: I have a lot of research to do). I've slowly been getting to know more and more of the village and getting increasingly comfortable being out and about, even though there are always the random men drinking palm wine and yelling things at me on the corner. My one neighbor man who is usually in the drunk crowd felt it his duty the other day to tell me "Kate, you have added the pounds" (literal translation for laughs) and walk towards me puffing out his cheeks, holding his arms out to the side, like an elephant or something. Always nice to hear, and fun to explain how that is the absolute LAST thing you should ever say to an American woman! Lastly "in the neighborhood" I had an interesting moment when I heard someone walking right behind my head out the window while lying in bed one morning. It's usually one of the kids just asking for me to yell at them to get out of my "espace privée" but they weren't being sneaky enough…so come to find out (by turning around) that some random man has chosen this spot to stand on my back veranda and pee into my "yard". Men here are ALWAYS doing their business along the side of the road, right infront of you, in the open…but seriously dude…my bedroom window?!

Random news: I cut off all my hair! Ok, not all…but a lot for me! It's just to my shoulders…thus A LOT cooler and less dirty constantly in this hot dirt/bug covered land! MUCH easier. I decided to do it one day after a bucket bath at Kim's house, when it made me so mad I decided to punish it with scissors. Between Kim and I and a dull scissors it actually came out looking pretty nice, I even put layers in myself! Also random: my postmate left about 2 weeks ago for the states…it's quite an exciting thing for all of us here…just to hear how her perceptions of things have changed, how life there feels after living here, etc…not to mention the fact she'll bring back things like peanut butter and maple syrup! She'll be there for a total of 4 weeks, so in reality she'll be back in not to long now. I'm a bit jealous…

Work has been touch and go recently. I think it's because it's between planting and harvesting, so it's felt kinda slow again (but then again, when doesn't it?!) I spend one day with Obam traveling ½ way down the road that goes from Ebolowa to Kribi, really really muddy (up to my shins at times) and scary on a motto, to see how one makes palm oil and to see the palm plantation he helped to start up there. The next day we were supposed to head out to the village Lo'o to check up on the soy fields…and Obam "forgot". I've been getting increasingly frustrated with him lately after a variety of happenings because he seems to lack follow through with projects and he has difficulty explaining things to people in a logical way, etc…and it's interfering in a big way with getting anything started…so this was kinda the final straw and I decided just to not try to get projects started with him anymore. And then…he got sick…I'm not sure what it going on now, since I'm out of town, but he has been pretty sick for over 2 weeks. By this I mean, he's been bedridden and now I think is hospitalized! I visited him a couple of times while he was still at his house but after that no one really knew which hospital he had gone to etc…I feel really horrible about everything, and since I don't know a whole lot of medical French words it's frustrating because I'm not really sure what's going on…but I'm clearly hoping that he pulls through it as soon as possible and that whatever treatment he's receiving is doing what it should. It's one of those times when the reality of illness and related problems in this country become so evident. My supervisor Hans has also has quite a streak of bad luck…stolen motto, phone, laptop (laptop this past week), and his wife had a motto accident about a week after having their new baby and dislocated her shoulder! Sometimes…

Otherwise, work…I had to attend the south province agriculture department meeting. This was kinda hilarious, but kinda absurd at the same time. I was in this "board room" with the 20 most important agriculture people in the province, all men, for 5 hours. Then after this I had to go to a party with the 20 men and drink and dance with them (I had to do the usual awkward first dance with Obam), and be asked how they could get "UNE volontaire" (a FEMALE volunteer) in their village…etc…I did however win over the delegate of agriculture for the entire province by jokingly counting the number of beers he drank (6 bottles of guiness in 2 hours)…so if that's anything?! ;>)

One relatively big work thing is that we've started the water project out at the village Lo'o. We had another meeting where we evaluated how to better the current water source while building the new one, and to make sure that everyone in the village was on the same page with how work was going to go. The week after that we started work…6 men in an assembly line of sorts, standing on the hill of a river bank passing enormous rocks up to collect in a pile. I'm pretty positive I'm going to use this project as one of my "Peace Corps Partnership" projects…this means I'm going to be asking all you for money to help support building this water source…wait for it!

Also, relatively big news…Kim and I just had another training for soy at a village, Oveng, near her town (17 kilometers on bad roads/motto again) and it went the best of all the ones we've done so far…we felt the least nervous/the most effective. We're looking forward to starting a community farm and several individual farms with this village in the big rainy season (starting end of August). Plus we got 3 pineapples, 2 huge regimes (stalks?) of plantains, and bushmeat as gifts… :>)

Lastly in the work category, I received some Moringa seeds (it's a tree) during my in service training in April. This tree is really popular in the North of Cameroon and Nigera, Senegal, etc… but is completely unknown here. It's called the miracle tree because it's leaves and seeds are INCREDIBLY nutritious, and commonly used in for many traditional medicines…so I thought it'd be a great time to try to grow it here. So with Hans and another CEAC (this is the organization that I work with, there are 5 separate offices in the South province) office are starting at least 3 nurseries and using (or attempting to use) different conditions (varying amounts of water, shade, whatnot)…science?! (I didn't think it existed here, but we're trying) I helped plant one nursery the other day, filling plastic sacks with dirt with 5 small children and a 70 year old man…so we at least have 51 potential trees! I'm crossing my fingers that these grow.
SOOOOOO that's about it for me! I apologize as usual for the amount of time between my posts…but motivation and no computer always let me down! I'm on my way to Baffousam tomorrow for a week long environmental education camp I'm helping another volunteer with…AND I'll get to swim in the pool there! Plus plus plus.
This upcoming weekend is my 9 month anniversary here…I'm 1/3 done! WHOA