10.29 Saturday night and I am watching the French version of the Weakest Link on TV. We just returned from visiting a Cheferie (the Chief of the Bamilake people). It was the coolest thing I’ve done since being here. We drove an hour on rough roads—feeling like we were going to flip in very uncomfortable vans/Land Rovers. As we drove into the palace compound there were 4 sets of traditional dance going on. They were really cool…a purification dance and a war dance among them. We went through the palace, which is huge and quite different from the palaces I was used to seeing (you know, like in Europe). The chief came in to talk to us and was very open about AIDS, agriculture, history, and told us all about his rein which included imprisonment by the French. The whole time he was between two of his ministers (interior and foreign affairs) who were in total traditional garb—i.e., robes and head ‘wraps’ with shells around the edges. He spoke for an hour or so and then gave us a tour of his museum and palace. We saw tons of masks, statues, and really old pictures of him with Popes and presidents and other important people. Afterwards we watched the dances for a while, took way too many pictures and stood in the middle at one point and pretend to dance along…we looked like fools I’m sure! As we drove off some of the purification dancers followed the cars shaking their witch statues at us—we thought it was pretty appropriate being so close to Halloween! The drive home played out somewhat different than the way there. We ended up on a random road (which was SO rough with massive potholes and mud) surrounded on all sides by tall grass. There were many jokes about seeing Lions jump out but I kept thinking of Jurassic Park. We realized after 2 hours that we were probably lost and I actually did get a bit concerned picturing us sleeping in the vans in the middle of the bush…about 4 minutes later we were on paved road. All in all, it was an awesome experience. The dancers were what you picture Africa to be like. There were huts and huge buildings with pointed roofs (the signature for nobles in this area) and tons of room for his 15 wives.
This past week was not different—French, child and maternal health, mosquito bites, me thinking I had Malaria at least twice, and a fun “American” chicken dinner! We were able to visit a health center and see vaccinations. It was pretty cool to see how the whole system works here. There were probably 30 women with their babies at the clinic but only 3 actually received the shots. The clinic was able to get all the women there by promising mosquito nets which weren’t actually given! But it was a great opportunity to see a venue that we may be working in. One thing that really stood out was that they poured alcohol on a tray and burned it to disinfect it…I am pretty sure that isn’t that sanitary...Tomorrow (it being almost Halloween) we’re going to make tortilla chips, guac, and salsa from scratch and watch an American movie! It will be fun and I really want to carve a pineapple!
Earlier tonight, I had my first “in room animal experience”—there was a lizard on my wall. I wouldn’t have normally cared too much but I’m sure it had three eyes! I decided that killing it maybe wasn’t the best option to I slid it into half of a plastic water bottle. It was only after I’d scraped him off my wall and into the bottle and plugged it with toilet paper that I realized that I’d been using that bottle for my toothpaste spit for a few days! The poor little guy drown in my toothpaste spit before I could dump it out outside.