12.4 Hi everyone. It's been a little while so I thought I would give a brief update. Not a whole lot is going on here. The last week has been a lot of project preparation. We have a cultural presentation to give tomorrow (i.e., 20-30 minutes in french...I am doing football and playing 3 games in hopes of making it that long in french!) and our group project-the mini-camp for girls group. We only have about 10 days left in Bandjoun which is really hard to believe, I feel like we just got here! It will be sad to leave, both my friends and host family, but I am getting more excited about post...for work and for the artistic/domestic things I plan to do around my house!

Thought I'd just list some exciting (some not-so exciting) things going on here:

-I was lucky enough to get three packages this past week (THANKS!!) and instead of explaining what exfoliating body scrub was to my little brother I told him it was girl soap...he didn't want it after that :)
-My host sister went into labor this morning so hopefully I'll be an auntie soon!!
-It's still really hot here and doesn't feel like the holidays at all...but there were some toys at the marché this week that played "jingle bells" ALL DAY LONG (we're talking 10AM-5PM) and I found Christmas decorations in the supermarché in Bafoussam...I plan on buying a small Christmas tree and light up star for my house.
-We had one of our final language assessments last week and just when I thought everything was going well I realized that I was trying to explain sororities and rush to my teacher...that's difficult to do in english much less in french! I somehow got through it using a lot of hand gestures.
-I am now taking Pidgin...I bet some of you didn't think that was a real language, I wasn't sure before I got here. Well it is, kind of. Think english+french+ebonics+ no/little gramatical structure...that's Pidgin. "Ma nem na Ally. A bi woman fo Amerika an a komot fo Colorado. A bi kom fo Kamerun 2 mon dem." You get the idea...I'm working on something good to write to you all, maybe the Christmas posting will be in all Pidgin!
-I'll send my new address soon too, once I go to Ndu I am going to have a new address for letters only...the more post offices that mail goes through, the less chance you have of getting it unopened, or getting it at all...so I'll continue to have packages sent to the address in Yaoundé.

That's about it for the news around here. I am just enjoying my last few weeks with friends and speaking American English on a regular basis! I'm off to prepare my presentation for tomorrow...working on a game entitiled "Faire Une Equipe" where they have to put players on a field drawn on big brown paper...oh the excitement! Hope that everything is great there. Talk to you soon.

PS-The picture is the road right outside my house in Bandjoun(sorry it's sideways, do some neck exercises)...that's pretty much what most of the town (aside from the center market area) looks like...so when PC adivised us not to bring light colored clothes because of the dirt, I think they were talking about the numerous intense red roads that have significantly tainted most of my clothing, just a thought.