Thanksgiving Chaos...yes, we did kill our own turkey (ok, "I" just took the pictures, but still...). What, do you think they have Butterball here? Um, nope...

November 28, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving!! I was lucky enough to be able to spend actual Thanksgiving eating homemade pretzels and hummus with friends and then travel to a PC gathering. We had a great time killing, cooking and eating our numerous birds—at one point the turkey, almost dead and nearly headless, flew off into the bush. It gave a whole new meaning to the statement "like a chicken with it’s head cut off." We stayed at a beautiful place with the best water pressure in all of Cameroon. A few of us did facemasks which, while drying, globed off into our breakfast, fished with bamboo poles and waxy cheese crust, and watched clips of "Black Vampire" (the wonderfully made Cameroonian film starring Kelsey and Reese…it came complete with music by Michael Jackson and ware wolf and satanic seagull noises. Oscar worthy.) While I did come back with 9000 mosquito bites and there was one, quite heated, travel debacle, it was well worth it.

PICTURES:
1…View from one side of the chalet
2…Sunrise (a little like Lion King? I thought so...)
3…Recovered turkey, still headless, from the bush
4…The turkey, mid-throat cut, pre dash into the bush
5…African travel (and yes, if you can't tell, I'm slightly annoyed)


Now, bring on the Christmas music!

November 6, 2006

It’s just normal…like Asian window decals and Nigerian Christian music turned up so loud you can’t understand a word…


So, like many things, the simplicity of daily conversations barely fazes me anymore. However, I feel it is my duty (in accordance with Peace Corps goal number three) to educate you, all my friends and family not in Cameroon, on some facts about the commonplace interactions that occur.

Person: “Ah, Miss Ally. You have come?”
Me: “Yes. I am here. How?”
Person: “No, fine. It is just normal. How for you?”
Me: “No, fine. It is going.”
Person: “So, you are here?”
Me: “Yes. I am just here.”
Person: “Ashia.”
Me: “Thank you.”
(Awkward silence)
Me: “Well, see you.”
Person: “Yes. Next time.”

So there is it everyone…amazing huh? It still strikes me as wonderful (wundaful too) that I can have a conversation and say only about ten different things. One key lesson learned is that when asked how you are, you always start with “no.” This indicates to the person who asked that, in fact, nobody has died. Neat.

Life in Ndu is fine. Same old. Aside from lots of travel coming up, both for holidays and Peace Corps stuff, I haven’t been doing much—planning a girls club that’s only happened once and continuing to plan our “hike tour” which may or may not actually happen in February—we’ll see! The rain is letting up; the dust is already piling up and my water supply dwindling. The neighbor kids are about to start working a lot harder to supply me enough water until I can get running water back (note, I’ve been saying this about the water coming back since March). But, thankfully, I am lucky enough to have wonderful missionaries with hot water heaters full of water that has been readily offered to me to use at my disposal. I may make it a weekly event. Showers at the Seminary…Maybe that’s what I’ll entitle my first novel! Now I’m rambling.

A recent discovery that I’d like to share is espn.com scoreboard. For a few of the past Sunday nights we’ve (we being my “trio” of Americans who also happen to be missing NFL—hi again, guys. Ashia) pulled it up and watched anxiously every two minutes or for each update—scores, yards, possession, etc. It’s almost like watching a game on TV…with a few minutes delay and no actual football. We’ll take what we can get at this rate! Go Broncos (and the Pack…we’re still hopeful).

That’s all from here…over and out.