June 21, 2011

My Kindle is full of rice.

Okay, full of is an exaggeration. It definitely sounds like a maraca when you shake it though. Before you start freaking out Tizzle and L-Train (the beyond generous friends, for those of you readers not familiar with my friend hierarchy, that quenched my reading thirst by gifting me with said e-reader right before I headed out) just know that things could be a lot worse!

I should have prefaced this statement by explaining why my Kindle has multiple grains of rice in it. 

Last Monday, all of my fellow volunteers and I headed to our usual watering hole after a long day of classes. You’d be surprised the kind of therapy a warm 32 oz Cameroonian beer can provide. Anyways, I got a call from my host father and eventually my host brother when I didn’t understand Mefire. I had a hard time understanding them on the phone but, I thought the gist of the convo was that there was some water in the house, which I thought had somehow come from my water filter that I had just filled up that morning. After pretending to comprehend what he was saying, I assured him that I would finish my beer and head back to the house to try and take care of whatever situation was going on. I hung up the phone and went back to my warm Castel.

Pretty soon my host father is at the bar. I’m thinking, “Uh oh, what did I do!?” Again he tells me that there is water in the house and that I need to come home and make sure that everything in my room is okay. It had rained that day so I was thinking a little water had come in through the ceiling or what not and they were worried about my belongings. Fair enough, I slammed down the rest of my boiling beer and headed for the house. 

When I arrived my host brother Landry was entertaining some guests taking all kinds of soggy looking boxes and whatnot out of the house. I told him how I was sorry for not coming quicker I just didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me on the phone. He laughed saying that it was fine and explained to me what had actually happened. Apparently, we have a faucet that doesn’t always work, but when it does water sprays out by the bucket full. Well whoever had used the faucet last had forgotten to shut the valve and nobody was at the house when the faucet decided it wanted to work again. Pretty soon we had about an inch of water on the floor in the house.

So I unlock my door and of course there is about a half inch of water in there. Luckily, or so I thought, I didn’t really have anything on the floor except the big suitcase I had brought and my lockbox with all my crap I didn’t want stolen i.e. electronics. Landry and I used some rags to sop up the water and wring them out in a bucket. I put the suitcase in the closet and it was fine and didn’t even worry about the lock box. It was given to me by Peace Corps, of course it’s waterproof.

Wrong again Max-a-million! On Wednesday, I had to get into my lockbox to grab something, only to discover that the bottom had definitely taken a big batch of water. I lost the amazing journal my bro Ben had gotten me (luckily though I was able to save the first page where he had written me a message before I left. His inscription came from the heart and is something that I will cherish to my grave. I usually read it at least once a day over here because it helps me to not only remember the love and support that I have back home, but also to enjoy this adventure that I am on and make the absolute best of it), the boxes that my iHome and laptop speakers in were water logged, my webcam pouch which contained my webcam felt more like a sponge. Pretty much all of my electronics looked like they took a dip in the pool.

Enter previous stated rice. I rode a moto to the supermarche (again it needs a little accent thingy over the e. Need to find some French letter shortcuts) and proceeded to put pretty much all of my electronics into a giant bag of rice. I am happy to report that so far everything is functioning fine. My digital camera was even able to capture our HIV/STD/Condom use lesson today that I hope to post pictures of at some point. We had a condom relay race. Yeah, I had never heard of one either until here. Of course the Education program won, mad props to Cool Hand Luc and Pristine Christine. I’ve decided it’s okay to make lame jokes and even worse nicknames when you’re about to fall asleep under a mosquito net.

My webcam is the only thing still chillin’ in the rice because it seemed like it still had some moisture on it when I opened it. And it’s not like I can get any kind of decent Internet connection here to Skype you beautiful people back home. All in due time I hope.

Another thing I would like to elaborate on is the bucket bath. Now, remember that I told you that you had to go to the well for pretty much all water needs, besides drinking water. So after you fill up your buckets the real fun begins. Most trainees just have a cup to dip into said bucket and rinse off soap. The ever improvisational Eriika has created a water bottle shower by poking holes into the bottom of her 1.5L Water bottle. I think I might have the best of the bunch though with my plastic tea kettle. It really does funnel the water quite well down your body to get rid of the soap. For those of you that lived with me, made my toaster strudels in the AM, or just knew that I loved taking a nice long shower should understand that this is quite the change for this Bucyrus boy. Quite often the water is pretty damn cold and a pretty good wake up call in the morning. The 6AM runs have definitely made the cold bucket shower feel like a blessing.

I think those are all the things I wanted to cover before talking about what the really important news….I know my post!!!!

I will be in a city called Edea (little slash thing over the second e. If any of you people out there, Chris Michael I am talking to you, know how to do my French letters please let me know) in the Littoral region of Cameroon. It is a Francophone country, meaning that I will be teaching in French. I was pretty much banking on an Anglophone, English speaking, region so this was quite the surprise to me, but I am going to try and do my best and get to the Intermediate High level that I need to achieve to be sworn in. It is definitely going to be a challenge, but I didn’t sign up for the PC to sit around and eat some bon-bons so why not!? I also found out from a current PCV in Bafia that Edea is one of her favorite posts so thank you Heather for lifting my spirits after I wasn’t sure what to think of my post. It is also an hour from one of the main beaches and not too far from the other. She also described it as a clean and well developed city. It doesn’t seem too far from Mt. Cameroon either and I am definitely pumped about hiking that beast at some point. I wish I knew more about Edea, but without having Internet I can’t just google it like I would do to find out anything else in the states. By the time I get to post this I should be able to look it up, but if you find anything online and want to comment feel free to shoot me a text, e-mail, comment, fb msg whatever. I am pumped and nervous at the same time. This weekend we go for our site visit to see where we will be working, who will be working with, the area etc. Ah, I forgot to mention that I will be training primary school teachers in computers. Again, in French…CRAZINESS!!! :D

Aunt Patti and Lara just want to say that I got your guys’ texts and that I appreciated them very much. Love having a way to keep in touch at times when I can’t get on the net and fire off some things through the ol’ Interweb. Sorry I wasn’t able to respond back, trying to conserve my phone credit until the next payday so I will try and send off an e-mail or some kind of correspondence when I can get online. For the time being though, I will answer the questions in your text Aunt Patti.  As of right now, I am okay and don’t need you guys to send me anything yet, but I’m sure that I will be craving a care package sooner than later J I also will know later on what will be the best address to reach me at later on in training so that will help with any mailing issues. I will be about two hours from Yaounde, which is the capital of Cameroon and where PC Cameroon main office is, so that might be the mailbox I will use, but when I know I will relay the information. Yes, my Kindle is still working but I am still reading the book you got me and a story about a PCV in Tanzania currently and have over 25 others on my Kindle so I still have plenty of reading material. I have a hard time justifying reading for pleasure anyways when I have so much work to do with my French. Also, I plan on getting a guitar ASAP over here and trying to master that so I’m all good on the reading front for now but thank you for checking. I could definitely use some OSU coozies for my beers though if you can collaborate on a care package with Mom and Dad since I’m sure I will be hitting them up with some requests sometime in the near future. Anything OSU would be sweet actually, I’m bummed I forgot my buckeye necklace in the states. I’m sure I will come up with more requests down the road, but that is all for now.

Early run tomorrow so I better sign off now. Was just informed Clarence Clemon(s?) from the E Street Band and Ryan Dunn of Jackass have passed away. Hope to hear more cheerful pop culture news next time we converse Mom and Dad ;). Love you all.

MMM