Settling in and Celebrating Thanksgiving!

It's officially the holiday season now, I guess. Thanksgiving is behind us (more on that later), and December has begun. If this had been anything like the past few years, I would be back home for winter break in Westchester bundled up in sweaters and cords, preparing to head to work at a local gift store and listen to Christmas music all day long. As much as I enjoyed that, I'm currently sitting on my balcony in shorts and a t-shirt listening to music of my own choosing (currently The Head and the Heart's new album-shout out to Teddy for sending that over). During college my school always gave us the entire month of December off, so I should be used to unstructured time this time of year. But my new life here takes unstructured time to a whole new level. The Peace Corps pretty much gives you the first three months at post to just get settled into your new communities and begin the long process of integrating. I've been living in my village for just over a week now and have been taking things pretty slowly. I've never lived alone before, and that itself is something of an adjustment, especially since I spent the past two months living with seven other people at my host family's house. Things are just so…quiet. And clean. I've never considered myself to be that much of a neat person, but (unless you're Laura) there's only so much mess that one person can make. My new apartment has two bedrooms, a big living room, a kitchen and two balconies. I'm currently sitting on the balcony that looks out over the mountainside surrounding Bamenda, which is my favorite place in the whole apartment. There are cows grazing in the distance and from right here, life is pretty great. Because of the timing of Thanksgiving and coming to post, I actually didn't spend that much time in my village in the past week. When you come to post, one of the ways that you're supposed to spend your first few weeks is doing "protocol", which consists of introducing yourself to the important people in the area. These people include potential work partners, the heads of government ministries, local safety/security authorities, and the traditional chief. So far I've only made a few introductions, but I made sure to go meet the local chief, who is called the fon. We had rehearsed meeting our chief at one point during training and I was expecting a lot of formality and ceremony. But in reality, my fon seemed very welcoming and casual. He gave me his approval, and then asked me if I would be able to recruit other Volunteers to work in the area, as there is a lot to be done here. I don't know if I'll be able to do that, but it was nice to have his support and hear his enthusiasm for the PC. Also, I got to take a motorcycle up to his palace, which is a sentence I never thought I would be able to say. The other event of this week was Thanksgiving and the preparation for it. Thanksgiving isn't a holiday that I get very excited for, but it came a week after we got to our posts and I didn't really have any plans for it for the first time in my life. Luckily, there are other Volunteers stationed in Bamenda that welcomed me to their dinner and told me that I could even come help make pumpkin pie. So I headed down late Wednesday morning, thinking I would make pie crust for a few hours and then come back up to my apartment for the night. I should state that I've never played an active role in Thanksgiving preparation before, but I have made my share of pumpkin pies. But for all of you that think that Thanksgiving is a lot of work in America, please come on over to Cameroon. Imagine trying to make the whole dinner with no real oven and just a Dutch oven that can only handle one dish at a time. Admittedly we had to substitute chicken for turkey, but other than that we had an authentic Thanksgiving experience. There was even Stovetop stuffing and jellied cranberries. We even managed to make pumpkin pies from scratch, using local squash that tasted remarkably similar. Bamenda is an incredible place. Some other highlights of my first week at post:
1. Made my first friend in village! I was out for a walk on my first morning here and I ran into this woman who proceeded to take me back to her house for breakfast and to meet her family. She's already planning to introduce me to all the local dishes-yesterday brought njama-njama, the first green mush of vegetables that I've enjoyed here so far. Today's introduction wasn't quite as appealing-fried grasshoppers. Not even joking. I couldn't even try them.
2. Celebrated TJ's birthday at PresCafe, my new favorite restaurant in Cameroon. It's kind of a little slice of America in Bamenda with a Cameroonian theme to it. They have smoothies and pizza. I might become a regular. And TJ turned 28!
3. Bought a water heating wand! In Bafia, I was taking cold bucket showers like a champ. Sometimes I even giggled to myself when my host family heated their water for bathing-it was so hot there the idea of voluntarily heating water seemed a little ridiculous. Well, the Northwest is another story entirely. I have running water and a real shower, but it's cold. Really cold. I took a shower the first few days but it was a trying experience, and ended with me shivering in my towel for a few minutes each time. So I bought a hot water coil. It was easily the best $3 I've ever spent. It is essentially just a metal coil that you stick into a bucket of water for a few minutes, and it heats the water pretty well. Let's just say it was a game-changer. I'll be clean in this country after all. And I've only electrocuted myself twice so far. Not even mad.
TL,DR: Survived my first week at post, celebrated Thanksgiving like a real American, and was told by one of my neighbors that she understands my French better than my English. Nothing in my life makes sense anymore.

The view from my rear (favorite) balcony. 

Moving On, Moving In

So it happened. We swore in as official Peace Corps Volunteers and even managed to performed a rendition of Cat Stevens' Peace Train that wasn't completely embarrassing (thanks for that, guys). We wore matching pange outfits and collectively gave speeches in French, Fulfulde, and Pidgin. And then all the build-up was over and we were finally ready for what we came to do. But as excited as we all are to finally be finished with training and onto our posts, the day was certainly bittersweet. Saying good-bye to the people that have become my family here wasn't something that I was looking forward to, and it certainly wasn't easy. But of course, we didn't come half-way around the world to spend all our time with 53 other Americans and the time came to get on our buses and head to post. A huge shout out to my incredible, hilarious, insightful, and brave stage-mates as you all head to your respective posts and continue this adventure solo. I don't know what I would have done without you these past two months and missing you all already. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm stationed in the Northwest Region just outside the city of Bamenda. We spent the entire day after swearing-in traveling to Bamenda and my crew that's posted in the Northwest couldn't believe how lucky we are when we finally arrived. There was a "chill" in the air (meaning we all finally stopped sweating) and the landscape is hilly and lush.The city sits in a valley, and my village is just on the outer rim looking down on it. It's incredibly beautiful here, and I have both the conveniences that come with proximity to a large city and the feel of a more isolated village. Truthfully, I haven't explored the immediate vicinity much yet and have spent almost all my time down in town getting some immediate necessities. Today's project was to find a mattress, bed frame, and gas tank and I spent the better part of the afternoon doing so. Luckily, a couple of community members volunteered to help me get these things and the three of us searched, negotiated, and finally brought everything home in a single taxi. As for the taxi ride, all I can say is that I wish I had taken a picture of the amount of things that were crammed into (and hanging out of) the trunk. I just made my first dinner in my new apartment and while there will be many opportunities to eat Cameroonian cuisine during these two years, tonight was certainly not one of them. I'm sure none of you will be surprised to know that guacamole and ketchup both made it onto the menu, but I was surprised to learn that green beans could too. So here's to a meal without palm oil, couscous, or crying children (sometimes dinner at my host family got a little rough). As for my new apartment, let's just say that it's big and empty. My favorite part so far is the two balconies overlooking my neighborhood and the rest of the mountains surrounding Bamenda. Many thanks to RPCV Shane for outfitting my entire kitchen with what he left behind (and best of luck back home)! TL, DR: Training's over and my friends and I are finally flying solo. As strange as it is to be doing this alone, my post is incredible so far and I'm feeling really lucky to be here.

A Hand of Bananas

As I mentioned in my last post, PC Cameroon has just about 10 weeks of training before we swear in as official Volunteers. I'm sure the distinction may seem a little arbitrary to all of you back home, as I've already left the US to join the Peace Corps and will remain here through this transition. But please believe me when I tell you that the transition between Volunteers and Trainees is quite important and feels like a big step. As of next week, we will no longer be living with host families or reporting to the training center every day (there aren't really weekends of the traditional sort during training). Instead, our group of 54 will be dispersed across the country, with some of us more than a full day's travel from the others. It turns out that Cameroon is quite big, and the quality of the roads makes it feel even bigger. 

But as for life at the moment, it's beginning to feel like finals week. Last week brought our final cross-cultural presentations, all of which took place in French. My subject was elephants in Cameroon, but it quickly turned into a broader discussion of poaching and the relationship between the ivory trade and the Chinese economy. I had previously thought that we were past the point where ivory is still being created and that it is valued for its historical presence. As far as I understand it, this is not at all the case, and the growing middle class in China is now demanding ivory that they had previously been unable to afford. This has led to an increase in elephant poaching and often funds international terrorist groups such as the Janjaweed. My attempt to explain this situation in French wasn't the most polished presentation I've ever given, but the project gave me the opportunity to explore a situation that I'm interested in and boosted my confidence where French is concerned. 

On Sunday we celebrated Diversity Day, which consisted of an exchange of American and Cameroonian culture between the trainees and our trainers. Both groups brought favorite foods to share and performed songs, skits, and dances. I was recruited as one of the few Jews to make latkes, but after peeling a small mountain of potatoes we learned that the blender was woefully unequipped to handle the scale that we were working on. We then all admitted that none of us had ever been primarily responsible for latke creation in the past and decided to be flexible. And so we ended up making a small mountain of french fries, all of which were cut to different sizes. It wasn't our proudest moment, but the enthusiasm of Diversity Day was infectious and we forgot about the small setback. Some American highlights of the day included a group-wide "flashmob" to the Macarena (which I hope doesn't represent American culture…), my group of Environment trainees singing Wagon Wheel, and a small mountain of peanut butter and jelly. The Cameroonians of course put us all to shame with their own fashion show, dance party, and singing in both French and English. I ended the day much more excited about going to post and Cameroon in general. There are a lot of great parts of training, but it's easy to forget that there are many different aspects of Cameroon that we haven't even seen yet. Our exposure to Cameroon has been extremely limited, and we're very much living in sequestration. 

It's clear that we're being weaned out (or hardened off, as the LIFE sector likes to say) of life in Bafia, and the next stage of that came this week when we met our community hosts. I was a little unclear as of the role of community host prior to this week, but I learned that these are the people responsible for helping us transition to life at post and integrate into our communities. All of our community hosts live in our communities and will help us meet the appropriate people and adapt to cultural norms. Before the hosts arrived morning I had a flashback to meeting our host families, where we all stood awkwardly by one wall of the training center while they sat on the other. That day, my host family wasn't there to pick me up and I was left sitting in an empty room while the PC admin made some frantic phone calls on my behalf. But my worrying on Monday was unfounded, as my host saw my nametag quickly and wrapped me in a hug before she even told me her name. This was literally the opposite of how my introduction to my host family had gone, and I have a good feeling about how our relationship will proceed. 

My last point for today is about one of the sessions we had today, which was on international development and more specifically the book Two Ears of Corn. One of my good friends got her degree in international development and when I was talking to her yesterday I realized that I hadn't ever really thought about the need for development as one of the reasons that I joined the PC, at least not in such formal terms. I haven't taken any classes on the subject and know pretty much nothing other than the extreme basics that we talked about in a session a few weeks ago. Two Ears of Corn has made its way around the group of LIFE trainees, and when I started it yesterday I realized that there's a good reason for that. The book focuses on the need for community enthusiasm for a given project and the importance of remembering the social impacts of a given project. It also stresses the need for mutual respect between community members and outside development agents and encourages them to work with the poorest of the poor. There's much more that I'd love to put in here, but I think the takeaway is that I've been spending so much time and energy focusing on my own personal needs that it's easy to lose sight of the real reason that we're all here. Despite the fact that the majority of the conversations that my friends here and I have are about our adventures at our host families or our preparations for post, there are many people that have put a lot of thought into the ethics of development and if there's a right way to go about it. I really don't know enough about the subject to make any more of a claim, but I'm excited to continue this discussion and learn from my experiences. 

And to end on a lighter note, I learned last week that in Pidgin, a bunch of bananas are called a 'hand', and that a single banana is called a 'finger'. Brilliant. 

TL,DR: Training is almost over and although I'll be sad to leave Bafia and my friends from stage, I'm excited to learn more about Cameroonian culture and head to my post. When I get there I'll already have at least one friend and will know how to buy the right number of bananas at the market!

7th Week (much-needed) Funtime

I went to a college that had the good sense to use a trimester system. There were three 10-week terms that made up the academic year, and we took a manageable three classes per term. So it's been pretty easy for me to draw parallels between a familiar Carleton term and my 10-week Pre-Service Training. There were always peaks and valleys during each term in college, and it's seeming like those patterns are holding fairly true for this as well. We're in the middle of our 7th week, and I'm hoping all my Carls out there will have a good idea of how I'm holding up. It's the calm before the storm. The end is in sight, but it's still too far away to start coasting. Luckily, the Peace Corps has been doing this long enough to anticipate all of these feelings (it's a little scary how predictable our emotions seem to be) and have conveniently planned another trip out of Bafia, at least for the LIFE (Linking Income, Food, and the Environment) volunteers. This is my program, so my friends and I boarded a bus headed for Bangangte, in the West Province last Sunday. We spent two days there and learned various technical skills and the accompanying French vocabulary. Some trip highlights included a visit to a teaching farm that trains local farmers in ecological practices and a practical session in grafting and marcotting. I've never been one to get very excited about plants (as my friends in my Plant Bio class can attest), but it turns out that plants can do some pretty cool things. I'm not going to describe marcotting here, but look it up. So cool. Learning technical skills in French was a new experience for us and definitely had its challenges, but the accompanying demonstrations allowed us to get a pretty good grasp on the skills. The trip also allowed us a much needed opportunity to spend some time together outside of class, which we took full advantage of. The first night brought singing on the balcony into the night (including some T-Swift!!), and the second a movie night complete with snacks and wine. Not too rough. Other recent happenings-we had a soja (soy) demonstration (also in French-turns out they're pretty serious about this language learning) this past Saturday where we learned how to make soymilk and tofu. The Peace Corps heavily stresses IGAs (Income Generating Activities) as a way to assist local communities, and this one seems like it has a lot of potential. The tofu can be skewered with a little bit of pepper and onion and sold on the side of the road, which seems to be a main sales venue here. It takes quite a while to make soymilk, and even longer to take tofu, but that definitely isn't an obstacle for cooking here. In fact, it seems to be a prerequisite of sorts for any potential meal in Cameroon. There is one type of plant that requires intensive scrubbing before it can be cooked. With a sponge. But I digress. After the women teaching us finished making the tofu, they mixed it with some vegetables and sauce and ended up with the best tofu I've ever eaten. Side note-I heard rumors before I came here that the main seasoning in Cameroon is MSG, which I couldn't possibly believe. The rumors are true. All prepared food contains Maggi, a soy sauce lookalike that is basically straight MSG. I was ardently opposed to it for the first few weeks until I realized that it's in almost everything that we've been eating. My low point came when I caught myself adding it to my lunch at one point during our trip to the West. My last point for today will be on clothing, both new and old. It was pretty tough to pack for this adventure, as I was told that no one wears shorts but that the weather is always hot and sticky. I've been surviving just fine with what I brought, but my stage-mates and I have begun the adventure of having clothing made. The process is completely different than clothes shopping in the US, and begins by picking out the fabric that you want your clothes to be made out of, called pagne, (pan-yuh) which is usually extremely colorful and patterned. You then take the fabric to your favorite tailor, along with a sketch or picture of what you would like made. Theoretically you could just explain exactly how you want your clothes to be made, but this requires a higher level of French competency than I possess and also probably a high degree of trust in your tailor. My first foray into Cameroonian fashion was a dress, with a moderate degree of success. It looks pretty much nothing like I expected (or my picture looked like), but I'm happy with it nonetheless. This summer in the US I finally achieved my longtime goal of finding denim overall shorts (romperalls, if you will). It was with a heavy heart that I left them back home, but I was determined to get a similar (longer) pair made here. It took quite a bit of explaining (and three fittings), but I finally received the finished product yesterday. Pictures will hopefully come soon, but I would say that they're a huge success. TL, DR: My trip to the West Province served as a much needed break and bonding experience for the LIFE volunteers, but we're getting close to finishing up training. We're even starting to look the part!

Teaching farm in Bangangte

A Taste of Freedom



In my brief time as a Peace Corps Trainee, I've learned that the group of people that tend to be drawn to the Peace Corps tend to be adventurous, independent, and idealistic (although I'm not claiming to be all three…). Because of this, the last 4 weeks that we've spent captive in the small town of Bafia haven't always been the easiest. Many of us feel that our freedom has pretty much disappeared, and one trainee went as far as to claim today that he no longer knows how to crack an egg by himself. Lucky for us, the Peace Corps is aware of many of these feelings, and allowed us a brief reprieve from Bafia last week for our much-awaited site visits! In the past trainees have had the opportunity to visit their future sites and establish themselves as a presence in the community, but due to the shortened length of Pre-Service Training and the length of travel to some posts, we were instead given the opportunity to visit sites that had been randomly selected and were within a day's travel (at least on paper). I was assigned to visit Kumbo, a small city of 60,000 in the Northwest Province with two friends of mine. We set out early Wednesday morning for Bamenda, the regional capital of the Northwest. From there, we caught a taxi to Kumbo and filled the car with 6 passengers (taxis usually take 7 passengers plus the driver-we had to buy the last seat in the name of "comfort"). It's a minor miracle that we fit into the car with all of our things, but our driver was a determined one. The drive was a beautiful one, complete with mountain landscapes, rice cultivation, and even some waterfalls. A shout out to the Peace Corps spirit-at one point during the drive I received a call from a volunteer that I had never met. He had heard that we would be passing through his town and wanted to come out and wave to us as we drove past. And he did! The one hiccup in our journey came when we learned that we had a flat tire (as the sun was setting and the town quickly was getting dark). It was a little worrisome when the driver left us on the side of the road in search of someone that could fix it, but Danielle picked up the tire iron that he left next to the car and we were completely fine. But the slight delay meant that the journey took us more than 12 hours from door to door. It was a pretty wonderful thing when we finally arrived and our host Bridget had an American meal of spaghetti and salad already prepared for us. The next few days were pretty incredible and a wonderful break from training. We went to a yogurt/cheese factory as a way of preparing for my research project on cheesemaking. And to get there we took motorcycles, which was a first for me. So much fun, and at one point we found ourselves weaving through a herd of cows. Not a bad way to do some research. Other trip highlights included visiting the market (which comes every 8 days as per the traditional calendar), making guacamole, hiking to a waterfall, eating my first spaghetti omelet, (such a strange concept but unsurprisingly delicious) and generally getting a feel for life as a PCV. Life seems pretty good in Kumbo, and it was a wonderful break from the regularity of training. But all trips must end, and we found ourselves back in Bafia on Sunday after a 28 hours trip back that included a stay in Bamenda. Turns out that the trip is much more pleasant that way. And a big shout-out and thank-you to Bridget, Shannon, and the rest of the PCVs that made the trip so much fun. Before we left for our site visits, we all completed forms and had interviews to share our preferences for our future site placement. Of course, none of us had ever visited any of the sites (or even the regions, as none of us have ever left the Central region and none of the placements were here). But nonetheless, we all became quite attached to the idea of different regions and sites from the small descriptions we were given and began to get excited about certain posts. Post announcements weren't until the Wednesday following our return from site visit, and they were potentially the least useful two days of training. No one could focus on anything other than our future posts, and tensions were a little high. Many people had listed the same posts as their top choice, but the final decision was completely out of our hands. I can't really speak for my fellow trainees, but for me this was the first time in a while that such an important decision would be made without my final input. Two years is a long time to be living in a place and working at a job that you didn't choose yourself. Although to be fair, accepting the decision of others has been a theme so far in my PC service. But they haven't led me astray yet, and this time was no exception. In the end, I was assigned my first choice post, working with Heifer International in a small village on the edge of Bamenda, which is the third largest city in Cameroon. We got to spend a little bit of time in Bamenda on our way back from site visit, and I've heard that it's a great city, and contains many of the things that Americans living abroad occasionally crave. During our one night there I was even able to find pizza (although I'm not sure if I would have considered it pizza stateside…)! And I'll be living just outside the city limits in a small village, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully it'll be the best of both worlds in a way. I will be working with farmers as an extension agent in increase milk production and potentially on a biogas project as well. It sounds like my work is slightly more structured than that of my fellow trainees, which I hope will make the beginning of my service a little easier. Anyway, this post has gotten a little long, so props if you made it all the way through. Life's good here, and we're full steam ahead with training. And now we've got a frame of reference in terms of how to prepare for where we're headed. TL, DR: Site visits showed a glimpse of life beyond training, and life's good in the Northwest region. Lucky for me, I'll be heading there to work with Heifer International in Bamenda (and speaking English)!

Snacks on Snacks?

I grew up in a house with a Jewish mother. Any time any of my friends came over, my mom was quick to offer snacks and ensure that we were all properly fed. In my four years of college, I received very few care packages that didn't contain at least a few granola bars tucked in for good measure (although I did get one containing just chocolate and underwear "All the life essentials!"). At least once during my childhood my mom told us "food is love". Long story short, food has always played an important role in the Silver family way of life. I can't claim to have adequately researched Cameroon before I stepped on the plane, but I definitely looked into the food situation. One of the guidebooks I found described Cameroonian cuisine as "functional". I was worried. Almost a month in, I can't claim that these claims were entirely unfounded but I have definitely been happily surprised more often that I would have expected. The diet (at least in Bafia in the Central Province) is relatively starchy and a meal usually consists of a carbohydrate/sauce combo. Some of the names are a little deceptive; I wasn't too worried when I heard that we would be eating a lot of couscous and gumbo. I was in for a bit of a surprise when I was served these dishes, as neither of them are the same as their American counterpart. The advantage to this cuisine is that it's been quite easy so far to keep up my vegetarian ways. The downside is that my palate is quite confused and doesn't yet know what to make of all these new foods. And for the first few days I was pretty sure that the only method of cooking here is deep frying. Not exactly my jam. Although fried plantains are pretty delicious. But in all seriousness I've been eating a lot of rice, fish, beans, and sandwiches (see section on peanut butter). And they serve us lunch every day at the training center that usually contains some pineapple (anana in French) and avocados/tomatoes.

            I have had a few culinary successes already. Early on in staging I expressed my love of peanut butter and my host brother Peggy and I scoured the market for it. We were unsuccessful (although we did find both jam and ketchup!!) but Peggy showed me how to make my own and it's relatively easy to make and delicious. We've made it consistently since then and whipped up another batch tonight. Another success came this weekend when a few of us set out to make a cake for a friend's birthday. We decided to make it at Anna's house and she went to the market to get the ingredients with her host brothers. Word got out about our project to all of the boys of the neighborhood and before we knew it the kitchen was filled with small children cracking eggs into the bowl. The cake turned out miraculously well and we brought it to our group's soccer game (word also got out about that-there were probably 15 Americans and 35 Cameroonian boys present). A few days ago one of our current PC Volunteer trainers told us that a motto for PC Cameroon is: 'Cameroon-where nothing seems to work but everything seems to work out". This is sounding more and more accurate the more time I spend here, and it's oddly refreshing. At no point during the cake baking did we ever panic-not when Anna went shopping without a recipe, not when the kitchen was swarming with children, and definitely not when Anna's host sister showed us the toaster oven that we would be baking the cake in. No powdered sugar? No problem, nothing a little chocolate and milk powder can't fix. And the language barrier just presented a whole other set of of obstacles. But we ended up with at least three cakes and the one we tried wasn't too bad at all.

Did I mention that I've been eating avocados almost every day? There's really no problem to speak of here.

TL, DR: I've got my work cut out for me in terms of getting used to the food here. But at least I know how to make peanut butter now!

My New Normal?

Just over a week ago my stage-mates and I moved to the small towns of Bafia and Bokito to begin our real Pre-Service Training. I'm in the Environment sector (soon to be called "Sustainable Livelihoods") and am based in Bafia, which is the larger of the two. We were prepared for pretty intensive living conditions, but my experience thus far has been intense in ways other than I previously expected. All of the host families speak primarily French and have committed to feeding us breakfast and dinner. Before coming to Bafia I had primarily been worried about the physical facilities and moving out of the comfort and relative security of the hotel. While these worries weren't completely unfounded, I completely failed to think about the other challenges associated with a homestay. In addition, I was completely overconfident about my French skills. 

A quick note on that: I placed into an intermediate medium level French class, and was extremely proud of myself. My stage-mates run the gamut in terms of French ability and I was relieved to be middle of the road. Just for clarification, I have taken almost 8 years of formal French classes, and am still extremely mediocre. The Peace Corps language program is incredibly intensive and require intermediate-high competency for placement in a Francophone region. My class has only 4 people and is usually the high point of training each day. Lots of playtime, as long as we speak exclusively French. It's a good thing that the PC is taking our language training seriously though, because it can be something of a strugglefest at my house. In theory I know enough French to communicate relatively smoothly, as long as I'm spoken to directly and relatively slowly. In practice, I understand almost nothing. Rien. I often understand my host siblings, but am struggling to get anything other than the most simple ideas across. 

I hadn't prepared myself to live in an environment where I can't fully express myself and have any type of complicated conversation. This has turned out to be the biggest challenge so far, as I've found myself dealing with the more obvious physical challenges (of which there are quite a few). I was quite proud of myself when I remained (relatively) calm and quickly killed the giant spider cruising up my wall. And bucket showers? No sweat. The no-flush toilets are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but I'm making it work. The language barrier is sometimes a source of amusement around here, especially as I try to figure out basic tasks. The first time I asked my host brother how to use the toilet, he looked at me in confusion and then told me that I had to start by taking my pants off. Thanks, bro. 

My favorite thing so far about living in Cameroon are the small victories that can be found around every corner. This week's big win? Homemade peanut butter. My host brother took me to the market for the first time and we hunted in vain for some premade stuff, which I was sure we would be able to find. He wasn't so sure, and he was of course right. But my friend TJ picked up some peanuts for me and my host brother showed me how to roast and grind them. Yumyumyum. Another food win: Chocolate spread and banana sandwiches. My new favorite breakfast. 

Final thought: a large part of our training has consisted of cross-cultural sessions designed to prepare us for our new lives and success at post. Many of the sessions have been mind-blowing and have challenged my own views on the way that Americans do things. I'm not quite ready to think exclusively in terms of Cameroon yet. One of the more interesting sessions was focused on the concept of Cameroonian (and African in general) time. Things move slowly here, and there's a much greater emphasis on greetings and formality. Because of this, it is much more important to go through the necessary greetings than to adhere to a specific schedule. As an American, I'm used to expectations regarding time and often find myself late for wherever I'm headed. Here, it's not uncommon for people to be hours late for a particular event. When we asked a current Peace Corps Volunteer how late is considered "late", he seemed surprised and answered with "6 hours?" So that might take some getting used to. At first I was appalled, but then I was thinking about the American pace of life and the stress that comes with it. I'm not here to pass judgement on either culture, but it was something I've been thinking about, so I figured that it might be worth sharing. 

View from the hotel in Yaounde. Definitely far from home!

TL, DR: Life in Bafia is full of new challenges that I'm mostly overcoming. Still working on French fluency and a more stable home life. Haven't starved yet, though!