December 6, 2013 I woke up at 4:55 am to the sound of something crawling around above my head. I thought it was a mouse at first, but after hearing it fly around I’m quite certain it was a bat. My biggest fear was it coming through my tablecloth-like-material ceiling. I got out of my mosquito net in my pajama shirt with my headlamp on full strength. After a few seconds of following the noise, I decided a video might be fun for some day when I’m looking back on this crazy life. It’s not funny in the moment, but man I bet I’ll think it’s funny one day. I’m hoping my cats got that stupid bat, but who knows what happened to it. I couldn’t go back to bed after that, but I didn’t hear it flying/crawling back and forth. (Hilarious side note: mouse in French is souris, bald in French is chauve, and bat in French is chauve-souris. Literally bald mouse…day just made.) So, now it is almost 8 am and I’ve had 3 cups of Nescafe and am almost ill. I think I need some water to top off the caffeine. It’s surprisingly cold this morning, or maybe I just haven’t been up this early before. I have jeans and a sweatshirt on; it feels so homey and comfortable. I truly am a Montana girl. Like Jess said in one of her encouraging cards, I do think being from Montana, being a Bjerke woman, and having been camping before makes living in a village in Cameroon a little better. I am stubborn, used to climbing around outside, and popping a squat. The things I’m not used to are the critters and their steroid induced size. Makes me grateful for winter back home. I’ve embarrassingly asked a young man here to come in to kill a large spider in my kitchen. He laughed and said, “You are scared?” I responded with an emphatic “OUI.” He probably had a good laugh to himself and probably to his family and friends. I just want to say that I CAN kill spiders that don’t look like they can eat my hand off. It is getting closer to Christmas, I’m excited but it doesn’t feel like it at all here. Thanksgiving came and went and my birthday passed without much contact with family and friends back home. I’m trying to enjoy the holiday things I love. Heather sent me a mini Christmas tree and stocking, which I love and have strategically placed out of the reach of the kiddos. Also, I am listening to A Hometown Country Christmas, the CD of Christmas back home. I can never get sick of it. There’s even the song my Uncle Brett used to sing in church with his girls. It always makes me smile. The holiday season without family, friends, Bjerke food, and snow is rough. I’ve done this before, but I had Skype, internet, some comfort food and a sister for Christmas. It is depressing at times, but I did enjoy a trip to a nearby town with electricity, which means cold drinks, and the company of some fellow PCV’s. We ate lots of good snacks like baguettes, olives, dark chocolate, and wine. All things you can’t find here in Mayo-Darlé. I also hoarded some Vache Qui Rit, or Laughing Cow Cheese, to bring back to post with me. It is sad that is my version of cheese right now. But, at least it’s cheese and it doesn’t need a refrigerator. I brought back carrots, apples, and green peppers. Again, rare treats here in village. Yesterday, I went to a meeting with an Anglophone lady in village. That was nice, she helped translate some of the Fulfulde for me. Also, the meeting was just a group of women who save money together and help each other out when needed. It was great to be able to observe. I went to the house of the woman, who took me to the meeting, before we went and she gave me a big bowl of rice and beans. I was hungry and it was food I like, so I ate it all, I was stuffed. That was just the beginning. What I didn’t know was food is a part of this meeting. I was fed couscous and sauce, a beignet, kola nuts, and mullet (or some sort of thick drink with the texture of curdled milk). I finally had to say no to the mullet and I think the lady was like, “WHAT?” I tried, I really did, but my stomach was full to my throat with food full of acid, I wanted to run home and drink water and have a Zantac (which I did do eventually). I shoved the kola nuts and beignet in my pocket to go (Yep, that’s right, I pulled a Dean Bjerke). I gave the kola nuts to my neighbors and the beignet to my cats. Next time I know to bring some sort of to go container so I can take the food but not shove my face at the moment and, also, not to eat a whole bowl full of rice and beans before the meeting. Besides that, it was interesting and the women were very kind, welcoming, and obviously very giving with their food. Oh, and make that 4 cups of coffee and twice through A Hometown Country Christmas.

December 1, 2013 My birthday is in 3 days. I’m going to Banyo – a bigger town than Mayo-Darlé – for the day to observe and participate in World Aids Day activities. I’m hoping I can get a cold drink since they have electricity. This morning I woke up feeling like I spent yesterday working out. I was extremely tired and sore. Yesterday was a busy day. I woke up, washed my dishes, got water for the bathroom, washed my clothes, and got water for the kitchen. That is a day worth of work since everything is done by hand. Life here is so different and a little hard at times. I told my neighbor girl I was tired and she asked what I had done to be so tired. I told her yesterday I worked a lot, but today I haven’t done anything. She laughed and said life is hard here. I couldn’t agree more. The same neighbor girl took me to a potential work partner’s house who speaks English. It was a nice little break from French/Fulfulde, although everyone in the house speaks French and Fulfulde and she talks to her kids in Fulfulde. She fed me, as all Cameroonians do to their guests, and it was delicious. I ate FOUR beignets, the fried dough balls, and they weren’t small ones by any means. She makes a mean beignet. I’ll be back for those. She also served me the usual chai tea. I think it is different than chai tea back home, but it is very tasty. I love it, which is good since it is widely available. You never know what you’ll wake up to here. So far, one week in, I’ve woken up to something crawling around in the ceiling above my head, to bugs I can’t identify in my latrine, or to horses outside my window. Sometimes it is kids banging on my door saying “Maureen” or sometimes it is the large birds on the tin roof. It is always a surprise, whatever it is. Sometimes I wake up thinking there are kids outside my bedroom window, however, it is just the goats coughing and bleating which sound like children. There was one day I woke up and went to make some Nescafe and saw there was some sort of mud nest/home made inside the tin foil roll. I still am unsure what lives in there, and afraid to find out, I just left it there. Right next to my food I eat.

November 28, 2013 Happy Thanksgiving all! I miss everyone and I am sorry America, but I am pretending it is not a holiday at all to keep myself from getting sad. However, just like Thanksgiving in the States, I ETP’d tonight. (For those of you who don’t know, ETP stands for Eat ‘Til ya Puke. It’s just a saying; I usually just eat until I want to puke.) It’s the first time in a few days I’ve been this full. I made rice with Maggi (some sort of salt cube made with stuff I don’t want to think about), tomatoes, garlic, and hardboiled eggs. Quite the feast, huh?! The rice was amazingly bland but I used my peppercorn grinder to spice it right up and voilà, a wonderful feast. In true Cameroonian fashion, I had a visitor while I was eating, so I offered him a plate. He accepted and somehow got it all down. I can only imagine what he thought of this American girl’s gourmet cooking, who once tried to put tartar sauce in Snicker doodles. After that, I shared the burnt leftovers with my two cats who prefer to eat out of my dish, not theirs. They are spoiled. There’s definitely no turkey in sight here, but there’s plenty of chicken and duck running around outside. There’s no way I am going to butcher, clean, and cook any of that myself though. I’d probably break down and puke/cry/faint before I got to the cooking part and definitely wouldn’t be able to eat the meat I was just talking to outside. Yeah, I know family, I eat meat and I know where is comes from but I can’t kill it. I’ve been cleaning every day. My house is looking better and better. The dirtiness is my biggest challenge, right up there with the bugs on steroids. My neighbor said, “every time I come in you are cleaning.” I’m afraid that may not change, but we will see. I will try to let some of my OCD tenancies go here in Africa. I’ve already tried a little, but the line can’t go down any farther right now. I need some cleanliness and control over my environment. Ugh, there are cockroaches in my kitchen, bedroom and living room. There are spiders, flies, and lizards in my latrine. There are bats and mice between my ceiling and roof. There are ants in my entryway and huge birds that clamber around on my tin roof. Today I did my dishes in well water, as opposed to the river, but the downside of this is people watch over my shoulder. The neighbor lady took the soap and rag and washed my dishes for me, telling me to simply rinse them and put them in the bucket. I didn’t object, but I did feel bad. Maybe someday I will know the right way to do things here. I don’t know if it is nerves or what, but I’ve been eating like a pig here, and not a healthy pig. I eat spoonfuls, or forkfuls (whatever’s clean), of peanut butter everyday, multiple times a day. I buy Mambo bars – yes multiple bars – every day. They are mini milk chocolate bars that are cheap and okay in quality/taste. But I must say, for now they are like a special treat, and dessert after every meal. I have two cups of Starbucks Via every morning, with two cups of Licorice Spice tea at night. Those things are sure to run out soon, so I will probably switch to two cups of Nescafe and some kind of local tea. I’m sure with enough sugar and cocoa, it will be just as satisfying. Life here is extremely different. It is difficult to be here and even more so to speak, comprehend, and learn Fulfulde and French. I try, but it is exhausting. There are times throughout the day when I just shut my door and hide in my house. Thanks to my mom, I don’t sit in complete darkness though (there’s a lack of natural light in here). I love my little version of a “twig light” and think it has become my best friend, right up there with Insecticide and Mambos. Well, I only have an hour of electricity left and need to bath before it’s off because if I don’t there’s no telling what might happen in that dark latrine. One bonus here is I can heat up my bathing water, so no more cold bucket baths. Pretty exciting, and it helps me feel a little cleaner. Still hard to feel clean when you bath over your toilet hole. I guess I’ll get used to it, maybe not though. Mo in Africa is a little different than Mo in the States, but I still have a lot of the same little quarks that are hard to let go of. I’m sure some will slowly and painfully disappear over two years. Miss and love you all. I love getting any mail and thank you to everyone that has sent something so far. I sent a lot of letters during training, but there will be a big break of no mail since I’ve been moving, adjusting, and re-learning how to live like an adult.

November 27, 2013 Wow, I don’t know where to start. What an adventure. It has been quite the adjustment, again. It is difficult to explain where I am living, what life is like, and how different it is from the States. After training in Bafia, with 54 other Americans in the same boat, being shipped off to post alone is a shock. Now, I am in Mayo-Darlé in the Grand North of Cameroon. It is in the Adamoua region, a few miles away from the Nigerian border. Don’t worry; apparently we are far away from any of the Nigerian drama. Although, I’ll admit I was worried and still am. Mayo-Darlé is a small town, maybe large village, with about 6-8,000 people. It is hard to tell if that is the town or the entire area, including surrounding villages. So far, everyone has been very nice and welcoming. I’ve only been bothered by a couple people asking me for something. The kids in my neighborhood already know my name, love coming in my house, even if I’m just sitting there in silence and darkness. If I am cleaning, they come in and take the “broom” (lots of thin sticks gathered together with a rubber string) out of my hands and finish sweeping. They do a better job than I can, so I just say “Merci” and let them go. No matter their age or gender, they are definitely less scared than I am of bugs, so that is another plus when cleaning. My house is pretty nice, just needs a good scrubbing. It is solid concrete with a tin roof and a thick tablecloth-like-material as the ceiling. The ceiling is a little disconcerting because it sags a lot; God only knows what is weighing it down. The nails that hold the ceiling up are coming out of the concrete walls and bugs peak out of the crack, both dead and alive. There are three windows in my house. The two bigger ones are about 2’ by 2’ and the other maybe half that. It is pretty dark in here since there is only electricity from 6:30 – 10:30 pm. Since I am replacing a volunteer, there is quite a bit of furniture. I have a couch, some comfy chairs, a table, a bed, some bookshelves, an armoire, a desk, and shelf for dishes. I have an indoor latrine (a hole in the floor) for my bathroom and shower. It will take some getting used to. My kitchen is off the entryway with a tank of gas and a cook top stove. Similar to what one might take camping in Montana, just nicer (it was one of my splurges in the city). I live in a compound area, or maybe neighborhood is more appropriate, I honestly don’t know. All the people are very sweet. Behind my house is a small garbage pit area where we burn the trash. The exception is the kids go through my trash, either before, during, or after I am burning it. Let me tell you it makes me feel very wasteful. I’ve never found more truth to the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” or whatever it is. I’d be happy to give it to them, but I don’t want to create any fights among the kids or set any type of precedence that the American will give them things all the time. Just down the hill from my house, there’s a pretty big river. I’m not sure of the name, it sounds like Marigold without the ‘d’ but that’s probably just my lack of French and Fulfulde skills. I washed my dishes in it twice now, with the instruction and help of the neighbor kids. Apparently I shouldn’t be doing that since the river is used for everything you can think of and I can get some sort of disease from it. So far, so good. I’m on the lookout for any symptoms though. I guess next time I will use the well water. Although, I got to say, it was kind of nice, hanging out and talking with the kids, washing dishes in a river. When I arrived (Sunday, November 24) I was very nervous about carrying and transporting all my stuff. However, I only ever had to carry a couple bags out of all my stuff. Everyone who was around helped me every time I had to move it. I spent a couple days in the city of Bafoussam, where I’ll go for banking (and maybe internet) once a month. From Bafoussam, I took a small bus to Mayo-Darlé. There were 19 official seats, but there were probably 28 people in the bus, a mix of adults, children, and babies (not to mention the chickens and chickadees). It left about 3 hours late, which no one seemed to think was odd. After we were all crammed in we had to stop for gas, and then another stop to fill up the tires. Throughout the trip there were multiple police checkpoints. It was uncomfortable after an hour, but after 8 hours it was painful. My butt fell asleep, my shoulder was rubbing on the metal and I actually thought we might tip over or hit a moto since the road is comparable to a back wood mountain road in Montana. When we arrived in a nearby town, it was dark out and some guy came up to me and said in French, “Nasara, get in that car over there” (Nasara is the Fulfulde version of la blanche, I actually don’t mind it as much). I tried to tell him in broken French, thanks but I will stay on the bus. Eventually, I find out the driver decided the trip was done for the night. There were about 10 of us, with our stuff, that had to continue to Mayo-Darlé. No worries though, 10 people can fit in a compact 2-door car here. There were 4 adults (including the driver) in the front seat area with one young boy. Yep, there were two grown men sitting in the driver’s seat. I’m not positive but there were at least 5 people in the back seat area. I was graciously given the front seat, but again, not super comfortable for the hour journey at mock speed on a bumpy dirt road. The driver never slowed down, even when we were driving through other towns and there were mobs of people on the road. He would simply slam on the horn and hope people moved in time – no, expected people to move in time. Pedestrian rights are non-existent here, along with the enforcement of traffic laws. I could not have been more relieved to reach Mayo-Darlé. I saw my community host as I opened the door. He is the person I met back in training, who will show me around the community, introduce me to the authorities and work with me on projects. After that short hello with a familiar face, a man came up and said “Hello, Nasara” and then told me he would take me to Sarah, the girl I’m replacing who left the following morning for the close of her Peace Corps Service. Going against 27 years of common sense, I simply grabbed my backpack and got in his car. Five minutes later I was at Sarah’s house, now my house, safe and sound. It was a wild day.