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.