January 16, 2014 Every morning I wake up to the sound of the rooster crowing. It is too early for me to get up. What will I fill my day with if I get up now? I suppose I could speak to locals in broken French/terrible Fulfulde, drink hot Chai tea in the 90-degree weather, or eat beignets with my new friends. I usually choose to fall back asleep while the rooster crows and the Mosque calls all the men to prayer. I wake up again around 8 and hear the mama’s sweeping and grinding mais (corn) for dinner. They’ve been up for hours, possibly before the rooster started crowing. Most of the kids are at school, which means a quiet(er) morning for me. There are some kids who don’t go to school and come knock on my door within minutes of me opening up my house. Sometimes I unlock the door and let them in to play with Legos, draw, or simply point to things and say the word in Fulfulde. Other mornings, I ignore them and enjoy my chai tea, with a spoonful of Nescafe in it, alone. When I finish my tea/coffee, I debate going to a neighbors, to the market, or staying home. It varies with my mood. If I go to a neighbor’s house, I am usually (almost always) given food. I sit and eat with my hand and talk to them as best I can. Sometimes they teach me how to prepare something; so far, couscous du ris (rice), les arachides (peanuts) with a yummy covering (dad, you will love them!), bon bons, and chai tea. I even had to re-learn how to make rice here. RICE! It’s like one of the simplest things to make. Last time I made it I was instantly nauseous and lied on the couch moaning (as you read about earlier). I learned the rice here can be very dirty and you need to wash it at least 3 times and pick out the small rocks before cooking it. I make the dusty, dry walk to the market, pass by the moto boys and say hi to my regular moto taxi driver. When I go to the market I usually need to buy telephone credit. The man I buy it from has already memorized my number. I cross the street and check my friend’s boutique to see if he’s there. I wander over to the bread man who speaks English and gives me beignets if I don’t buy them first. They are delicious. Nearly every time I visit him he asks if I want to be his third wife. I just laugh and tell him his wives are my friends and walk away thinking, “God, I hope he’s joking.” Sometimes I hang out in the market for hours, I think I’ve spent a whole day there perfectly content. You can eat, drink water/juice, listen to music and people-watch to your heart’s desire. I wave at random kids selling food they carry on a tray on their head. Sometimes they smile and giggle, sometimes they just stop and stare. Other times they start to cry and sometimes when their sibling or mom pushes the poor kid closer to me they scream bloody murder. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious; sometimes I want to cry right along with him. When I’m at home, I’m resting on my couch with my door closed (called a reposer here), reading, or cleaning. I read a lot and clean a decent amount. I read novels (at least 5 so far), study language books, and try to understand this job called Peace Corps here in Mayo-Darlé. My neighbors come and visit, but now that school is back in session, there is less traffic here during the day. There are days I’m grateful for this, and other times I go outside to find someone to talk to or watch while they cook and clean, sometimes helping, always learning. The other day I went to a compound to visit a family (English and Fulfulde speaking) and learned how to make the yummy peanuts. Before that, I sat on the ground with the wife while someone braided her hair and the kids petted mine. I felt like a doll/pet, but it was kind of nice. They played with my hair, inspected my face, pointed out all my zits, tried on my huge sunglasses, and showed me their dance moves. It was a great day; I felt so loved and welcomed. I keep telling myself, “Once I know the languages better I can do some actual work.” I have no idea what I’m doing for work right now. Is this my work? Maybe this is it for now. It is exhausting but I don’t feel like I’m successfully DOING anything here. I attend some meetings every week, trying to understand what the general topic of the week is by deciphering a few words. There are days I can talk and be understood, other times my friends make comments like “your French is lost today” and I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes when I get frustrated and can’t understand their fast Fulfulde/French conversations, I start speaking fast English. It doesn’t do anything but make me feel a little better. I got a lot of mail today, letters, cards and a CD (I feel so special to get an Erica CD in Africa!! It’s been on repeat since I opened it). Thank you everyone! It made my day and also made me miss you all and miss home dearly. It’s starting to feel more like home here, but still hard to adjust. I just have to make a little side note here. The other day I was talking to my neighbor and made a comment about Mayo-Darlé being “en brousse,” or “in the bush” in English. He had no time to think about how to react, he simply smacked me and said “Mayo-Darlé is NOT en brousse.” It was not a mean smack, it was more of a friend smacking your arm when you tease them and they want you to stop. I felt kind of bad; I was partly joking but mostly serious. Later that day we joked about it and I clarified, for me this life is “en brousse,” but it isn’t “en brousse” here in Cameroon. I just had to make sure you all know that I’m not living “en brousse” here in Mayo-Darlé! We have electricity 4 hours a day (4.5 if it is a holiday), we have many water wells and pumps, and there is a decent market area. Like my friend said, it’s basically Yaoundé (the capital city) here.