When I unpacked my bags upon arrival in Cameroon back in 2006, I found many laughably ill-conceived items, notably a raincoat (as if I do anything when it rains but stand under it with open arms clad as scantily as possible), red pepper (available at the local market for about half a cent a pound) and, most ridiculously, a fleece blanket. When I can barely handle a sheet over my feet at night, in what case would I ever have need for an insulating blanket? I contemplated making it into curtains and a tablecloth, but the hot pink doesn't really go with my Asian jungle/dirty cement motif. But friends, Armageddon has arrived; I've been using the fleece blanket. Like, religiously. I've never been so happy.
January was brutal in the Grand North of Cameroon, and by 'brutal,' I mean sometimes I need a long-sleeved shirt at night and, because I'm a wussy, I need to heat up my bath water in a pot. People ask me daily how I'm dealing with the cold (noy jangol?), and for once I can't flippantly answer "What cold? Where is it? You guys are crazy" because I'm wearing a parka and stocking cap just like they are. The question now is how much of my discomfort is actual chill and how much is my 16-month integration. I'll think about that as I gobble a fish head and sharpen my spear for my tribal dance date later tonight.
Bibemi is developing faster than the American dollar is devaluing; a dozen water pumps have been fixed or replaced AND a new cell phone tower is so close to working I can hear the inordinately expensive drunk dials already. Basically, when I got here, the village was a rusted-out Pinto and it's quickly morphing into a 2008 Lexus. Well, maybe a '98 Lexus. Let's not be silly. I've started water hygiene presentations in neighborhoods in tandem with the repairs, where we discuss carrying and storing water without contaminating it and how to make it safe for drinking (bleach is the key word). These take place AT the pump, with one meeting for heads of households and another for their wives (the ones actually fetching water). Without the pumps, the only water option is digging for it in the dry river and apparently things get precarious in March, so getting the pumps working is both tremendously gratifying and startlingly necessary.
In other news, I was selected to present on my projects at the next batch of Health volunteers' in-service training (at the beach!), so I'm getting ready for a vaca in the middle of March. With Women's Day right before on March 8th and an as-yet-unscheduled Hygiene Animator Training sometime before that, it'll be about time for one. I'll try to get on here with an update on the pumps before I go. Until then, hope everyone had a great start to 2008 and I resent the winter you're probably getting sick of by now.
