So here's a shot of us fighting the waves in Kribbi. We were here for a week long seminar about our work objectives and information sharing and whatnot, but after the meetings we got to spend our lives on the beach and eating some of the most authentic seafood I've ever had. (As I live in the middle of the U.S. where fish direct from Lake Michigan is considered a delicacy, this should not surprise anyone.) The waves were strong enough to pull my suit off a number of times, and the fields of jagged rocks didn't help things, but it's an African tourist locale, so imminent death and random nudity (representing all age groups) are par for the course.

These are the two youngest kids of my neighbors, Aoula and Anna and their dog and puppy. This puppy is the reason I don't have the desire to get a dog, since I can go and play with it whenever I want. Puppy's like children, aren't too hard to find in my village. On any given day,

about 2/3rds of the female dogs are pregnant or nursing pups, and people are dying to get rid of them.

Ok, so this is my little neighbor Anna (pronounced with really long A's) right before she went to take a bath. She's on the porch of her parent's house, which is slightly bigger than mine, but holds 8 kids. I like the shot because the surroundings are very typical of upscale Cameroonian families in my village. Basically the rule is, if you have money, you have a cement house, and if you don't, you live in a mud hut with a straw roof. Anna comes over to my house to play with the cat or search for fruit seeds pretty much every day, and at first I couldn't communicate with her by anything but exaggerated hand signals, but now we can chat in Fulfulde...sort of.

This is me in my sweet Women's Day outfit, waiting to march in the parade with the Wives of People in the Medical Profession women's group. (That's the literal translation from the French; I'm sure I could think of something a little jazzier if I had the motivation.) International Women's Day is every March 8th, and in villages as out there as mine, it's really just an excuse for the women to get dressed up, parade around, then get drunk without having to worry about doing chores or cooking or watching the kids. The sad part is that in reality, they just work twice as hard the day before in order to have the freedom to leave their duties for a few hours. Women's Day ends promptly at 6pm, 'when the women return to their kitchens,' as the posters read, but luckily for me, I qualify as some sort of androganous anomaly that needn't follow the rules, so I partied with the women all day, then just continued with their husbands at night. One of my goals for next year is to attempt to turn Women's Day into a time for actual awareness of gender issues, instead of a rote festival with vague motivations that have been lost in the translation from the highminded government officials who created the holiday.

So sometime near the end of January, the hospital staff through an end of the year party at the doctor's house, and I was invited, seeing as how I kind of work at the hospital. One of the inevitable features of Cameroonian fetes is a big, awkard group shot of everyone in attendance, usually after they're too drunk to feel self conscious or impatient about it. So here we have everyone that works at the Bibemi District Hospital and the surrounding health centers, including the doctor, nurses, guards, cooks and what-have-yous. Since it's not painfully obvious, I'm the white chick in the very front of the shot that looks about as out of place as Dick Cheney at a pro-choice rally.

This is Bouba Toumba, my Peace Corps-assigned counterpart in village. This means it's his responsibility to look after me and make sure I meet everyone and make friends and such. He's also the nurse at the health center where I work, so he pretty much runs my entire world in Bibemi. When we first met at the counterpart workshop in November, I couldn't speak French to save a dying bald eagle, and he couldn't stay awake through any of the sessions. Needless to say, our relationship going into post was tenuous at best, and he at first showed no indication that he even knew I was in town. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is that he's actually one of the most sarcastic and hilarious people I know, and we've since become fabulous friends. This picture is quintessentially Bouba. Side note: he drives a motorcycle with spiderman-themed seat covers, if that surprises anyone.

This is my house in village. Is anyone surprised it's the only picture I've taken since I finished training? Anywho, they'll be much more to say about this later, but the important thing is it miraculously has AC (only 2 houses in the entire program have it) and its in the middle of a forest, a point I have made before, but find so randomly sweet that it warrants repetition. Sidenote- yes, I will be adding red trim so I can say I'm the Peace Corps volunteer who lives in the red, white and blue house. Unlike in most foreign lands, unabashed American patriotism is COOL in Africa!