(ok ok I decided to just go ahead and post the long e-mail that I sent home…and geez it really really is long, I must find myself very very interesting) :)
Hello adoring Amber fans! Being the smart individual that I am, I bought 2 hours of internet this time and figured out how to change the french keyboard to the traditional english one...this way I am hopeful that you will actually get my e-mail this time!
FYI: the keyboard I'm using doesn't work well...keys stick and I can't look at my hands because the letters on the keys are different from what appears on the screen...thus if there are typos, it is clearly not my fault ;)
Right now I am in an internet cafe located in the building of Paul Biya's politcal party--the Cameroonian president...the computer here is cheeper and faster than the one I used last time.
Wow, so I had my birthday! I don't feel 22, I feel like I just had my 21st! 3 other staigiers had their birthday within a week of mine, so we had a big party on the saturday after mine. We all got together in the training house in Pitoa and drank Fanta and ate benyays. Good times!
ok...apparently I can't capitilize the o on this keyboard...whatever.
Anyway, I'm going to start typing up the letter that I've been writing...
Enjoy!
Dear Mom, Dad, Courtney, and anyone else reading this--
I hiked 10kilometers in 120 degree African heat down an unshaded highway 2 weekends ago to get to internet and then spent 50 minutes battling a French keyboard in order to send you a huge and terribly funny Amber update. As soon as I finished the e-mail, the internet crashed and my amazing e-mail was gone! I got really frustrated, but then my friend Ryan said that the same thing happened to him, so we ended up having a good laugh and used several of my favoite phrases: "Well, this is Africa." "So...this is Africa!" and "this is really happening!" -Courtney, the last one is terribly similar to the Grey's Anatomy's 'Seriousy, seriusly!' Yup...this is my life!
I am going to get all of my hard news out of the way before I tell you my funny stories, because I want to leave you with a happy feeling at the end :)
I texted Courtney this, but I now know that she is not getting my texts, so this should be new information...My APCD, George Yebit, was found dead in his hotel room a couple of weeks ago. Wow...it still blows my mind. He was up north setting up our sites when it happened, so we felt even worse about it. He was such an amazing guy--it was a huge blow to the program and to us personally. He and I had bonded on the first night over our passion against the bush meat trade. He was so excited to do our training, and he got us excited about it too. We just found out that it was a heart attack. Our poor training director had a hard time telling us about it, and our medical officer cried with us. For a group struggling with culture shock and homesickness, that was quite a blow to morale. However, I am so proud of how strong our group is and that we came together to support one another and that no one had ETed yet. APCD: Associate Peace Corps Director for Agro, ET: early terminate
Honestly, I don't think that I've ever had a week as hard as my first week here in Nassaraou. My first Sunday all I wanted to do was come home. I am currently in the beginning of stage 3 of culture shock, which is wonderful. Stage 1 was Yaounde, the honeymoon stage where everything is new and wonderful...stage 2 is horrid, it involves comparing everything to home and pointing out how hard everything is and doubting why you're here. Stage 3 is acceptance. I haven't had an emotionally hard day in a few weeks now, so that makes things here so much easier.
The homestay experience was quite a shock to my system...we'd been living together as a group the whole time and all of a sudden we were thrown into the craziness alone. The peace corps admits that it is much like throwing you into the deep end of the swimming pool with cement block tied to your feet and just wishing you luck. Hey, I made it!!!
Man we've done some crazy stuff here! For example: we had to draw our own blood to make malaria microscope slides, and we built our own mountain bikes, and I watched my host grandfather kill a viper!! We also got our motorcycle helmets which amuses me because mine is bright red, as if I don't stick out enough!!
Courtney--I have a library in my room! It's really just a metal trunk full of books, but the other volunteers can check them out from me, so basically I'm pretty cool :)
Also, I have a kitten!! Technically she belongs to my homestay family, but since she likes me so much, my family has asked me to take her with me when I leave. I gave her a bath last weekend, and she's getting a flea dip this weekend :) She doesn't mind because I’m doing it, and she thinks I’m great. Basically she likes me because I don't throw her across the compound like everyone else. of course they don't do that anymore because I made it clear that I wasn't comfortable with them abusing animals in my presence.
insert:
I guess me not approving of animal abuse didn't transfer to child abuse for them... The other night I was in my room studying and apparently 2 little boys were standing in my door watching me. I didn’t even notice them...but my hostfather caught them and trapped them in our compound and made me come out to see them. I didn't really understand what was going on, but tried to tell him that I didn’t care that they were watching me... Everyone laughed and then the father smacked both of the boys across the face. I gasped and was quite shocked because I know that child abuse is prevalent here, but I've never seen my dad hit his own kids. After that my dad released them and I ran back into my room and had trouble concentrating for the rest of the night. They were just curious about me!
ok...happy story time...actually, I'm quite famous for the following story now :)
After about 30 hours of traveling up from the south, we staigiers arrived in Pitoa--the town where the health staigiers train--where our homestay families were meeting us. Guess whose family didn’t show up!? oh yeah...mine. How sad, I was an orphan on my first night!! So one of the PC trainers-who didn’t speak english-took me to my house and dropped me off with my family who only speak French and Fulfulde--neither or which I speak, just for the record. The trainer left and my father sat me in the 'ceremonial chair' as I like to cal it, and sat and stared at me. After our bwee--drink used to break Ramadan each night--we had millet and viscous soup--affectionately known as snot soup because of its consistency. Then the neighbor kids came by to look at the nassara--'Whitey' in Fulfulde the local language...and then I was ushered off to 'bathe.' Washing oneself involved taking a bucket into the pit latrine and splashing oneself with water. By pit latrine, I mean open air concrete slab with a 3 inch hole in it. Now picture that with 20 21/2in. cockroaches running around whistling, and you know where I wash myself! obviously I finished quickly and went back to my room where I sweltered under my mosquito netting in my 110 degree concrete block room where I tried not to drown in my own pool of sweat. After laying there for a while, I realized that I needed to pee, so I got up and got completely dressed--because this is a muslim society and skin is never ok--I grabbed my headlamp, my toilet paper, and headed out into the African night...
And promptly locked myself in my latrine. let me restate that, I locked myself in as in I couldn't get back out. i.e. TRAPPED. I struggled with the lock for a while which made a lot of noise because the door is made of tin, so my entire family amassed outside the door to find out if I was ok. My 2 little brothers ended up crawling over the wall and when they couldn't get the door open with the pliers, they BIT the lock open. Yup...that's Africa for ya!!
Somedays I am absolutely amazed by the obsurdity of my life here. Just so you don’t worry, I wont be locking myself in again because when I woke up the next day, my family had changed the lock. Awesome...I would love to hear their version of that.
our group is bonding big time, and it makes a huge difference to have these amazing people here with me. My closest friend is actually a guy which poses some problems. Ex. this is a muslim society and so men and women are NEVER alone together. Whatever. Ryan has played a huge role in me staying sane here. He is my neighbor and we are the 2 furthest trainees from the school, so we always walk together and talk about our crazy lives. We have done a lot of talking about mental health and trying to find ways to stay positive during the tough times. The fact that he was able to admit that he was struggling with culture shock as well made a huge difference for me--just knowing that I wasn't the only one having those feelings was absolutely key.
-end of letter ... returning to current thoughts:
Thoughts on language...mine is improving like you wouldn't believe! last night my host father said "your french is so good now! I can understand you and you can understand me, I am very happy" That was pretty helpful because I have a shitty teacher right now who makes me want to tear my hair out because she is a butt and is totally unsupportive and unhelpful and basically yucky. I elected to take on tutoring 5 days a week, so i think that is helping me as well. We get tested again this Tuesday to see how well we're improving. I am hopeful that I will place novice high or intermediate low....to swear in as a volunteer I have to reach intermediate high by week 11...we are currently ending week 4. Week 4 meant the beginning of immersion. I.E. we're not allowed to speak english with trainers or with our friends at the training venue. That's massively hard and we cheat a lot :)
I've started to receive mail finally! It seriously felt like Christmas! I cried when they handed me all of the letters, it was so wonderful.
I made a list of all of the things I wanted to tell you in this e-mail, but this trip happened earlier than planned so I don't have the list with me! Gah!
ok...Courtney asked if I know where I'm going after training. This next week is week 5, and in week 6 they announce our posts. However...I have my heart absolutely dead set on Mozogo in the extreme north. on your map look up Maroua, and it is close to that. The reason I want it so bad is because it was designed for me....literally I was born to do this job. Mozogo is a national park and the community is interested in putting in an information/visitor center...ie interpretive center. I've never wanted something so badly. It's so me!!! I actually dreamt about it last night I want it so bad :) I've met the volunteer who is currently serving there and she is pushing to get me into the post....and I am the most qualified by FAR, so I have my fingers crossed big time. If you come to visit you can actually sleep in the park in a tree house that the current volunteer set up there...and then we can travel a little further up north to Waza national park which has elephants. But please keep in mind that if elephants charge us, you are supposed to hide behind a big tree. Do not forget that! one volunteers mother was gored to death in Waza a few years ago because she didn't understand the guide when he told her to hide behind a tree...because of the language barrier. I really want to show you this amazing country...but I don't think I could handle you dying. Ever. Don't forget that.
I have to laugh because of the amount of okra we eat here!!! Every single night I get millet and gumbo...Gumbo is the word for okra stew/sauce :) I don't love it yet! Especially since it is like snot and there are always fish bones in it. But I am eating well and am getting fruits and veggies and protein from beans and such. When grandma called I just flat out lied and told her that the food was great so she wouldn’t worry :)
I am doing well, I am in high spirits and really looking forward to our trip to Mozogo next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am healthy...relatively speaking. My only maladies are some weirdo heat rash--2 kinds!!!! and some heat headaches and heat-caused-nightmares. overall I feel very fortunate. We have one girl who was just diagnosed with malaria, the flu, and a lung infection while another girl has a fungus in her digestive track and another has amoebas. Don't worry, I am cleaning my water and taking my malaria prophylaxis religiously!!
I have an awesome Chaco tan line so far...everything else is pretty much covered all the time...but my hair is funny bleached out colors now too. Because my dirty blonde didn't stick out enough :)
love, Amber!!
Hello adoring Amber fans! Being the smart individual that I am, I bought 2 hours of internet this time and figured out how to change the french keyboard to the traditional english one...this way I am hopeful that you will actually get my e-mail this time!
FYI: the keyboard I'm using doesn't work well...keys stick and I can't look at my hands because the letters on the keys are different from what appears on the screen...thus if there are typos, it is clearly not my fault ;)
Right now I am in an internet cafe located in the building of Paul Biya's politcal party--the Cameroonian president...the computer here is cheeper and faster than the one I used last time.
Wow, so I had my birthday! I don't feel 22, I feel like I just had my 21st! 3 other staigiers had their birthday within a week of mine, so we had a big party on the saturday after mine. We all got together in the training house in Pitoa and drank Fanta and ate benyays. Good times!
ok...apparently I can't capitilize the o on this keyboard...whatever.
Anyway, I'm going to start typing up the letter that I've been writing...
Enjoy!
Dear Mom, Dad, Courtney, and anyone else reading this--
I hiked 10kilometers in 120 degree African heat down an unshaded highway 2 weekends ago to get to internet and then spent 50 minutes battling a French keyboard in order to send you a huge and terribly funny Amber update. As soon as I finished the e-mail, the internet crashed and my amazing e-mail was gone! I got really frustrated, but then my friend Ryan said that the same thing happened to him, so we ended up having a good laugh and used several of my favoite phrases: "Well, this is Africa." "So...this is Africa!" and "this is really happening!" -Courtney, the last one is terribly similar to the Grey's Anatomy's 'Seriousy, seriusly!' Yup...this is my life!
I am going to get all of my hard news out of the way before I tell you my funny stories, because I want to leave you with a happy feeling at the end :)
I texted Courtney this, but I now know that she is not getting my texts, so this should be new information...My APCD, George Yebit, was found dead in his hotel room a couple of weeks ago. Wow...it still blows my mind. He was up north setting up our sites when it happened, so we felt even worse about it. He was such an amazing guy--it was a huge blow to the program and to us personally. He and I had bonded on the first night over our passion against the bush meat trade. He was so excited to do our training, and he got us excited about it too. We just found out that it was a heart attack. Our poor training director had a hard time telling us about it, and our medical officer cried with us. For a group struggling with culture shock and homesickness, that was quite a blow to morale. However, I am so proud of how strong our group is and that we came together to support one another and that no one had ETed yet. APCD: Associate Peace Corps Director for Agro, ET: early terminate
Honestly, I don't think that I've ever had a week as hard as my first week here in Nassaraou. My first Sunday all I wanted to do was come home. I am currently in the beginning of stage 3 of culture shock, which is wonderful. Stage 1 was Yaounde, the honeymoon stage where everything is new and wonderful...stage 2 is horrid, it involves comparing everything to home and pointing out how hard everything is and doubting why you're here. Stage 3 is acceptance. I haven't had an emotionally hard day in a few weeks now, so that makes things here so much easier.
The homestay experience was quite a shock to my system...we'd been living together as a group the whole time and all of a sudden we were thrown into the craziness alone. The peace corps admits that it is much like throwing you into the deep end of the swimming pool with cement block tied to your feet and just wishing you luck. Hey, I made it!!!
Man we've done some crazy stuff here! For example: we had to draw our own blood to make malaria microscope slides, and we built our own mountain bikes, and I watched my host grandfather kill a viper!! We also got our motorcycle helmets which amuses me because mine is bright red, as if I don't stick out enough!!Courtney--I have a library in my room! It's really just a metal trunk full of books, but the other volunteers can check them out from me, so basically I'm pretty cool :)
Also, I have a kitten!! Technically she belongs to my homestay family, but since she likes me so much, my family has asked me to take her with me when I leave. I gave her a bath last weekend, and she's getting a flea dip this weekend :) She doesn't mind because I’m doing it, and she thinks I’m great. Basically she likes me because I don't throw her across the compound like everyone else. of course they don't do that anymore because I made it clear that I wasn't comfortable with them abusing animals in my presence.
insert:
I guess me not approving of animal abuse didn't transfer to child abuse for them... The other night I was in my room studying and apparently 2 little boys were standing in my door watching me. I didn’t even notice them...but my hostfather caught them and trapped them in our compound and made me come out to see them. I didn't really understand what was going on, but tried to tell him that I didn’t care that they were watching me... Everyone laughed and then the father smacked both of the boys across the face. I gasped and was quite shocked because I know that child abuse is prevalent here, but I've never seen my dad hit his own kids. After that my dad released them and I ran back into my room and had trouble concentrating for the rest of the night. They were just curious about me!
ok...happy story time...actually, I'm quite famous for the following story now :)
After about 30 hours of traveling up from the south, we staigiers arrived in Pitoa--the town where the health staigiers train--where our homestay families were meeting us. Guess whose family didn’t show up!? oh yeah...mine. How sad, I was an orphan on my first night!! So one of the PC trainers-who didn’t speak english-took me to my house and dropped me off with my family who only speak French and Fulfulde--neither or which I speak, just for the record. The trainer left and my father sat me in the 'ceremonial chair' as I like to cal it, and sat and stared at me. After our bwee--drink used to break Ramadan each night--we had millet and viscous soup--affectionately known as snot soup because of its consistency. Then the neighbor kids came by to look at the nassara--'Whitey' in Fulfulde the local language...and then I was ushered off to 'bathe.' Washing oneself involved taking a bucket into the pit latrine and splashing oneself with water. By pit latrine, I mean open air concrete slab with a 3 inch hole in it. Now picture that with 20 21/2in. cockroaches running around whistling, and you know where I wash myself! obviously I finished quickly and went back to my room where I sweltered under my mosquito netting in my 110 degree concrete block room where I tried not to drown in my own pool of sweat. After laying there for a while, I realized that I needed to pee, so I got up and got completely dressed--because this is a muslim society and skin is never ok--I grabbed my headlamp, my toilet paper, and headed out into the African night...
And promptly locked myself in my latrine. let me restate that, I locked myself in as in I couldn't get back out. i.e. TRAPPED. I struggled with the lock for a while which made a lot of noise because the door is made of tin, so my entire family amassed outside the door to find out if I was ok. My 2 little brothers ended up crawling over the wall and when they couldn't get the door open with the pliers, they BIT the lock open. Yup...that's Africa for ya!!
Somedays I am absolutely amazed by the obsurdity of my life here. Just so you don’t worry, I wont be locking myself in again because when I woke up the next day, my family had changed the lock. Awesome...I would love to hear their version of that.
our group is bonding big time, and it makes a huge difference to have these amazing people here with me. My closest friend is actually a guy which poses some problems. Ex. this is a muslim society and so men and women are NEVER alone together. Whatever. Ryan has played a huge role in me staying sane here. He is my neighbor and we are the 2 furthest trainees from the school, so we always walk together and talk about our crazy lives. We have done a lot of talking about mental health and trying to find ways to stay positive during the tough times. The fact that he was able to admit that he was struggling with culture shock as well made a huge difference for me--just knowing that I wasn't the only one having those feelings was absolutely key.
-end of letter ... returning to current thoughts:
Thoughts on language...mine is improving like you wouldn't believe! last night my host father said "your french is so good now! I can understand you and you can understand me, I am very happy" That was pretty helpful because I have a shitty teacher right now who makes me want to tear my hair out because she is a butt and is totally unsupportive and unhelpful and basically yucky. I elected to take on tutoring 5 days a week, so i think that is helping me as well. We get tested again this Tuesday to see how well we're improving. I am hopeful that I will place novice high or intermediate low....to swear in as a volunteer I have to reach intermediate high by week 11...we are currently ending week 4. Week 4 meant the beginning of immersion. I.E. we're not allowed to speak english with trainers or with our friends at the training venue. That's massively hard and we cheat a lot :)I've started to receive mail finally! It seriously felt like Christmas! I cried when they handed me all of the letters, it was so wonderful.
I made a list of all of the things I wanted to tell you in this e-mail, but this trip happened earlier than planned so I don't have the list with me! Gah!
ok...Courtney asked if I know where I'm going after training. This next week is week 5, and in week 6 they announce our posts. However...I have my heart absolutely dead set on Mozogo in the extreme north. on your map look up Maroua, and it is close to that. The reason I want it so bad is because it was designed for me....literally I was born to do this job. Mozogo is a national park and the community is interested in putting in an information/visitor center...ie interpretive center. I've never wanted something so badly. It's so me!!! I actually dreamt about it last night I want it so bad :) I've met the volunteer who is currently serving there and she is pushing to get me into the post....and I am the most qualified by FAR, so I have my fingers crossed big time. If you come to visit you can actually sleep in the park in a tree house that the current volunteer set up there...and then we can travel a little further up north to Waza national park which has elephants. But please keep in mind that if elephants charge us, you are supposed to hide behind a big tree. Do not forget that! one volunteers mother was gored to death in Waza a few years ago because she didn't understand the guide when he told her to hide behind a tree...because of the language barrier. I really want to show you this amazing country...but I don't think I could handle you dying. Ever. Don't forget that.
I have to laugh because of the amount of okra we eat here!!! Every single night I get millet and gumbo...Gumbo is the word for okra stew/sauce :) I don't love it yet! Especially since it is like snot and there are always fish bones in it. But I am eating well and am getting fruits and veggies and protein from beans and such. When grandma called I just flat out lied and told her that the food was great so she wouldn’t worry :)
I am doing well, I am in high spirits and really looking forward to our trip to Mozogo next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am healthy...relatively speaking. My only maladies are some weirdo heat rash--2 kinds!!!! and some heat headaches and heat-caused-nightmares. overall I feel very fortunate. We have one girl who was just diagnosed with malaria, the flu, and a lung infection while another girl has a fungus in her digestive track and another has amoebas. Don't worry, I am cleaning my water and taking my malaria prophylaxis religiously!!
I have an awesome Chaco tan line so far...everything else is pretty much covered all the time...but my hair is funny bleached out colors now too. Because my dirty blonde didn't stick out enough :)
love, Amber!!
