So last weekend I was out of town yet again, this time to Kumbo in the northwest Anglophone region. Four of us visited KuDOC (Kumbo Development and Orientation Center) to see the work they're doing and how we can help from back in the states. All in all it turned out to be a fun yet very African weekend.


Wednesday we took the night bus from Yaounde to Bamenda, which is about an 8 hour drive. Our tickets for the 9pm bus which of course did not leave until 10:45. Gotta love it. I'm slowly letting go of my Western concept of time. Usually I incessantly check the time to see what is next on my schedule, but here I never feel the need to. It's a lot less stressful and I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of it. That being said if I'm consistently late for things when I come back to the states blame Cameroon and not me. We all had window seats on the "greyhound" type bus with two people next to us and then two more seats across the aisle. Picture an ironing board folded in half as a substitution for a seat and you get what I sat on for 8 hours. We arrived in Bamenda around 6am and stayed at the politican's house while our driver when to get the car fixed.

So we napped and left Bamenda in the afternoon and started the entertaining ride to Kumbo. The road there is all dirt, rocks, ruts, and potholes up sides of steep mountains. Plus our driver flew like there was no tomorrow. Amazingly enough, we got a flat tire before we hit this part of the journey not when we were falling over each other in the backseat due to the road. Almost ran into a pig and goats at odd points as well. After 2.5 hours we reached where we were staying. Unfortunately we had the windows opened in the car the entire time. My white shirt had turned brown. Then they brought us water to wash our face and hands and not having anything to wipe my face on I used my shirt. I left a face imprint of pure dirt. Then we all blew our nose and let's just say you could see the black through the tissue. Gross I know but it was fun!

Otherwise it was a really nice house. They had been without electric for three days but our first hour there it came back on. Yet, they still did not have running water which meant I poured water down a toilet all weekend to flush and showered out of buckets. My hair did not get washed again until Sunday night. I hope it did not smell. Between Friday and Saturday we visited many places. We talked to an environmental club at a local high school, offroaded up mountains to reach a renewable energy farm (We asked at one point if we were on a road and they were like Yes! Funny I would have classified it as a nature trail). We saw two hydroelectric dams than Emanuel (who only graduated from elementary school) built singlehandedly, and visited an orphanage. We also visited a Muslim community to talk to the women there. They kept saying they needed chickens for fertilizer and then they were so happy we came they gave us a chicken as a gift. A live one of course that did his business all over the back of the car. Tasted delicious at dinner though :)

We got home Sunday around 9:30pm and I watched brown dirt swirl down the drain from the ride back during which I shared a seat meant for two people with three and only had half a backrest for 8 hours. Otherwise this past week I went to a village called Ngalla on Wednesday with my internship with African Action on Aids. Ngalla is about 2 hours from Yaounde. We handed out mosquito nets and toured their school, water source, and a building they want to make a health center. We also helped them fill out surveys which we can report back to their sister village in Massachusetts. While there I hugged about forty women with missing teeth and was forced to dance in the middle of their singing and clapping circle. When saying goodbye an old woman pointed at me and said I did well dancing so I shook my hips and all of a sudden I had four old women hugging me and laughing at my poor attempt to imitate them.

Thursday I got fitted for my bridesmaid dress for Dr. Ayuk's wedding. He is Cecilia's host dad and he and his wife are having the church service this month since they never had one when they initially got married. I know there are a lot more bridesmaids but four of us students are in a group of our own. However, that is all the information I know at the present moment because it's Africa. We then went to Briqueterie and Marche Mokolo with many new experiences there as well and where Harry got a machete, which some man led us down a sketchy alleyway to get sharpened, and he may or may not have done heroin in France. He then taught us how to eat soya with beignets. Interesting fellow.

Sorry it has been a long time since the last update but the internet seems to crash everytime I start a blog entry. Hopefully I can update again before I leave for Teku's village on Wednesday because I then come back Sunday and leave again the next day for our trip to the North for 10 days. So I might be a little out of touch in the next two weeks but that just means more African tales!