La Blanche

Hello hello! I finally have internet at the house, which is magical. Except that I've been checking my email and facebook and now feel guilty about thinking in English for this long. Oh well.

In case you forgot, for a moment, that I am indeed in Africa, here is a picture of a lion:

Clearly, we went to the zoo the other day. This one is in the city, in quartier Mvogo-Betse. We’re going tomorrow to a monkey sanctuary. It’s nice to have a week before classes start because soon we won’t have time for excursions. I’ve spent the week learning how to get around and discovering that hey, I can live here. Neat, huh?

I’m definitely becoming more at ease with my family. I’ve been helping a few of them with their English homework, which helps me with French too, because I have them translate English phrases and can then add words to my list that I’ve been carrying around. And I feel more myself in English, so I feel like I’m getting to know them a little better that way. My French (and how to express my personality while speaking French, which is one of my goals for the semester) is definitely getting better. I took my first lone taxi ride the other day (and by that I mean I got from point A to point B by myself, not that I was alone in the taxi, that never happens)! I came home successfully and was so excited. Since then I’ve done it multiple times and can now go places and do things like a real Cameroonian. Hooray! I even took the bus today, which is cheaper, although you have to wait at the stop for an indeterminate period of time before the bus comes, and then there are about a zillion people all crammed together in traffic. Took me about 2 hours to get home. But, adventures! I live in the quartier Mendong, which is kind of an expansion of quartier Biyem-Assi, is pretty new and far-ish away. Taxis from Mendong cost quite a bit comparatively, 500 FCFA if you are going across the ville. Still, that’s about 1 dollar for a taxi across a city, so I’m certainly not complaining. 

One of the interesting things for me about being here is that I am one of the few white people in the city. There aren’t a lot of tourists and hardly anyone who lives here (except in the quartier Bastos, which has more foreigners) is white. Whenever I walk on the streets (and even more in les marchés) I get calls of “La blanche, la blanche! Ma chèrie! Vous êtes mariées?” (White girl! My dearest! Are you married?). I went to Marché Mokolo, the biggest market in the city, with my host mom the other day. It was the first time going to a market, and it was a little unnerving. No, I’m not married, please let go of hand, no I don’t want to marry your uncle, yes hello Bonjour I’m doing just fine thanks, but really you can let go of my hand now… I’m getting used to it, and tend to just smile a bit and move on quickly, but it’s definitely new. It’s a little frustrating because I know that no matter how hard I try or how much I learn, I won’t ever really fit in here. I’m sure I will continue to write on this topic as I am learning how to fit in.

That’s all for now. Courses start Monday, which is also the day when I find out what courses I can take. A little stressful. Two of our courses are with the program (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but there are only four students on the program, it’s new this year), one with the director, Ariane, and the other with a professor. Those will be about Cameroon culture, history, and language. The others I’m taking at the Catho (University Catholique d’Afrique Centrale), and from what I know so far I’ll be able to take classes in government and African relations and development and human rights. I’m way excited to start. 

Here are a few more pictures of animals for you:

Crocodile (Nile)

Ostriches! They walk very bizarrely and have dinosaur feet.