Silver Linings

I am pretty much all better now! Hooray. And though it certainly was not fun, being sick has a few good points:

I now have these great new sheets with giraffes and antelopes! They are quite delightful. Here is a picture:

Also, as you can see I have discovered how to fix up my bednet during the day, so now it’s like I have princess curtains around my bed, which is pleases the little girl in me.

I am back to being constipated, which is much preferable to diarrhea. I had been wondering.

I also know how to properly take a shower with a bucket! Heat water in the kettle (even a little helps tremendously) and mix with cold water in the bucket. Then pour water over yourself using, for example, an empty margarine container. Not terribly difficult or complicated, but I didn’t know to ask for a margarine container before. When I was sick my mama prepared it all for me. Now you know too (and it uses so much less water than a normal shower!).

There are a few more lasting negative effects. The week before I was sick I felt like I was starting to fit it, going out with friends and really truly enjoying myself. Then I became ill and was in rather a bad mood for a while, not a good space for trying to appreciate another culture, and I was feeling rather like I wanted to go home. Now, I have the sense that I have to start over again being comfortable here, which is really frustrating. I’m almost halfway through with my time in Cameroon (two and a half months left out of four) and I think it’s time to be happy. Ça va aller (it will come).

On another note, we’ve decided with the program that it’s better to take less graded classes at the university, which means I have a little more time to spend with family and friends (no more 15 page paper on human rights). Hopefully that means I’ll be able to post a little more too. My papa is gone for a few weeks – he is a chemistry professor and is off teaching a course in Gabon for two weeks. Professors here do that frequently. It’s the reason the schedule at university is so confusing, because professors and therefore their classes come and go randomly. Anyway, I am sad not to have papa here, he is a good person to talk with (as well as his philosophic friend in the nearby village, Benoit). But Sunday tomorrow! Which means family time and possibly mass. Cheers!