A week of craziness.

If you look at the past week’s news reports of what’s been going on in Cameroon you’d read about raised gas prices, riots, looting, and things being set on fire… Fortunately for us in the grand north, these things were merely reports seen on the news and heard through messages sent to us by Peace Corps administration. Many volunteers down south were consolidated in provential capitals or in more serious cases, Yaounde.

From what I gathered of what was going on down south, seems as though the gas price hike initiated a general taxi/public transport strike that was originally thought was going to be contained in Douala. This strike did not stay in the sweaty port of Douala, but spread like wildfire throughout the grand south. I only have second hand accounts of what was happening down there: Buildings and tire fires in Bafoussam. Western villages flipping cars, looting, and people parading around bearing machetes and sticks. Tear gas dropped by helicopters in Yaounde. Shootings at the Texaco station outside of the Peace Corps office.

There were warnings of unrest creeping its way up north, but on the streets of Maroua I could sense nothing but the heat of the dry season hitting. But still, all volunteers were on standfast, which means that everyone was required to stay put, except those without cell phone service in their area. They had to go somewhere where they could be in constant contact with Peace Corps administration. What that meant for me, in the land of no riots or looting, that I had quite a few volunteers staying at my house while waiting for admin to give us word as to what was going on down south and whether or not we were going to be evacuated like many other Americans and other foreign groups here in Cameroon. I have to say that it was a nice week of cooking amazing big meals, taking care of a few things here and there, and constantly checking my text messages to hear about things happening 2 days travel from where I was. We were all still tense at moments, usually when we would get updates from Yaounde, but never anywhere close to the stress put on everyone down south.

Thankfully the unrest bated, we are no longer on standfast, and ‘all is well’. I honestly don’t know what things feel like down there, but inevitably the volunteers are shaken up with the tension still palpable around them. nous verrons ce qu'arrivera.

Otherwise, things have been moving along au domicile. I have been fighting to get the water turned on at my house, which still hasn’t happened, but will hopefully in the next few days. My landlord is a very wealthy Tchadian woman who owns, what I’ve been told, around 100 houses/properties around Maroua. Amadou, my administrative contact up here in the grand north has been fighting to get her to sign all of the necessary contracts signed by her, fighting because she kept changing the rent. We went to her house the day before yesterday and I got to see first hand all that Amadou has had to deal with the past few months with her. She called him sheesh (cheap) numerous times and couldn’t understand why he was fighting so hard to get the price that they had originally agreed upon months ago. Mind you, I have been living in this house for more than a month now, have already invested over $300 on cleaning, repairs, and the installation of new light fixtures and whatnot, all the time dealing without having running water. She was basically just pushing her weight, laughing, joking and insulting along the way as I sat there thinking of how terrible it would be if we had to pack up and move out of this gigantic house I’ve already put so much work into. Now all documents are signed, thank god, and I can start feeling as if I can get settled here.

The heat is already insane. It’s creeping up to the 100’s and I find myself waking up sweating profusely. Need to prep myself for April, the month when things get realllly hot I guess. If I have water by then, I’ll be a happy lady.

Things are not easy, but I guess that’s how it is. Found a lovely pool at a hotel close by where I can escape the dry heat momentarily, I have a small, very old, but somewhat functioning refrigerator and lots of ceiling fans to keep my proteins from deconstructing. Hopefully I won’t become a pile of mush before January 2009.

Oh Cameroon.

must get out of this internet cafe. im getting eaten alive by mosquitos.

peace