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สวัสดี --> (s̄wạs̄dī) --> Sa-wad-dee! Looking forward to attempting Thai, however nothing will ever compare to the unbelievably entertaining Fulfulde (also known as the northern Cameroonian language which sounds precisely like the voices from Super Mario Cart).

About to embark on a 1 month adventure through Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Cambodia. Leaving in about an hour for a 14 hour flight to Tokyo. Pulled my 3rd ever all nighter so my sleep patterns will in sync with Bangkok time. The past 2 all nighters turned out exceptionally well:

1. Las Vegas, texting my dad at 8 AM for gambling advice as he got ready for church, proceeded by Lisa being offered a nurse at the terminal due to her ungodly hangover.
2. Studying all night for a Management Information Systems final (if you ever want to talk data querying, I'm not your girl), proceeded by watching the royal wedding. I still can't get over this: http://layersandswathes.com/2011/05/13/the-royal-wedding-disney-reincarnated/

Just finished watching pre-Titanic Leonardo in The Beach. Can't wait for the malerone nightmares that come from that one. Yay for sharks in Thailand! Also saw Hangover II last night- mom and dad, wait till I leave Bangkok safely before you see this one.

Bonne Voyage

I've been sitting here in this sweltering internet cafe for the past 5 minutes trying to figure out how to start this final Cameroonian post.

...I've got nothing.

Tonight I will be on Swiss Air, eating that mini chocolate bar and airplane food I've been fantasizing about for the past 4 months. (yes, I've been fantasizing over airplane food...). And the MOVIES. Looking forward to that to.

With a 6:00 curfew most nights, there has been a LOT of Laura time. I created a game with myself called "Instances" , in which I write out in detail extreemly specific moments I want to occur when I return home. (...most pathetic game ever?).

For example: It is snowing outside,I just took a HOT shower, and I am wearing hoodie sweatshirt. Driving with new music to see Where The Wild Things Are, drinking a fountain Diet Coke from McDonalds with a fat straw and ICE.

It is definitely bittersweet leaving Cameroon. I'm absolutely ready for the creature comforts of home, the Christmas season, seeing family & friends. However, I'm really going to miss the adventure of each day here.

During the first week of the program here, we had something called "The Drop Off", a sort of scavenger hunt in a third world city. Basically, they send us out in taxis and tell them to drop us at a certain place in the city. To say my partner and I were freaking out is an understatement. We were afraid to speak french, afraid to ask for directions, afraid to take a taxi, afraid to be with just the 2 of us, afraid when people called out "la blanche to us, afraid to go to the ATM, afraid to bargain...you get the picture. It hit me yesterday when I went to Centre Ville by myself to do some last minute shopping just how much things have changed over the last few months. All of the forementioned things I was afraid of seem so silly now.

When I arrived in Yaounde for the first time, I definitely felt like I was in a third world city. But now, after returning from the trips throughout the rest of Cameroon, Yaounde feels like Dubai. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but there is still cold beverages and relitively fast internet. Can't imagine what NYC is going to feel like flying into...

Okay, time to go have my last meal of beignets and beans. Thank you so much to everyone who kept in touch throughout my trip here, you have no idea how much it meant to me. Getting the e-mails and posts from family and friends kept me sane and so happy throughout my time here.

Au revoir Cameroon! Tu me vas manquer!

Mount Cameroon

Spent the weekend getting dominated by Mount Cameroon. Two SIT friends came for the weekend to check out Buea and attempt to climb the monster with me. We woke up Saturday morning at 3:45 AM, where our guide and porter came and picked us up. I could talk about how superhuman these guys are for the next 5 blogs, but I’ll keep it to this:

Enter Walters (THE GUIDE): 21 years old with 8 older brothers and sisters. He has gone the farthest in education out of his entire family (he is up to high school now), primarily paying for his own education. He began his job as a porter at 15 and became an official guide at 18. He climbed the mountain in wool socks and gellies.

Sprint in Vitalise (THE PORTER): Successful completer of the “Race of Hope” five times, currently training for his 6th. The Race of Hope is a 23 mile race up Mount Cameroon and back down for any person crazy enough to attempt it. It makes heartbreak look like a fat piece of Boston cream pie. You need superhuman endurance to reach the top, and superhuman agility and balance to make it back down. He started running in hope of attracting a sponsor… he can run a marathon in 3 hours 20 minutes.

Impressive dudes.

Started our ascent through the rainforest, and slowly moved up into the grassy savannah. Saw the rock where they used to sacrifice an albino every year, as locals believe spirits live on the Mountain (they stopped this just 30 years ago…) Stopped to rest at hut 1, where I fell asleep on a grassy patch and our guide made me get up, asking me if I really wanted to get bit by a snake…

After 10 hours of straight uphill hiking, we stopped at hut 2 for the night. As my dad was watching SNL and my mom was passed out with English papers on her lap in the warmth of the maison de Stable Lane, I was waking up to start the starlit hike to the summit circa 3 AM Cameroon time. I was legitimately cold for the first time since last March.

Definitely the clearest sky I have ever seen, with tons of shooting stars and constellations I knew the names of in 7th grade. It was pretty incredible to be hiking up this mountain, above the clouds, as the sun was rising over Buea.

Stopped at hut 3, where our guides were pretty certain we would have to turn around because of the cold. Ellen and I convinced them to let us attempt to make it (she’s a Minnesota native, and I feel like after surviving the march down Broad on raw New Years’ Days, I can handle anything). 45 painful minutes later, we made it… spent about 30 seconds on the summit snapping pictures and trying not to get blown off the edge. After about 5 pictures, our incredibly patient guides finally snapped, told us to get a move on, ushered us back down the Guinness trail. Started the descent, jogging behind Vitalise.

The downhill was just as difficult as the uphill, especially with legs of led. The stupid volcanic rock that covered the path made us both wipe out on several occasions. Walters was walking behind me, machete in hand, still rocking the gellies. As I slipped down the trail, I was praying the gellies wouldn’t fail Walters and send that machete towards me… Speaking of machetes; apparently it is not uncommon for people to die during the Race of Hope while running down the mountain and slipping on the rocks. Vitalese casually mentioned this when telling me about the difficulties of the race…

By the time we reached relatively flat land, we all literally forgot how to walk. Walters and Vitalise had fun making fun of us waddle to the end of the trail (an absolutely extreme case of the jimmy legs).

Snail Soup for the Cameroonian Soul

MMMMMMM best Thanksgiving dinner ever? Not quite... but snail soup is pretty good here. Spent Thanksgiving day on the black sand beaches of Limbe with these crazy German volunteers, where we spent the afternoon having hand stand contests and they attempted to teach me some New Zeland form of juggling. Bizarre. It's moments like this where I realize I couldn't be any farther from my family

This morning I visited one of the businesses of the recipients of a LINK UP micro credit loan. She sells "Sha", a traditional Bamenda corn drink outside her home in the morning and in the evening. I had no idea until I finished my bottle, but this "Sha" is fermented corn. I ended up getting inappropriately tipsy circa 8:15 AM with the neighbors and cousins.

Tomorrow I am ATTEMPTING to climb Mount Cameroon. Because of this research project, we are trying to do it in 2 days. Should be interesting...

Pikins, Ashia, Chop

Pidgin lesson of the day:

1. Pikins = Children
2. Ashia= I’m sorry for you. (This is the catch phrase for just about everything... I hear it at least 50 times a day. It's hot= Ashia. I have to go cook= Ashia. When I jogging by people= Ashia. I'm full= Ashia. I have to take a taxi to Molyko= Ashia. EVERYTHNG)
3. Chop= Food

Despite the aggressive University of Buea campaign against pidgin English (signs around campus include “SHUN PIDGIN”, “PIDGIN RUINS YOUR ENGLISH”, “COMMON WEALTH: NO PIDGIN HERE” etc.), I’ve been making every effort to learn this odd language. The past two weeks have been full of impromptu lessons in taxis and restaurants in hopes of helping my research and equally as important, bargaining in markets. Being white+ knowing pidgin= major street cred.

I’ve started the fascinating but exhausting interview process with women recipients of micro credit loans through LINK-UP. I’ve sat in on their meetings, witnessed the “njangi”, watched how they save, and learned how the various groups work in general. Njangi is a common practice with women’s groups- every week each woman donates 1,000 CFA (about $2)- one lucky woman gets the pot each week when it is her turn. Njangi is there own more traditional system of saving, which they combine with the more modern LINK-UP system of savings (where interest is accrued). For more information, see my 40 page research paper due December 7…yikes.

The groups are a small but strong community. It has been evident so far through the interviews just how much the group means to the women. They are constantly telling me how “we be sister white man, you get?” Beside the social aspects, they also financially assist each other. They have a “trouble fund” used to assist a person if they are sick or a close family member dies. Recently, a group member passed away, and the women worked together to repay her loan to LINK-UP.

I’m starting to get a first hand look at the level of poverty these women are facing. Saturday night I sat in on my second meeting, and afterwards the eldest woman led us through a trash pile maze up the hill to her house. She showed me and Vivian (my sassy pidgin interpreter/LINK-UP social worker) where her neighbors were living. Basically, they are sleeping under umbrellas and with a giant plastic tarp as a blanket because half the roof has rusted away. This woman (I have no idea how to spell her name… phonetic spelling tells me Ngamadou?) is about 80 years old and lives alone in her dilapidated and barely furnished home. She uses the LINK-UP loan to help with her business, selling maniok to her neighbors who come to her house to buy. Before we left, she made sure to send Vivian and I with enough maniok for both of our families.

Wazaaaaaaaa

Nope, not a super bowl commercial reference. Went to one of Cameroon’s few National Parks this week called Waza, located in the Extreme North. Cameroon’s tourism potential is absolutely incredible- one part of me wants this country to get its act together and start promoting itself to help out for a major economic boost. On the other hand, there is something so beautiful about how untouched much of Cameroon is.

We arrived in Waza after an 8 hour bus ride through Garoua and Maroua, where we went to some incredible marches. Florence is overrated; the leather products in Garoua were unbelievable. We bargained with vendors for hours, were given some impromptu Fulfulde lessons, and all pretty much bought an entire sheep or cow worth of leather products (and I think I bought an entire Boa worth of snakeskin products as well…)

Tons of monkeys in the trees as we pulled into our camp site for the night. Slept under the stars right outside the park, and woke up at the crack of dawn to head out on our safari.

Around 6:30, two ancient, white Toyota pick-up trucks pulled into our campsite. We piled into the truck beds and set off along a barely marked dusty road. I won’t be able to do justice in describing the scenery (Kat, I wish you were in my pocket for this voyage so you could help me attempt to depict the absolute beauty).

Waza was just completely wild in every sense of the word. We began our voyage as the sun was rising, beating down on our incredibly touristy straw hats. It became apparent that elephants enjoyed traveling on the dusty truck route, as their giant footprints provided us with some extremely bumpy terrain. The two inch dagger thorns flanking either side of the truck didn’t help either.

Saw tons of giraffes- incredibly majestic and graceful animals. Lots of antelope, ostrich, boar, monkeys, and huge birds. Found some lion tracks, but even Flobert (SIT’s head driver/renaissance safari man) couldn’t track them down.

Rode back 28 hours to Yaounde with 2 goats tied to the top of our bus. (Our bus driver really wanted to bring them back to Yaounde because they were so cheap…) The unexpected bathroom breaks of the goats kept us all on our toes and provided endless entertainment for those on the front of the bus (not getting sprinkled on).
We dropped of the 2 BIR officers (Cameroonian military elite) on our way back. These dudes were HUGE and ridiculously intimidating (as were their giant automatic guns and endless amo refills). Fortunately, the Coupers de route decided not to strike (we would’ve been a goldmine for them).

ISP (our 4 week independent research period) has officially begun. I’m heading to Buea to research the microfinance branch of LINK UP, an NGO focused on child development. I’m really looking forward to a month of total independence (no other students are traveling to Buea to conduct their research). I’ll be living with a Peace Corps Volunteer and German volunteer in Muea.