Chez Moi!

Chez moi! Pretty nice, huh?

I saw something pretty interesting this last Thursday. CARE Lagdo unfurled the red carpet for two US Embassy people who were doing a tour of the Grand North, touring things that are grand, northern, and possibles places to invest US argent. The CARE projects in Lagdo are set to end in June, and they want to extend. There's an air of desperation, understandably, and this was really noticable when Rick and a woman who's name I forget from the Consul office rolled on through.

First, I was pretty pumped to see real live non-PC Americans. Second, they drive in a sweet Toyota SUV, and I got to ride around in it with them as I am American, semi-attached to the CARE project, and these CARE people really want to have a job come July so it was assumed I was going to put in a few good words. I tried, but I was mainly interested in the foreign service exam, so we talked about that. CARE took them on a tour of the Rural Development project, which was interesting for me as well as the other nassaras because I haven't seen the actual construction, because they built irrigation canals and other things you can actually see (CARE takes all the various officials on the same parade route). The embassy people took pictures, gave out a couple presents, kissed babies, spread goodwill, etc., basically taking advantage of the fact that Cameroonians are awed by lots of foreigners in one place at one time. The embassy people were pretty impressed with the CARE projects, and seemed pretty interested in the malaria project, too, so that's a good sign. On va voir when the decision is made to extend the projects...

Fulfulde Lesson of the Week

Dumbolo (dum-buh-low): booty, fat booty, nice booty, bootylicious; Kate's cat.

Example:

[Kate's cat Dumbolo pounces on my foot]

Me: Kate, why does Dumbolo keep attacking my feet??

Kate: She's a devil cat.

[I toss Dumbolo somewhere. She returns and pounces on my foot again.]

Me: Goddammit.