Pictures and Mixers

Photos! I finally got off my derriere and posted some. These are from training in Yaounde and Pitoa, specifically with my host family and during the swearing-in ceremony where we officially become PCVs. It was a big deal - the US ambassador and a bunch of local government officials came, and we wore some crazy bright pagne. I'll take some pictures soon of my lakeside retreat here in Lagdo when the weather clears up (it's not rainy - that doesn't start until May - but very dusty).

In other news, probably the most exciting thing to happen to me occured a couple weeks ago: I bought a blender. Yes, the gods blessed me with the magnificent contraption that turns big things into tiny little pieces. I've made beaucoup smoothies, salad dressings, salmorejo (spelling? spanish-style gazpacho), and hamburgers... grounded up slices of beef. Kinda gross, but it gets the job done. Other than the hamburgers, the best thing I've melanged has been a frappacino-like coffee drink. God bless CARE Cameroon for supplying me a frige with a freezer, and God bless America or something like that.

Meanwhile, things with CARE are improving... I think. I have a specific thing to do - basically organize this computer presentation of the whole project. It's not exactly what I want to do - there's isn't much "field work," but it's not exactly a time-consuming thing and I'll have more free time to read, do crossword puzzles, and wonder why the music Voice of America plays on the shortwave is so horrible (Answer: it's American music requested by non-Americans. That's how a back to back to back playing of Chumbawumba, Nsync, and John Michael Montgomery happens.).

Fulfulde lesson of the day
Yowwa! (yo-wah): an expression of thanks or really just an expression of anything.

Cameroonian: Here're your beignets.
Nassara: Yowwa! Je voudrais le pimont aussi.
[Cameroonian puts pimont in the sack of beignets]
Nassara: Yowwa! Hasta manana, beyotch.

Note: spelling in Fulfulde is always questionable, as is the use of "beyotch"