Thanksgiving 2006. Good times, good food, good friends. Good bye.

There was a big traditional fete chez les Mouyang before I left, in anticipation of the millet harvest. Most of the activity centered around drinking millet beer. And making music.

What I will miss about Cameroon: 1. Eating in shacks. Where the menu is universal and consists of: eggs, beans and bread, fish, or beef, green leaf in a sauce-like form, and some accompaniment of starch, choices being ngyams (not so sweet sweet potatoes), rice, plantains, or manioc if you’re in the couth which I’m not and don’t regret ‘cause I don’t particularly like manioc. All of this is not particularly relevant although perhaps interesting to the culinarily inclined, because the point is that the choices are few. On Tuesdays there is jamma jamma with plantains and on wednesdays there are beans and rice. For example. And let us not forget the piment. The red, oily hot sauce you need but a dab of. I will miss the simplicity and the absolute lack of pretentiousness. I went online and looked at the menu for the restaurant I used to work for and it struck me as absolutely ridiculous. Duck medallions in a beef sauce of mango chutney and baby lamb chop pate topped with a dollop of pure bullshit, mmm. 2. Being able to litter. There being no infrastrucure here, there exists no place to put your trash that would shuttle it to a commonly identified “trash place”, and so the trash place is the world people live, walk, and drive around in. The most common item of trash is the microcon thin balck plastic bag, which is considered a gentle and generous gift that accompanies your purchase. Otherwise there is not much opportunity to buy things that are wrapped up in anything other than it’s natural encasing, except for maybe kinder whatever, which is a weird European treat of frosting like white and dark “chocolate” goo with two small balls of corn- encased more-solid than the other substance chocolate stuff... I am not proud, but sometimes I eat it. It comes with a small flat spoon and a toy. It is shaped like an egg. There is a lot of unnecessary packaging and it is definitely not good for you. In any case, I have grown to love being able to throw anything I no longer want to hold on to out the window, into the gutter, or 3. Hissing at people. This is how we call people over who we want something from, and when I say we I mean anyone, and when I indicate wanting things, this can refer to anything from a beer or soda to a pair of shoes to a strange unidentifiable aphrodisiasical root, to ... fill in your blank here. Things available in Ashland. I mean Africa. Soon to come..... Whar I will Not Miss About Cameroon

I realize that I tend to use this technology, this link with the outer world, too often as a way of venting the feelings of frustration, impotence and overheating that overcome me from time to time in this hard hot place. Either that or I detail personal activities and enjoyment. At least thatÕs how I feel. ItÕs hard to remember, when you are having a good, productive time, to rush to the computer and convey your enthusiasm. I think more often when I turn my face to the screen, I am feeling the need to get things out which I no longer want to hold in. So let me, consciously, in the light of this thought, share something good, the kind of thing I thought I came here to do.

Last week or so, myself and the other resident members of the Extreme North who were present held a ÔYouth Leadership ConferenceÕ. It was instigated by two Health volunteers, Erin and Mike, a young, attractive married couple. From Florida. Hey, a story gets better with ev

ery little detail, no? So, the idea of this conference was that each volunteer participant would invite one, maybe two, youth from their village who we considered as leaders, with potential, but maybe with need of a little boost of confidence and basic skills. We arrived on Sunday, made introductions in the afternoon and had dinner, and installed the ÔkidsÕ (most of them in their early twenties, really) in their crappy hotel. Hey, we were functioning on five hundred dollars donated from families in the US.

Peace Corps volunteers gave sessions on decision making, communication (me; it was bitchinÕ), how to research resources, how to continue education outside of the formal sector, hotw to protect your health, umm what else wish I had that schedule with me but in my typical disorganized style I lost it straightaway. Anyhow, us volunteers were each responsible for our sessions and they

were all well executed, participatory etc., but what was really great was the Cameroonian-on-Cameroonian sessions. A fellow from the bank came in to talk about micro-finance for young entrepreneurs, and there was a panel of young Cameroonians who had become successful in their ventures (not a simple thing here, I tell you, taking great perseverance and will), and most memorably a fellow infectected with HIV who did a testimonial about how he contracted it, how he lives with it, what he has learned from learning how to live with what is, in the end, just another virus.

This guy currently works at the library where we held the four day conference; he had worked and lived with a previous health volunteer and spoke very well and bravely. This disease is not well understood and it can be a little scary to talka bout it with strangers.

I can't finish this right now. BUt all is life.

I ate pizza and a mars bar for breakfast this morning. Mostly because they were there; I had made handmade pizza last night, and spent a dollar on the mars bar when I saw it for sale. Not often you run into such a deal in subsarahan africa.The pizza had green peppers, onions, cheese, mushrooms, salami, and a homemade tomato sauce. Jeff helped and Kate and Rachel helped to eat. We had jack and coke to drink.

That was a couple of days ago and since, I've been thinking about material consumption. Here, it seems so special that when I get a go at the goods, I gorge. Whether it be trashy celebrity magazines that I would never waste my time on in the states or sour patch kids candy, I will savor that artificial goodness until my stomach hurts and my head reels from all the unreality. So, what's going to happen to me when I get back to endless rows of goods all at a low low price and cavernous warehouse spaces full of every item you could ever desire, all for a fixed price, no haggling allowed? I know that when I was home for ten days last June, I returned to Cameroon almost empty-handed; I would go into a store, look briefly at all the Things, and leave almost immediately, content to know that it was still available, having purchased none of it. Telling myself that I would come back later. The thing is I never did.

Do we buy and consume things to make ourselves feel better or more real? Because I don't think that approach is working.

Yesterday I entertained for nearly an hour the idea of signing up for another year of my life here. [ Insert sitcom laughtrack here]... Today I find myself doing the math of how many days left on this continent and how to use them up- and how! To get to where I can eat raw leafy greens without fear of the repercussion of pissing out my ass, if you’ll excuse my french, to get to a place where I can walk down the boulevarde without being racially identified every meter, a place where I can wear lipstick and not be hissed and kissed at mercilessly. While I was entertaining this notion of digging in, I was riding my bike through the countryside with farmer friend Celestin; we were making the rounds, meeting people who had requested an introduction, checking up on the guy with the tree nursery, burning my forearms in the sun. It felt good, and I was feeling frustrated that all of these opportunities are presenting themselves now just as I prepare to pack up and head out, these people approaching me with great ideas for projects (example: the fellow who has a field he want to use to for planting native species of trees, now found only up in the plateau, so as to eat the old-timey fruits), looking for help with things I might be able to contribute to, or want to; but I suppose these are ideas for the next person. And I reckon things always seem perfect when you know you are about to leave them.

The gracious hostess of July 4, 2006 finally gets to take a break and enjoy the festivities. It's so much easier to love America when you're not there.

After certain rains the winged termites pour out of the exit holes they create just for the occasion: randomly scattered across the drenched landscape, they themselves rise up as each termite exudes some something on itÕs way out, thin fragile brown walls framing the open hole where the insects came forth from the earth, only to come back at a later time.

They are attracted to lights, and this is a good thing for those African families with an outside light, and their neighbors. Everyone pours out of their living spaces, with buckets and bowls of water. Once a flying termite is caught it is put into the water, where its wide flat wings will pin it to the surface of the water. They are easily caught; children take greedy handfuls. After, the wings are removed and the fat, red little bodies of the termites are fried up. They are tasty and a superb source of protein. My cat ate all that had been caught in the kitchen when I turned the light off and closed the door. It was a real fox hunt. After their one night of flight the termites settle down, find a mate, spend a couple hours trailing each other around closely, and when they find their mysterious spot, they burrow into the ground, wings dropping off, and I guess they lay eggs once they're in there. Hard not to admire termites for being so damn ecologically successful and all but they're a nuisance to me, eating on everything...

The pork blowout was a vast success, despite being faced with all the worst cast scenarios in the world. It rained as the fire was being lit, it rained again, the electricity was out the entire time. Nonetheless, delicious pork was prepared and enjoyed, the frisbee was thrown, the beers were cool enough in the relative hot hot weather, the pool was splashed in. It was a party, a truly American barbque. However you spell that.

I left for both of the slaughterings, but I left it in the hands of those I trusted to do it with humanity. They said it went well; they seemed strangely exhilarated after I came back from where I had been. The first day we had planned to kill one and roast it overnight, having the Cameroonians who were helping us (not a good amateur endeavor, pig slaughtering) prepare the second in the 'traditional manner', but the first one turned out so good and the pit ended up taking so much effort to make, that we roasted the second one as well, thus providing ourselves with tender pork meat for a full 36 hours. It was tender, like I said, and juicy, marinated in a wheelbarrow in a brine of onion, garlic, citron juice, oil and piment. At first I had difficulty with the sight of the rubbery body in the wheelbarrow, the face IÕd seen twice a day through the peephole of the fascist pig holding cell, split down the middle... but once that cadaver hit the grill and the smell of roasting pork reached mine nostrils, I was into it, the bloodthirst took hold of my saliva glands and it was smooth sailing until the Grand Finale:

Menu - Fourth of July Pork Blowout, Tokombere, 2006

PORK Millet fed young pork, marinated Florida-style, pit-roasted

served with:

cucumber salad

fruit salad- mango, pineapple, orange, watermelon

potato salad- just like momma used to make

devilled eggs

with intermittent rounds of cinnamon rolls and banana bread as the marmite oven allowed

and don't forget the key 4ojuly ingredient: for Proud Americans everywhere:

BEER

your choice of 33, Beaufort, or Castle Milk Stout

mandarin Absolut available upon request

Nice sepia giraffe circa Waza 2006 with a canadian family.

Nice sepia giraffe circa Waza 2006 with a canadian family.

Nice sepia giraffe circa Waza 2006 with a canadian family.

'Ain't it funny how an old broken bottle looks just like a diamond ring'... just listening to some sad jon prine. 'Well a question ain't really a question, if you know the answer too'...I broke a bottle of earlier, a bottle of honey, the flies are having a field day and drowning in heavy bliss; I cleaned up as much as my patience and the urgency of the situation would allow for.. anyways I just can’t bring myself to love the flavor of Adamaoua honey, I don’t know what smelly flowers those bees are dining on but their essence is not for me. Eating some mints that it looks like some ants have already tasted. My capacity for disgust is huge now, especially after the worm affair. I think at least it can't get any worse.. Maybe I will miss it, the blood and guts of life repulsive, when I get back to America; go kick it on Skid row where there aren't any public toilets and no one has showered for five weeks, to get a whiff of that ripe, replete human stench... naw. I will probably linger at perfume counters and receive free lipstick samples ecstatically for a few months before it comes to that, if ever it does. Perhaps I will become a polished individual with impeccable hygiene. But I believe myself too much of a mountain girl for all that upkeep (most likely I will linger at any counter where they are giving away anything for fee, even the counter of arby's restaurants wth their priceless packets of ketchup, mustard, and I do like that horseradish sauce). Planted some corn in my yard this morning, planning to plant some soy with the next rain. Looks like it might come this afternoon and the air is oppressively hot as it is before a rain. I hope to go into town tomorrow to watch the World Cup match between Ghana and the United States, it should be quite an event here as Ghana's the last team representing all of Africa. If America wins though, I can pose as hero, pretend like I had something to do with it. Spectator sports weird me out in the way fans talk of "us" and "when we scored...". US who? You, darlin, had your ass parked in a chair while the action was enacted by people distinctly not yourself. But whatever it takes to unite humanity... and the World Cup is certainly good for that. I've been following it on the shortwave radio and folks seem to care more about it than the war in Sudan or Iraq or wherever idiot soldiers are killing each other at someone else's bidding.. which is at it should be. I'd rather hear a dissection of hot guys kicking a ball around than five year olds being murdered in a misbegotten ambush. Personally.

Mystery is an impossible state to maintain if you spend too much/enough time with people; if they see you mess up a card game over and over, the same rule that won’t sink in, if they know what you’re like in the morning (I prefer no words for at least fifteen minutes), if they know your family. And yet at the same time there is always that point at which we become a mystery to our selves. Where we are not sure how we would respond or if we would have the right reflexes or wisdom to act or, to not act. To shut your trap and carry on. In french it’s good, ‘laisser tomber’: let it fall. We do live on a gravitationally centered ball, after all.... everything is always falling.

So I am feeling philosophical and sleepy, having gone through a fish dinner, a housewarming party, and three episodes of Six Feet Under. Bless HBO, with their non commercial programming and their characters I care about because they are complex, who curse like people in my world do. It is early enough in the morning that I have just heard a prayer call being sung out, the eager beaver of the muslim faith, hollering ‘it is better to pray than sleep’. I’m not so certain I can feel him. I am looking much looking forward to when my cheek meets pillow. I am not chez moi tonight, where there is some mouse/chipmunk hybrid lodging under my bed, chattering at me from my headboard as I take a stand inside my mosquito nets; and the Evils, the most hideous, big, orange, sentient spider like freaks, and no electricity most of the week so all these other residents are just scuttling around in the gloaming... Oh, and I had a fucking WORM in my fucking BACK. I think cussing is appropriate in this context. Perfectly.

That trip I took into the Adamoua- there was a stowaway on the way back. There are these things called mango flies that lay their eggs in damp clothing hanging on the line in less hot, more humid and jungly environment than the Extreme North. When we learned about mango flies during training I got a little verklempt, had to hold on tight to the armrests of my chair so as to not bolt back to clean, asphalt coated America. I cried. It was my biggest fear, most awful imagining, that I have a worm embedded in my flesh. But I did, and I’m still here. And the worm is no longer in me, thanks to the patience and botanical curiosity of one Rachel Bechtold, good girl. We suffocated the bastard with some gooey antibiotic goo and when it came to the surface to get a breathe, Rachel squeezed it out. Oh, the horror.

Otherwise, I’m really just trying to keep my eye on the prize, and the prize is me with my entire extended family in Hawaii for Christmas. And then I think I will linger. I am somewhat acclimated to warmth and Oregon in February sounds a little unwise, in terms of balance. I’m still feeding the pigs up for fourth of july fete but people seem to be getting cold feet about killing them. We will hire a villager. I doubt I’ll be able to eat any of it but I’m okay with not having to slop those stinky porks twice a day.

Basically my life has gotten kindof horrifying and filthy. I am looking forward immensely to my return to civilization.

“la souffrance est un conseil” reads the sticker in the upper right hand corner of the prison bus I am riding through the dead lost countryside of the Adamaoua. The landscape is not dead, au contraire, but the place is dead lost it seems to the outside world. The paysage was in fact green and lush, with respectfully spaced trees and a passable lawn coating the openness between them. Rolling hills and the occasional banana plant. The day before’s travel had been more along the line of dense tangles undergrowth with bright red lilies of some kind and steeper more volcanic hills but always a vast expanse of view. The sticker translated into english says ‘suffering is a counsel’ or advice or some such nuance. I read that sticker over and over and the hard bench I was sitting on rammed out the rhythm of the washboard red ribbed road onto my fesses, transferred vertically to my spine. There were baskets of fish on top of the bus and their pink liquid slimed down the side of the vehicle. A rubber band made of a cut up tire slapped me across the cheek when we were stopped in some unknown mountain village and then a piece of meat was thoughtlessly dropped into my lap and my lower lip started to tremble, but we set off and the wind dried my eyes. Crying makes Cameroonians uncomfortable. I guess no one’s a HUGe fan, but sometimes it just seems the thing to do. Next it began to rain, in vast quantity and startling coldness as it easily circumscribed the plastic sheet standing in for the glass window I was unhappily squeezed up against, four other people on the bench to my right. These prison buses have grilles between the clientele and the driver (and one privileged, socially high ranking sidekick) and no shocks to speak of, so these things were contributing to the grimness of the transport. We were making decent progress were it not for the stops in every blessed village along the route to tend to folks’ personal needs of delivering and receiving doors, woven sheets of grass, and the aforementioned baskets of fish. The fish is delicious, braised on outdoor grills. Everything is outdoor. In any case I made it to my destination, nearly, and dried up quickly enough. I head to village today and will see how the pigs have been taken care of, and the cat, and if the house has been molested at all. Let us hope it is a gentle and uneventful homecoming. Let us remember that this place in the world will hold the home title for me for only five or six more months. And let us give thanks for all of it. Amina.

Wow. Sometimes.... life is a wow. You turn around and there, just behind you, shadowing you close all this time; is something you've been looking for, out over the horizon. When really it was just clinging on to your back and you turned and turned like a dog chasing its tail. Silly...

I ate cow tit. A French guy named Thomas (you're not supposed to pronounce the s at the end but I always do) made me. Coeced me, plutot. It was as you would expect, white and rounded, mammary-esque. Tasted like beef but the texture was distinctly uncomfortable. I threw my bit into the fire after a few goes at getting it to disintegrate, but when it refused to surrender it's original form, I threw it into the fire under the gas barrel grill. Kate missed this action of mine and was being tough like me and actually ate it, horrfied later to realize that it was not entirely a shared experience. That's proabably the grossest thing so far; I'm not that much of an adventurous meateeater: although in this place I certainly could be. Once i had ass sauce served to me (donkey) but I was suspicious of the meat (rightfully so, it was revealed) and only dipped the coud cous in the oily red sauce. The crocodile was creepy with the big slab of reptilian skin armoring it, but delicious, white and flaky but dense at the same time. I think I've had blood soup, but the peanut butter provided the majority of the flavor.

It is cooling down here; blessedly. There was a cold breezy rain session in the late night/early morning and today is all chill, making me chill, less prone to angry exertions and sweat production. Ahhh... also I am commencing my Adamoua vacation today, a little foray into the cool foggy highlands. Respite. Life has been particularly grinding and taxing lately, and not in the fun disco club sense. In fact I can't remember the last time I danced. That's poor form.

Aside from that, same old same ole; a freind came back from America last night and it was like Christmas exploded in her living room. Wonderful. America is bursting with material goodness. I am bursting with... something. A parasite hotel, me intestines.

And apparently I am Spiderman: You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have greatpower and responsibility.

And here is my horoscope for the week, which suggest that my madness will lead to my greatness.

Do you care? I don't know. But here it is:

Pathologist Paul Wolf has suggested that some of history's great artists may have never created their masterpieces if the wonders of modern medicine had been available to them. For example, what if doctors had cured van Gogh's mental illness with a regimen of drugs like Prozac and Xanax? Maybe he would have been spared the torment that goaded him to the outbursts of genius that erupted on his canvases. It's an interesting theory--one that I invite you to apply to your own life history. Are there ways in which the very things that have driven you crazy have played a role in your finest accomplishments? This is a perfect time to acknowledge and celebrate that ironic miracle.

Greetings and salutations to all my faithful blog readers. I have been in a dark funk lately but am feeling better now. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that I won’t always and forever be here. Here where I feel sick and hot and sweaty and angry so much. Why do I stay, you ask? You are a volunteer and that means you can stop volunteering at your volition. Yes, I respond, true that, but goddamit I said I would if I could and when possible I like to adhere to my word. Thanks for the moral code, mom and dad. Look where it got me… Anyways it’s really, really hot right now. I sweat and I curse and I ignore the annoying men. I feed my pigs. I am having extremely low confidence about the work I’m doing or not doing, unsure of where I should stick my nose in, who I can help and if my interventions will become a crutch or fill people with unassailable dreams. Some days I decide to just keep it to myself, button my lip and wash my clothes in a bucket, no higher aspirations. Some days I wander about and disperse the little money I have to people who have even less. The lady who sells peanut butter, the moto driver, the kid with follere juice, I say, well that’s something. Better than paying taxes so George can make things go boom; a better way I have with the government’s cash. But I really love little things like how, in this extremely homophobic environment, men walk about holding hands, and the way they giggle together. I feel like men in ‘my’ society don’t giggle together enough. The way everyone says hello to everybody and every action anyone takes is open to loud public comment, that used to piss me off, but now I participate and grin with the crowd. The woman wandering around with a goat’s head in one hand and four little severed legs in the other; what will she make with her delicacies? Probably bouillon, a thin soup like dish you dip your cous cous in. I am getting hungry. Today I hope to eat plantains and ndole (en-dolay).