so february, huh.

yesterday was a frustrating day, which i haven't had in a while. i forgot how lame they are. woke up after a super-realistic nightmare (i dreamed i was HIV positive and was having to tell everyone important to me) and i wasn't sure it wasn't real for a few hours. caught a car to Bafoussam, drunk guy in the car (at 8 am) kept telling me how he was going to get me pregnant and i was going to have triplets. kept giving me lectures on how cameroon is africa in miniature and there are more than 258 languages, and telling me about the triplets we were going to have. I started ignoring him, which is awkward in a car for 40 minutes. eventually he started hitting on the lady next to him, talking about how he slept with other peoples' wives. classy.

got to baf in a rotten mood, and all the hisses and kissing noises from guys (which is a standard way to get someone's attention here, it is just hard to get over how uncomfortable it makes me in my cultural perspective), and it was pissing me off after drunk-car-guy. i went to the bank before the meeting, and tried to use my ATM card for the first time. i didn't remember my PIN, so i kept trying things until it locked me out. it turns out they hadn't given me my PIN with my card. the guy at the bank was all, "why didn't you ask for your PIN?" and i was like, "I didn't know, is it not obvious that i am way out of my element here?" except that it was in french and i wasn't actually so sassy.

so i had to run to my meeting (or hop on a moto, rather) before i could get my card straightened out. the meeting was... frustrating. working in a group is hard enough when you all speak the same language. Instead it is me and Liz struggling with french, and 3 or 4 folks from RIDEV speaking fast mumbly french. Theo was not there again so we didn't have his translating abilities or keeping us on track abilities.

I think I am going to learn a lot from this Batir l'Avenir project. Because we are going about it the entirely wrong way. And there are going to be a lot of mistakes to learn from. We don't have financing for the program yet, which is going to start in less than a month. The way we are planning it is terribly disorganized, the language barrier is intense. During the meeting I went from sitting up straight, to leaning on my elbow with my forehead in my hand, to leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed and glaring. I think the next logical step would be to throw the table.

Things improved. We ate lunch. Grilled fish and fried plantains, yum. Got the bank stuff straightened out, one way or another. Got some expired cheese from the supermarket. Went to the post office to see about getting a PO Box. I had to ask the lady to repeat her instructions about 10 times, but she was nice about it. Caught a moto to my Gare, caught a car back to Bamendjou. Hot hot hot. The driver was nice and opened his door when we hit the paved parts so there was occasionally some airflow.

Is sweat not amazing? Cooling by evaporation. Love it.

When we got to Bamendjou there were approximately 30 people waiting for a car to show up and they started pushing to get in before we could even get out. I had to shove through a crowd, got my glasses knocked off and almost fell over. Survival of the fittest.

Bought some avocados (4 for 20 cents!!!!!) and some ginger, couldn't find any pineapple or veggies, and headed home.

At 8:30, after dark, someone was walking on our roof. Jane and I started talking and they left. She said, "Maybe it is a thief." Feeling safe. Not.

Read for a while and talked myself down and got so exhausted I had to sleep. Of course everything was fine.

Today is cleaning day! Slowly. Did my dishes, cleaned the top half of the kitchen, cleaned out the fridge and did the compost. I still need to wash the floor (Jane reprimanded me), and get all the little piles I've started organized and into non-pile form.

Ate a delish avocado and balsamic vinegar sandwich.

Groundhog day today... think I'll get another 6 weeks of winter? Ha. I miss winter.

Love.