Happy List Wednesday

• Fiver
• Pictures of Ellie and Rosie :)
• Aaron Tveit in Les Miserables
• Waffles
• Second and third birthdays
• Scarves with colorful talking zebras
• Watermelon
• Falling asleep
• Waking up to talk to Toby
• Looking at flights for when I come home
• Calabashes!
• Pens
• Mismatching clothes
• New books
• Packages from my kind and generous Grandmother! Thank you Gommie!
• Puff puffs
• Getting new dresses made
• Philippians
• Having a camera again
• These lovely lists

Geburtstag Numer Zwanzig

Pizza, Les Miserables, ice cream cake, hiking, wind, swimming, homemade chimichangas, Meg Ryan, friends staying the night: all the necessary components for a grand and glorious compilation also known as this weekend! Darcie and I combined our birthdays with a pizza and movie night on Saturday and we had a whole bunch of people come over to celebrate. Lum made a beautiful ice cream cake with oreos for us and it was incredibly delicious, and then most everyone stayed the night, too full of cheese and avocados and chocolate to move. :D Some had to leave before lunchtime, and Chris had to go to a meeting in the Ndop, but the rest of us then climbed in the car and headed out to Lake Awing! A "Touristic Site," or so it says on the sign haha. While Karen, Darcie, and Georgia stayed to read by the lake, the rest of us climbed this monstrous hill, enjoyed the view immensely, clambered back down, and wandered through a beautiful eucalyptus forest to go and join the others. Birte, Katelyn and I took a dip into the freezing cold water and swam around a bit, making plans to come back with boats and a picnic! After a bit we all got back in (or on top of) the car to go exploring down the dirt roads... And for the first time in months I was cold! But the wind quickly dried off our clothes and even added a nice light brown layer of dust on top as well... how generous! It's always so fun going on adventures; it's also just as nice coming back home and taking showers! And eating dinner, of course. Guacamole is the new chocolate! Along with chocolate. Of which I received large amounts for my birthday, as well as lots of new books to read! Yay! But the best part of the day was getting to talk to my family, and then Toby :) Bad days are hard to come by here, but yesterday was especially wonderful, and my thanks goes out to each and every one of you who wished me well!

Happy List Thursday

[These lists are the greatest, you all should try them!]

• Cool showers
• Tea in the mornings
• Tea at night
• The song Not With Haste by Mumford & Sons
• 500+ page books
• Toby, always
• Bowls of chocolate chips just waiting to be consumed
• Wooden wind chimes
• Picking mini strawberries in the garden
• Flip flops
• Puns
• The big new window in the kitchen
• Popcorn that is not burnt
• Big hats
• Apples
• Singing

Dust Bowl Dance

Aishatu! Fadi and Maimu's little sister

Running wild with the horses, like I've always dreamed of doing

Because what is an adventure without some yoga on top of a cliff?

Hellooooooo! As you may have noticed, pictures! Katelyn got a new camera and so I stole a few to (finally) provide you all with visual supplements to my excess of words. :) Yesterday we all went up to Sabba Njowra for the day, and had a grand time as always, walking, hiking, visiting, and playing with children. Georgia, a Peace Corps Volunteer, came Friday for pizza and movie night and then ended up staying the whole weekend! and we all had loads of fun. So many good things are going on: I have a new niece, I hear that rainy season is on the way and we won't have to put up with the dreadful dust for much longer, I'm finally getting over my cold, there are banana chocolate chip muffins in the house, and I was able to talk to Toby Saturday and my family Sunday, so I'm a happy girl! I do wish you all a glorious Monday!

Happy List Saturday

• Shakespeare's Sonnet 116
• Burt's Bees Honey Lip Balm with vitamin E (thank youuuu Bob and Julie!)
• Starburst
• Piano music
• Reading The Odyssey
• Modern Family
• Chatting with my lovely far-away friend Kaylee, who is a wonderful person
• Mat Kearney
• The exciting and delightful news that I have a new niece, Rosemeri Megan Cross! Can't wait to see her!
• Sleeping in
• Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie & Julia
• Chocolate alaskas (delicious frozen fudge treats that Delphine makes for us)
• Katelyn telling someone in the market her name was "Elephant" ... and them believing it
• Puzzles
• Shorts with upside-down giraffes on them
• The internet working
• Toby :)

National Youth Day

No matter how long you live in Cameroon, there will always be new experiences you have that reopen your eyes and make you remember, "Oh.... right, I live in Africa." After nearly seven months of living on African time and having "white man" yelled at me daily and often going without electricity or internet or even water, I've come to accept this as normal. But yesterday, on Cameroon's National Youth Day, I was reminded that this is definitely not my country, and there are countless things I have yet to experience, let alone understand.

Much like some holidays in America, Youth Day is celebrated by a parade of sorts down Commercial Avenue, the main street in downtown Bamenda... but however similar the idea, the execution was.... well, not really similar. In any way. No floats, horses, fancy cars, or baton-twirling acrobats paraded down the street - instead, every single school in and around Bamenda came to march in somewhat-straight lines through downtown, arms swinging and teachers yelling. And everyone else in and around Bamenda came to watch.

I have never felt so white before. Not even the first time I came to Cameroon, because then I was surrounded by the Jacksons, team members, and other expats. Yesterday it was just me and Sarah in a sea of brown heads turning to stare, shout, catcall, laugh, and grab at us. I'm glad I went and had the experience, but the day was fraught with misadventures... Such as waiting for over thirty minutes at the side of the road for a taxi, every single one of which was crammed with people, before trekking back up the hill and getting Papa Karissa to drive us into town. And losing Maimu, a small, blue-clad girl with braids in the ocean of schoolchildren wearing blue uniforms and braids for a terrible ten minutes. And walking the entire way from Commercial Avenue to Mile 3 and home sweet home, because we couldn't find a taxi back.... that only took about an hour and a half! Thankfully we had water, as well as some money, so we stopped at a few gas stations along the way for delicious pineapple and mango juice to fortify our weary, sunburned souls.

These misadventures are just Cameroon's way of helping us stay flexible, right? Haha. It actually really wasn't that bad, and I got to experience the celebration of a national holiday, Africa-style! Whooo! I'm pretty sure all crowds I encounter from here on out will look like fun little gatherings, all summer heat and humidity tolerable, and all eardrum-bursting noises just "kinda loud." If you want extreme, come to Africa.

So you get an idea of the insane amount of people there were!
And Commercial Avenue goes off into the distance awhile longer...

Sickness, Sorrow, and Despair, People Dying Everywhere...

Well America, you got me. I've been rejoicing over the fact that I'm in Africa lately, because of the lack of winter colds and country-decimating influenza that's taking out nearly everyone I know on the other side of the ocean. The whole time I've been here (six months, 3 weeks, 2.5 days) I've been somehow magically immune to all the sicknesses that have swept through this house of many people. I figured I just crossed some invisible immunity border that was keeping me from harm... but alas, Thursday evening I finally succumbed to my one of my least favorite things in the entire planet: a cold. So there's not much to tell you when asked of what I've been doing so far this weekend, unless you want me to regale you with oh-so-thrilling tales of how I spent the day snorting snot into countless rolls of toilet paper or wandering aimlessly around the house with one such roll in my hand and a cup of tea in the other.

On the other hand, the other occupants of the Jackson house have had much more exciting lives in the past few days, and their adventures will be a grand substitute for my own while I live the insipid life of a blob. Maimu's twelfth birthday was on Thursday, and we decorated the house, Lum made cupcakes, and we all sang and danced and hid her presents, as is the Jackson Village tradition. I still don't think she fully understands why we were shouting "warmer" and "colder" to her as she searched the room, but she found her presents eventually, and that's what counts, right? Friday night we continued the celebration by making and breaking our very own pinata (paper mache over a balloon, decorated with paper, and which exploded upon Maimu's very first thwack), a game of Fruit Basket Upset (which they apparently call Upset the Fruit Basket here, and have mango, papaya, banana, and guava instead of all those western fruits) and consuming a marvelous-looking and tasting cake, crafted by the one and only Lum!

(Now that I mentioned all that fruit, I'm really craving a guava or two... bananas are a staple, papayas are pretty good... And we're still waiting on mango season to hurry up and start already!)

A bunch of people came for pizza and movie, but only Darcie, Georgia, Amanda, and Birte stayed the night (Africa has redefined 'crowds' for me), and left this morning while I was still horizontal and dead to the world, thanks to nyquil. Yunu is here for weekend, and played a bit of football today with me and Maimu. Fadi got her hair rebraided, and looks lovely. Chris has returned safely from his trip to Atamawa (he got to ride in a helicopter! Jealousssss). So far two of the puppies have gone to their new homes (so now only Merry, Sherlock, and Balu are left). I got to talk with Toby today, which was lovely and wonderful. <3 And OH YEAH, this week I got my passport back!

Oh you know, it's only been half a year. Pretty speedy for Cameroon, I'll say. Definitely didn't think I'd see it again until June came around and I was packing to leave! So thank you, Jesus, for bringing it safely into my hands from who knows where! Seriously. I'm pretty happy. Sickness aside, it's been a good day.

Happy List Friday

• My hippopotamus pillowpet Waffle
• Fans to make the room cold, and blankets to snuggle under
• Laughing at/with my wonderful boyfriend
• Zucchini chocolate-chip muffins
• Lion King
• Making omelets at 10 pm, because hunger overtook me without warning
• Walking
• Djino (a flavor/brand of soda here)
• Big flowy trousers that make me feel like Aladdin
• Today is Friday!
• Friends... the show and the real ones
• Words of the day (today's is conlanger: a person who creates constructed languages. J.R.R. Tolkien, for example)
• Emails from my mother

Fun

What a weekend! After a week that flashed by with all its usual speed, we had a jolly pizza and movie night with a whole bunch of people from Bali - Delaney and Ryan we'd already met, and they brought with them 5 newcomers. Everyone stayed the night and we had a grand ole time making breakfast in the morning, and then setting off on a hiking adventure in what we like to call God's Playground! If you saw this place, you'd understand why. Just a short hike away from the main road, you come upon these gargantuan boulders sticking up out of the ground, totally climbable and looking down upon a small valley filled with houses and farms. It was blustery, and beautiful, and so much fun! I'm still sore from all the climbing we did, but it was so worth it to stand on the edge of the rocks and sing Colors of the Wind, sit on my own rock and do nothing but think for thirty minutes, then do some tribal interpretive dances to the immortal Lion King soundtrack with Katelyn and Delaney. :D

Then Sunday we had a quiet morning, followed by everyone piling in the car and driving out to Bali! That trip included a lovely hike down to this beautiful waterfall hidden away in the jungle! It was beautiful, and a few people went in and swam and then jumped off the top. We got caught in the rain on the way back - RAIN! Dry season must have been Confunded or something... but we're not complaining! Schwarma and pears (avocados) for dinner made a yummy end to a fun day, and then I got to talk to Toby! Which was just wonderful. All in all, a delightful weekend in the Jackson Village; I'm so glad I live with them. If any of you ever come to Cameroon, make sure to hang out with these people. They're cool.