i am in africa!

a cozy ride in the peqce corps van through the city

at the airport with almost 150lbs of luggage the busy streets of yaounde

view from the hotel

I made it! After a seriously long trip, almost 24 hours traveling, we all made it to Yaounde. I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by other entertaining and hilarious volunteers, because it made hours of flight go by a little quicker. Things are going great, it’s been such an easy transition. Probably because I’ve been staying in a hotel for the past week which even has AC in most of the building and hot water! Thanks to the guards with large guns in the lobby 24 hours.. It’s also very safe. Yaounde is busy, but the country itself is gorgeous. Very green and tropical with red dirt roads. It’s really beautiful. Traffic and driving is insane. I’ve seen 2 traffic lights in the entire city. Just on Sunday we saw 2 traffic accidents. I have no idea how they decide who has the right away at intersections. I think they don’t and just drive instead, hoping for the best. The people here dress very nicely. Walking on a dirt road it’s not uncommon to see a woman in a dress and heels or a guy wearing a complete dress suit either. The weather is gorgeous. It’s been about 75 to 80 degrees, a little humid and mostly cloudy everyday. It is the beginning of the very heavy rain season so we there’s more rain to come in the next few months.

We’ve been spending our time doing paper work, getting I.D.s, going over safety precautions, learning how to filter our water, and getting lots of shots. The malaria medication gives me insane dreams. My fingers are crossed though, I haven’t gotten sick yet. Unfortunately not the case for 3 other people in our group. So we’re basically going over things that we’ll need to know for the next 10 weeks that we’ll be in training and living with our host families whom we’ll move in with on Thursday! I’m very anxious and a little nervous about it. No guarantee of running water or electricity probably with a large host family members who don’t speak English. Yup. Peace Corps has done a great job of getting us prepared though and I think I’m ready for a challenge so we’ll see. After about 5 weeks or so into the training, I’ll find out where I’ll be placed for my post assignment and more exactly what I’ll be doing as a small business advisor. My French isn’t as bad as I thought so I’m definitely looking forward to study another language either Pidgin or fulfulde.

I did get a cell phone which is exciting. Yeah I think I’ve got a better chance of cell phone service than running water…. I’ll take it! To dial internationally you need to dial 011, then the Cameroon country code which is 237 and then my number 79 49 60 07. It’s pretty expensive for me to call home, but free if you call me. In the states you can get deals on international calling cards but email works great too if you want to contact me.
I’m off for now and probably won’t be able to get online until I settle in Bagante for a few days. Hope all is great back home!