Day 1 as an official peace corps volunteer: holy shit

Me at the Boulangerie. Respectfully admiring the cakes

Before that though, I'll briefly tell you what we've been up to for the past week. We traveled last sunday to Yaounde for banking, admin and last medical stuff. We were also forwarded a move-in salary and our salaries for the next 3 months. It was a chunk of change, in USD it doesn't sound like that much, but we're volunteers after all, and in comparison here, pcvs do live nicely. Anyway, in Yaounde there's pizza, milkshakes, Chinese food, burgers, etc. But they all just imitate food back home, it's far from being the same but the resemblance is there and that's good enough. I had white cheddar cheese too, and it was worth every CFA. I left the grocery store, with nothing that I originally set out to get because I was so overwhelmed.



We went to happy hour at the hilton hotel, probably the nicest hotel in the capital. Just walking into the lobby, I felt like I teleported to America. Air condition, sparkling floors, carpet, lobby furniture, I can go all day talking about this. And then we went in a lovely elevator. See picture below of me demonstrating how wonderful the elevator is. The bar/lounge is on the top floor that has a gorgeous view overlooking Yaounde. The cocktails/mocktails, were pretty expensive, weren't perfect, and it took them a half an hour to make, but seriously I'm not complaining, it was so worth it. And of course, the guys also sported they're ridiculous mustaches and sunglasses.
In the elevator


So we had 4 days of this in the Cause and it was awesome. And you'd think after spending 24 hours everyday with each other.. eating, sleeping, and never being alone, we'd be sick of each other. Not the case, at all. I've already told a couple people here, my future wedding party just doubled, and the bar tab tripled because I know some of these people are going to be around for a while. We did Superlatives of the people in our stage, some of them were clearly stolen from a high school year book, like best laugh or nicest smile, others categories had people already in mind. David won "most likely to be broke during the peace corps", he's a baller spender, funny enough he also won "most likely to be rich after service". Jim's blog won "most likely to be shut down by PC". Your's truly won "nicest eyes", "most likely to steal food from the cause" and "most likely to be polygamous". Using food in the cause's kitchen is probably true, I do cook, and about the polygamy.. no comment.



The swearing-in ceremony was great, the SED girls had french toast brunch and mimosas at 9am before, we all looked great in our matching outfits, (i've added new pictures). The adorable Embassy boy scouts club started the ceremony off. There was traditional dancing, speeches in Pidgin, Fulfulde and French. We had a nice dinner, and after we continued celebrating at the SED house, at the marche where we ate grilled street meat and grilled fish. We went dancing at a hotel club where we were the only people making fools of ourselves, it was great.



Unfortunately, today has been the only unhappy day since I've been here. We split up, the people going north and east headed off through Yaounde, where I am now, and the other headed to the West, NW, SW, and Adamoua provinces. Laura and I, left Wendy and Kate, all crying, going in opposite directions of the country. Luckily, I'm hanging out with Laura for one more day before we both head off again, me to the east and Laura travels almost 3 days to the north on the border of Chad. Then in my city, Bertoua, I'll have to say goodbye again to Trevor and Nik and the Ed's going to the east when they separate off to their own posts. We're going to have quite a change. Lately we find ourselves asking the "What am I actually doing here?" question all the time. All of a sudden I don't have a schedule to follow, homework to do, family to go home to. Change here we come again. I'm excited though, ready to be challenged. And on a happier note, I'm getting a kitten! To eat the mice and bugs. I think I'm going to name it Giselle, even though I named Nik's avocado tree Giselle as well. Much love, from Siobhan as a Peace Corps Volunteer.