I moved to the East!

Hopefully I'll start this were I left off.. I made it to the east! With all of my things, which is great. No huge problems. Peace Corps rented out a prison type looking bus for us, which they loaded with furniture for a new transit house out here, on top of our luggage and bikes, it was a bit crowded but good.

I have my own house! That's a first. Someone hasn't lived in it for a year so there's some cleaning to be done. I just watched Under the Tuscan Sun, and my situation kind of reminds me of that. Except I don't live in Tuscany, I have to do stuff myself, people don't convienently speak english in this foreign country, and I highly doubt this story is going to end up with a georgous guy living in my villa, in this case, my compound. Wait that's not one of the goals of Peace Corps? Just joking. It's a nice house though, I've got a little screened in front porch, a good size living room, 2 guest bedrooms, a master bedroom that connects to the bathroom and a little kitchen. Lots of spiders, a few cockroaches and a bunch of geicos also live avec moi. I've got pretty constant electricity. Running water is a little less dependable, which is fine, I've got a well & bucket in my front yard. Directions to my house: Mother Hen, Piggy Bar. No joke.

It's strange to think that I live here, not just visiting. Especially because it's so different than the West Province where I've been living since I got here. It sucks sometimes not being around everyone else, but at the same time I really like the independence. I love having my own kitchen.. american food! Kind of. I still grab stuff in town a lot because I've grown to really like Cameroonian cuisine. Did I mention porcupine, viper, monkey and some armadillo like animal is really popular out here. I'll let you know how those are...

I'm really lucky to have 2 great postmates. Anne Marie lives in the house next to mine in our compound, and Kate is a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader who lives in a house around the block. Not really around the block, more like down the dirt road and through the path in someone's field, but anyway. The PCVL is a new position, Kate is a good person to go to with issues or questions because this is her 3rd year living in the East and she kind of acts as a middle person between Peace Corps admin. She also lives in a house large enough to house people traveling through, and will have a frigerator and an oven. That's pretty posh living. Both Kate and Anne Marie helped me buy stuff for my house yesterday. Price tags are extremely rare, so you have to know the price before you want to buy something or you'll get ripped off, which is on top the other reasons why I'm more likely to get a different price. I'm getting better at negotiating, but Kate and Anne Marie are pros.

Plenty more domestic stories to come, but this entry is getting long. All the best to those