Post holiday update

Long hair!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I had an amazing Thanksgiving holiday here. It might have been one of the best times I've had here actually. Oh and I got my hair done! It’s a Senegalese Rasta twist. Never have I ever been a brunette and never have I had my hair this long. It took 8 hours to put in!!!! I was not happy sitting still but its cute so I guess it was worth it. It was so heavy I ended up cutting a bit.

Welcome to the good life...

Back to Thanksgiving, we were all traveling deeper into the east province to a smaller town known for its lack of electricty, horrible cell service and water shortages. My town is the only place with pavement in the entire province.. yeah.. so everywhere else is extremely dusty. But that didn't dampen the holiday.

It was hosted by a recent former peace corps volunteer who is now running a cameroonian tobacco company. He's got a tough job but some pretty posh living. I felt like I stepped into a tropical vacation getaway.. pool, hot water, patio furniture, full bar with a fridge, pool table, etc. I was in the pool for hours and I played with the pet monkey for a while. The girls did most of the cooking though, we were in the kitchen for 7 hours trying to recreate american dishes with things you can find in Cameroon. Not easy, but after a couple scotchs on the rocks, with some music, cooking was hilarious. Simple things like making green bean casserole turn into a production and basically a guessing game. Hmmm maybe if we just add this, that and whatever it'll turn out okay right?? And most things did.

The former volunteer raised turkeys that we stuffed and put in the oven. I was thankful I didn't have to see them die. We had deviled eggs to start, mashed potatoes, SWEET corn not cameroonian cow corn that they call sweet, cranberry sauce!, stuffing, green beans, and plenty of wine. Deserts were also amazing, with the help of some ingredients sent from the states. There was 20 people at the table, half of them were volunteers and the others were people from Doctors Without Borders, a Stanford student who was doing research and some people from the tobacco company.

Tony

So I made it safetly back! I might have mentioned it before but its tough being around so many americans and then not. One of those love hate things. I'm really looking forward to christmas. I'll be traveling into the bush for christmas eve celebrating Cameroonian style and then I'm planning Christmas day dinner here in Bertoua. It will be really nice and the other volunteers in the province are the most amazing people to be around during the holidays. However no matter how great the pumpkin pie is, or if there is a swimming pool and a bottle of 15 year scotch in the equation.. you just can't replace family. There's not subsitution that comes even close. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, Miss you all to timbuktu and back!