A blessing? In disguise? Prob not.

I made it out of the jungle! And I'm finally done traveling for a few weeks. I love how I was able to see both sides of the country and both were completely opposite from each other.. cold vs. humid, more developed vs. extreme poverty, english vs. sometimes very little french, etc. After being away from my post for so long, I decided that I am really happy in Bertoua, kind of in the middle.

I had the experience of a life time camping out in the central Africa rainforest, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. However there's a more important issue that I need to get off my mind first.

As a lot of you know, Pope Benedict came to visit Cameroon last week. I already mentioned in preparation for his visit the Cameroonian government decided to clean up the capital city- aka bulldoze hundreds businesses and homes in the middle of the night. After I witnessed it in Yaoundé, I was furious. Unfortunately Pope Benedict said NOTHING about this during his visit. Nothing.

From the Herald Tribune: "Pope Benedict XVI will not know when he visits Yaoundé that beyond the thousands of smiling faces welcoming him are millions of destitute Cameroonians who wish he did not come," said Michael Kimbi Tchenga, a resident of the capital Yaoundé.

THEN he denounced the use of condoms and further said that condom just aggravates the problem of HIV/AIDS. WRONG. I've been hearing a lot of international organizations saying that they hope some Cameroonians overlooked that part of the Pope's speech. But deep in the jungle, an 8 hour ride to the next town to get phone service... people we were working with knew about the condom comment a few days later...

The World Health Organisation responded: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million." (Times)

Too often words or pictures don't cut it. I'm not much of a writer anyway but they can't possibly show my feelings about this. I will post pictures later and the next blog will be a little more cheerful. Till then!