Two Americans, dog in tow, move from Washington DC to Nice, France and then to the Netherlands. Stories about the trials and tribulations of being Americans abroad, musings about the things we learn and see, and of course chronicling any adventures we go on!
How about the town? Well, what have I told you? Apparently nothing. I have a slight tendency to get who I've told what confused. Responding to emails and even phone calls all get a little blurred as they really are all the same conversations about me and what the hell I'm doing. From my point of view, the sad thing is that I only really care about what YOU are up to. Next to English, the thing I miss most about being Stateside is a lack of information. Ok, next to English and food. And possibly the company of women. ANYWAY. Mbakaou is a village by American standards. There are about 4000 people running about, which was the size of my undergraduate class at UNC. I never thought of Chapel Hill as more than a town. But here, Mbakaou is a town. Also in my purview, or that of the health center's where I work, are another 13 villages amounting to about another 4000 folks. Two of them have 700 e...
I have a post mate. Her name is Erin and she's kinda awesome. The best thing about her is that she and I approach the Peace Corps in much the same way. Everyone here thinks the world of us and that we will revolutionize their lives. Then they laugh at us when we propose the idea that maybe they should let women outside their compounds and effectively double their workforce. "Haha, things are just different here". Yes, yes they are. We spend a lot of time talking about what exactly we can do or change and how exactly we can do it. Then we realize that everything is incredibly daunting, nothing we do will really stop poverty or make an oasis in the desert, and we begin to question what the hell we are doing here in the first place. After that we laugh, make lemonade, and go climb a tree. When it comes down to it, we are just along for the ride and we are damn well going to enjoy it. I kind of won the Peace Corps lottery....
There I am in the middle of ten or fifteen guys; it started as just a couple, but very quickly grew. They are all yelling at each other in Fulfulde or various other local languages. Right now they are just arguing and it isn't unusually physical: just some grabbing of the shoulders and like. The disconcerting thing is all the pointing and glances my way. Clearly whatever is going on is about me. Part of being a foreigner in a strange land is knowing when to sneak toward the door. A couple of months ago I was sitting on the porch of the chief's house talking to him when someone came up, started yelling, threw his shoes at the chief, and started trying to fight the old man. Quickly a group of people were surrounding the situation and I'm standing in the middle. My cue to quietly leave. I didn't know what the fight was about, but being in the middle of it was not going to help me any. Now I found this argument, that was about me, fun...
It looks like you're being chased by a magical purple laser!!
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