Monday, 12 July 2010: Month 10 Day 19

Why Make Wait until Tomorrow what Perhaps can only be Written Today?

I’m sitting here looking at the painting that my students made for me as a going away present.  It’s so strange; it’s like I know it from a dream.  It’s a long path extending between two towering rows of trees, leading to a door at the end that seems almost to have a veil over it.  There are parts of the painting that are clear and realistic, and then there are other parts that seem to melt together as though they themselves are still a part of whatever dream first showed me this image.  I know next to nothing about art, but I know about feelings and I know what this painting evokes for me.  Ayang and Etapa said they made the colors dark to represent the sadness that shadows my leaving.  To me though, it also whispers a reminder of the struggles I faced before finding some sense of peace and happiness in this country.  Maybe it only feels like a dream because of the accident yesterday, but I think even before that I felt it.

I would say that I still can’t believe that only a week before I leave I got into an accident, but that would be a lie.  I can believe it.  What’s not to believe?  The thought that keeps running through my head is just thank goodness for my family; thank goodness those numbers were written down and somebody could call.  I don’t remember what caused the accident; I don’t think I saw it.  We were rolling past the bandstand and I was wondering what they were setting up chairs for – I didn’t think there was a holiday coming up.  We came up on the intersection by where all the banks are – turn right to go home, turn left to go to Christine’s.  Somewhere in the intersection all of a sudden it was as though someone had thrown a ton of bricks against the side of the bike.  I don’t remember seeing anything; I just remember how it felt.  I remember hitting the ground and hitting my head; I remember my bag hitting the ground with a thud because of the books in it.  I think I was unconscious and then there were people around and I think even before they moved me out of the road I was saying, “Il faut appeler ma famille…” – “You need to call my family…” – and I managed to pull out my notebook and open the back cover where the numbers were written.  “Quel numero?” he asked me and I managed to point to Mama Moussa’s.

All of this is like a dream in my head.  It’s not like remember real events.  They got us to the side of the road, though I didn’t know who the others in the accident were.  The person driving our bike seemed to be okay.  A man in a black shirt was calling Mama Moussa and said to me that my sister was coming.  Somebody asked my name.  People kept saying I should go to the hospital and I kept saying, “Can’t I wait until my family gets here?  They only live just over there…”  The driver of the bike I was on asked me if the house where he’d picked me up was where Mama Moussa was.  I told him yes and he said he was going to get her.  Somebody held up a cell phone and asked me what it was, trying to figure out if I was conscious and aware.  Then Noura was there out of nowhere; apparently she’d taken her bicycle and peddled as fast as she could.  And then a bike pulled up with Mama Moussa sandwiched between the bike’s driver and my driver who had gone to get her.

They had me stand up – somebody had given me a napkin for the blood on my hand.  My right elbow was skinned and stinging and my head was aching.  Mama Moussa asked me where my scarf was; I pointed to my bag where I’d put it when it had fallen off.  Suddenly Papa Moussa’s yellow car pulled up and I climbed in the back with Mama Moussa and Noura.  Two people got in the front seat – our driver and I think the driver of the other bike, though I didn’t know that until Noura explained it later, and even now I’m not sure I remember it correctly.  Noura said that Papa Moussa wasn’t going to let it drop and would call the commissaire.  Driving to the hospital, which is near the office, I saw one of my students whose mother had passed away on Wednesday.  He had lost his father already and today he looked quiet and sad as he walked along the road.

At the hospital we saw a doctor who looked at me, asked me a few questions, and then sent Papa Moussa off with a prescription.  I was surprised that he hadn’t checked for a concussion and wondered whether I had one.  Mama Moussa gave me a bottle of water that the driver had gone to buy and she told me to take a big sip, that it would help calm me down.  “It’s magic,” she said of water’s ability to bring you back to a stable place.  It was strange – I was conscious and coherent, but it was as though reality and dream had lost the barrier between them.  Mama Moussa said to me that the driver was a “normalian,” meaning he was a student at the École Normale.  When I asked what department, he told me Spanish, and he seemed surprised and pleased when I told him that I’d been to their cultural week performance and had very much enjoyed it.  There was money exchanged for a hospital fee and the prescription but I don’t know how much – and then we were back out at the car.  Trying not to touch any of the scrapes on my hand or arm, I got my hair back up and my scarf back on.

I was supposed to be going to Michael’s for a departmental party and of course I didn’t have his number anymore because my phone got stolen at the cultural evening the night before.  I explained where the house was and was pretty sure that I’d be able to find it, but when we got to the house that I thought was his, the door was locked and looking through the gate where the cars would enter I wasn’t positive that it was his house.  We left trying to find it elsewhere, with me hoping hs car would be there to make it obvious.  Papa Moussa had Abakar’s number and called him.  I guess Abakar was already on his way to the party and so we ended up following him back to the house where we’d started.  Normally I might have been embarrassed about not having been able to find the house, but I was still in too much of a dreamlike state to think of that.

Even at the party it was all very surreal.  By the time Mike dropped me off and I got upstairs, I didn’t quite know what to do.  I would have gone back to the house but I wanted to call home.  The girls were out though so I couldn’t get into their apartment.  I ended up going downstairs to buy some bread and then just sitting at the boutique with Bichaïr and Oumarou.  It was dark by now and I watched the lights from the cars and bikes as they went by.  Oumarou was telling me about his entrance exam that he would be writing today and I finally gave he and Bachaïr the photos I’d brought back from the US.

Because Ramadan isn’t that far off, we’re entering a season for marriages, Oumarou explained after two wedding parties had gone by, honking their horns to announce to the world the newly married couple was passing.  Cars and bikes came and went, pulling up in front of the boutique and then leaving.  Then, a car that looked just like Papa Moussa’s car pulled up and Rahis jumped out of the front seat with a chunk of bread in his hand.  He and Papa Moussa came over and Papa Moussa explained that they’d gone out to get bread for the next day and Rahis insisted on coming to see me.  When he heard that there had been an accident he had just started crying crying.  He hadn’t wanted me to leave today, “Why does she have to go now?  I don’t want her to go.”  I was so happy to see them and Papa Moussa was glad to see that I was doing alright.  I really had gotten very lucky.  Holding Rahis in my lap I thought about how lucky I had gotten.

Today I’m waiting for the Chinese girls to come back so that I can call home finally.  I won’t be able to call Nate because he’s on vacation with his family and I’m sure he has no reception because I haven’t gotten an email from him since he left.  He called me from the plane during his stopover heading out, but I haven’t heard anything since then.  I hope he’s having a good time.  It would be nice to have someone to talk to though.  Hopefully the girls will get home soon.  Dzavi and another second year student stopped by to see how I was doing after the accident.  Apparently one of my students saw it happen and told them.  I thought that was sweet.  Of course he was also coming by to get money from me to pay people who’d helped at the party but I appreciated the gesture.  Now I’m just sitting here looking at the painting, lost somewhere in the fluid colors moving across the canvas dream.  I swear I’ve been here before.

A Day and Party as Cameroonian as Couscous and Folorée

Hey all, I know I’m a little behind getting entries up because of prep for the party, but I wanted to share this entry.  I will get the other ones up soon, along with pictures from the party.  I apologize in advance for all the typos in this post…but it took so much energy to write it that proofreading was not a possibility immediately following.  Hopefully later on I’ll be able to proof it….

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Today was a day so typically African that from the American perspective, the mixture of bad luck, good luck, serendipity, and defenselessness in the face of Fate seems more like a tale of fiction than a transcript of today’s trials and triumphs.  For days – even weeks – I’d been planning this party which I knew could easily top 80 people if the stars chose to align that way.  After all the work Mylene and I did yesterday, I dragged myself out of bed around 6 this morning to start all over again, and Mylene arrived by 6:20.  The first thing I’d done when I got up was throw my sheets into the wash because we were going to need to use them for a projector screen and table cloths.  Not long after Mylene arrived, I realized that the washer had stopped.  At first, I thought that something must have happened to the washer, but then a more logical – and more frightening – explanation popped into my head: they had cut the electricity.

I practically ran over to the balcony door to look at the air conditioner, which is the surefire way to know whether the electricity is on.  My heart nearly stopped beating when I realized the screen was blank.  I would rather have seen the little green numbers taunting me with temperatures too hot for the food we were preparing than to have seen nothing like this, knowing that even though I couldn’t see what the temperature was, there was no doubt that without a refrigerator we were in deep waters with no little arm floaties.  The metaphor became incredibly ironic with the realization that followed just seconds after my heart had already stopped beating: no electricity means no water.  Whereas Mylene had been relatively calm at the discovery that there was no electricity, even she plopped into one of the armchairs and asked me what we were going to do without water.

My only hope was that it was just our building and that I could plead with the workers to turn everything back on and work tomorrow.  I raced downstairs to the boutique, only to discover that there was no electricity there.  Bachïrou told me he hadn’t heard anything on the radio about it so, after buying yogurt for Mylene and I, I raced back to the apartment.  Grabbing my cell phone, I clicked through my contacts and called Bouba, barely keeping the panic out of my voice as explained this turn of events.  He said he would call someone and get back to me with some information.  Then I called Papa Moussa to find out whether there was electricity at the house.  Unfortunately, even though we were coming on 7:00 I caught him sleeping.  I didn’t know at this point, but apparently he’s come down with the same cold that’s been going around and he didn’t sleep much during the night.  He wanted to know if I was calling about the chickens we were supposed to get, but I told him no, I just wanted to know if there was electricity.  He said he thought so, but would call me back when he was awake.

Bernard arrived and Mylene and I related the situation.  Just then, the phone rang; it was Bouba telling me he had bad news.  He had called someone at Sonnel, the electricity company, and that person told him that it wasn’t Sonnel who had cut the electricity.  Apparently there were people doing work in Garoua, and so the electricity had been turned off at that level.  (Garoua is the next major city, a 3.5 hour bus ride from Maroua.)  The power would – allegedly – be back on at 4:00 in the afternoon.  At this point real panic was setting in.  I had no idea what to do.  Bernard called the hotel to find out if there was water there, and discovering there was, he said we would find some large jugs and bring water to the house.

I spoke with Papa Moussa again who said he thought he had some jugs, or could ask somebody who worked nearby to help us with that.  Leaving Mylene to start with things that required neither water nor electricity (thank goodness for gas stoves) Bernard and I raced downstairs.  As we reached the ground floor I said to Bernard that I hoped today would be typically African in the sense that everything seems scattered and impossible, but then at the last moment it all comes together alright.  He laughed and agreed, knowing exactly what I meant.  Little did either of us know how true the statement would end up being.

We stopped and the boutique and Bachïrou told us we could borrow the 20 liter jug that he had, which we decided to get after stopping to see Papa Moussa.  Bernard and I hopped onto a bike and hurried over to the house, where Papa Moussa was waiting.  There was a young man standing with Papa Moussa, a push cart and eight 20 liter jugs sitting next to him.  Papa Moussa and another man got onto the man’s bike and headed off towards the main road, and a few minutes later Papa Moussa called me to say we should go over the Hotel Maroua Palace, which is on the corner of their plastic baggie laced dirt road and the main road.  When we arrived he told me there was water there and that we could fill the jugs – giving us 160 liters of water to get through the day.  “Tu as trop de chance,” Papa Moussa said to me.  It’s true ; though again, I didn’t realize the extent of that statement until much later in the day.  Being “too lucky” was certainly a recurring theme.

As we filled the jugs, Papa Moussa asked me what I was going to put the water in when we got home.  I hadn’t realized we wouldn’t be able to keep the jugs.  As Papa Moussa headed back to the house, I told Bernard that he should take care of the water, I was going to find a solution for the containers.  Walking as quickly as I could, I headed back towards home.  I stopped in the Chinese shop where the girls’ friends work to find out if they had anything: no luck.  Then I stopped into the new Chinese shop across from the apartment to ask there; they didn’t have anything either, but suggest I go to the other side of the market to look, which would have been my next stop anyway.

Walking through the market to the road on the other side, I remarked how quiet everything was at twenty of eight.  Most of the shops were closed; some people sat, eating some breakfast or drinking tea or Nes-café; the day’s activities were taking the sweet African time to get started.  There was certainly no sense of panic over having potentially 60-80 people, including the Rector of the University, at a party with no food.  I hoped that the people I was looking for on the other side of the market would be there already, and surveyed the long row of closed shop doors when I finally emerged from the covered market area.  Then I saw plastic chairs.  I crossed the street, hoping that the men dragging their plastic ware out onto the sidewalk would not only have what I needed, but be sympathetic to my plight as well.

Not seeing the large plastic garbage cans that I wanted, but seeing large plastic bowls which, though less convenient, would have worked, I asked the man whether he had any Aqua Drums.  He pointed inside the shop at a 100 liter garbage can and a 120 liter garbage can.  Oh, perfect.  I asked how much they were, and he told me 15,000 for the smaller and 17,000 for the larger.  Remember that you drop the zeros and double the number to get the price in USD, so we were looking at $30-$40 for one of these things.  I explained my situation to the man, “Here’s the story: I have the administration from the École Normale coming to my house tonight and I can’t cook without water.  I bought water but I don’t have anything to put it in.  Can I rent one of these for the day?  I can bring it back first thing tomorrow morning.”  At first the man didn’t seem to understand what I was asking, but then after reiterating, he realized that I didn’t want to actually by the drum, I just wanted to use it for today and then bring it back.

Finally he agreed, saying that for 7,000 I could use one.  Feigning shock I said, “But sir, that’s nearly half the buying price – I only want it for one day!”  He responded that if I borrowed it, then he would be selling a used product.  I told him that I was only putting water in it and that, if anything, it would be cleaner when I brought it back tomorrow.  He asked me what I wanted to pay and I told him 500-1,000.  “But that’s so little!” he exclaimed.  I tried reasoning with him, “I’m only using it for today and can have it back first thing tomorrow morning.  Are you likely to actually sell this today?  Probably not; so it’s just going to sit here.  Does it make any money sitting here?  No.  So if you lend it to me, the money I give you is like a cadeau and then you can still sell it for the full price.”  The man stood there a minute, weighing my logic, weighing my desperation, weighing my plea to « aidez-moi, monsieuer, s’il vous plait » and finally he said I could take it for 1,000 francs.  That meant that I’d pay 1,000 for the drum, 1,000 to the kid who brought the water, and a total of about $5 to solve the water issue.  Trop de chance indeed.

Back at the apartment we dumped six of the jugs into the Aqua Drum and allegedly were allowed to keep the other two for the day (the kid decided that since he wouldn’t have access to water, he didn’t need his containers) but a short while later he showed up to say that he was leaving to go to Douala or Mokolo or something and so he needed them back.  Good thing I got that drum after all.  We had to scramble a bit to find containers for the other 40 liters, but better 40 liters than 160.

The next issue was getting the chickens.  I was supposed to go with Papa Moussa to do that, but since he wasn’t feeling well we ended up sending Bernard to do it.  I was a little frustrated with him because I gave him 30,000 for the chicken and a few odds and ends.  I don’t know what he spent, but it certainly wasn’t the careful calculation I made.  When he came back without the ingiams (starchy root that goes with veggies) I wanted to know why and he said he hadn’t had enough money.  I don’t understand why because I calculated what everything should have cost.  Then he came back with two ingiams for 2,000 when he should have had three.  Ugh, it gets annoying when people are so willing to spend my money.  Like I didn’t shell out enough already.

Seriously, I had to just give up on the money issue.  It was too stressful.  I’m not sure what I spent on this party; I have it all written down but I haven’t totaled it up yet.  It’s easily going to be $250.  Ugh, so  much money.  That’s partially why I didn’t want to have beer or soda/pop at the party – because it costs so much more.  Mylene said to me I don’t even know how many times that I should have beer, and I just kept saying I didn’t want to.  This morning she said that if there was no beer the Christians would say that it was a Muslim party.  I told her I’m not Muslim but I don’t want beer at this party.  She said that if I wanted people to stay late I needed to have beer.  That’s a crock because I’m not trying to bribe people into staying.  If people stay I want it to be because they want to hang out; not because they want to drink free beer.  Sometimes people’s sense of entitlement gets annoying.  One thing I think I’ll enjoy about being back in American culture is being free to say, “Hey, let’s get pizza and wings and watch the game,” and not have people assume that it means I’m paying for everything; chipping in $5-10 for a get together always makes things easier.  I mean even if you end up spending the same amount of money in the long run (say there are 5 people and 5 parties; if you each pay equally at each one it ends up being the same dollar amount whether you split or each pay for one whole party) it’s easier to spend a small amount each time than to have to dish out a ton all at once.

Concerned that we needed more help, I called Nicoline, who said she’d be over shortly.  She arrived and tool over my job of peeling potatoes, while I started prepping the plantains.  (Mylene was making the brochettes.)  We realized that we were going to need more help, but when Nic tried calling Rosalie, she couldn’t get her phone to connect.  I tried calling from my phone and eventually we realized that the whole MTN network was down.  I went to see if Zhu Chen’s phone worked, since she has Orange, and discovered that when she tried to call me (MTN) nothing happened, but when she called Professor Jing (Orange) there was no problem.  I tried calling Bilkissou, who has an MTN and a Camtel number, but she didn’t answer the Camtel number.

Fortunately, Ye Ying and then later Zhu Chen were willing to help us prep stuff.  While I cut plantains and worked on the “American tea,” Ye Ying peeled the patates.  (Remember, those are a sort of white sweet potato; they’re not as sweet as yams, but are decidedly sweeter than any white potato I can think of in the States.)  Taking care of the plantains was a bit tricky.  When I’ve watched others do it, they always use a regular sharp knife.  I opted for a butter knife, not trusting myself to not cut my hand off, at least while I was actually slicing the plantains.  In order to prepare the plantains, first you have to remove the peel but cutting off one or both ends, putting a vertical slice in the peel, and then peeling the skin off.  Plantains, in spite of their physical resemblance to bananas, don’t peel the same way.  If the plantains are ripe enough, then the peel comes off relatively easily, but if they aren’t ripe, getting the skin off can be tough.

This brings us to the next crisis of the day: our produce.  Normally my produce guy always gives me good quality and great prices.  Yesterday however, I was less than thrilled with what his boss gave us.  The fact that he tried to sell us 3,000 worth of plantains for 5,000 was only the start.  It turned out to be fortunate that he didn’t pick the 5,000 himself, because the 2,000 we picked were what ended up being usable, while almost half of what he gave me weren’t ripe enough.  Then, to top that off, the tomatoes weren’t good enough to use for salad so we had to buy more, he didn’t give us as many peppers as he should have for what we paid so we had to buy more, the cabbage was half rotten so we had to cut huge amounts of it off before we could use it, half of the cucumbers were no good…Basically he gave us crap.  I was so frustrated over it today that I nearly wanted to cry.  I knew I was going to have to try hard to bite my tongue when I saw them at the party.  Nicoline told me that they’re the ones who should be embarrassed tonight – not me.

In any event, we continued working, waiting for Bernard to show up with the chicken.  Finally he arrived – empty handed.  Mylene and I were both surprised, telling him we’d been waiting for him for ages.  He said he’d just left the chicken at the hotel.  “Well go get it then!” we both exclaimed.  It wasn’t such a bad thing that the chicken was there because Lawan was apparently cutting it into the size pieces that Mylene would need, which would certainly make things easier.  The problem was that Mylene was supposed to go to the hospital today to get malaria medication via IV and so she needed to finish.  Plus Nicoline was going to have to leave for a meeting and the Chinese girls had said they would be busy too.  This meant that it would only be me.  Bad news.  Very bad news.  Especially since the cell phone network still wasn’t working.

After I’d finished the plantains, I turned my attention to the “thé ameréricaine” that I had to make for the Director.  Last time we’d used Lipton powder and when we’d accidentally watered it down too much we had ginger and all the sugar we had.  This time I used regular tea, boiling two pots with probably 20 tea bags.  Then I took the last of the peeled ginger and grated it up using the finest part of the grater that I bought in the market.  Once everything was grated I tossed it in with the tea and then squeezed a bunch of lemons in and mixed it all together.  Once it had the right taste, I strained it using a large piece of mosquito netting that I put over the top of the pot, and then ladled the tea into my blender pitcher, using that to pour it into the bottles in lieu of a funnel.  We only ended up with three bottles of it, so I knew I was going to have to carefully guard it for the Director.

While I was grating the ginger, Emmanuel came by.  I talked to him for a few minutes and then he did that thing where he just stands there.  I think I said the equivalent of, “Okay, see you later,” probably three or four times.  Finally I got up and went into the kitchen for a second and said to Nicoline quietly, in English, that I couldn’t figure out how to get him to leave.  When I went back into the living room to continue working on the tea, Nicoline came out a minute or so later, followed by Mylene, each of them working on something.  I said to Emmanuel in a joking manner that I was putting everyone to work who stuck around, so he better watch out otherwise he’d get roped into doing women’s work.  I was hoping that would make the point, but apparently not.  I said this to Nic in English and she just laughed.

A few minutes later though, Mylene called Emmanuel over and asked him to gather the trash and bring it downstairs.  Nicoline and I laughed that she knew exactly what to do.  After I’d left the kitchen Nicoline had told Mylene what I’d said, and after he’d left I recounted the story of the first week he’d been here.  She explained that often when people bring food like that it’s because they want you to give them work to do, like washing your clothes or cleaning your shoes.  That made sense because he’d asked about those very things – did my apartment need cleaning? who washed my clothes?  Still, there are times when I don’t like people in my personal space because I feel like they’re assessing everything that’s there – and it just feels like an invasion of sorts.

For today though, he apparently wasn’t going anywhere, so Mylene put him to work washing dishes and later I sent him downstairs to buy some chocolate that I was going to use for the cake.  He came back to tell me that they didn’t have any more for 500 francs, only for 2,500 (more than $5) which was way more than I wanted to spend.  I looked over at Nicoline and the look on her face clearly said that she was of the same opinion that I was.  I turned back to Emmanuel and said to him, “There are no Mambo bars?  I always buy those for 500.”  He disappeared again and then low and behold, returned with a Mambo bar and my change.  I’m not sure where the confusion was the first time but at least we got it sorted out.

At this point I was in the middle of doing a number of things.  I’d made some strange butter cream icing – strange because you usually make it with confectioner’s sugar, but being as that doesn’t exist here, you use granular sugar instead so it has (to me) a funny texture.  Plus I tried to make it with some of the ginger syrup and that changed the texture also.  In the end it worked okay, especially when I took the left over icing and mixed it with a handful of over-ripe plantains, cinnamon, cloves, and a dash of nutmeg to make a compote which ended up taking the place of the chocolate.  I decorated the cake with the ginger candy I’d made yesterday.  I could have drizzled the chocolate over the whole thing, but to be perfectly honest, I forgot.  I still think the cakes came out nice.  There were two, two-layer 10” round cakes, one loaf cake, and then a number on mini bunt pan cakes.  For the table of honor (I’ll explain what that is again a little later) I put one of the small cakes on its own plate for each person.  I was really quite pleased with that.

While this was going on, I’d put the patates into a large pot to cook and then set to work mashing them.  I’d needed more butter so I ran downstairs to the boutique to get that, plus more oil for Mylene for frying.  On my way back up the stairs (which Papa Moussa complained about the very first day he saw the apartment because he said that slippery tile was a terrible material to make stairs with) I’m not sure what happened but the next thing I knew I’d lost my balance or slipped or something, and landed full force with my shin on the edge of one of the stairs.  Youch, that hurt.  It left a mark and I won’t be surprised if it turns into a nasty bruise.  At least my oversized jar of mayonnaise didn’t break.  (Initially I’d wanted to make the mayonnaise, but since the power was out and there was no blender, making by hand the amount of mayonnaise I’d need would take way too long and I was too jittery to trust myself to have the patience mayonnaise requires.)  Once upstairs with the butter, I showed Nicoline how to make the mashed potatoes and she and Ye Ying worked that on the while I finished icing the cakes.

Somewhere around this time Magloire arrived with an extension cord for the lights – which hadn’t arrived yet.  Abdouraman, who takes care of our building, was supposed to come by last night with a technician but never did.  The technician came by this morning and I told him he needed to find Abduraman, who knew exactly how things needed to be set up.  The technician had left – and then surprise…never came back.  The other essential piece of the puzzle that was missing was the 80 chairs we were supposed to get from the University Restaurant.  Since there was no phone network I couldn’t call anyone to figure out what to do.  Somebody was supposed to call me yesterday, and then this morning Bouba said he would help me but then I never heard from him again (possibly because my cell wouldn’t work).

Right when Magloire arrived my cell phone rang – it was one of the professors from school calling to apologize that he couldn’t make it to the party.  I tried to sound very disappointed for fear that my excitement over my phone working would come across as excitement that he wasn’t going to be there, which certainly wasn’t the case.  As soon as we hung up I called Bouba about the chairs.  He said that he would go and see what was going on.  I hadn’t known whether I should send someone because what if they got there and couldn’t find anyone to get the chairs for them?  They couldn’t have been able to call me.  It was too complicated.  I also called Abduraman about the lights, which was good because apparently he’d completely forgotten.  He assured me he’d be right over.

Finally Bouba called me from the University Restaurant to say that the attendant had been waiting the whole day and had finally left because I hadn’t arrived, and that now he wanted me to pay him to come back.  Bouba had told the guy that he would pay him, but the guy insisted that I needed to pay.  I can’t even tell you how upset I was because nobody had told me when I was supposed to go (which is really typical) and now the guy was just being a jerk.  I hung up the phone and burst into tears.  Sobbing, I related the story to Mylene and Bilkissou, who had come over to help.  They told me not to worry that everything was going to come together.  The attendant did come back and Bouba called to confirm that I wanted 30 chairs.  No, I told him, 80 chairs.  Thirty chairs?  No – 80 chairs!  “Oh okay, I guess it’s a good thing I called to confirm…”  Zakariah and Mana from the hotel arrived to help set up the chairs, and I explained that the chairs were on their way.  I introduced them to the people in the room, “This is Mylene, the party Goddess; Bilkissou; and Emmanuel.”  They laughed, asking Mylene how she was feeling, and waiving at Bilkissou, who was cleaning up the mess that had taken over the apartment during the course of the day, and Emmanuel, who was helping to peel eggs for the egg salad.

When my phone started working again, I had immediately called Bilkissou and begged her to come and help.  When she arrived she told me that I hadn’t told her I needed her help.  I explained that I’d tried calling her all morning but that the network had been down.  She said that was too bad because she’d been right next door at the market.  At least I was able to finally get a hold of her and she truly was indispensable.  Mylene was still working on the Poulet DG and the other food, and so she ended up not ever leaving to go to the hospital.  I felt really badly that she hadn’t gone but was so desperately grateful for her help.  I think I probably would have gone crazy otherwise.  I mean throwing a party like this is a lot of pressure.  I had called the Director to find out if the Rector was coming and the Director said that if the Rector hadn’t said no, that meant he was probably coming.  Eep.

Finally, Abduraman arrived with the technician to set up the lights.  Bouba arrived a little after with the other extension cord and was followed by the chairs, which the two guys Bouba had hired carried up to the roof.  We brought up the projector and the stereo – all that was missing was the electricity.  4:00 had long since come and gone, and 5:00 too was slipping into the past.  “What do we do if the electricity doesn’t come back?” I asked.  “It’ll come back,” the technician assured me, though I knew he was only saying that to make me feel better.  Somebody pointed out that we could use electricity from EcoBank since they have a generator.  “Okay, I’ll accept that as a solution even though I know we don’t have an extension cord long enough to bring the electricity up five stories.”  Somebody said we could just buy a cord if need be, even during the night.

As I was walking down the stairs, Emmanuel in tow, all of a sudden I saw a glow.  The hallway light had come on.  I squealed with excitement and shouted “lights” in English, along who knows what else.  Emmanuel just stared at me, having no idea what I was saying.  “Sorry, sorry,” I said quickly in French.  “Les lumières – l’electricité!”   With one less thing to worry about, I snuck into my bedroom for a minute to try to finish writing my speech for tonight.  Thank goodness I’d started it on Wednesday, and while there was much more that I could have said, my brain was too addled to add too much.  I thought there was a nice flow though, and a good connection between the beginning and the end.  Somebody called me out for something, which I took care of and then slipped back into my room to change my clothes.  I put on the new outfit Estelle had made for me, and was just finishing tying my headscarf in the bathroom when all of a sudden the room plunged into dusky darkness.

This might have been a moment to panic, but remembering back to what happened during the last party, I kept calm and sure enough, walked out into the dark apartment to see that the hallway lights were still on.  I scurried up to the roof to tell them that they’d tripped the circuit.  We were now dangerously close to 7:00 when people were supposed to arrive and the adrenaline was definitely pumping.  There was minor panic when we couldn’t find enough silverware to put on the table of honor – I should have had six of everything and we only needed five of everything – but somehow things were missing.  Finally Mana said he would go to the hotel to get some silverware.  Zhu Chen was setting up the projector and we were hooking up my laptop when Mylene came over with a dismal look on her face, the platter of brochettes in her arms.

Emmanuel had started the grill around 6:00 or so, and then Zakariah and Mana had grilled all of the brochettes that Mylene had prepared.  They looked beautiful even in the dark, but Mylene told me that they were no good – the meat had been out too long.  My heart fell.  All that money – all that food.  What were we going to do? she asked.  I thought about the guy on the corner who grills meat, and about the possibility of paying him to make something for us.  As I was suggesting this, she told me to taste a piece of the meat.  I took a bite, preemptively preparing to spit it out.  I’d actually started to lift my hand to spit it out, but then couldn’t decide if it actually tasted bad or not.  I ate the other half of the piece of meat still unsure.  I didn’t want to say it was good if it wasn’t because I certainly didn’t want anyone to get sick, but I really couldn’t tell.  We asked of the guys nearby to taste it and finally concluded, after examining it under a light and comparing taste test reactions, that it was okay.

This crisis passed, Mylene told me she was heading home to clean up.  I didn’t blame her; she’d been there well over 12 hours.  It was a little scary for me to have her leaving because she was the one who truly knew what was going on and how everything needed to work.  She reassured me that Zakariah and Mana knew everything and I asked her to tell them to tell me when I needed to do certain things: when do I bring the food up, when do I put drinks out, etc. because rules here are so funny sometimes that things that are obvious to anyone in the culture are not obvious to me – especially when every thought in my head is like a ping pong ball on crack in a no-gravity room, which is about how I felt for a good portion of the night, at least in the beginning.

By 7:20 there were maybe five people who had arrived.  The coach from our football practices was the first person, followed by Magloire, and then Sandrine, one of the new lecturers in the Bilingual Department.  With my computer hooked up to the speakers, I set playlist one going – this was a playlist of American music that I know people here like: Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Charles Dassin, Backstreet Boys, Bob Marley…all good stuff, obviously.  I had another playlist of Cameroonian music for after dinner.  Cameroonian time was in full swing, and with so few people having arrived, I was a little petrified that the Director – or worse, the Rector – would arrive with nobody here, so I called the Director and begged him not to arrive before 8:00.  I told him that I didn’t know how to tell the Rector that he should come later, and the Director told me not to call (I explained I don’t have the Rector’s phone number) and I assumed that meant he was taking care of it.  People slowly began filtering in and since they now had to wait, began getting antsy and wanting to know where the beverages were.  I don’t blame them; it was hot.  Still, if they had been on time we wouldn’t have had to push things back.  My big concern was that I didn’t want to run out of drinks – if you tap the keg too early you risk kicking it before the game even starts.  Granted we didn’t have a keg, but I figure the same holds true for bottles of juice.

When Christine, the Australian, arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see her.  I had called her earlier in the day to see if she could come and help me, having not gotten the text she sent me saying that she was feeling very sick today.  She said she was trying to rest up so she’d be able to make it tonight, but she wasn’t sure whether she’d be up to it.  I know how much it stinks to miss big events because you’re sick (and she and I have commiserated over the similar illnesses we had while staying at the hotel, where she still is) so I was glad that she was feeling up to at least coming for a bit.  I told her she should have some of the tea that had been put aside for the Director only.

In the midst of the panic over the missing silverware for the table of honor, I called Papa Moussa to see if they’d left yet because if not I was going to ask him to bring some.  They were in fact just downstairs at that point.  I’d thought I’d heard them earlier but it had turned out to be a bunch of street kids that I had to chase out.  All night long I was chasing groups of them.  I was kind of annoyed at Emmanuel for not doing that because that’s why I’d asked him to be there in the first place.  He didn’t do a very good job but that’s neither here nor there.  I met the family on the landing outside our apartments.  Rahis was too cute with his square toed black dress shoes.  They reminded me of Nate’s dress shoes and I told Rahis that he and Nate had the exact same shoes, which made him very happy.  We got up to the roof just as a Michael Jackson song was coming on and I tried to get Rahis to dance with me a little.  I think he was a bit shy though with all the people.  Papa Moussa had brought a flashlight in the event that the power went out again, and he joked that when we started dancing it would be perfect for setting the scene.  To demonstrate he pushed a button and the flashlight began blinking in three or four different colors.  I laughed and said it was perfect.

At one point, I saw the two produce guys arrive, and not knowing what I should say to them I went over to Zakariah, Aissatou, and Adelle, from the hotel to explain the story and ask.  They said that I absolutely should say something, and we settled on a mixture of cordiality and honesty.  I went over to them and greeted them, saying that I was very glad that they could make it.  Then I added, “I have to say that I’m not completely happy right now.  Normally when I buy produce from you, you give me very good quality.  That’s why I brought you the list of things that I needed – because I wanted to make sure that the quality for my colleagues was very good.  But the fact is that it wasn’t.  Half of what you sold me I had to throw away.  That hurts me because I trusted you.”  I was very polite about how I said it, and when I’d finished the guy who I think runs things said that he was very glad I’d said something because it’s better to be open than to keep feelings like that hidden on the inside.  I’m sure nothing will come of having said anything other than I suppose a little satisfaction for myself that I expressed my unhappiness rather than letting them think that they can take advantage of me.

When Nicoline arrived I tried to iron out the entertainment portion with her.  It was a little tough because there really weren’t many people involved.  Baimada was supposed to write a poem for me, but when I went up to him with the innocent, expectant look on my face (knowing full well that he hadn’t written anything) he said, “Kate…Kate…”  Dramatically I let my face melt as though I were going to cry and when he took my hand I covered my face with the other one and pretended to be sobbing.  He and the coach could hardly keep themselves from laughing and eventually I cracked up too.  Estelle arrived and commented on the lovely attire I was wearing, handing me a bag that had the other outfit in it.  Pasma, who had been one of the first to arrive, had brought me a gift, which I thought was very sweet.  Fortunately, because of a lesson on Cameroonian party culture that Nate and I had gotten from one of Nathaniel’s Cameroonian friends in Yaoundé, I knew that you don’t open gifts in front of people; you put it to the side and open it when everyone leaves.  Sandrine told me that when I was actually leaving the Department would have to give me many memories of Cameroon to take home.  Ali pulled me aside just before the Director arrived to give me a small gift.  He apologized that it wasn’t anything fancy, but I really liked it.  It was a bookmark with the first Egyptian alphabet, which is over 3,000 years old according to Ali.

Finally, the Director arrived and everything began.  I asked him whether the Rector was coming and he said he didn’t think so.  The Assistant Director and Secretary General weren’t there either, which meant that I had to instantly rethink the table of honor.  A quick explanation on what the table of honor is: I’ve explained before that Cameroonian society has strict protocol rules, and at every party the people who rank the highest are seated at the “table of honor,” which will have real plates/cups/silverware as opposed to disposable ones; perhaps it will have wine if everyone else is drinking soda or juice; you put little bowls of nuts or crackers, whereas you don’t have to do that for everyone else.  Initially the table of honor should have been the Rector and his wife, the Director, the Assistant Director, and the Secretary General.  Since only the Director was here, I had to figure out what to do, since you can’t sit the Director by himself.

I hurried over to Mylene and began rattling off my proposed changes to the guests of honor.  She looked at me blankly and then I realized that in my excitement I’d started speaking in English.  We both laughed and I tried again, this time in French.  What I ended up doing was seating first Dr. Dili-Palai, who is the head of the Foreign Language Department, but who I think has more status that the average head of department, though I don’t know what his dual role is.  He is, incidentally, like the Director, a former Fulbrighter.  Then I seated the Chef SAFC and his wife.  Then lastly, came the Director.  Once they were seated it was time for me to give my speech, which of course I couldn’t read because it was so dark.  I ran downstairs and got my keychain flashlight.  I’d had Bilkissou look at the speech to make sure that there weren’t any major faux-pas (how do you make that plural???) and she had said that there were some sentences that should be redone, but that if she changed it, it wouldn’t be Kate anymore.  I could live with that answer.  As long as I wasn’t going to accidentally offend anyone.

Everyone got quiet as I stood in front of the table of honor, with the plastic chairs on either side full of people.  I turned on my little flashlight and explained, “I have a lot of things in my head and in my heart, and I don’t want to forget them.”  I was very glad that I’d written the speech down and not trusted myself to remember it because with all the energy and adrenaline the ping pong balls on crack were back.  I began by formally welcoming everyone, even throwing in a Foulfouldé greeting, then moved into the heart of my speech, which was in French, but which I’ll relate to you in English:

Bonsoir.  Monsieur le Directeur, Monsieur le Chef SAFC, Madame le Chef SAFC, Dr. Dili-Palai, chères collègues, chères amis – thank you for coming.  Djabbama.

While I was handing out invitations for the party, people kept asking me, “Kate, what’s the occasion?”  There are many reasons: The first one, it’s a reason that works for any party, and that’s – why not?  Life’s short and you should party while you have the chance.  Secondly, and a little more seriously, is that life’s short, and so too are visits, and even sooner than I can imagine possible, July and the time to leave will be here for me.  Because of that, I don’t want to wait any longer to thank you.  My fellow colleagues, my friends, my family – thank you for having received me with so much kindness and hospitality.

Since the first day when the Director called me several times to make sure that there was somebody to pick me up from the Air Leasing office after my flight from Yaoundé stopped in Garoua; when a wonderful professor introduced me to his cousin who helped me with my bags and who became my adopted father; when Abakar came to pick me up when the bus finally arrived; when Michael and Nicoline showed me the sign they’d made with “The University of Maroua Welcomes You” which they were going to bring to the airport…since that first day, I understood that I had a place in this community – because of you.

I can’t count the number of times you’ve helped me: Mylene, when I was sick on the day of a very big American holiday, she was like my mother, asking, “Have you eaten today?  You need to eat something.  Here, drink this; it’ll help you…”; when I was very far from my family and my home, my adopted family truly became like my family and made their home my home; when I was very far from my friends and the people who love me, it was you who became my friends, and I love you.  It is because of this that we are celebrating tonight – in order to thank you; in order to show that I respect you; and to show, and not simply say, that when Americans come here it is truly for cultural exchange.

We are all teachers; we are all students; we are all friends.  Therefore, Monsieur le Directeur, Monsieur le Chef SAFC, Madame le Chef SAFC, Dr. Dili-Palai, chères collègues, chères amis – thank you for coming thank you for having made me love Cameroon.  I’m very proud to be a girl of the North, and that is why we are celebrating.

There were moments when I lost what I was saying a little; it was hard to read in the dark.  My “life’s short, party hard” joke fell a little flat, though I appreciated the Director chuckling over it.  I got a little choked up at the end, but managed not to lose it, and people clapped when I’d finished, so I think they knew it was heartfelt.  I went to invite the table of honor to come and eat, but the Director asked if he could say something first.  He got up and talked about how happy he was that I had come to Maroua and how wonderfully I’d fit into life here, both physically and mentally.  He said that I did a great job in the classroom and that he wished there was a way to have me stay longer.  “We need to get Nate to come for a second visit,” he said, causing many people to laugh and me to nearly cry.  He ended by saying that here, when it comes time to part, you don’t say goodbye, you say we’re together.  “So, from the École Normale, nous sommes ensembles.”

It was very beautiful and very sweet and I truly appreciated it.  After he had sat down again, I invited the table of honor to come and eat.  The Director sent the Chef SAFC’s wife first, and then proceeded around to each woman and sent her up to eat.  I went up to the buffet table and handed out plates, forks, and napkins, explaining the “American salad” and “American potatoes” so that people wouldn’t be afraid to try them.  It was fun being able to talk to people as they went by.  Adelle, who was one of the women who cleaned my room at the hotel asked if I remembered her name.  I laughed and said of course, “Adelle and Aissatou – you two were too nice to me for me to forget,” which made her happy.

Once the women were finished, I took Rahis, who had come over to help me, and went over to invite the others to eat, not realizing the men at the table of honor hadn’t taken food yet.  When we invited Magloire to come and eat, he whispered to me that I had to invite the Director first.  Shit.  Protocol lapse.  Rahis and I went over, and I whispered to Rahis, “Say to them, ‘Please come and eat,’” and Rahis said in his little voice, “S’il vous plait, venez manger.”  Then we went over to the rest of the people and I picked Rahis up and told him to invite everyone to come and eat.  He invited them in a little voice.  I told him he needed to be louder, so he said it a little louder.  I said to him that he needed to invite Nate all the over in the United States, and then he raised his voice and invited everyone to join the buffet line.

The other interesting thing for me while I was manning the plates, was that I got to see exactly who was here.  It’s amazing how many people showed up who I didn’t invite.  The landlord, for example, who still hasn’t changed my front door (remember it doesn’t actually close properly) arrived earlier and said to me something along the lines of, “You didn’t give me an invitation, but don’t worry, I made it.”  I thought that was a little rude, but then again he probably thought it was rude that I didn’t invite him.  The thing that ticked me off though, was that he brought his three grown sons, one of who was, in my opinion, incredibly rude to me.  I didn’t recognize him, so I made that clear by politely introducing myself.  “Hi, I’m Kate.”  He responded, “I’m Muslim.”  A little surprised, I said, “Muslims don’t have names?”  He muttered that his name was Useni.  I introduced myself again, this time in Foulfouldé.  His response was no more polite than the first time.  I really wanted to say, “What, you can come to my party and eat but you can’t bring any manners?”  I didn’t though.  I was also annoyed that the woman who works downstairs, whose name I don’t even know, not only came but brought her husband.  My colleagues didn’t even bring their spouses unless their spouse was specifically invited.  Emmanuel was supposed to be in charge of making sure that people without tickets didn’t come in, but the landlord is his uncle and I don’t think he really cared anyway.  I’m also not sure how we went from two technicians (who apparently because they set up the lights are suddenly invited) to five.  And later in the night, one of them had the gall to say that there was nothing left to drink.  “What do you want me to do?” I asked pointedly.  “There were many people who came who I didn’t plan for.”

Minor annoyances aside, things went relatively well.  People enjoyed the food.  Noura tried to put a plate aside for me but somebody took it, which made her angrier than it made me.  We brought up the cakes and distributed them.  Then it was time for the entertainment.  A lot of people were leaving though, now that the food was done, which is typically Cameroonian.  The Director had to excuse himself because he had a meeting that he was supposed to go to that he was already late for.  I thanked him for coming and hoped that things had lived up to expectations.

The entertainment portion got significantly cut down because I could sense limited attention spans.  I had wanted to share some American dance, so I had prepared to videos – one a professional swing dance routine and one from the Buffalo swing troupe – plus I had choreographed a solo jazz routine so that there would be a live component.  Decked out in my black gaucho pants, a black button up shirt, and my black hat, I asked people whether they wanted to see the first video or just the demonstration and they unsurprisingly voted for just the demonstration.  I put Noura in charge of the music, explaining to everyone the normally swing dance is done in pairs, but that this is a solo form of the dance.  I was dancing to Duke Ellington’s version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing)” which starts with a swanky sort of trumpet intro.  I wasn’t sure how people would react to that part; I was trying to be more swanky than sultry because I didn’t want it to come across as sexual.  When the music started and I’d gone through a measure or so of the swanky walk, people just started laughing, which was a big relief.  “It’s jazz,” I exclaimed laughing, coming to the end of the intro, at which point people started laughing.  Then the main part of the song kicked in and I just tried to have fun.

Before I realized what was happening, Rahis was next to me trying to mimic what I was doing.  Papa Moussa explained to me later that when I was standing up there explaining the dance he could practically see Nate standing next to me and because of that he sent Rahis up to dance with his sister.  “I hope that I get to see the day of your marriage,” he said to me.  “I pray for you two.”  Even though Nate and I are only dating, I was so touched by the heartfelt sentiment that my eyes filled up with tears.

After the American dance, we had a video of a traditional Chinese dance, followed by a Tai Chi demonstration, which ended up being a lot longer than I expected, but I think people liked it, especially at the end when the student who was demonstrating was able to not fall over in spite of having five grown men pushing on him as hard as possible.  Also, the final demonstration, when he invited one of the men to essentially wack him across his mid-section with a long wooden pole, which broke when it hit him, definitely caught people’s attention.  “Don’t try this at home,” the student cautioned, before inviting everyone to join the Tai Chi club here in Maroua.  At this point I had planned to show the Queen City Swing routine video, but I sensed people’s attention spans were getting short and the point wasn’t to be self-indulgent, it was to entertain people, so I skipped straight to the opening of the dance floor.

People danced for a short while.  The whole family came up and Papa Moussa commented, “Kate, tu dances bien!”  It was fun, but everyone was getting tired and so people didn’t last long.  This was fine by me, as it had been an incredibly long day.  People thanked me on their way out and then we started the process of cleaning up.  Mylene excused herself saying she wasn’t feeling well and I told her absolutely to go home – I could take care of cleaning up.  Bilkissou had already done a ton of cleaning in my apartment, for which I was eternally grateful.

I took care of the major things that needed to be done, bringing down the important things like the stereo, the food, the dishes, etc. and then saying I’ll get the rest tomorrow.  I had to chase some more kids out, which was a little obnoxious because, again, that’s why I’d asked Emmanuel to be there, but what are you going to do?  Before going to sleep I talked to Nate, who’s in Boston for the weekend visiting his friends Paige and Joseph, and was happy to hear that his weekend was going well so far.  I told him a little about the party, but the connection wasn’t great so I told him I’d share more later.  I was trying to decide if I wanted to open the gift from Pasma tonight or tomorrow.  I know you’re all dying to know what was in it, but I’m saving it until tomorrow so that I’ve got a bit of the party magic, even the day after.

There were a number of annoyances during the night, from uninvited party crashers to frustration over certain people’s sense of entitlement – but the fact of the matter is that it was a great night.  Certainly there were things that could have been better, that I could have done better.  The party wasn’t the best that it could have been, but I think I can confidently say that it cleared the bar, and who can ask for more?  I wanted to show my appreciation and I think that people understood.  Things were helter-skelter during the day with no electricity, no running water, no cell phone service, no lights set up, no electricity run up to the roof for the lights/projector/laptop, no refrigerator, no chairs, no finished speech, no solid plans for the entertainment, no idea whether the Rector would be there, and at moments no confidence.  In the end, everything came together for a day and a party that were as Cameroonian as couscous and folorée.

It’s not African Plague, but it’s persistent

Unsurprisingly could not get up for football practice this morning, but did get a call at 6:30 from Nicoline saying that Mike is fine but that she was in the hospital yesterday for malaria and typhoid.  Yes, that’s what I said.  Nate asked me last night whether I should go to see a doctor because my cough was scaring him.  Or it could have been that it was hurting his ears because in spite of my best efforts not to cough into my microphone, it has an auto-adjust feature so that if it’s farther away from your mouth the other person can still hear you.

Emmanuel came by today and when he heard I was sick, came back with food.  I told him no, it was okay, I didn’t need it.  Then I realized that if I wanted to eat, I needed to go out and buy some food.  Damn.  I went down the street to get some fruits and vegetables.  Plus I stopped into the Super Marché by the veggie stand and bought some Corn Flakes and lentils – not to be eaten together, of course.  The lentils didn’t do it for me today though.  They just seemed incredibly salty.

Nate had to do a lot of moving today because he needed to finish getting his/my stuff into the second floor apartment.  I think he’s having a late night dance party at the apartment tonight.  It would be fun to be there.  Sleep would be fun too; so that’s what I’m going to do.

Chicken Soup and a Sexy Cook…a girl can dream, no?

All I wanted today was chicken soup – and a good looking chef from Buffalo to make it for me.  Not having either I had to debate what to do.  I had no interest in navigating the market, especially since I’d never bought a chicken myself before and wasn’t sure exactly where to get it or how much to pay.  That certainly was not a sick day adventure.  I finally asked Zhou Chen whether she was going and, if so, whether she could get a chicken and some carrots for me.  She said she was going out later, but not to the market.  She did, however, have some chicken in the freezer and said she could get some carrots on the street.  I cannot tell you how grateful I was.  She seemed a little hesitant as she handed me the bag of frozen chicken, asking whether there was a certain part of the chicken I needed.  I told her no, I was just making soup.  I don’t think she realized that the seemingly inedible parts that she gave me – the neck, the feet, the spine, etc. – are exactly what you use for soup.  When she brought the carrots over later, I added them to the broth I’d made, along with some celery leaf, some onion, and a little potato.  Little has ever tasted as good as that soup did today.

The power went out late in the afternoon, and didn’t come back on until well after it was dark.  I did my stretching just as it was getting dark and afterwards had to break out the candles.  I texted Nicoline to see if there was any news about how Mike was feeling, but I haven’t gotten a response yet.  Right now my sinuses are so stuffed that I don’t think they will ever clear up.  Ever.  About the only thing that saved tonight in my book (besides the electricity coming back on) was an amusing conversation on Facebook that started after I commented on Heather’s status, mentioning something about Fartlek training sessions, and Ted responded something along the lines of, “You need to train for that?”  Needless to say it digressed from there into a whole new line of exercises for Tony to incorporate into P90X.

I talked to Nate a bit tonight.  I should have been going to sleep early.  But I felt sick.  And the power kept going on and off.  And it was hot.  And I wanted to talk to him.

Needless to say, in spite of the buildup, I’m probably not going to end up making it out to Lycée Classique tomorrow morning for my HIIT session…

Cold???…in Maroua???…Ugh

I woke up this morning still feeling sick, but I had to go to the office anyway because some guys were supposed to come and put curtains in my office.  While they were doing that I went to the Rectorate to bring the Rector an invitation to my party.  I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to do it, so after asking Alimatou, the Director’s secretary, I headed over to the Rectorate hoping to find his secretary.  When I entered the building on the first floor, a man in uniform and a woman I didn’t know said hello and watched me go up the stairs.  Not entirely sure what to do I was hoping to see someone who could help me, but as I reached for the door to the waiting area for the Rector’s office, the woman who had been downstairs appeared behind me.

Explaining to her what I wanted to do, she asked whether she should bring the invitation into his office.  Alimatou had told me it was better for me to bring it myself, which I repeated, adding that if it was better to leave it I could do that.  She told me to sit and wait.  The guard who had been downstairs sat down also and told me that I couldn’t just walk into the Rector’s office, which obviously I wouldn’t have done.  I was just trying to find his secretary or somebody who could announce that I was here.  I explained to the guard that I was told that since I had delivered the invitation in person to the Director that I needed to deliver it in person to the Rector.  He nodded in agreement just as the woman came out to tell me that I could see the Rector.

I’d never been in the Rector’s office before and I noted that like all the other important people he had a very large desk covered in papers and work.  I think desks are another sign of pecking order, just like the type of chair that you have in your office… (Remember when I wanted something for my students to sit in and I asked if I could take a chair from the room upstairs where I used to work?  I was politely informed that those were not chairs for students – the truth is they’re not even chairs for all teachers – and I was given a wooden bench that wobbles and squeals every time someone sits down or stands up.)  Unsurprisingly the chairs in the Rector’s office were the nice ones and as I sat down I explained that I wanted to invite him to a party at my house.  He looked at the date and then said he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to make it because there was something important going on the Monday after and they had a lot of work to finish for it.  (He told me exactly what it was but I’ve forgotten.)

We talked for a few minutes and the Rector said that before I left he would write an official letter for me to take with me talking about what I had done here – basically a reference letter that I could keep for future use.  He commented how he was impressed by my ability to adapt to life here.  He noted that I’m very active both in school and outside of the classroom.  He talked about another student who was in Cameroon a number of years ago back when there was social and political discord and the vague possibility of civil war.  (Don’t you love how non-chalant you can be about things like that in retrospect?)  The girl had been provided with housing but was too afraid to live there, so she was living with the Rector and his wife.  The day of the election the girl didn’t sleep all night and the girl’s mother kept calling because she was so worried.  The Rector told me that things were fine and there was no reason to be afraid like that.  I understand where she was coming from though.  There are moments that can be terrifying when you feel like you’re in danger.  I know that it certainly wasn’t easy for mom and dad to let me come here, and I’m sure there are still moments when they worry a little, although I think it helps a lot knowing that there are a number of people here who would protect me as they would protect their own family.  I really am lucky – on so many levels.  There are a lot of people who love me.

As soon as the workers were done, I hightailed it out of there and headed home.  I’d run into Zhu Chen in the hallway when I was leaving and we’d decided that today would be a good day to go to the market and find fabric for her.  I won’t call myself the resident fabric expert now, because there are many things I don’t know about the different types of fabric and levels of quality, but I’ve got a general knowledge and that combined with my French makes me a reasonable shopping companion.  We had a nice time looking for a pagne, and I can’t even tell you how many boutiques we went into.  I tried to get a sense for the price ranges in the varying boutiques and nearly laughed out loud when somebody gave me a price of 100,000 for a pagne that looked just like the one I’d bought in his shop with Estelle for 15,000 a few months ago.  Someone later explained to me that there are different qualities, but that even the first level quality shouldn’t be more than 80,000, which still sounded obscene to me but what do I know?

We ended up stopping in to see the guy who sold me the pagne the other day with Naimay – the one who was so impressed with the price I’d gotten in the other shop.  He had a pagne today that I really liked and that honestly, if Zhu Chen hadn’t ended up buying it after we looked at a bajillion others, I would definitely have bought.  What are you going to do though?  I’m just glad that she found one she liked.  Plus I think that when somebody else wants what you’ve got, it makes you like it that much more because it means you’re the lucky one who got it.  It certainly didn’t hurt that it was also the most affordable out of all the pagnes we’d looked at.

This afternoon there was allegedly a football game, and Mark Bolac told me he very much wanted me to go and cheer them on so that he could score a goal.  I really didn’t want to go – not because I didn’t want to cheer them on, but I was feeling sick and just wasn’t up to going out.  I couldn’t not go though, so I put on my new shoes that I’d bought at the market with Zhu Chen and walked over to Lycée Classique.  The whole wearing the new shoes thing was not a good idea and by the time I made it to the school my feet were literally bleeding.  Ugh, I do not have good shoe luck here.  (The stitching on the inside is really sharp – I mean the thread literally seems to act like a razor.  Youch.)  When I arrived, there was a team warming up to play, but it wasn’t the team that practices on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.  It turns out that there was some mix up about who was supposed to be playing…needless to say, I didn’t mind being able to go home and rest.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful.  I’m trying to put together a little bit of solo jazz to show at the party, figuring it might be cool to see some “American dance.”  It should be fun.  At this point though, I’m feeling really crumby.  I even took some decongestant but it’s not doing anything.  My sinuses are more stuffed than a Christmas turkey.  No, seriously; it really kind of hurts.  Sinus pressure equivalent to the ocean floor equates to not fun.  Sigh.  Thank goodness for mom’s emergency stash of Emergen-C…

Because we could not stop for Death…

The balance between life and death is more precarious than most of us realize.  We pass through the day with so many thoughts about what we’ve done and what we’ve still to do, that it rarely occurs to us that perhaps we won’t have the chance to do it.  I went to the office this morning to print and distribute invitations to the party next weekend and, seeing Mike’s car, headed up to the Department office to find him.  The office was locked though, and Nicoline wasn’t around so I headed back downstairs, thinking that perhaps they were in the staff room.  As I walked up to the double doors leading into the staff room, I noticed a flier with a photo of a professor in doctoral garb.  Not recognizing the man, I skimmed over it and realized it was a memorial notice.  I couldn’t help but think, “Oh no, not another professor…” and then I got to the bottom of the flier and saw the name and my jaw dropped open in shock.  It was one of the English Department professors, Dr. Samuel Nforgwei.

Shocked I just stood there, staring at the door.  He was one of the professors who had been in the British Council seminars.  He had driven me home several times, namely during the big dust storm when it was particularly unsafe (and unpleasant) to take a bike.  He was incredibly kind and knowledgeable, and it hardly seemed possible that he could be dead.  I walked back out onto the main landing for the building and stood there contemplating.  Bilkissou came over and I asked if she had heard; she told me she had.  While we were talking, I looked up and saw Abakar moving Mike’s car.  “That’s Michael’s car,” I commented, “but that’s not Michael driving.”  Bilkissou explained that Mike was sick today and at home, so some people had gone to visit and Abakar was using Mike’s car.

I went upstairs again, this time to find Nic in her office.  I told her I’d heard that Mike was sick and she didn’t say anything, she just looked at me with one of those looks that makes your heart drop.  “He’s got malaria,” she told me, “pretty badly but he won’t take medication.”  When I told mom the story later, I got as far as “he’s got malaria” before she gasped in horror.  “No, mom,” I explained, “that’s not the problem.  Malaria is treatable.  Just like tuberculosis is treatable.  But you have to be willing to take medication.”  Nicoline seemed really worried; you could see the heaviness all around her, remembering back to when Mike’s wife died from tuberculosis.  As I went downstairs to find Abakar to see about going to the house, I passed Bana, one of the other Bilingual Department lecturers, and asked if he had heard.

I told him I was going to try to go to the house and so we both went downstairs together.  Abakar wasn’t around, but I saw Bouba and explained that I was looking for Abakar so that I could go see Michael.  Being as we had no idea where Abakar was, Bouba said that he would drive us over.  During the ride we talked a bit about the party for next weekend; that was better than thinking too much about the other possibilities we were facing.

When we got to the house, Mike seemed tired.  Very tired.  I asked him why he wasn’t taking any medication and he said that Nicoline shouldn’t say things like that to me.  “Well, are you?” I asked.  He repeated his previous statement.  I tried to reason with him, saying that it was God who had created medicine because he knew that there were things that man’s body couldn’t handle, and so he made medicine to help us deal with those problems.  This didn’t seem to make any difference.  I could hardly keep myself from crying.  Trying to push the tears away, I reached into my bag and fished out Mike’s invitation to the party.  He looked at the date and I told him I knew that he probably wouldn’t be able to be there because he’d be traveling for Dr. Nforgwei’s funeral.  He moaned slightly, as though disappointed, and then began musing whether there was something we could do.  Changing the date would be a little difficult at this point.  Nicoline and I had talked about it and decided it wasn’t feasible or really necessary.  We could use the party as a time to remember Dr. Nforgwei, especially since not everyone would be able to travel for the funeral.  I told Mike that Nic had explained to me that Mike doesn’t really like parties and that the only reason he’d come to the last one was out of respect for me.  Mike laughed because it’s true and I’m guessing it made him feel better to know that I didn’t expect him to be there – or that is, that I wouldn’t be hurt if he wasn’t.

Just before we left, Mike’s sons finally emerged from the bedroom.  Mike had been telling them to get dressed and come and greet people since we had arrived.  His youngest son came over and took each of our hands to greet us, and then came back over to me and put his arms around my legs.  I pushed my purse to the side and pulled him onto my lap, hugging him.  I think he remembers me from when I was feeding him popcorn when we came to the house to mourn the death of Mike’s wife.  When it was time to go I gently put him back down and took a deep breath to push back the lump that was forming in my throat.  As we walked to the car Mike told me not to cry, which only made it worse.  Pulling away from the house, I said out loud, “Michael is telling me not to cry, but that only makes me want to cry more, because he understands why I’m crying.”

I went home after this, not having the energy to do anything else at the office.  My throat started hurting this afternoon and it seems to be getting progressively worse over the course of the evening.  My heart hurts too.

Economic Cultural Exchange Market

Estelle and I finally managed to catch up today and I was able to bring one of my outfits home; the other one needs a little letting out.  (She gave me way too much credit in the hip area – haven’t lost that much weight…)  I’ve been trying to figure out what design I want for the new fabric I bought and seeing what she did for these was very helpful in figuring that out – or at least in shaping the direction of the new design.  I think I like what I’ve sketched, but I’ll have to spend a few days mulling it over.  At this point it’s too late to get something made for the party; plus the outfit that Estelle made from the fabric my students gave me for Christmas is really nice, so I’m going to wear that.

If somebody wanted to do some interesting research, they should look at all the different types of dress across the regions.  While it all may look the same to our eyes, when I went to Yaoundé wearing the clothes that I’d had made in Maroua, everyone knew I was coming from the North.  Different regions, different tribes and peoples, even different parts of the community have different ways of dressing.  I love big events like parties or parades, because all the women have these elaborate head wraps on in all these different styles.  Sometimes I pretend to take pictures of things just so I can get their heads in the pictures.  Tonight, Estelle took a piece of fabric that’s large enough to cover my table, and showed me how she would wrap it, and then take it off and pin it when she was done wearing it so that she could wear it again another day.  I always wondered whether women did that; it makes sense.

I had to laugh when Estelle and I went into the new Chinese shop across the street from the apartment (yes, there’s another one) because she picked out a bunch of things, asked how much they were, and then said, no that’s too expensive – I’ll pay…and went through the laundry list for each item in typical Cameroonian fashion.  The Chinese woman just took her calculator and punched in the original prices, saying them out loud as she pointed to each item.  This went on for several minutes until Estelle finally said to just take 300 of the final price as a token gesture.  I’m not sure whether the woman eventually agreed to that, but it was amusing to watch the gap between cultures.  If you’re going to have a store here you’ve got to understand the bargaining culture and price accordingly.  Don’t actually post the bottom-line price – it’s better for people to feel like they’ve bargained their way to a good price than for them to actually get a good price.  It’s like the American notion of going to a sale to buy things (that you probably wouldn’t have bought otherwise) because you are going to “save” money.

Maybe there aren’t as many differences in American and Cameroonian economic culture as we thought…

Party Planning Party

I realized this morning while I was running at Lycée Classique for the first time, that the field at ENIEG cannot possibly be 400m.  The field at Lycée Classique is supposed to be 400m and it is definitely longer.  The fields themselves are the same size, but the track around the field makes the running distance considerably longer, and in my opinion, probably closer to a track like what I know in the US.  This was a little disappointing to realize because it means that the paces I’ve been calculating aren’t accurate.  In the end it’s not a huge deal – I mean what’s important is to track how many laps you do in what amount of time and then watch the progress.  It’s not about where I start; it’s about the improvement I make and the stamina I build.  I’m not looking to win races; I’m looking to complete them to the best of my ability.  Still, it was a minor disappointment, but we’ll pick up and move forward.  Zhu Chen ran with me for the first five laps, which we completed in 12:38 and then I finished the last three laps clocking in with a final time of 19:00 minutes.  If this is actually a 400m track, then I ran ¾ of a mile in six minutes and twenty-some-odd seconds, which means the pace isn’t terrible, but believe me I wasn’t dogging it.  Better to realize this in the early stages of training than at the end.

The trip to the market with Naimay was very successful in my opinion.  I was quite happy to get her feedback on the pagnes I’d picked with Noura, and we managed to get good prices on all of them.  I was pretty pleased with myself because the one I talked down to 7,000 and then later, when another guy told me 10,000 for one that seemed very similar in quality, I pulled out the first and asked what the difference was.  He asked, “Oh, well does it have this tag?”  Actually, sir, it does.  When he asked how much I’d paid and I told him 7,000 he seemed genuinely surprised.  “On m’a vendu chère,” he told us.  We settled on 8,000 for that one.

Having gotten some new fabric, I figured it would be a good time to check in with Estelle about the fabric I gave her before the parade on the 8^th of March.  She had been out of town for a while and then lost her phone while traveling, so she couldn’t call me.  Mama Moussa told me yesterday about the lost phone, so I figured it would be okay for me to call again.  I had called once before while she was away, so I hadn’t wanted to seem like a pest, calling a million times.  She said she would give me a call today when she got out of work, but I didn’t end up hearing from her, so I’ll call tomorrow.

Emilie, from the Hotel du Sahel, came by tonight to help me finalize details for the party.  We went over the list of food I plan to buy, how much I should get, and what we’re actually going to make.  I’m very excited about the fact that we’re going to make Poulet D.G., which is one of my favorites.  It’s been a while since I’ve had it.  That was the first meal that Nate had when he arrived in Cameroon.  That with Verveine and honey, plus ice cream from Select.  In addition to the chicken, we’ll make beef brochettes, traditional sautéed vegetables, fried plantains, fried potatoes, salads, and, as an American influence, mashed potatoes.  We’re also going to make lots of juice and iced tea.  Today I tried to make folorée juice for the first time but I added to much water.  The look on Emilie’s face when she took a sip was priceless.  Though I will give her credit; she kept drinking it.  I’ll get it right next time.

Bernard came by too, a little after Emilie, and said that he would see about getting speakers from a friend of his.  We went up to the roof to survey the scene and I explained my general idea for how to lay things out.  Bernard said he thought it sounded good and that we’d make everything work.  It’s good having friends in the entertaining business.  After they left I worked a bit of planning the entertainment portion of the evening.  It seems to be coming along nicely, almost surprisingly so, but more on that at a later date…

Nasarah – smooth like buttah…likes popcorn…

When I got to the house today, instead of taking my hand to greet me, Rahis threw his arms around me.  When I told Mama Moussa about this tonight (because I ended up being at the house relatively late) she told me that he truly looks at me like a big sister.  He was too cute, trying to do pushups by sticking his butt in the air and then putting his knees on the ground.  I couldn’t help myself and finally said, “Rahis, watch.  You do pushups like this…”  Then I knocked a couple of perfect form pushups.  Later, when I jokingly grabbed Rahis and hung him upside down, he tried to do sit-ups from there and Mama Moussa laughed that he was trying to show me how strong he is.  I told him that he’s very strong, just like Nate.  Pleased, he scampered off into the living room.

Backing up a bit in the day….When I first arrived at the house, Noura was doing school work, but when she finished I asked her if she would be willing to go to the market with me to give me a second opinion on fabric.  I’ve been meaning to buy some more so that I can have Mamadou make something for me.  I was hoping to have something new for the party, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.  We’re cutting it a bit close at this point for that.  Noura and I had a good time going in and out of the different shops looking at fabrics and laughing when people gave us ridiculous prices.  We found some that we like and she suggested that I come back tomorrow with Aisha (who everyone calls Naïmay) because she’s the Kelly of the Moussa clan when it comes to fashion.

As we were walking back through the produce market (remember the artisanal market is right next to my building, then you have the produce market and the meat market, then residential areas, then the Moussa house) Noura pointed out some of the items that I already know plus some that I hadn’t seen before.  I told her about my market run on Friday and how amused the guy was when I asked for kilbu.  I told her I’d learned how to make lalo, only I couldn’t remember the word lalo, which is what you call it in Maroua – I could only remember kelen-kelen, which is what you call it in Yaoundé and Douala – so she asked a woman selling folorée, who provided the word “lalo” and pointed to the pile of green stalks in front of her.

Whenever we go out, Noura is always somewhere between being amused and surprised by the things that people say to me.  One time when we were coming home from the ELC, some guy commented something about a dowry or paying me money for marriage…I don’t remember exactly, but she just shook her head and said, “Les gens sont fous!”  Today, as we walked past an older man, he apparently asked her why she would bring nasarah out in the middle of the day like this.  Noura quipped back, “What, is she made of butter?”  She related this to Mama Moussa and while we were in the kitchen getting lunch ready.  Noura and I were set to the task of peeling the boiled potatoes, which was a little tricky given that they were still boiling hot, but we managed.  You can see this is loosely where the title of today’s blog post came from…I was trying to come up with something clever but got side tracked thinking about yummy things to eat.

I got some advice from Mama Moussa about the party and how to prepare for it.  She told me definitely no beans.  Damn – that was my cheap dish.  Nicoline had told me that people really don’t eat beans in the evening, but Mama Moussa left no wiggle room.  Okay, chicken and beef it is.  I asked if I could borrow some marmites for cooking that day of and she said that wasn’t a problem.  Papa Moussa is going to help me get the chicken and beef, which will make things a lot easier for me.  Mama Moussa had said I should get the meat the day before, but Papa Moussa said it was better to get it fresh the day of, so I think that’s what we’ll do.

Today’s movie was Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” which has never been my favorite, but which I will say is cute.  The reason that it’s never been my favorite is because I think there’s an incredibly ironic message that’s being portrayed by making those born into super-hero-dom the only true super heroes, while those born as “normal” people, try as they might, will never be super heroes.  Certainly there are good messages in the film: respect for human life is never a weakness; families are stronger when they work together, and each member brings something unique; often when there is bad in the world it is self-destructing; don’t steal babies because you never know when they’re going to burst into flames and then go Hulk on your ass; as well as many others.  There are countless funny moments, and the family bickering had Mama Moussa practically rolling on the floor.

After we finished watching the film, I suddenly had to decide whether I wanted to stay, or bolt.  For whatever unknown reason, I was having serious digestive cramps completely out of the blue.  The problem with that, besides the fact that it’s acutely uncomfortable, is that the toilet at the house is a Turkish toilet, which from a Western perspective seems a little strange at first.  Now, the fact of the matter is that you get used to anything when you have to – but if you don’t have to, then you don’t, and thus far, I hadn’t had to.  Sadly, today there were no options.  You could see that Mama Moussa felt bad for me in that if-I-didn’t-feel-so-bad-for-you-I’d-be-laughing-over-this kind of way, which I can’t say that I blame her.  Even for me it was strangely more comical than anything (well besides uncomfortable – both because of the cramps and because of the unfortunate coincidence that I done a legs and back workout the day before and squatting was not high on the list of things my body wanted to do).  In any event, hopefully I managed to share this mildly amusing incident (and give you a laugh at my expense) without offending too many American sensibilities.

Mama Moussa’s sister came to visit this afternoon, and Mama Moussa told me that even though her sister is younger, she has ten children.  Wow, was all I could say.  The sister asked me how many children I was going to have and I joked that I come from a family with two children, so I always thought two children, and Nate comes from a family of three children, so he always thought three.  Mama Moussa logically stated that if I had two in my head and Nate had three in his head, then that makes five.  We all had a good laugh over that.  I think it’s a little preemptive to be having this discussion in America, but in Africa it makes sense.  Mama Moussa said that everyone expects her to have more children, but that she’s concerned because there were complications when she had Rahis and so if she has more children there is the possibility that she wouldn’t make it through another childbirth.  “Everyone seems to think it’s easy, but it’s work,” she explained.  We agreed that it was understandable though, that everyone would want another one like Rahis, who by the way, is still going by the name “Nate.”

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful.  The potato raghu hadn’t been finished in time for lunch because the chicken was taking too long to cook, so we had it for dinner instead, along with a beet salad and some mango.  Somehow we got on the topic of health and how the people of the north are healthier than the people of the south.  Papa Moussa also talked about a research project he’d worked on where they looked at chickens that were given certain chemicals, and the effects these chemicals had on both the chickens and the humans.  He also told me about how, one year, they Maroua had imported corn seeds from the United States, not knowing the corn was genetically modified.  He said that the first year it was great – the corn grew bigger and faster and everyone was happy.  The following year, the boat carrying the seeds was delayed and wasn’t going to make it in time for the growing season.  The corn that they had grown the year before couldn’t help them because once you’d planted the seeds, the resulting seeds were infertile because of the genetic modifications, so you had to get new seeds each year.  The community had a meeting about this and decided that if they continued to use the American seeds, after a few years they would have no traditional seeds left and then what would they do if the boat was delayed?  It’s almost fortunate in a way that the boat was delayed that year, early enough for people to realize that continued use of the product would almost surely lead to a dependence on it.

As I was leaving Mama Moussa was getting the mosquito net set up in the courtyard, which is where she and Rahis sleep during the hot months.  I asked Naimay whether she was free tomorrow to go to the market with me (she had gotten back from her grandmother’s in the evening) and she said sure, we could meet at 10:00.  Fortunately, when I got home the internet was finally working again – it had been out the whole weekend.  Nate through a late night dance at the new apartment last night and it was, apparently, a success.  I loved Sam’s comment on Facebook – something along the lines of, “How could you possibly think that apartment would be acceptable for a late night?” meaning that it was perfect.  I bet that made Nate happy; I know he tries hard.

I can’t wait for dancing when I get home!

Spider Crumbs

Oh this morning was rough getting up to run, and I won’t even pretend – I totally went back to sleep when I got home from football this morning.  After I’d finished running I was sitting on the low cement wall in front of the field when somebody said, “On t’attend, non?”  That translates to, “We’re waiting for you to start the exercises so get your butt over here so we can get into shape!”  Or something like that.  It cracks me up how I’ve been appointed second in command.  Each time that the Coach isn’t here it still surprises me a little, but hey, why not?

I was a little disappointed to discover that the internet was out this morning – and it stayed out the whole day.  Actually it’s still out even as I’m writing this.  Also, my blackberry isn’t working either and tech support really pissed me off today.  Normally I love Verizon’s Global Tech Support; I just keep telling myself that this woman wasn’t actually Global Tech Support and that somehow I got routed to a domestic person.  She was telling me that Verizon doesn’t have an agreement with MTN and that the network I should be using here is Vodacom.  Okay, first of all, for the past seven months I’ve been connecting to the MTN network.  Second of all, every tech support person I’ve spoken to has told me I should be using the MTN network.  Third of all, Vodacom’s not even an option here: choose between MTN and Orange.  Ugh!  She made me so mad.  Hardly able to hide my irritation, I said to her, “I don’t know what piece of paper you’re looking at, but I can assure you that I use the MTN network.”  She then told me that was only for voice and that I use a different network for data.  Bullshit.  Every time I talk to a tech support person they tell me that we’re working with the MTN network.  Basically, either this woman was wrong, or every other tech support person I’ve spoken to in the last 7 months (plus the people I spoke to before leaving) was wrong.  Ockham’s razor, no?

There was only one person at the ELC meeting today.  Noura couldn’t even go.  The student and I decided we were both tired and would rather go home.  I don’t think we’ll have any more meetings until the semester starts again.  Something funny did happen while I was home though.  I was getting ready to do my workout (I had to change which one I was going to do because the one video wasn’t working – I’ll have to get Nate to send it again) when, as I was moving the coffee table, I saw little specks on the carpet.  It took me a minute but then I realized that the carpet was strewn with tiny translucent wings.  Spider crumbs from the feast last night.