'Nothing is as Beautiful as a Promise Right After it is Made'

We have been left behind. While everyone else enjoys their first nights alone at post, Brian and I remain in Garoua. I have convinced myself that this week will be good for me, and indeed so far it has. I'm able to decompress and relax before going to post. Maybe get some first week pointers from everyone else.

The final week of training left a bad taste in my (everyone's?) mouth. They left things until the last minute while simultaneously having us wait around for hours at a time with nothing to do. And as we waited around on a corner in Garoua, we had more money than I think it safe to post in our pockets. Our last night with our homestay families proved to be the most frustrating of all. We - unexpectedly - kept until 7:30pm (past curfew) and then had to go home, say goodbye, give out our gifts, and pack up everything we own.

The next morning, the day of our swearing-in, we had to be at the site to set up for the ceremony at 6am. But of course, non of the supplies (chairs) arrived until 6:45. So we set up and then headed home to shower (SNEC was off and our brother had to go look for water for us), finish packing and put on our special pagne. Following a rather uneventful ceremony, we walked to the Snack Bar-Prive Plus for lunch. PC brilliantly split up our family between two tables, 6 at one and 2 at the other. After shifting ourselves so we could sit together, our table was called last, and we found that there was pretty much no food left. Thanks family!

All of this after two days of frustration and stress, a language exam, and a final presentation in French. But now, its finally over, and here we are relaxing in Garoua with one other volunteer. We've got a three bedroom, two bathroom house with marble floors all to ourself. There are no rules, no curfews, no goats, and almost no dirt. The only obligation we have (Brian and Adam that is) is language lessons from 8-12 every morning. They dont even need to leave the house, class is in our living room. I should also mention the fact that we have exactly three beds, three mattresses, three mosquito nets and six plastic chairs. We've dragged our thrid mattress into the living room so we have a 'couch'. Oh yeah- there is hot water AND air conditioning.

So basically, after complaining for the first half of this post, now i'm quite content. We're on a week long vacation in which I plan on reading, writing, relaxing and shopping. I've already gone down to N'Goundere to help Allison with her things and to move some of our stuff to the PC house there. We stayed two nights, ate lots of food and said goodbye. She will be our closest post-mate (from our training group), six hours away.

The rest of my week looks like this: bring photos to the bank so i can finish opening my account, shop for a hard suitcase, bargin for a rug/mat, read, eat, sleep. If all goes according to plan, we'll be out of here Saturday and in Tibati by Monday or Tuesday.

Apologies for the long post. I've got free internet all week, so emails are welcome...more photos to come.





















Swearing-in ceremony. The girls all had matching pagne and the boys had matching boubous. Usually the boubou goes down to the knee and has pants of the same material...