City Mouse, Country Mouse

first of all, contrary to popular belief, brian and i are still alive. we've learned that its not only perfectly normal to live without the internet, its actually quite easy. the only pressing thing i've needed to know in the past month has been the gestation period for a dog. when should i expect the newest members of our African safari? (early april).

live au village is just liek it sounds. village like. the most exciting thing that has happened was a bizarre hair burning incident involving brian, his birthday and a candle-lit bathroom.

we're meeting more peoplein the community who are trying to start farms or businesses, sell pagne, build things and other activities that living people do. we've each adopted a few different community groups and are working with them to write proposals and plan the future of their group. for example, one group who i am working with is trying to get a micro credit loan to build a storage house for their harvest and to buy a tractor to workt heir farms easier. i'm helping them write up their plans and proposals. i have tried to explain to them that i dont actually have any money for them, but that i will help them with all the logistics, and maybe i can write a letter to the lending institution saying that i will help see the project through. i'm not sure they completely understand this, because when they gave me the 'draft' of the proposal, it was titled "X Group and Our American Partners..."

Our adopted counterpart, and indeed good friend now, has helped us meet people all over the village, ant like a proper Cameroonian, he is related to most of them some how. with 22 brothers (even sisters are brothers here) he knows just about everyone in town. when we go to our monday meetings in a neighboring village, we always stop at his sisters house where we stock up on avocados and check on his pineapple farm. president of the handicapped GIC (community group)-his uncle; local handyman-of course, his older brother. you can't spit without hitting a brother or cousin in town.

sad news this week. we lost two members of our household. first, monkey, the runt of the litter died. he was not eating and after ten days he had not grwon, in fact, he grew smaller, while the others got bigger every day. second, a few days later, our computer died. seeing as i know very little about raising kittys and computer innards, i can't fathom the cause of either death. both are greatly missed.

i'm in the city all week, hopefully i can get my flash drive to work on these computers, pictures and more await.....