La Blanche

Bonjour to all from Golf, Yaounde, Cameroon, Africa.

Before I delve into my new series of stories, I must make a reference and correction to my last post... I suppose I was in a hurry to utilize my internet cafe minutes as best as I could and made a big typo saying that my host family doesn't speak a lick of "french"... I clearly meant to say ENGLISH, they speak absoluetly no english, so sorry for the confusion. Also, I asked one of my French professors if "Huit Freet" is a common Cameroonian name and she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about so we tried a few different pronunciations and she started cracking up. Turns out my brother's name is Wilfrid; I guess with a really heavy Cameroonian accent it starts to sound like wheat freet... who knew. So that solves that.

This week Ive really been feeling good; I finally feel like Im getting a grasp on this city, this language, and the ways of life here. My host family and I get along really, really well and I spend my evenings talking and eating with them. For those of you who had the assumption that I would be coming back to America 20 pounds lighter, think again. All I do, all everyone does, is eat bread. Not to mention the tons of food my host mother puts on my plate after im done eating; last night I got 3 extra large potatoes and unfortunately for me its really rude not to finish sooooo unless Im careful Im going to live up to my host mom's expectation of "tous les américans sont gros" aka all americans are fatties. But I walk close to 3-4 miles a day at least so I'm banking on that to help me out.

I've also become the favorite neighborhood "blanche" / neighborhood white girl and spend 430-6 pm everyday playing soccer and dancing with the group of 10-15 kids who live near me. Everyday as I turn the corner on the rust colored dirt road michelle, mami, chantal, jeano, jeanu, princess, lydia, stephanie, grace, sozzo, and stella run to greet me yelling " la blanche! la blanche!" Im working on them calling me court-en-ay (how everyone here pronounces my name) but its extremely heart-warming nonetheless. And yesterday, right before I turned the corner to greet all my new friends I happened to meet the first division professional Cameroon rugby team on the street. They initially stopped to say hi to me because I'm a La Blanche but when I saw them all wearing rugby jerseys I initiated a real 20 minute conversation and have now been invited to all of their games along with all my friends! I love how certain parts of home are following me all the way over to my small street in the neighboorhood "Golf" in Cameroon. Im working on getting one of their jerseys before I leave.

So that's a brief look into my life here; as soon as I can figure out how to upload pictures somewhere Ill work on doing that. Everything is going really well: my french is improving rapidly, I can navigate myself around the area, I love my family, the food isnt horrible (only a few experiences with intestines) I have a lot of great new friends, american and cameroonian, and Im just overall really happy. I grapple with my place here and what it means to be a la blanche in cameroon on an everyday basis but I really do feel like Im participating in an extreme exchange of cultures and when I think of things in that way it helps to put things in perspective for me. I miss home and my family and friends a lot, but feel the love travelin' through and over all the land and oceans. Hope you can feel it being sent back.

A bientot,
Court-en-ay