Na Zdrowie!!!!!!

Well, for those of you who can’t see the word document where I diligently sit down to draft my blag before posting it on the interweb, you would see a number of dates where I sat down to write and nothing came out. I find it very difficult to write the things I’m doing when I’m doing lots of things (i.e. my lame excuse for not writing must be that I’ve been having ridiculous amounts of fun and/or work) and now I find myself with the time to sit down and reflect on the past few weeks.

For the record: the one thing that seemed to slow me down is that I, Meera B______(sorry internet, last names don’t happen), have managed to catch malaria, typhoid, aaaaand amoebas. Oh my?!

First of all, I would like it to be known that no one should be worried and/or concerned about the fact stated above. I’m fine. Really, truly. I have lots of people taking care of me, I get calls several times a day to make sure I’m alive, I’m allowed to eat as much sugar as I want (something about helping the medicine work…I don’t know, I’m not complaining though) and I have discovered that having multiple diseases is a way to get things to happen much faster in Cameroon. To be perfectly honest, I’m kind of enjoying my predicament with the daily pity party for the poor sick girl.

The only bummer is really that the medicine I’m taking makes me feel like crap (it was better before I realized it was malaria…uh…minus the stomach problems—Karen if you want a more graphic description I would be HAPPY to provide it for you) AND I can’t drink any alcohol because of the way the medicines and the malaria react with the ole liver. This REALLY sucks because of the people who I just met, whom—Mary—will get full credit for being like “um…maybe you should go get tested just in case.”

Their names are Eva and Agnes, and they are both Polish. How can you hang out with Polish people and NOT DRINK? Seriously. They are very serious about their vodka, they pointed out to me last night that there is a significant difference between vodka and zubrowka (which translates into English as Bison Grass Vodka). Agnes, who is sitting to me right now, explains further that the flavor is better because it is believed in the forests of Poland the Bison have peed on the grass before they do the whole distillation process. The alcohol content is the same between the two though.

Also the best mixer with zubrowkaapple juice and a little water I learned this from Stanislauss (a Franciscan priest who looks like Santa Claus!).

Eva has lived in Cameroon for 22 years, Stanislauss has lived in Cameroon for 32 years (and 11 years in Zambia before that), and Agnes has been here since September. Angnes and I are the same age, she’s like 2 months older or something, so we have a lot of fun listening to Eva and Stan sit around and talk about what they’ve done, the schools they’ve built and how generally wonderful and awesome they are. I’m also picking up some Polish.

Basically this is the day that I was found by Eva and Agnes (three days ago and the day of my first class). I received a call from my friend Nadege (who you haven’t heard about yet because I’ve been a naughty naughtyblagger) telling me that a white woman had come looking for me and that I should come to school right away. Considering at the time I was just starting to have some…stomach troubles…I had to decline. I told Nadege I would call them later.

(I was concerned enough about my digestive problems that I called Grace and Patti too—just in case you know. Grace was going to come bring me water and bread, but she ended up having a surprise five-hour hair-braiding session. Only in Africa.)

When I got to the university for my class I was stopped by the guardian who was like—‘these are the numbers that Nadege wants you to call—you should call them now. OR we can go to her house, I’ll take you.’ This surprised me because the guardian is this really laid back guy, and the fact that he was eager for me to get to know this people was intriguing. He left the gate, took an immediate left and walked over to a house. I was walking slowly behind him because I felt like, well, shit. He ran back and said they weren’t at home, but I should call that number right away. I, on the other hand, went straight to Ma Sophie and told her point blank—I need something that would help me make it through my class without having to take bathroom breaks every ten minutes. She made me some tisane with guava leaves, which actually really helped and let me get through the class.

Quick segue: my first class on Monday went really, surprisingly well. I laid out class rules, we went over them. I was able to get a lot of group work in and people were trying hard and participating in class. I was pleasantly surprised, considering all the horror stories I’d been told by people to keep from getting my hopes up. I have my next class tomorrow with the same group—the second years—and I’ve got some fun things prepared for them. Yay teaching!

Anyway, I called Agnes before I went to class, was surprised that she answered the phone speaking English and made plans to meet her after my class. Right after my class, she came and picked me up at the university and we went to Eva’s house. They fed me dinner and we had the usual conversation (in French and English—because Eva doesn’t speak English (yet!) and Agnes doesn’t speak French) about life in Bertoua, how we like it and what we do. And then, of course, the usual conversation about ‘how do you feel.’

Eva is a nurse so I basically laid out my symptoms and they were both of the opinion that I should go get myself tested (just in case). The next day I met up with Agnes and she took me to her ‘sisters’ (she ‘has’ sisters the way that I ‘have’ priests), let me cut the line and I had a physical examination and donated…fluids.

The donation process involved a needle and a plastic sandwhich bag. Yeahhhhhh. It was nice that I got the bag though, most people just use leaves. That was an interesting image: in the laboratory before they tested my ‘samples’ seeing my plastic bag on a petri dish among petri dishes containing other peoples’ leaves. Wish I could have taken a picture except that would have probably been gross. (Karen, I know you are loving this too much right now.)

During the waiting process Grace shows up sporting a new head of hair and Agnes comes right after teaching her English class just in time to hear my diagnosis: typhoid, malaria and amoebas! They were both very impressed with me. Then I spent 6,500 cfa (13 bucks) on medicines that will kill everything over the next two weeks. Hurrah!

Other updates: I have officially moved into my new house, it only has a bed in it so I’ve started spending more and more time at Eva’s house (mainly to use her dining room table as a desk—this makes it much easier to type blog posts. After my diagnosis of malaria I petitioned the Secretary-General to seriously get a move on getting me kitchen stuff (i.e. a fridge, stove and water filter) so that I can, you know, not get amoebas and typhoid.

I have some super awesome Cameroonian friends (Nadege—a master’s student at UCAB who invited me to join her choir, Anatole and Erique her ‘brothers’) who hang out with me and we do things like going to clubs and watching Cameroonians Lindy Hop really well to music from the ‘50s while we pretend to do the same. They also never let me pay—which I feel bad about. Every time I tell her I feel bad about it Nadege tells me to stop being so American. To quote Nikki—le sigh.

So the moral of this blag post is that in lieu of illness I am still having a blast, I feel wonderfully taken care of and I really, really like Polish cookies.

Love, M