Thursday, September 30

I woke up yesterday on my birthday very excited to open a birthday card from my parents. Today I woke up excited to get on the internet in Bafia. I’m not sure which event was more exciting, quite possibly the internet! Since the post I wrote last Wednesday I have done so much but I will try to recap. On Thursday after training all 50 us went to the chefferie (basically a meeting hall) to meet the chefs of Lable and of Nyamsong. After speeches and photos we did some dancing out side, in the rain, with some guys in local Cameroonian costume.
Sunday I went to the Catholic church with my family which was a pretty cool experience, lots of clapping and singing. The service was half in Bafia (the local patois, or language) and half in French so I could understand most of the French…until I began to tune out the sermon…afterwords my sister Marianne gave me a tour of her school, then I finished my laundry (which literally took days to dry in the humidity) and other chores. In the afternoon Sofie, my younger brother and I walked far to visit the river. Actually we took a moto the last bit of the way there. The river was the Senaga (sp?), the largest in Cameroon. There were SO MANY mosquitoes there. We got caught in a rain storm on the walk back, which was fine because we have a huge extended family and just hung out on our relatives porch until it passed.
Yeserday was my birthday and like I said one of the highlights of the day was opening mail (phone calls and texts were awesome too)! After training we did a Body Pump class as one of the trainees is an instructor--I wish I had pictures because it was hilarious. All these kids came in and were mesmerized by what we were doing (and yes it was humid and sweaty). Then after dinner my mama presented me with a beer (“Its good for your health!”) which was pretty much just a good as a cake!