Mom, if you could see the deterioration of your former food policewoman you’d be shocked. Anyone who watched Mrs. Gray’s “Danger Zone” video in home-ec class would be quite naturally terrified of anything that has set out for more than one hour. That’s when the germs start to grow and then you can get sick. I just made tuna salad – with full knowledge that both the tuna and the mayonnaise were past their expiration dates. (Hardly by much, and next time I will remember to check before I buy them.) I don’t even really like mayo that much, but here it’s got a certain appeal for being American. Worse yet, I’m not even refrigerating it. The mayo and my eggs, just chilling on the counter.

Somehow I wound up buying 3 dozen eggs at the market last Tuesday. I’m not sure why, it all happened so fast. I was just so excited that they had eggs, something I knew how to deal with and my mind was already on scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs and omelets (all without the addition of way too much oil and msg cubes like during training) and I didn’t realize that I didn’t necessarily have to buy the whole tray. (My friend Liz stood next to me during this whole interaction and never suggested that perhaps I only really wanted a half dozen). Apparently most of the things that we refrigerate at home, they don’t really need to be refrigerated at all. For example, jelly, mustard, ketchup, they should all be just fine on the counter. It’s weird to eat these things and not have them be cold though. I sort of miss having stuff be cold a lot. Anyways, I heard it on good authority that eggs can last three weeks if kept in a coolish spot (like underneath my counter?). I test them before I use them by putting them in a dish of water. They’re supposed to sink to the bottom. But, if they float to the top it means they’re filled with gases and have started to go bad. So far so good, except for whatever consuming 3 dozen eggs in 2-3 weeks will do to my cholesterol level.

As far as the teaching itself goes I think I’m off to a good start. I had all my classes write about their summer vacation. I collected these to get an idea of where everyone was at. I was a little confused when I had two kids writing about becoming priests, and then realized that they had confused the words vacation and vocation… who knows possibly due to my board handwriting.

The head of the English Department is still in Yaounde searching for his paycheck. But there is another English teacher who just surfaced today. He’s actually not an English teacher; he’s just an Anglophone who is working for the Department of Health, right across the street from the lycee. I’m pretty sure he’s the only Anglophone in this town so it’s easy to see how he got recruited. Anyways I was just making an exit from school when he came running after me. He’s got the sixiemes and the cinquiemes, the two youngest grades (definitely not jealous of that situation.) Anyways, apparently he’s taught older kids before but didn’t know what to do with these little squirts. So after lunch I went over to his office and brought him the plan pedegogiques and sample lesson plans from Model School. I tried as best I could to explain the concept of first planning out the school year, and then each week, and then each lesson. Then I explained the 4-mat, which is the particular way we learned how to plan lessons. First you get the kids interested, then you present the information, then they practice it and apply it. He didn’t seem like he was too enthused about the idea of singing songs with the children as warm up, but I wasn’t sold on that either until I actually tried it. Anyways he seemed pretty pleased with the stuff I gave him and said he was going to work it out this weekend. I feel like this was my first unofficial “teacher training.” It’s also nice having someone I can speak English with here in town!

There is a new French family here to work at the Catholic mission and it turns out they’re practically my neighbors. The mom is teaching and the dad is a carpenter and they have two adorable little girls. I saw their house the other day and got pretty jealous. They are all settled in already and it is so cute. Their running water works and they have a fridge! She did say that I could come over and take a shower/put things in their fridge which I thought was really nice. I would bring the eggs over there but I sort of feel like I’m committed to this experiment now, we’ll see.

I have another furniture addition! On Tuesday, my friend Bello knocked on my door. He was there with his dad carrying a large stick bed. He goes, you wanted one of these, right? I think that is pretty much the way things are going to happen here. I’ll just keep talking about all the things that I need for my house. Everyone keeps telling me “doucement, doucement” as in white girl, relax. And then, eventually the stuff will just turn up. Regardless, I’m pretty delighted cause I can turn it sideways and lean it against the wall… and then it’s sort of like shelves. Or at least it’s someplace to put some stuff that’s not crumpled up inside my suitcase. Every time I stick my hand in I’m terrified I’m going to run into a lizard. They are definitely all over my house but they’re not too big and they don’t bother me so much as some other things would. I’ll try and take a photo but they’re pretty quick little guys.