Spring Break

Me at the crater lake

Friends

Spring break was a great success. We “fled the heat” as the Camerounians are so fond of saying and went down to Ngaoundere. The climate is much cooler there and it is an easy 9 hour bus ride away, nbd. We met up with some friends from other regions and basically just enjoyed the weather and the company. I learned how to play Texas hold ‘em… and won. One day we went out to this big crater lake. There’s a big hotel/restaurant structure built there, but according to my friends back in Tokombere, it all got abandoned because demons were pulling people into the water. We also visited the Lamido’s palace and the grand mosque.

Just a little bit of school left back at post!

Most of my water got wasted soaking into the ground with the broken pipe situation so now I’m back to an empty tank and haven’t been able to convince the waterman to drive across the cornfields again. Occasionally sparks shoot out of my fridge and water has been running out the bottom, but it still seems to be working, which is a miracle cause when the water comes out of the filter it is a bazillion degrees.

Its officially mango season so I’ve been eating lots of those. If possible, there’s even more children in my yard now since they can easily hop my walls and then into Mariam’s, mango trees next door. When they do this during the night Butternut goes crazy barking at them and wakes me up.

Butternut legitimately has the flu. I have never seen a dog sneeze before but she sneezes, in spurts of 4 or 5 even, just like a human. I think part of it must be the heat, this is her first hot season. I’ve heard about 4 dogs in my neighborhood who have already died from the heat. Mostly I chase Butternut around and dump water on her to try and keep her cool, but she doesn’t seem to like this at all, and now I feel bad since she has all these flu symptoms.

It is also probably as hot as it will get (I’m telling myself) …. But that being said, it is pretty hot. My friend found a meat thermometer which was measuring 115 degrees in the evening.