There are 3 bedrooms in my house but they are all about the size of this bed. So I chose the one in the back corner because it has 2 windows instead of just one and the lightbulb works.
This is the view when you walk in the front door. Two girls came over the other day and they fixed the curtains in my bedroom that I had done a pretty shotty job on. Then they washed the really dirty curtains that were hanging in the kitchen when I arrived and some of my clothes. Then they washed the floor with the rain water and the dirty curtains and then washed the curtains and hung everything on the clothes line we made out of dental floss. I was pretty impressed.
This is the my kitchen and my front door. The lock is pretty tricky but so far I haven't gotten too stuck. The yellow container is called a bidon, it gets filled from water from the forage which I then put into my fliter. Except my filter has been leaking when I fill it more than halfway up so that might be a project for later today.
This is my bathroom before I cleaned it, pretty scary.
Its pretty much a combination of mud and dirt that is all over the walls so its mostly come off after I've scrubbed it with a bucket full of ajax. Definitely missing moving into a new place with mom and dad and a bucket full of environmentally cleaning supplies and a toolbox. But this has definitely been a job for bleach. I had to stop cleaning the bathroom halfway through because none of the water was draining out of the shower drain. I told my proviseur that it was clogged and he came over to help, turns out, there was just a lid covering it up which he was able to remove and then all the water went down. I was feeling pretty silly after that so I decided to show him my mosquito net which I had hung up myself, but when we walked in it had collapsed :-( I fixed it with the ducktape I brought. I also collected all the nails that were just nailed into random walls in my house and put them all in a line on the wall in my bedroom. Then I covered their rustiness with ducktape and hung all my clothes on them, voila a closet!

The shower is pretty much a big joke anyways because the water does not work. There is a huge tank/hole in the ground next to my house that apparently I can get a water truck to come fill up. Then I can wind a pump and then I could potentially have running water. But, the guy will only come do this during the dry season which is next month. I'm pretty skeptical about all of the logistics involved in this one.

A goat wandered up my driveway and was eating some leaves in my front yard

Liz got a kitten to bring to post. Pets are supposed to be good for keeping away bugs but so far Oreo has just peed all over her room.
The Claires matching again
Our arrondisement from training
The Extreme North Crew

I really liked Timothy's host family's coffee set, it was just like a tea party!
The model school closing ceremony only began about 2 hours after we thought it was going to so we went over to Timothy's for some coffee first. Cameroon is supposed to be known for coffee beans but everyone here drinks nescaf all the time. Timothy brought a grinder with him and it was nice to have some real coffee!
Giving out prizes at the model school closing ceremony.

The last week of training was pretty much a whirlwind. We had the closing ceremony of model school where we gave prizes out to the students. The internet broke at the training building which is why I sort of dropped off the map for a while. But it was nice because everyone just spent a lot of time together before going our separate ways in Cameroon. The graduation ceremony was really nice, everyone got a big kick out of our matching outfits which was fun. Then we had a luncheon with our host families. And all us brand new volunteers spent the night together at a hotel in town and left early the next morning (last Thursday) for post. It was pretty sad to say goodbye to the other volunteers, my host family and the trainers. My host family printed out some pictures they had taken of me with the family & Pascaline made me a cake which was really sweet.

After lots of travelling we made it to Maroua where we spent the weekend at the Peace Corps House. We did lots of shopping for our houses but I didn’t manage to buy anything practical whatsoever. That’s because on site visit there was this one locked bedroom in my house. We peered in the window and saw lots of boxes but no one could tell me what it was. Some helpful friends suggested that it was probably dead bodies or the beginnings of Mummy III. But, I was holding out hope that it might be some useful items left by the former volunteers. We planned to film the breaking down of the door when I got to post. So I was disappointed to get into my house and find the door unlocked and completely empty, still a mystery.

The household items that I did buy in Maroua were a marmite (big pot), some tye dyed buckets and a matching set of ceramic dishes straight out of the 1950s, these are everywhere, … all of which turned out to be available at the market here in village. I was able to buy some tye dye bowls that match my buckets. Unfortunately I was left without utensils or glasses, details like that.

Someone from Peace Corps’ brother came and picked up Rose, Liz and I and all our stuff to take us to our posts. We were very impressed to be riding in a CRV with air conditioning… and were just referring to ourselves as “Posh Corps” when the fasten seatbelt buzzer came on and persisted beeping for the entire trip. Then we were reminded that we were actually in Africa.

I was the last one to get dropped off, which I’m pretty sure makes me the last volunteer to actually arrive at post. My proviseur (principal) is also my community host. He came right over with my keys to let me into my house. I had been a little nervous at first when I found out that my proviseur was going to be my community host since we had learned in training that Cameroonian society is very hierarchical and male dominated, especially in the north. So I was pretty worried about how our interactions would go. But he has been more welcoming than I could have possibly imagined. First thing he did was change the lock on my front door and then he started installing new lightbulbs all over the house. He took me home with him to have dinner with his family the first two nights and keeps telling me that I’m his daughter. The first night we had macaroni and the second we had couscous and gumbo (neither are anything like what you are probably thinking) which we ate with our hands which was pretty fun.

At post!

I made it to post in one piece!First I have some pictures from the final ceremony from model school (pink dress) and then I have the graduation pictures (matching brown ensembles) and then I'll write about getting to post, it has certainly been an adventure so far... I can not believe that I just ate dinner out of a measuring cup and now I am somehow connected to wireless internet, this is totally nuts.

Post today!

I'm going to my village today!!!!