C, F, L, R

I’m pretty tired and want to get to bed, plus not much has happened the last couple days, so I’m just going to hit the highlights:

1. Trying to explain the short jokes we make about Jen. It doesn’t really even make sense in English: we’re just bad friends.
2. Some things about Cameroonian French: "chez" is often pronounced "che". "Vingt et un" is often "vingt un" (which I’m OK with, even though I think it’s nonstandard), and other numbers like "vingt cinq" can become "vingt et cinq" (which is utterly bizarre).
3. Today I picked up my first tailored clothes in Africa, including my only short-sleeved shirt (en français: court-manches). They’re ppretty goddamn cool. Everyone loves them. I didn’t even pick the fabric, although I could have — I just said "Africtures".
4. I’m afraid Astride is flirting with me. She asked me why I left my phone in my room, since she was calling me to bother me. We were both at the "eating table" at the time, and I didn’t really get it — I’d left the phone to charge during the day. She pointed out that in that case it was charged and it was necessary to remove it; when I returned with it, she demonstrated the technique. You call someone, and when their phone rings and shows you their number, you deny that you are calling them. I dropped the P-bomb (from orbit — it’s the only way to be sure) again, but it may be that my strongest declaration of disinterest was returning to my homework rather than forcing conversation.

[N.B. P-bomb for "petit amie", or "girlfriend". You can never mention her enough times.]

5. Nadege brought me some little gifts from her trip to Yaounde. (More bombardment may be necessary.) They’re little wooden tchotchkes that tourists like me eat right up. I like the bracelet, but I already have a necklace. (Which broke, and I mended, today.)
6. Claude asked me to teach him a bit of English. Right now we mostly work on phonetics. If he learns to correctly make the "th" sound, unlike these other Francophones, I will be very pleased.
7. Vocab: "déranger" (to bother) [N.B. I already "learned" this one], "du tout" (at all), "s’offrir" (to treat oneself).

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