True to form, it rained once or twice, late at night, and then stopped again. I awoke once at 3:30 local time, groggy but pleased. Beats the hell out of the time, only a night or two later, when I woke up to someone whistling, only to realize it was probably a mouse (same mouse? […]
It rained today, heralded by the clouds and overcast-iness we’ve been having for a few days. It’s a strange departure from the endless blue skies we’ve had for months. As I stepped into the rain to try to wash some of the chalk dust off my hands, I called back to my colleagues. "Is it […]
I’ve been meaning to upload these for a while, but never quite got to it. Here is a picture of a fruit they call fromage, "cheese". It has a mushy but somewhat firm texture, so the name isn’t completely misleading. It has a sweet, delicate taste, a little bit like cream cheese frosting. I have […]
So here’s some shit that doesn’t suck. My Premiere class, which was full of miscreants and ne’er-do-wells, went fairly well today. Half the class wasn’t there. I think they were celebrating the imminent departure of a surveillant general — he was the "most strict", and so "they’re free now". I was told they even brought […]
I was thinking tonight about writing up that post about some of the things going on right now that don’t suck, but then a bunch of shit happened that sucked. Specifically: Boris was here to upload some photos to his Facebook account. He just left, at 9:30 PM. Not that I was going to be […]
Today was a little bit more disappointing than usual. (Decevoir, to disappoint (and not, as you might expect, to deceive). Deçu, disappointed. Decevant, disappointing.) Realized during my first hour of class that one of the infrared mice from the lab had gone missing, presumably on Friday. It’s not expensive; a really shiny new one from […]
Writing this now without benefit of Internet. I ran out at approximately midnight; I got up in the middle of the night to check my email and it was already gone. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough money to see out the month if I bought Internet, so I let it run out, but now […]
The French word "terminaison" means "termination" or "ending", and you tend to hear it most when discussing grammar — which verbs take which endings in which tenses, et ainsi de suite. But Organization lingo for going home early is "Early Termination", usually just said "ET", and verbed as follows: two of our stagemates ETed recently. […]
The reason we’re here in Yaoundé, of course, is a "workshop" about safety and security procedures, specifically in the case of an emergency. We’ve been arranged largely in "clusters", and I’ve been named the "contact Volunteer" for my cluster. Besides a free trip to Yaoundé, this means I get 2000 CFA a month to maintain […]
At Yaoundé in the case right now. I don’t know the etymology of the word (pronounced with a "z" sound at the end), but it’s also called a "transit house" — a place where Volunteers can spend the night if they’re on official business, or travelling through the area. Right now a bunch of us […]