Ill get to the pork story in a minute.

Its another rainy Thursday afternoon here in Mbengwi. It has been awhile since I have written because computers are really a pain in the ass sometimes.

So, last week was a fun filled week of some travelling and various activities that included sitting, sleeping, and getting up and standing around.

I took a trip to Yaounde with Tiffany last week. We had some paperwork to do at the office and we just wanted to do something other than sit and watch the wall.
So the trip is about 5-6 hours but it usually feels like six or seven days (the whole bush taxi thing.) One quick side note, I heard a story about another volunteer who was on a bush taxi for 7 hours and only went about 100yards. That’s when the noose comes out and you just call it a day. So I try not to complain too much after hearing that experience. Anyway, so we are in this greyhound style bus which was not too uncomfortable, BUT the window seat in which Tiffany had because she I said ‘ I want too look out the window’ no problem I wanted to sleep anyway. Apparently, we were sitting next to a spider whose water just broke and was going to give birth any second to 12000 baby spiders. We hoped and prayed she could hold until we get her to the proper facilities. We were coaching her. “Just wait” we said, “ we are almost their.” It didn’t matter. The babies came screaming out like a bunch of gremlins coked up on ju ju bees. Tiffany got the worse of the attacks because she wanted ‘ look out the window.’ I was attacked briefly, but those SOB’s love to bit a skinny, hairy French guy.

After all this, things just get better. We are slowly arriving in Yaounde, I mean VERY slowly. There must have been 17 million people shopping all at the same time. When I say everyone and their mother, I’m not pulling your leg. We thought it would be funny to text message a friend who was at the cause (this is the PC dorms for the volunteers. There is a TV, beds, kitchen stuff like that) There is a way to spell it in French but I have no clue. So our friend is staying they’re waiting for our arrival to have a few cold beers. Only a few. So we text message him saying that we are stuck outside the city because there is a possible coup d’etat that is occurring and we ( the bus) are being held up by over 100 army guards. He text us back saying he will find more details. We are laughing. Then again, another message is sent out saying that I had my passport and Cameroonian ID taking away because I could not speak French and the guard could not understand me. Now he believes us, because it is well known how awful my French is and very plausible for something like this to happen. We are laughing, almost peeing in our pants. “We got them good” we say. He sends us back with the numbers of the PC admin that is on duty and thinks we should contact them. Now we are a bit worried. Maybe we took it to far. Should we send another message letting them now it was a joke or keep messing with them? We thought about it for about 2-3seconds. One more! The next one is delivered and says that “ Dave just shit and pissed himself because he is so scared and feces is running down his legs” ( gross I know, sorry if anyone is offended.) This apparently was the last straw. The guy who we were joking around with contacted the administration. He tried calling us to let us know but we did not answer our phones. Eventually we stopped, and had to call the duty officer and explain it was all a joke.
The next morning Tiffany and I had a meeting with the duty officer and apologize for starting a little chaos within Peace Corps Cameroon volunteers, and learned very quickly that staging and joking about a gov’t getting over throne in Africa is not as funny as we thought. But still laugh about it!!

So that was the big excited for last week. I return back to my lovely home on Friday for a full weekend of nothing.
Saturday morning I woke up and headed down to the market to buy so things for dinner, the usual items, carrots, green beans, potatoes, and various other veggies.
I retAurn home and enjoy the rest of the afternoon on my porch reading. So here is the pork story. There is a path that runs right buy my home where people of passing through all day long. Occasionally people will stop and say hi and talk for a while, and sometimes people ignore me. It doesn’t bother me either way. So, these two guys are strolling buy with a wheelbarrow and ask me if I want to buy some pork? Im thinking to myself this might not be a good idea, but I should start getting use to buying my food this way. I look at the pork and it looks awful. It was slabs of the belly nipples hair and all. SO, as smart as I am, I take a half-kilo of the belly fat. I figured it would give me something to do today. At first I thought I was going to puke ( this is foreshadowing), but I cut it up and cooked it for about 8 hours and thought it fine. That night my neighbour cooked me dinner instead of the pig, fat, nipple soup that I made. So, I waited unit Sunday night to eat. Mind you, there is no refrigeration. I heated it up Sunday night, and I am all excited to try this new creation of pork fat and veggies. It was OK. I ate it anyway because it was to late for pizza hut to deliver. I headed to bed my usual time of 1000pm, but my stomach was acting a little funny. I brushed it off and took some tums and went nighty night. I woke up at 1235am with the pains of nothing I felt before. I will not go into details of what came out of me over the next five hours, but it wasn’t a site that you would want on a Christmas card to grandma. My whole day Monday was lying in bed trying to figure out what I will do with that poison that I created.
I feel better now… I am running out of time until tomorrow..VA
GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!