Buea at LAST!

I am finally in Buea, the city my internship is in and it is BEAUTIFUL. I am seriously in paradise. It is tropical essentially...palm trees, lots of big green palm-esque plants and vegetation, kind of wet feeling and warm/hot but not too hot for the most part although i haven't been wandering around too much in mid afternoon. Anyways, it was another sort of frustrating day yesterday when I got into Buea as I was sort of dragged all over the place, but really nowhere at all and for nothing at all. It was sort of just really disorganized and just a lot of 'chilling' as they say here. For example, we would say, 'ok so we just go get your bag here and then go home.' But in actually fact, we walk there very slowly, all sit down for some reason and do nothing for quite some time and then EVENTUALLY and I mean EVENTUALLY, everyone sort of decides ok lets go... even though all i had to do was pick up a bag and go. I know i'm being a baby and things are not like they are at home but all I wanted to do was put my stuff down and be at home, wherever or whatever that means. Anyways, i started thinking perhaps this is how it is here amongst everyone, but after meeting my NGO/Host, I discovered that it's a student thing; student's take their time and are disorganized...so I'm hoping it is just a student thing and things move a little bit more 'my way' here. Anyways, I know it's a minor fact but i'm still not feeling well and I just wanted home base if you will. SO I finally got to my 'home' that i will be staying at for the next week to get 'oriented' by AIESEC and to Buea. My NGO is none too pleased as their was a lot of miscommunication and she has been expecting me since saturday and has my room ready. None the less, the house itself is quite large and clean, a change from the last house i was at that was quite dirty; an interesting contrast to the house itself is that it is like a mini farm with chickens, ducks, turkeys in a pen behind the house and some gardens. I love all of that, however, the problem that is only a problem because of the state of my health, is the bathroom. The bathroom which is actually the toilet is an outhouse with a hole in the ground (all made of cement) with a waste basket for toilet paper which i have discovered is not in any public or most private bathrooms here if there is a bathroom at all. To be honest, i've roughed it lots before and have no qualms with outhouses and this one is extremely clean... however it is I guess this fact that is hard for me as being sick... usually means using the bathroom in an intimate way and in a way that perhaps isn't pretty. I tried to ask my house how you 'clean up after yourself' aka do you wash/rinse it with water when you're done, aka can i clean up the mess i may make and she said, 'oh no we clean the toilet when we clean the house.' at this point i was uncomfortable and did not want to ask the more graphic and straight forward, 'what if you miss!' So my stomach is not doing so well and i haven't eaten again since this morning... my plan of action is to let my system recover and only drink water until i am feeling 100% again. Ah well! the joy of travel really. Other than the house itself, (which i made a video of and will hopefully be able to post somehow), I ate an orange the Cameroonian way which is to peel the very outer layer, cut off the top and squeeze out the juice, like a portable real orange juice-box. it was great! I also tried some sugar cane which you don't eat but rather chew on and suck the juice (it is very tough/fibery but FULL of water/juice) which of course tastes like sugar and is very enjoyable. I had a pleasant sleep (even though my mosquitto net was a difficult procedure and i basically just slept undder the covers and had the net over my face and arms), which was ok since it gets cooler at night here. I had a wonderful sleep, that is until, at 4:30 am-ish the rooster (which was so evil it pecked most of the chickens to death) started crowing, it seemed, right in my room SO loudly my ears hurt....talk about a wake up call...yes that lasted 2 hours or so when i was asked to get out of bed (aka 6:30am).
I was very lucky however, Mary my host, offered me a 'bath' and asked 'very hot or normal?' to which I replied, 'oh just warm would be wonderful' as another intern here warned me all of her 'baths' had been regular cold water. What a bath is here, and why i mentioned it was called toilet not bathroom is the bathroom is next to the outhouse with the exact same set up, cement with a hole in the floor. I got a bucket of water and some soap and i simply splashed myself and washed myself that way... it was quite nice and refreshing, kinda cool as I could see the steam rising off my body from the warm water. P.s. she warmed the water in an external house on a wood fire and held the pot up on rocks, above that pot was things that were being smoked/dried I guess, various vegetables and corn drying in little bundles as well. It was really neat but quite smokey. That is where they cook and keep their food, a lot of yams, coco-yams and kasava, the main thing here.
I had a breakfast of egg, fried like an omlette, bread that looked normal but a bit yellow and had a slightly different taste and ovaltine made with powdered milk. It was good but my stomach is still affraid unfortunately. Mary was very nice and prepared all of this while i just layed on my bed begggin for the stomach pains to go away.
Anyways, other than that, spent the morning doing recruitment for AIESEC on the university campus which was interesting as everyone starred at the white girl and i felt so uncomfortable approaching people but i did it anyways and got some people signed up. The BEST part was that i had to speak in front of a lecture (large sized hall) group receiving orientation. I was fairly calm but I said only three words and the WHOLE crowd started sort of laughing and gesturing and sort of yelling, which I was informed later was a collective 'WHOA!' Apparently, although people speak english here, most people speak mostly pigeon, a mix of english, spanish, portuguese... basically english with a twist and when they speak english it is slower and with a very differnet accent. Anyways, I asked if it was that I was speaking to fast, as my partner Mary also had no clue what had happened, and I received a collective "YES!" SO i spoke slowly and had a good laugh. I was told later that people here are ver impressed with how we speak English as it is very fast... so now i know to slow down as I think that has explained a lot of the lack of response in conversation and blank nods.
I finally met my NGO today and the doctor that is accepting me as an intern and it was the best thing yet. We totally were on the exact same page and she was visibly excited and seemed to think it was amazing that I was sent sort of since I knew all about what she wanted to do and why it was imporatnat. It made all that work before rewarding and i know it's going to work great. Ok gotta run before my time runs out. p.s. tonight i'm going to a football game. Email me soon!