living out of a suitcase

Ive been living out of my suitcase in a hotel for almost two weeks, and I cannot wait until I finally go to Bambili and settle in with my apartment mate from the Peace Corps. The joy of unpacking all my stuff will be sweet, I can feel it, like an unloading of stuff will also be an uplifting of my spirit. Jade just left this morning at 6:45 to fly to Maroua so I am the last of the ETAs to leave... now I am left toute seule. Kind of.

A lot of my time has been waiting around. Today I waited to get picked up for a ride to church with Gladys but the driver never came so after half an hour I decided to just walk around the neighborhood and stumbled upon a nice little cyber cafe that also happened to have a very slow connection. Not surprising haha. My hotel's wireless connection has taught me lots of patience by now.

Ive been waiting for this internet to load at the cyber for around an hour and by the time I got this window to open along with gmail, i have ten minutes left! So I better type fast.

This weekend I saw the following embassies: Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, China, Netherlands; Senegal, Egypt; Greece, Malta and more I cant remember. Embassy searching is pretty fun, especially since they're mostly in Bastos. Greece is the prettiest one in my opinion, with a huge yellow building on top of the mountain that all of Yaounde can see. Cacti lined the gate all around, but peeking past the iron bars it looked like a mansion in paradise, surrounded by bright flowers, palms and perfectly trimmed grass. Shiny cars were parked on the paved driveway in front of nice balconies and wide windows. It made the US embassy building look pale and confining in comparison. Though I guess Id say the US one is aestetically pleasing with the attitude of a modern art building, in a straight lines white marble, white walls kind of way.

Yesterday Jade and I walked up Mt Febe for the whole day, visited the arts museum next to the monastere, talked to Pere Joseph in his office and got his blessing for our trips. We also got sunburned in the face and chest very badly. It didn't hurt too much, but was probably a side effect of our malaria meds; sensitivity to sunlight.

The reason Im at this cyber typing on a French keyboard is because I think my laptop came down with a virus. Note to all: if you're bringing your laptop abroad make sure you have your antivirus programs downloaded; updated and running. I learned the hard way.

But all is well. Today is a fairly cool Sunday. Its 10/10/10. I ran into a guy at the embassy this morning, biking with his kids whom I also ran into last night during dinner with Jade at La Salsa. Im friends with the lady who works at the bar and also the lady at the front desk. Thus, even though now Im the last of the ETAs to be sent off to my destination and Im waiting waiting waiting in anticipation, little things have still made me feel like I'm surrounded by pieces of familiarity. Of course this will all change again when Im dropped to Bambili by car on Tuesday. But for now I must soit patience! My time is up. Until next time... Ill be in Bambili!