Les Premiers Jours

I have arrived in Cameroon safely after a very, very long flight!
(and for the Francophones, I am sorry if I spelled that title wrong...eeks!)

Before coming I had a three day orientation in Philadelphia where I met all the other volunteers coming over with me, and got my first set of shots. The other volunteers are really cool, as a group. Then came the two 8 hour flights (To Paris then Yaounde) and then I arrived. Yippee! It is AMAZING! We had a quick stop in Douala, which is the biggest city in Cameroon but not the Capital, so my first impressions were made there. It is beautiful. The Guns and Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle" was stuck in my head when we landed because it looked like a Jungle. Right off the runway you couldn't really see any houses, just the vast amounts of greenery. From the runway I could see the kids playing and even a funeral going on close by. We then arrived in Yaounde. Every country has its own distinct smell and I think, although others have their own interpretations, that Cameroon smells like a mixture between woodsmoke and cornmeal (not unpleasant at all). While collecting our baggage the power went off in the airport, but I guess during the rainy season (now) that is a common occurance, so we had to wait awhile to pick up our bags. Afterwards we went a boarded a huge old bus and made the hour trip from the airport to Yaounde where we came to our hotel and immediately went to sleep. Sunday was a free day and most of us spent the day just catching up on sleep. In the evening a couple of us decided to take a walk to a stadium we saw in the distance (Cameroonians LOVE soccer). It was being reconstructed (via a gift donation from Japan....interesting) and there we met a nice worker named Andre who gave us a tour. My french needs A LOT of work, but I was ok enough to ask some simple questions about the place. People seem friendly but we do stick out like sore thumbs.
The hotel is nice, but the bathrooms are....different. But in the eating area we can see a Banana tree with bananas on it and it overlooks Yaounde. Which is pretty cool.
The food is DELICIOUS! We went to the Peace Corps Country Directors House for dinner and it was all delicious. I am very glad that I like the food. The fruit...oh my goodness. The watermelon, pineapple, everything. It is all very exciting right now.
We are going to be in training for the next couple of months and at the end of the week we move into a Host Family house in a different city a couple of hours outside of Yaounde. During all of our training we will be living with this host family, and although I am excited to finally move out of my suitcase, I am nervous too.Today we got some more shots and had our language test.
I really can't wait to be able to speak well enough to really communicate with people on the streets. I want to ask them so many questions, just about life and politics in Cameroon, what they think of the U.S., ect. That may take a while, but I am determined to get there.
There is a lot of poverty everywhere you go, but I don't really look at it and think "these people are so poor." They live how they live. It is very different then what I am used to, but all the same I don't think it is fair for me to critize their housing, ect. Most seem happy and curious. And notwithstanding the negative side, I think that there is something to living a kind of simple life that brings a different kind of fulfillment.
Anyways, I didn't cover all of my thoughts/feelings ect. but I am on a shared computer now so I must make it short.
In brief, so far so good. I really like it here actually. It may sound odd but when I woke up for that first morning and looked out my window it just felt so great. Coming to Africa kind of feels like coming home somehow. As cheesy as that sounds. A lot of people seem to say that though, so I think that there is just something about Africa that captures people, which right now includes me. In two weeks I may be writing about how frustrated I am or how I miss such-and-such food. But, for right now I am loving all of it.
I hope that everyone is doing well and I do want to hear from each of you and I will reply. It is just that for the purpose of mass dissemination a blog seems to work.
Bisous,
Autumn