Getting settled

Hey Friends and Family!  We got to keep the house in the Ntarinkon Quarter after someone from the main office in Yaounde came to check out the situation personally.  We move in this weekend, and are so glad to finally be getting settled.  It’s been a whirlwind of buying some essential furniture and houseware items and getting familiarized with our respective offices.  We both have a half-time schedule right now, three days a week and four hours a day – we can’t complain!  The rest of our time during these first months is spent getting to know our way around our city, getting to know our neighbors and starting the process of integrating into our community.  We have an offer of cooking lessons from one of our neighbors that we can’t wait to take up!

For the month of October we’ll be on Stand-fast, which means we stay put in our town, no traveling to neighboring towns for any reason, because of the election.  The national election takes place on the 9th.  The campaign season lasts about a week here – for the last week we’ve seen flyers and people have been driving around town with loud speakers.  Then everyone gets to vote for one of the candidates, and then we hope to have results in a week or two.  Most Cameroonians seem to be like most Americans when it comes to voting – as long as their day to day lives aren’t disrupted, they aren’t terribly concerned about the outcome.  But, just as in the States civic responsibility has been on the rise in recent years, part of our job here as volunteers is going to be to build civic awareness and encourage volunteerism at the local level.  But for now, we stand fast.  Luckily we love Bamenda and don’t mind staying put here, though it’s postponed some hiking trips.

We’ve been seeing status updates on Facebook about the weather turning cooler, people dragging out sweaters and looking forward to hot cider!  Here in the Northwest, the days alternate between sunny and beautiful, or rainy and cool enough for sweaters, soup and hot chocolate – in other words, perfect for the two of us.  “Fall” here means we’re going into dry season, though, which we’re told means beautiful, sunny days alternating with just plain hot – conditions we’re also okay with, since the rain sometimes prevents going to the market, or leaving the house at all.  And we’ve been told a big benefit of dry season means laundry dries in a morning, instead of taking a day or two!  Sometimes it’s those little things that can make all the difference…