Still Alive

37 notifications. 37. Are you people kidding me? That is out of control. That was my welcome back into the city this week from facebook.

I did my homestay this past week. Monday – Saturday. Not a full week, but the basic idea. I lived in a village named “Santa”.  I wasn’t too hot on it going into it, mostly because I was (am) super comfortable here, and didn’t want to rock the boat and cause homesickness.

I wont get into major details of the week, but basically the family was the absolute most kind. My lumberjack and fire building skills were useful again at home, I think my ability to chop wood as well as I could was surprising for everyone. I learned how to plant beans, harvest potatoes and corn. I also tried my hand at assisting in a couple of traditional meals, and I ate a lot of omelets.

Im glad I did the homestay, I learned a fair bit, and met some really cool people. It made me happy for my life in Bamenda, and happy for my life in St. John’s.

My first day there I asked a 4 year old girl at the house what she liked to do, thinking to myself we could do it together for fun. If someone asked me when I was 4 what I liked to do, I probably would have said something like ‘playing legos’, ‘doing crafts with my mom’ or if I was feeling particularly honest ‘getting my sister in trouble’. Her response was “washing plates”. Now, I grant you when it comes to washing dishes plates are the easiest and the most satisfying thing to wash, but it was an interesting way to set the tone for the week. There were such differences in family, and child rearing techniques. That was my biggest difference in this experience compared to my Costa Rican experience. Other than that, there were a lot of similarities, which was comfortable for me to enter into.

I was a little sick for a couple days, to the point where I casually vomited in the corn field, but I blamed my malaria medication so all was well.

I am happy to be back in the city, though I am sure I will be visiting my Santa family soon.

In other news, here are two interesting things that happened while on my homestay:

1)      Boosters. For those of you who I have not yet informed, a booster is a .5L bottle of whiskey cola mix. It is consistently my drink of choice, and has been for the past 2 months or so. While in Santa, I discovered that there is more than one booster flavor! I know right, mind blowing. So, in addition to the whiskey cola mix, there is also pina colada, gin and tonic, and vodka grapefruit. Needless to say I have a new mission to try all of the boosters so I can boost my life in new and invigorating ways.

2)      I started to go off the deep end and got a store that was playing music to transfer all of their music onto my usb. I now have 200+ songs, 99% of which are African jamz. (the other 1% being lil wayne, and rihanna mostly)

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I am alive, despite my disappearance this past week.

All my love,
Maura