Well it's been a hectic few days here, so I hope I can remember all that's happened. Well first of all, I'm in my house/room!!!! WOOHOO!!!! And I really like it! It's really big, so there are two beds in one half and the other half is a kitchen and work area. It's a bit annoying having the kitchen area in my room, as it means the food is here, and Jerry comes a-calling in the night. Last night I found out that Jerry has a girlfriend (or boyfriend, we are an equal opportunity blog. We do not judge.) I was working late last night and the two of them popped up on my kitchen bench to chomp on a little bit of leftover potato. I was coming around to the idea that we could co-exist in the house in peace, but yesterday it was like they were on speed or something, because they were running wild around the place, and knocked over bottles and things from my shelf waking me up three times in the night, so unfortunately for Jerry and friend, I'm off to buy poison later. We've had some good times but it's just not ok with me that they seem to think they've as much right to my stuff and space as I do, for as yet I haven't seen a red cent in rent or food contributions!!

I'm settling in nicely now. Have pictures up on the wall, so it looks nice and homey, and I brought a few trinkets with me, and everything's pretty much set up how I like it. I'm just waiting on all of my shelf units to be delivered, so I can put all of my things away. The Cameroonian version of Ikea is a guy who calls to the house and asks what you want, you tell him the size and how many shelves on each unit, and he goes off and makes them and delivers them within two working days. NICE!!!! So now I just have to establish that it's my private home and not a drop in centre in a sort of "My dance space, Your dance space" kind of way. I imagine that will be much easier when I have the office set up with a work station and the computer classes are in the back room. I'm subtly working on it though. I'm locking the door from the inner corridor into my room, so people have to knock, and currently I have hung my laundry up on my verandah which blocks that. There is very little concept of personal space here (understandably-lots of families live in one or two room houses), but that is one Western notion that I will definitely be preserving, because I suspect that I will seriously need it from time to time.

I mentioned laundry. I have spent a large portion of this afternoon washing all of the clothes that I've worn since I came, in the old fashioned bucket of suds, soft scrubbing brush, bucket of clean water, wring and hang way. Methinks a luxury item I'll be requesting from home will be hand cream. Already have a massive blister on my thumb from the painting, but it was totally worth getting that because finally the back room is nearly ready. The paint is pretty strong smelling (myself and Max were a bit high after painting for the two days) and the fumes are still pretty bad so it's not ready for classes to move there yet, but soon I can start my assault on the outer office.

So I'm finally able to eat again. I just don't like the food here. Well actually, it's just the dishes here that I'm not mad on, because the ingredients are actually pretty good. I've been making myself a delicious kind of tomato based veggie stew for the past few nights, and as I write I've got more spuds on to make patatas bravas. Everything is dictated by the seasons though so I'm going to have to get pretty imaginative with the combination of onions, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, and potatoes because that's pretty much it. There's herbs and chilli peppers here (which are called peri-peri) and other spices so I should be fine. Today I've been spoiled though, because pretty much all of the other volunteers were away today, so Anita, the only other volunteer that was left, made me a delicious breakfast of pancakes, banana milkshake and fresh pineapple, which was great because I spent about half an hour asking "And what's that?", "And what's this" pulling things off her kitchen shelves, so that I can get to know the packaging. And then my landlady had invited myself and the rev and Max for dinner which was really really good. That brings the grand total of local meals that I've enjoyed here to......TWO! (The other being when I went to visit the orphanage).

The main thing that I did in the latter half of this week was bringing some of the children to the hospital. One of the children needed to go the dentist so that was pretty speedy. We brought one of the sponsorship children and her mother because she has been having chest pain and trouble breathing and we thought she was HIV positive so obviously we had to get that checked out. So we spent hours waiting to see the doctor, who sent us to get a chest x-ray and then we went to the counsellor because we wanted to check her HIV viral code. But by the time we had finished with the counsellor (who, don't get me wrong, is AMAZING at her job-really thorough), the lab was closed so we couldn't get the HIV test done, and when we went back to the doctor with the x-ray he had gone home for the day. And this was all before two o'clock. So we had to go back the next day and do the whole thing all over again. All of the people we met there are extremely competent, but the system is just so crushingly inefficient! But it was all worth it, because when we went back the next day and actually got the test done, it turned out that the child was negative, and the chest complaint is easily dealt with! Brilliant news! There was a bunch of other children that were tested at the same time as her on the same programme, so I'm on the case this week of finding out who they are so they can get re-tested. How rubbish is that though in that who knows how many other results were wrong?

Then the painting, which remains a huge source of amusement to my colleagues. (MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM am now eating the patatas bravas and they are delicious!!!) and then just boring admin stuff, but things are starting to come together. Doing some work with the Fundong orphanage too, including a project with a dote of a guy Justin who I met for about five minutes the day I got here as he was leaving. We swapped e-mail addresses and I thought I'd probably never use it, and now I find we're e-mailing each other every other day. It's really cool work in that way because it's a nice way to get to know someone. The person who is our main on-line volunteer is amazing and I chat to her every day and I find it hard to believe I just about knew she existed two weeks ago! It's brilliant to have that continuous link to outside too, so all in all I'm pretty happy here at the moment. Myself and Anita are heading off to Kumba next weekend on my first bit of Cameroonian travel. She just suggested it this morning, and I'm really looking forward to it. It sounds really cool in the guidebook, and there's supposedly lots of other volunteers there, and Anita's really sound so she'll be good company. Good times!!!!! Plus because I've been buying lots of stuff for the house, I've to go to Bamenda for some money on Thursday which means one thing......WESTERN FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heaven!!! Although in fairness I hopefully won't be in such a bad way again now that I'm self sufficient. I won't have to inhale the steak as though it was going to run off the plate away from me like I did the last time.

Other useful/useless things from this week:

#1. I have discovered exactly the right way to pour my bucket of water down my toilet so that flushes like home. I said to someone earlier this week, how my perspective has changed. A month ago, a good day was if I could sleep in, I had bacon, bread and Ballymaloe relish in the house, the latest issue of Grazia was in the shops and I was going to Partridge's for lunch. Here a good day is if I haven't been kept up because my resident mice are too loud, the water and electricity are running, and the toilet is clear!

#2. Cameroonians fecking love pointing out the obvious. This has come to my attention over the last while so I carried out a non-scientific experiment today when I was doing laundry (which caused much amusement to the crowds going to and from the soccer field-this covers most of the town's population-the woobanya doing her laundry-pretty much every volunteer pays someone to do it, but hey, I'm here for the whole experience). Today, in the space of just over an hour, 19 people came up to me, greeted me and immediately said "You are doing laundry". There is no response to this except "Yes. I am", except of course the smart-arse comments the sarcastic Irish person inside me wants to scream out.

Right I'm off to do the washing up, and then I'll pop this up.

Congrats to Mary H and Phil and to Liz and Aidan!!! Hope that you had brilliant days and a lifetime of them to come for you all!!!!

Shout out to the DeCourcy clan too! Thanks for the lovely messages!

Thanks to everyone for the messages on the board!!!!! Hope everyone's having a great summer!!!!! Hugs xo