Well I know it's been days since I've written anything, and there is a myriad of reasons for this. Firstly the start of this week was an absolute disaster, and if someone had said "Dee will we just order you a taxi to the airport?" I would probably be in Celbridge right now. I spent the whole day on Monday killing myself researching the Cameroonian education system for lots of reasons (and it's quite complicated so took a while to figure out and write the document) and got it on to my USB but the internet in the office was not working so I went to the internet cafe, and got a virus on my USB that deleted EVERYTHING which covers so much of the stuff that I had done for school at home as well as everything that I've done here. (Yes yes I know, I should be backing everything up as I go along, but seriously I will DEFINITELY be doing that from now on-I've just been running from pillar to post so haven't gotten around to it.) And it has also attacked my laptop which is now not working so well, so I have now to save everything on my laptop onto discs, clean all of the software off it, re-format it and put everything back on it. Bad times!!!!! So I cried a bit on Monday and Tuesday and was very frustrated and homesick, and then everyone was so nice to me and the volunteers rallied round and are helping me sort it and Max and the Rev were really good to me, so I walked out from under my black cloud of doom on Tuesday afternoon. And then Colby's mum was over and she made a gorgeous dinner of Carribean chicken curry on Tuesday evening, so while the smells were assaulting my nostrils and I was practically drooling all over my computer I gave myself a good talking to and am now properly back on track.

So the internet is still not working in the office, which ties my hands a lot, as I really need it to do so much of my work, so I've just only been able to send the really urgent stuff, so once it gets sorted I have a good few hours to spend getting everything off. The poor rev won't get near his computer for hours.

Yesterday was field work so we went to the school where I'll be teaching to register one of our children and I had some research to do about fees for the sponsorship programme, and my initial opinion that the principal is a bit of a legend was completely re-iterated, so I'm looking forward to working with her. Then we had to trek up to see some of the children. We checked on the girl who was given the HIV all-clear last week, and she's a good bit better, so we gave toothbrushes and toothpaste and then gave a dental hygiene lesson to herself and her really little brother who DID NOT like me when I first started brushing his teeth but quickly realised that toothpaste is TASTY!!! And then off to see another of our kids who is only four and someone attempted to rape at the weekend. Horrific stuff!! He snatched her from outside her house and ran down the road with her. The mother says they got to her very quickly, hopefully before the guy had any time with her. She was in fine form though so not really sure what the best approach is. I'm sure we should take her to be tested just in case. Not fun! Talk about putting a temperamental lap-top into perspective!!!!

We saw a funeral too, of the man we visited on my first Sunday here, who was dying of AIDS at the time. Here in Kom, funerals are traditionally three days long. The first day is the burial ceremony, and huge numbers of people come for that, and stay at the house of the deceased for the whole day (not unlike a Western funeral I suppose), and there's a good bit of drinking (lots of opportunists come selling alcohol outside the gate). Then on the second day, people come back to the house and all prepare food and then eat together. And on the third day, there is what's called the masquerade when lots of people in masks come to the compound of the deceased and dance lots of different ceremonial dances. The costumes are kinda hard to explain, and obviously I couldn't take pictures. It's a sort of straw hat, and bandage type material tied around their heads and then traditional African print clothes. Very interesting to see I must say.

We went into Bamenda today and discovered that Irish bank cards do not work in any of the ATMs which was not much fun, so have to wait till the internet is fixed in the office to transfer funds, because if this week has taught me anything it is that internet cafes here are only for the bare minimum of not-really-confidential work, and definitely NOT for putting my bank details in. However, I still have the funds to go to Kumba for the weekend and I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!! We're going after market on Saturday and, we're going to see hippos on Sunday and then coming back on Monday. A Cameroonian mini-break!!! How very Bridget Jones!!!!!

I have spent the evening moving all of the computers into the back room-finally!!! It's taken pretty much the full week to get it to a state where we wouldn't be sending the children into orbit while they're learning computers from the fumes. That front office won't know itself by the middle of the day tomorrow. It's going to be great. If we can get the internet back it will be amazing altogether. My OCD made me lots of nice office stationary in Bamenda today, so we have a hole punch, a stapler and a lovely set of file folders to start organising things. It's the little things that keep you going!!!!!!

We also went to eat in the house of the divisional director of ABCD, which is one of our partner charity organisations and it was so lovely. He and his family were just the loveliest people, so welcoming and kind, and the food was delicious, every little bit of it, I even enjoyed the fufu corn and vegetable. And they gave me my first bottle of what they serve as Guinness over here. It is definitely NOT Guinness though. It's crazy strong, both in terms of flavour and alcoholic content. It's about 8%!! I actually had to say that I couldn't finish it, because I would have been on my ear doing the messages around Bamenda. Not good.

Other good news is that the garden project I proposed for the orphanage has been approved by the director so I'm getting on that next week. We're having a leaving party for Frankie, one of the volunteers next weekend too, so that'll be something to look forward to, because now that I'm refocused after the start of this week I will work like the clappers next week. We're going to the local nightclub which I'm sure will be colourful, and will result in some interesting material for this blog! When I'm out at the orphanage it'll mean I can do some ground research for the other youth home project myself and Justin have been working on, which is rolling along nicely. I want to get some community health initiatives up and running in the next few weeks too, so that should be fun! When I think about it, work is going pretty nicely despite the fact that all technology I touch implodes!

And finally, Jerry lives. I haven't had the heart to get the poison. Himself and his partner in crime have not had such a hyper night as the one where they kept waking me up, so I haven't done it yet. I don't think I'm ok with it developing into a Mr. Jingles from The Green Mile situation, but the longer it goes on, the less I feel able to kill him! Plus I'm about to make him homeless because he has set himself up in a corner of the office, where I will be cleaning tomorrow.

Actually speaking of books (and if anyone is still reading this you should really take me up on this recommendation-it's definitely a billion times better than my tripe!) I have read a brilliant book called The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas in the last few days. It's an Australian book set in Melbourne, and pretty gritty, but I literally couldn't put it down.

Also if anyone's not listened to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble they are incredibly savage!! Credit goes to my sister who introduced me to them, and I have no idea how many albums they have or where they're from or anything but I am ADDICTED to listening to them while I work. Check them out. (Also understand that this will probably be the only music recommendation I make the whole time I'm out here unless I suddenly abandon all of my principals and decide that dodgy Nigerian slightly religious hip-hop flavoured pop is the best type of music ever!) (Well I DID go through that phase of playing Miley Cyrus' The Climb every night for about a week, so I'd never say never!!)