Some Statistics
(I wrote this last night March 5th)
I’ve been here 44 days (as of 5-Mar). Here are some statistics since my arrival:
- Days we’ve had running water in the house: 34/44 (77.3%)
- Days my host father has been in Douala: 13/44 (29.5%)
- Percentage of days that we haven’t lost power at some point: ~70%
- Percentage of days I’ve seen at least one white person: ~50%
- Number of americans I’ve talked to: 2
- Number of white people I’ve talked to: 4
Last time, as I was writing, my host sisters and I were watching a telenovela in French. Right now we are watching a latin-american telenovela called “Nunca te Diré Adios” that is translated, terribly amazingly, into English (Cameroon is officially bilingual with ~20% speaking english). I think this show has about 10 important characters and about 4 voice actors. Several of the characters sound like Ariel from The Little Mermaid.
This week has been relatively slow. I’m almost done with the web sites for the travel agency and microfinance cooperative. My host mother and father have been out of town most of this week. I’ve played tennis a couple times. Last sunday I went swimming at Happy Sport Pool and Loisir where a speedo or tight speedo shorts are mandatory (why?) and my normal board shorts from Montañita, Ecuador are not allowed. I rented some super tight fitting swimtrunks, which was real different.
I got my beard shaved off at “Mega Salon Provincial” coiffure on Tuesday. I was with Marius when he got his haircut and I figured a $.30 shave at a coiffure would probably save me time and a razor. My little cousin Deven in Dallas had also asked me earlier in the week when I was going to cut it off (hi Devon). The place was a small 8ft x 6ft shack about the same size as Barak Obama coiffure. I sat down and told the guy how i wanted him to cut my sideburns, he then powdered my face with some unspecified powder, used his electric razor to shave away, and finally sprayed on some liquid that burned like aftershave out of a windex bottle. Now I look like this:
The kinda weird thing is that only a few people said anything about it. It was a pretty substantial change in my appearance so I figured it would generate a larger response from my host-family and co-workers.
Thank all you guys who commented on my last post. Twelve (!) people commented! I was very encouraged. Keep them coming, even if just to say you are reading. I haven’t taken a lot of pictures this week, but here are a few (click to see the full size image and a description).
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