IST and Christmas

I have finally seen Christmas decorations! And I even heard some Christmas carols on the radio! Despite the scorching heat, inch-thick dust, and water outages, it is in fact Christmastime! It still feels quite strange because the weather is getting warmer. I keep thinking we're going on summer vacation.

Today we're leaving Yaounde for the beach! I can't wait to swim in the ocean and lay around on the beach. We have in-service, so we'll have to do some work but I'm sure we'll find plenty of time to drink and play in the surf. I've been charged with "guard-ing" people things, including a jar of sea water, sea salt, and of course bonbons and provisions. My students so excited I left for Christmas break a week early. Little do they realize they're the ones not learning while I'm gone. I'm sure I felt the same way when I was in high school.

When I arrived yesterday I went to the mail room and had another load of fabulous packages! I received Christmas packages from Aunt TJ & Uncle Dick, Aunt Kath, Aunt Barb, Grandma J and Aunt Jane. I didn't open anything that was wrapped (I want to save that for Christmas!) but everything else was awesome! You guys know exactly what I need. I'm still enjoying last week's packages. Cheese nibbles made it all the way across the ocean--intact and tasty.

Someone reminded me about summer sausage and it really isn't Christmas without it. ;-) The transit house recently lost 3/4 of its DVD collection to theft so we're really hurting for a good selection.

I hope Bodo and Fred are still around when I get back. I left the keys with one of my students and charged her with feeding them at least once a day. The trip to Yaounde yesterday was much longer than necessary due to roadblocks. It is the Christmas season, which means gendarmes are more frequent along the roads. Luckily the drivers on the Bokito-Bafia route had decided not to strike (this time) and I eventually made it to Bafia in time to ride the greyhound bus to the capital. One of the guys at the agence de voyage accused me of having given him my phone number and then not answering his calls. I assured him that he must have me confused with another blanche, to which he replied that maybe I didn't recognize him because all Cameroonians look the same. I'm pretty sure I'm right, since I frequently lie about even having a cell phone and I never give out the number. PCVs who fail to follow this rule end up with lots of stalkers who send text messages "je t'aime" and bip a lot.

Biping is a Cameroonian phenomenon that arises from everyone's lack of credit on their mobile phone. To successfully "bip" someone you must only let it ring once before hanging up. They are supposed to return your call (thereby using their own credit and not yours). If someone annoys you with too many bips you can "cut" them by picking up the phone before they hang up and waste some 50-100CFA of their credit. More experienced bipers can "flash" which means your phone lights up but doesn't ring. This takes a lot of skill and coordination to hang up before the ring. Biping is annoying. When people bip me from a number I don't know, I often try to cut them, but usually I'm not quick enough.

Okay, that's it for now. If Kribi has an Internet cafe maybe I'll post again. Ahhhhhhhh the beach!

I posted some pictures on Facebook, and I think you can use this link to view them without having to join:
http://arkansas.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059554&l=b9212&id=20601980