A good day.

Today was a really good day. Since I just recently returned from Bafoussam, where I was doing my banking, my house is now a bit better supplied with tasty foods only available in the cities – like jam, and fresh pineapple (sadly, I haven’t found any in village, even on market day) for example. So I awoke, around 7 AM, which is actually a little bit late for me, but this is good because I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so I was happy that I slept a little bit more than normal. Anyhow, I got to have a normal, tasty breakfast of toast and jam and fruit and have a cup of hot milk made from dry milk powder and a sugar cube – something I’ve developed a taste for here, which I never thought I would.
I’m in the process of getting my windows screened. And it is a process. Peace Corps requires volunteer homes to have bars on the windows; they also pay for volunteers to have windows screened (to keep out those pesky malaria-carrying mosquitoes). Most volunteers have screens, glass window panes, and bars on their windows. However, for whatever reason, the Safety and Security Officer decided that my house is just fine and safe without bars and without glass window panes… so instead I have only shutters (that lock closed) on my windows. This is fine (I guess), but the shutters open out. If you think about adding screens into this equation, it doesn’t work because you would have to either have a hole in your screen to open the shutters from the inside (thus defeating the purpose of the screens) or go outside to open the windows (again, defeating the purpose of the shutters as the sole method of closing the windows against intruders).
So. I had to get a carpenter to re-install the shutters so that they’d open inward before I could get the window screens put on. And since screening isn’t sold in my village, I had to wait until I went to Bafoussam for banking to buy some window screening. I had asked the carpenter to come yesterday to continue the work he’d already begun, but he hadn’t shown up. When I went to ask him why, he promised to come today at 9 AM. Okay, sure, I thought, that’s what you said about today.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when he showed up early at 7:30 AM! Sweet! He almost finished the work with the windows today, though there remains a bit to do. Anyhow, he left around noon, and I spent some time reading and relaxing. I was just about to start getting ready for my first Tikar language lesson when Princess Jeannette showed up at my house. Now, I met Jeannette awhile back at a funeraille (kind of like a memorial party for people who’ve died – a semi-religious service of sorts followed by lots of food, drink, booze, and music) and we had chatted a bit. She later invited me over for tea and snacks and we had spent about two and a half hours chatting. I like her a lot – she’s fun and friendly and (importantly) doesn’t want to marry me or date me (in contrast to just about every man in my village, married or not). So I was really happy to see her and have her just stop by to say hi. Most importantly, I took this as an indication that… drumroll, please… I have a friend in village! YAY!
Jeannette walked with me to my Tikar lesson and sat in on it with me. The lesson seemed to end before it started, and I’m not sure I really learned anything except maybe how utterly incapable I am of speaking Tikar. The tones of the Tikar language are like nothing I’ve ever heard or tried to utter before. Some of them I couldn’t even give a phonetic spelling for because the sound just isn’t comparable to any sound in the English, French, or probably any Western language. There was a solid five minutes while we were going over the Tikar alphabet, when my tutor kept saying one letter and I kept trying to repeat it, but I couldn’t get it right (apparently), even though I thought I was saying the same thing he was. Keep in mind that these Tikar lessons are conducted in French – so it’s like twice removed from my first language.
The lesson was really challenging and it didn’t help that there was a crowd of about ten little kids, all under the age of eight, watching and listening to me stumble stupidly through the lesson, while they repeated everything the tutor said in perfect Tikar pronunciation, in between giggling at me and calling me the Tikar word for “the white.” But despite all that, the entire time, I kept thinking how cool it was! I feel so fortunate to have the chance to learn Tikar. Even though I’m basically inept at the moment, I’m excited to see where I’ll be a few months from now. The thought of being able to converse in Tikar is thrilling. I’m really excited to continue my Tikar lessons. This first one was a big pick-me-up, or at least something that really brightened my day. I hope my lessons will be something I can and will continue to really look forward to.