Day 5 - To LAP with Love

Yesterday…. I was up at 5. I made it to Kumbo. It’s pretty awesome here. I’m staying at the LAP center. Since I’m going to be here awhile (so I’ve heard. I don’t really know the plan), they put me in Little House, which is pretty great. I have a living room, with a fireplace, a bedroom with two beds, a full bathroom, and a kitchen. There is also an attic, which looks like it has at least another bed up there and a little door which I really want to know what it leads to, because there is no ladder to climb up. Next time I’ll make sure to bring a couple other people and stay here a couple weeks so we can stay in Little House and find out what’s in the attic. There is a little window I can see from outside, so I know there’s something up there. Plus, I can see into it because there is a hole in the ceiling of my living room.

It’s really cold here. Its fine most of the time, but it rained today and I am chilled to the bone. There was a man who said if I wanted a fire to call him, but I don’t know his name or where he is. It is sad.

Okay, this is probably not something to be excited about and would be a real hassle if I did not have a laptop, but as it is, this is pretty fun. Sometimes the electricity goes out, so they left me with a kerosene lamp. I tried it out yesterday just for fun… Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. I can’t wait until the electricity goes out and it’s dark and I’m not sleeping. I’ll throw a party. With myself…

I’ve taken the taxi. Many times. I mean, I’m no expert on Cameroonian taxis and I’ve gone with someone each time, but still. I’m doing pretty well. I’ve experienced all the degrees of life-threatening I ever want to and I never, ever want to sit in the front with three other people again. But it will probably happen, because if the taxi driver can squeeze one more person in, they will take their 100 francs. One thing I have noticed, though, and I’ll test this later to see if it’s because I had a local with me or not, taxi drivers are pretty honest. I didn’t have anything smaller than a 1,000 bill yesterday, but they gave me the same rate and correct change. And today I only had a 2,000, and the same thing happened. So yeah. They drive like maniacs, but they are (so far) honest with money.

I’m sorry. I’ve been talking so much about these little things, I haven’t even written anything about what I’m actually doing (besides almost dying in taxis – but don’t worry, Mom, I’m not going to ride on the motorcycle taxis). I hung out with some Lamnso’ translators yesterday. I remember they have interesting names, but I don’t remember them exactly. I think one of them was God Bless Don’t Laugh at Me Too Much. The ‘don’t laugh’ part was a name in Lamnso’, but that’s about what it means, if I remember correctly. I also have a book on how to read and write in Lamnso’. Because of that, I can read and write Lamnso’ (read better than write, because… I don’t know what I’m reading to write anything.) but I have no idea what I’m reading or writing. I do know the word for elephant: kitam. And two elephants are vitam. Yeah. I know a few other words – the first word I really knew was kici, which is stick, and it is pretty cool, because they add other words to kici to make different things – I know pen is a book stick, a pencil is a dry stick, and they use other words (with kici) to mean jump drive and all sorts of other things. I also know a bunch of different words for God.

I’m doing okay with the grammar. I know how to make most words plural, so that’s pretty good, I think. It’s not as easy as other languages I’ve studied. Okay… I’m not doing very well on grammar. I have no idea of the sentence structure, even, and don’t know anything about verbs and conjugating them. Actually… I know conjugating them has something to do with the tones.

That’s right. Lamnso’ is a tonal language, just like Chinese. But Lamnso’ doesn’t have four simple tones. It has eight. Eight tones. And I could barely deal with Chinese’s four. But so far I’m doing okay. At least no one has corrected me too much when I’ve read the sentences I don’t understand. But I’m getting better at understanding, kind of.

I went to a literacy class today. That was interesting. It would’ve been better if it wasn’t -50 degrees outside. Okay, not really, but it was raining and we’re up in the mountains, so when the sun doesn’t come out, it doesn’t get warm. I’d talk about it here, but I want to keep talking about Cameroon, and I’m going to another tomorrow, so I’ll spend some time on them tomorrow. Alfred, the guy I’m working with, says the class is about an hour away. I’m fine with that, as long as I’m not stuffed in a car with 7 other people. Okay, I’m actually okay with that, too, I just don’t want to be in the front again. It is terrifying, because you can see the potholes he’s avoiding and when the driver swerves to the side in order to not hit a truck which is barreling down the road in the other direction.

Speaking of roads… There are three different types here, of varying degrees of scariness. Asphalt roads are usually fine. There are often potholes – sometimes really bad ones, but the ride is generally smooth otherwise. Dirt roads are the most common. The holes in them can be pretty bad, but they can also be surprisingly smooth. Not very often, but they can be. These roads can be from anywhere between ‘I-think-one-of-my-teeth-just-rattled-loose’ to ‘If-I-make-it-out-of-this-alive-I’m-walking-everywhere-for-the-rest-of-my-days’. I’m surprised I still have teeth.

The lights just went out! I can barely see my keyboard, but I’m going to wait and see if I should light my lamp or not. They just flickered… We’ll see. Typing by lamplight. Yeah.

The last bit of road is the scariest and I hope no one ever has to ride on one ever. Stones. In some dirt roads the potholes get so deep instead of filling them in with dirt they have filled them in with stones. So, I guess technically this isn’t a type of road, but there are some pretty long stretches of just stone. Now, you may be thinking, whatevs, sounds okay to me. This is not gravel I’m talking about. These stones are not even. They were put in place to fill in potholes and they are just normal stones, not cut to be smooth or anything. Just trust me; these patches of road are not smooth and quite scary.

I have a perfectly good stove in my kitchen, so tomorrow I’m going to buy eggs, tea and sugar. I’ve heated up water (I have a cute little tea pot) because I needed it for washing and stuff, and yesterday Karl Grebe, the linguist working here, made me some tea and I’ve been craving it ever since. This is what you did to me, Canada! Hopefully the market is on the way to the class tomorrow so I can stop by and get some tea and stuff. My kitchen is fully equipped and I have several frying pans, so I’m excited. I have to make my own breakfast and dinner, so I bought some bread, tartina, and bananas, but that’s kind of lame. I had a mango, but they don’t grow up here, so I can’t buy any. Also, mango season is almost over.

Well, that’s all for tonight.  I hope to also stop by an internet café and actually send this off so people can read about my travels.