Tiny Tropical Taquitos

First of all I'd like to mention that choosing the title this week was an excruciatingly difficult tossup between "Beanied Babies" and "Tiny Tropical Taquitos". Hands down hardest decision of the week.

It's been another week at the grind. Things at work are still about the same. The hardest part of it all is doing stuff that I don't want to do after work. I mean, after you've spent 8 hours doing something you don't want to do, the last thing you want to do is more stuff you don't want to do. A small consolation is that I'm sure I'm not the only person who's experienced this! That's why I try to relish every minute of not working. I tell myself that even the stuff I don't want to do is something different than the 8 hours of stuff I didn't want to do, but already did.
Last Sunday I ran out of chores, so I made the trip all the way to Limbe with the sole intention of finding and purchasing mangoes. They weren't easy to find, but I eventually did manage to buy about 10 of them! Definitely worth the searching, they tasted great! Later this week I actually found more in Buea. I also got 2 care packages this week, so that was a good morale booster.  Wednesday of this week was pretty interesting. Our plumber seems to be providentially (for him, not us) re-contracted for every job the hospital needs. He's worked in my apartment twice and done a real bang-up job. On Wednesday he was working in the doctor's office during a consultation. He was methodically hitting the faucet with a hammer. I'm not sure what he was expecting to happen, but all this hammering came to fruition and he sheared the entire pipe right off of the wall. Cue the onslaught of water. The plumber attempted to remedy this problem by sticking his thumb in the pipe. Ever stuck your thumb over the end of a hose? Same effect. The patient, the doctor, the doctor's paperwork, the curtains, the table, and I all received a good drenching.
I took this as an omen that I should visit one of the local hotel's swimming pools that I'd heard about. I had a great time swimming laps, even though the visibility of the water was only like a meter and a half. I also bit the bullet and solicited the services of a Cameroonian barber. He actually did a decent job. My haircut vaguely resembled the picture I showed him, so I was impressed. He was very thorough, touching up my facial hair and even inside my nose a little! (Imagine getting your nose hair trimmed with a full size pair of clippers that are hot from running on and off all day. My eyes are watering just remembering)
Speaking of all this water, the weather has been starting to get a more cloudy, and even more humid. I didn't think it could possibly get any more humid, but it did! We haven't had any rain yet, but it looks like it could come at any time. We're starting to reach the end of the dry season here, so I don't know if it will gradually get rainy or if it's just gonna start one day and not stop until I leave. I'll keep ya'll posted.

Here's another culture thing I've noticed here. People always ask for food. It's not even the type of thing where they ask to bum a couple chips off you if you're eating them. They're more like asking you to bring them an entire bag of chips, or even cook them food sometimes. I can't even count the times I've run into a "Hey, do you have anything for me?" kind of scenario. They'll even guilt you: "Why don't you ever bring me anything nice?". Lady at the post office hit me with that one a while back. This strikes me as being pretty rude, but understanding that it's a part of their culture takes away some of my incredulity. Of course, in our culture asking for any kind of gift or handout is considered rude, so this was a big shock for me! I don't think it's the "I'm white and therefore loaded" type of a thing either, because I'm pretty sure they do it to each other too.
My grasp of the idea is still foreign, because I essentially see it as just another bribe, this time of the food variety. It's used to buy off friendship or earn a little credibility. Incidentally the lady at the post office complained every time I came in an hour before the listed closing time. An hour before closing?! What kind of a government institution is this? And what could she possibly have to do than her job during business hours? I don't even know. But ever since I took her a cup of chocolate pudding she seems to be a little less grumpy. I'd return the "favor" of mooching food off people, but as a picky eater by African standards (i.e. vegetarian) it'd be awfully risky.

Not surprisingly, African child rearing is a lot different than it is in the U.S. For one thing, nobody here is refusing vaccinations on account of any reason other than not having the money (some shots are free though). I think that's mainly due to the fact that when you're in Africa the general feeling is that nature's out to kill you, whereas in the U.S. people see the outdoors as an all-you-can-eat buffet of recreational opportunities. In hanging out with Americans who have an infant child, I noticed another consequence of these differing views. When I was with these Americans I noticed their baby was wearing only two articles of clothing: a diaper and onesie (one of those unisex numbers that's reminiscent of a one-piece swimsuit). The only reason I even took note of this fact is that it triggered the realization that every single African baby I've seen here has been bundled up like the little brother from A Christmas Story. I mean, we're talking fleece-jacketed, mittened, double-wool-socked, beanied babies here.
 I'm not sure what the reason for this is, but I suspect that the African parents are hoping to offer their child some protection from mosquito bites. If this is the case, they oughtn't bother.  I would guess (and this isn't even an exaggeration) that 99.5% of Cameroonian children contract malaria at least once by the time they're 2 years old. Not to mention the American kiddo rolls around in diapers and hasn't had malaria yet (knock on wood, she's still got a ways to go before she's 2!).
The other, more obvious explanation seems almost too absurd to mention. Maybe these parents think their babies are cold. This would have to be one doozy of an old wives' tale. I mean, how anyone could convince a parent that their baby is cold in a climate this hot and humid is beyond me. Sure, it can get cool at night, but these parents have their babies straight up swathed 24 hours a day. It seems to me like the equivalent of locking an infant in a car on a 35 degree day (remember, I'm in C mode). Cruel and unusual. And on top of that the humidity here is so high that even I bouncing curls like Shirley Temple (okay, not really).
By the time the toddlers are walking the parents usually have opted for a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, so they come around eventually. And when I'm in villages I've definitely seen a fair amount of streaking by kids under the age of 6 especially near running water sources. That mental picture right there should give you a quintessential understanding of how typhoid fever and malaria spread.
Another kind of interesting thing to mention is that I haven't seen a single pacifier since I've been here. I'm not sure about this, but it may have something to do with the fact that breastfeeding in public is commonplace here, negating the purpose of a pacifier. Maybe pacifiers are just out of vogue all over the world, I don't keep track. Now that I've mentioned two hot button issues in one paragraph (vaccinations and breastfeeding in public) I think I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

TL;DR Work this week was mostly unimpressive as usual. Last Sunday I made a trip to Limbe just to buy mangoes. Maybe a little crazy, but 40 hours a week of copying patient information by hand is enough to drive most people slightly nuts. The highlight of the workweek was when the plumber decided to play Shamu and soaked everyone in the front row. He's great at making big messes, but I can't speak for his ability to actually fix plumbing. I also checked out a hotel swimming pool that was murky, but adequate. Got a haircut from a Cameroonian barber later that day. He probably would have shaved my legs for me if I'd let him, but I stopped him once he got to my neck. I've found that mooching food here is almost obligatory, and parents here wrap their kids up like tiny tropical taquitos until they're old enough to walk.

Chillin with the abominable snowman (more like sweating it out with the abominable snowman)

Hotel Chariot pool. The only pool in town as far as I know (and therefore the deadliest. Multiple people drown here each year according to the Cameroonian doctor at the hospital)

Feel like a raging narcissist posting 3 selfies in a row, but this is how my haircut turned out. Next week there'll be more pictures of stuff other than yours truly.