Butchers in Blazers

On Easter I said goodbye to David, my best friend here. His program at the University finished and he headed back to Germany. While it was tough to see him go, his absence was replaced with the realization that I'm leaving in only 6 weeks. It seems like it's gone by really fast, but as I sit here typing this the workday sure is dragging by slow. Interesting contradiction, that. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel which has me feeling predominantly excited, but that's just the main course in a gastronomy of emotions. Bottom line, I think I'm gonna make it to the end with most of my sanity intact. Work is mostly monotonous as usual. I did manage to score a new desk (well, more of a table really). The doctor got rid of this table since he got an actual desk with drawers. Anyways, this table/desk is pretty key because its surface is actually bigger than the record book! Before it was on a rolling cart which was tiny and I had to do some serious wrangling to write and keep the book on the surface, keep the cart from rolling away, etc. I've also stationed this desk in a different spot, which is pretty great. The cart was positioned so that when a staff member came through the door and left it opened (No matter how many times I asked them to close it, they would only do it about 10% of the time), I would find myself being stared at by a bench full of people in the waiting room. You'd think I have a second nose the way people stare at me here. It's pretty uncomfortable really, and I'm looking forward to going back home where everybody gets me mixed up with every other average white guy they know. All things considered, this setup I have now is a a lot better, so that's been a nice alteration to the daily grind.

My roommate moved out on Tuesday, spending not quite a week in my room. He said that the bed was so bad he wasn't sleeping well (He's 6'4" and I pretty much touch the headboard and footboard when I'm sleeping on my bunk). So he moved in with another staff member and then found a house a day or two later. It's been nice to have a space to myself again. As much as I like the guy, it was pretty crowded in there with the two of us. The plumbing saga never seems to end around here. There are constantly puddles, leaking pipes, and shoddy faucets. This week we had a swamp in the clinic, and the (dare I call him a) plumber, was nowhere to be found. I suspect that he comes in at night and loosens pipes so that we'll give him more work to do. If it were me, I'd have sacked the guy ages ago after he worked on my sink for an hour leaving a puddle and a still broken sink. I'm tempted to describe him using the name of a notoriously stubborn and unintelligent member of the equestrian family, but I think even with hooves said animal might perhaps do a better job. No thumbs vs. all thumbs, pick your poison.

I got my visa back this week which, if anyone's counting, means that they finished and got it back to me in 1 week. In brief, I'm shocked! This is quite possibly only example I've seen of speed and efficiency. It made a big impression on me! I also got a care package from Walla Walla postmarked December 7! I guess it must have gotten lost in transit somewhere, but that's gotta be some kind of a record. I got a t-shirt in the package which is always exciting. I have tons of t-shirts, but it gets to the point where no matter how many times you wash them, they still smell like mildew and feel grungy. It's hard to put into words how nice a new, untarnished t-shirt feels. Normally a clean cotton/polyester t-shirt wouldn't be that big a deal but this thing is like putting on a cloud.

Cameroonians are obsessed with expiration dates. I've found this out within the past few months, and it now makes sense how I was able to get Kraft mac n' cheese for next to nothing at the local imported foods store last December. Cameroonians will literally not take anything a single day past the expiration date. Even on the date of expiration, good luck! This applies to food, drugs, laundry detergent, anything. I don't know if there's any credence to this, but I've heard that some former staff spent time in jail for dispensing expired drugs. It gets tricky when people see the expiration being "March 2016" for instance. If it's March already a Cameroonian won't take it. Even if you explain that not only is it unexpired until the end of March, but it's quite safe to take drugs up to 6 months after the expiration date, they're not having any of it. Also, if the product originated in the U.S. the convention for marking the expiration date can cause mix-ups. When Cameroonians see 09.03.16 for example, they would say that it expires the 9th of March. In the U.S. though, this would mean it expires September 3rd. This concept is nearly impossible to explain to them. You couldn't even GIVE expired stuff away, they won't take it. It's so funny to me because for half a century, I'm sure all they were getting as far as imported stuff was expired. Good grief, I'm American and I eat expired stuff all the time, get over yourselves! This piece fits nicely into my grand-scale theory about Buea. Being the capital of the Southwest region, people try to act sophisticated and cosmopolitan since it's a "capital city". The proximity to Douala (capital of the Littoral region, and the financial capital of Cameroon) also means a lot of people have the taste of big city life. Personally, what I see is a bunch of hillbillies in an undeveloped town trying to act like something they aren't - evidenced by the fact that we only have a single imported food store, daily power/water outages, absolutely ludicrous internet, etc. You'll see people all dressed up to the nines for their job: I mean suits and ties! No jeans and a t-shirt here. I've seen butchers in blazers. It comes down to pride though. The people here are quite conceited, which is part of the city-slicker-wannabe attitude, being too good for expired stuff, and NOW I'm gonna tie this into a corollary theory of mine about bad movies (is this getting seriously overarching yet or what?) The credits in these terrible movies roll soooooooooo slow. The clear (to me) reason for this is that everybody wants to get their due recognition for their role in the movie, even if that role was a nonspeaking part. If it were me, I'd be embarrassed to have my name attached to such a half-baked, poor quality feature, but nobody here seems to feel this way. I guess the other possibility is that maybe people read really slowly here? Literacy rate's low so maybe that's the reason. Anyway, now that I've essentially tied together nearly every cultural observation I've had, it's time to go out and make some more to add to this conglomerate theory which is snowballing into a full blown dissertation

TL;DR My best friend left, I'm coming home soon myself though. Got a new office configuration with a real desk which I'm diggin. My roomie moved out because the bed was bothering him. Don't blame him, the bed bothers me too, I guess I'm used to it by now. The hospital's plumber is still happily employed, much to the detriment of everyone except him. My visa came back to me in record time, and I got a new t-shirt that feels so clean it makes me want to shout. Cameroonian's aren't big fans of the scratch n' dent section here (unless you're talking about their cars). Expired food and drugs go begging here, everybody seems too aloof to accept anything less than the best. Not sure how they survive because I've been getting by on "subpar" for most of my time here. One of those mysteries I guess.