Time Warp: Arrival - Day 4

Ok, so today I'm being lazy (but not completely, there's another guy in here hogging the bandwidth) and posting an excerpt from my daily journal, BUT for your reading pleasure I'm going to write a separate paragraph to tie up the loose ends and address unknowns I may have mentioned. Moving on:

Journal, 24,25/09/2015

FINALLY got some sleep on flight from Addis to Malabo. Felt pretty crummy after waking up with a headache. Slept even more from Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) to Doual (Cameroon), felt a little better. Went through line to show my yellow fever card, passport, and got to luggage claim area. Saw Prosper (people go by their last name here I guess) through the window with my name on a sign, but my luggage was taking sooo long. Finally got it after returning to the exchange booth and trading in my Benjamins for this funny money that doesn't fit in my wallet. These guys out in front of the airport kept trying to flag a taxi for me and take my suitcases! They only spoke two tiddlywinks of English, so I kept trying to tell them I already met my person and didn't need help. In English, my efforts were futile. Our taxi driver was a real jockey. There's no lanes here! That seemed crazy to me. Also, using the horn is like another language. Also, people who ride motorcycles here have some real cahones. Or a death wish. Thank goodness Prosper speaks French or I'd be up a creek. He's the accountant for  the hospital, really nice guy. Took me to a restaurant, but I wasn't able to eat all the food. Think I'm still just tired and jet lagged. Felt nauseous, even a  little dizzy on standing up. I hope this is just fatigue and not side effects from the doxycycline (incidentally I've only seen one mosquito since I got here) Waitress was laughing because I tried speaking in French with her to be polite (Ca va? Ca va, merci). Hope I can keep the food down, they served me pineapple juice with ICE (so much for easing myself into the whole water situation). Waiting at the restaurant right now while Prosper finds us a ride to Buea. He says it's about an hour's drive. The TV in the room was playing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" on some show, but in a different language. I guess that could be a multi-country song, doesn't really mention the good 'ol USA anywhere in the lyrics that I can remember. Trying to fend off the urge to sleep and/or puke.

Today:

Ok well the good news was I didn't puke. The bad news was that our 1 hour drive took 4 (there was a car accident on a bridge that also happened to be under construction, go figure, welcome to Cameroon!). After sleeping the night and unpacking a little bit, I went to church in the morning, and had potluck (more local food, come at me dysentery). I've had absolutely zero jet lag since that first night. The only trouble for me is when falling asleep there are these thumb sized cockroaches right outside my window that make this infernal screeching that I'd swear is as loud as a lawnmower. And in the morning the local roosters take over the noise-making shift and have me this close to recanting vegetarianism. The sun goes down around 18:30 and comes up around 6:30 so it's DARK most of the time. And when it's dark it gets pretty sketchy out! Wouldn't want to travel alone after dark at least. Weather's nice, the temp hovers around 25, around 70-80% humid with these extraordinary (for a Californian at least) rainshowers every day or two. I have seen literally two mosquitoes my whole time here, so I have been taking my malaria prophylaxis begrudgingly. No noticeable side effects yet, so I figure why not. The people here are all EXTREMELY nice, and I'm feeling at home already! Started working in the hospital today, more on that later...

TL;DR 24 hours of plane riding will leave you pretty dazed, but if you're me, a night's sleep fixes that. I've been keeping my fingers crossed with the food and drink situation, but no ill effects (Alternate name for blog: "Dysentery Diarrhies"). I landed in a French speaking region, which, alone, would have left me screwed bottom line. It's dark outside half the time here, and I'd probably sleep better sharing a room with 10 crying babies and an angry wife than the cockroaches outside my window. Weather's nice, mosquitoes are few, I'm learning some French, and some pidgin, and I've already mastered the special Cameroonian handshake thanks to the hospitable hospital staff

POR FIN (Yeah I know that's Spanish, but that's my default foreign language when I don't know the words in French. Gotten plenty of funny looks already) Pictures of my apartment. Thanks for checking out my blog, enjoy America ya'll, it's so clean there!

The highlight of the drive back: seeing my first Toyota HiLux in person!

Mon palais. It's cozy! But maybe that's just the humidity talking

With an en-suite (Adding Love It or List It vocabulary makes it seem more luxurious, but seriously, not bad accomodations) My only wish to the shower gods is for hot water someday, but for now, cold showers!

Open concept kitchen with a functional island! Heck, better kitchen that I had in the dorm

Stunning entryway

A market day's haul. Thankful to have a longtime resident Aussie guide me through to find the best deals. That pineapple didn't stay intact for long.

Photo of the hospital. Clark's quarter (not to be confused with the area in Buea actually known as Clark's quarter) is by the tallest tree on the right side of the photo

Launch Day

Today I leave for Cameroon

I'll be flying from SFO to Washington DC to Addis Ababa to Douala, Cameroon. According to the itinerary it's going to take about 32 hours total to get there, with about 24 of those hours spent in the air. Hope I get a window seat! My 10:30 pm departure time from SFO is probably the latest I've flown that I can remember, so I'm sure to be exhausted pretty quickly into the trip. I'll probably be a wreck when I finally get where I'm going. I need my 8 hours or I kinda turn into a princess. At any rate, we'll see how that goes. I'm packing the most comfiest earplugs I have and I'm going to try and sleep as much as I can. Food-wise I've packed my backpack with about 100,000 Clif bars (hopefully that doesn't raise any eyebrows at the TSA booth. I'm hoping to avoid a cavity search because dentist's kids don't have cavities!)

I'm not sure if I'm excited or nervous (probably both) but whatever feeling it is, it's strong enough that I feel like I might throw up. So that's new! Saying goodbye to part of the family has been pretty hard, but they appear to be handling it well so far. Maybe it's good that I didn't have to say bye to them all at once. Saw my dad last night (He's in Visalia this week, so we met for dinner in Fresno), and said bye to Mason this morning when he left for school. My mom is taking me to the airport and Renee Barlow (close family friend) is coming as well to see me off (and probably to console my mom once I leave. That's gonna be messy, Renee's a saint).

According to the itinerary, I should land in Cameroon at about 1:15 local time, which is 3:15 am on the west coast. From there, someone will pick me up (i.e. scrape me and my tired self off the floor) and we'll drive an hour and a half to Buea. Once there I'll start moving in and get ready for Sabbath (which I hope means a lot of sleep in Africa, because I'm sure I'll be needing plenty of it upon arriving!)

Sorry this hasn't been really interesting (except for the lame cavity joke), but I figured I should at least write something the day I leave. Thanks for taking the time! I promise I'll have something more interesting to say next time (and maybe even pictures...)

TL;DR  Flight plans: SFO->DC->ETHIOPIA->CAMEROON, saying goodbye is hard, expecting to be super tired when I get to Cameroon.

T-10 Days

T-10 days

First off, I'd like to explore on paper my feelings about blogging in general, just to get the writing juices flowing.  I've never kept a blog before, for two reasons that immediately stand out to me, and maybe more sub-reasons that I'll come up with as I'm writing this.  The first reason is, I've never really done anything interesting enough to warrant writing, much less publishing an "e-journal", and frankly it is still a little foreign to me that anyone would really care to read my ramblings.  Alas, I made the promise to some unfortunate soul that I would try to keep a blog during my time as an SM.  Not sure anyone's going to win on that deal, but they're holding me to it, and everyone I've since told seems to be in favor of me doing this. I also feel some obligation to keep in the loop the many generous friends and family who have made this trip possible for me (Thanks again!).

My second reason for being wary of blogging is the fact that I'm not sure I want the liability of people reading my thoughts.  The goal is to keep the interest of 95% of the people reading this, 95% of the time.  We'll see how that goes, but my first and only disclaimer: If you find what I'm writing offensive in any way, first of all: sorry; second of all, I'm a 21 year old college student volunteering in a tropical, foreign country with no air conditioning and you're probably on your couch, so in the kindest and sincerest way possible, deal with it. That being said, my parents have the link to this blog, so I'll write it with them in mind. Also, right now I'm also on my couch since I haven't left yet, so my disclaimer is really quite tongue-in-cheek. My sub-disclaimer: My sense of humor isn't for everyone. I've tried to dissociate my humor from my "prose" and it's even less enjoyable to read than normal. Basically what this means is that I and about 3 of my closest friends think I'm hilarious, and everyone else just thinks I'm a goober (you know who you are). I use a lot of parentheses, as you've probably already noticed (If I have to start using parentheses inside of parentheses, somebody stage an intervention. I've taken a LOT of math classes so for me the nested parentheses make sense, but I'll try to keep this enjoyable for both walks of life, math and non-math). At any rate, I think the juice is loose (see p1 s1), so I'm going to get started here with the rest of my thoughts. Quick interjection, I expect most of my entries will be about as long as you've read to this point, or so. I know you all have busy lives too and so I'll try to keep it under 5-10 minutes of reading (Which will be hard to gauge with everyone reading different speeds. Maybe I should do an audio journal that you guys can download as a podcast or something. On second thought, that might be weird). On with the rest:

Today marks 10 days until I leave for my mission trip to Cameroon. Many people have asked a variety of questions. To these people I've given pretty much the exact same canned answers, so in order to repeat myself less, let me get the basic stuff out of the way:

As it stands right now, I am going to Buea, Cameroon, West Africa for 6-8 months (depending on how long my stipend lasts). I will be working in Buea Seventh-Day Adventist hospital doing administrative, maintenance, and medical work, pretty much just wherever I'm needed on any particular day. The truth is, I'm not sure what to expect beyond that. Yes, I'm excited, although I'd say "conflicted" would better describe my current emotional state. I think I'm experiencing a lot of white noise emotion so to speak. The constant barrage of varying feelings has become a cloudy quietness that hangs over me (no, this is not an advertisement for Beats by Dre). I think basically what's happening is that it hasn't really sunken in yet.

The meat of this first blog is actually a request. For those of you reading who pray (guessing that's all but a few), I'd like to request that you pray for me hardcore in the coming weeks and months. If prayer isn't your thing, I understand, and still appreciate your support (the fact that you're reading this at all is a start!) Whether you pray for my protection, pray that I will learn something, even pray that my faith will be tested and strengthened, I'd appreciate it! I know I'm in for some big challenges that I can't face alone, but we serve a God who sees those challenges as matchsticks. Also, just knowing I have all of you in my corner really gives a confidence booster. As soon as I have arrived I'll post an address and other ways to contact me (and to send food!!!) if you're interested. A little encouragement will go a long way I'm sure of it!

One specific thing that I've been thinking about in the past few hours is endurance. I just hope that I can make a good first impression with the staff to show that I'm a hard-working, quick-learning individual with the motivation and drive to get things done. However, I've got another battle to fight, and it's one I just learned about this summer working at camp: FATIGUE. I realized that I can no longer go ham (a slightly distasteful acronym that I would discourage one from searching on urbandictionary.com, but which basically has been turned into it's own phrase with completely severed references to any word of questionable origin that means working crazy hard or being in beast mode) all day every day. I'm gettin old folks. I found that there's this thing called getting burned out. And my open honest confession is that it happened to me at summer camp this last summer. And I DIDN'T LIKE IT! So the hope is (and a main, big prayer request for those looking for specifics) that I can find that balance between making a good impression, and my new found need to pace myself and getting into the water one step at a time instead of diving in. Especially with the food there, because I'm told Montezuma's Revenge strikes hardest those who consider themselves iron-stomached.

Thanks for spending some time with me today, I hope to at the very least keep you mildly entertained and annoyed while I'm abroad (almost like I'm still there with you all so you don't miss me as much!)

TL;DR (This acronym means too long;didn't read for those over the age of 25) The part of the show where Corbin tries to condense all of this down into a paragraph of questionably constructed run-on sentences:

I'm not a blogger, please don't get mad at what I say. I'm going to Cameroon on the 23rd of September to work in a hospital doing whatever they need me to do. I'll be there til I run out of money. Please pray for me and send food as soon as you know my address. My old bones have decided that I need to pace myself to dodge jet-lag and the squirts so if you want to pray for something specific before I leave, that's the thing to pray for. Thanks, you are all AWESOME.