OK, so it has been a few days since my last post and I have a lot to say, I'll try not to jump around too much. We have been very busy moving from Yaounde to Bafia, where we will be for the next three months in training, with our new host family. All I knew before pulling up to the training house in Bafia was that my host family name is Alemi. As soon as I got off the bus I locked eyes with a large lady that had an amazing smile, I knew instantly that she was going to be my new mother, Mama Susanne. We got off the bus, they called our name out and the host family name, they came out from the crowd, we hugged/kissed and were off to our new homes.  It has been really surreal in that we really hadn't been in Africa yet, since we spend so much time with all the other trainees at the hotel and had little contact with the locals until now. All of the sudden we were given away to these new families and wouldn't see each other until the next day. A really big awakening thrown into this new environment where there are so many barriers, (obviously the language being huge), but it is the best way to do it.

 I have three sisters, two around 14-16, one named Elise, not sure about the other, (she doesn't speak to me much). The older sister is Nedash, 25 years old, she speaks decent English, we play cards and she helps me with French as I help her with English. She goes to University in Yaounde for French and Banking, and works at a local bank here in Bafia. I have two brothers, one who is 3, Vladimir, who won't leave my side, just keeps screaming French to me and I have no clue what he is saying. We played futbol on the porch all night, (me avoiding the awkward silence inside the house due to the language barrier). The other brother is 24, Francis, who is very glad to have someone close to his age and we hang out a lot. He was admiring my stick of deodorant and smelling it while I unpacked, I threw him an extra and it almost brought tears to his eyes he was so happy and gracious. It is incredible what little things do here, it is just too expensive for them to have the basic necessities we go along with every day not even taking a second glance at. He grabbed my Eng/French dictionary and looked up the word "gentil" in French which means nice in English. He goes, "Jacob you are so very gentil." He took his rasta colored bracelet off his wrist and put it around mine. I still haven't met my host father, he has been out at their old village. One thing people warned me about was get used to the slow time of Africa, and I have seen it to be very true. Anytime I ask Francis when something is going to happen..."Francis when are we going to wash clothes?" Tomorrow, he says. Francis when are we going to go get new well water from the forage? Tomorrow. Francis when is your father coming home? Tomorrow. Everything will happen tomorrow it seems.

The first night of laying down in bed under my mosquito net and Francis telling me to shut my windows at night I knew that I had to shave my head immediately. It is stifling hot in my bedroom. I told Francis I wanted to get my haircut when I woke up the next morning and he said ok I will take you TOMORROW. Of course, that didn't happen until two days after that. After school we had a beer and he took me to a little shack, about the size of an outhouse, enough room for the barber, a chair and him to work around me. We walked through the corn field to get there, holding hands, (Cameroonian culture between men, though homosexuality will land you in jail in Cameroon, they don't have the stereotypes that we do.) We hold pinkies a lot walking to places down the street. As we made it to a little intersection of trails in the corn field I see this little shack with music blaring from it, sounding like it was straight from 93 BLX in Pensacola. Ten or so little girls playing hopscotch out front in the dirt. The inside of the shack is covered in posters of 50 cent, Ja Rule, Rihanna,  Beyonce, Eminem, Ronaldhino,  etc.. and Francis proceeded to read them all off to me telling which ones were his favorites while dancing around the barber with an inch or so to spare on either side. He loves Rihanna, Eminem, G-Unit, and Lil Wayne. I think the whole village came to see whitey get his hair cut. More and more eyes kept stacking on top of each other to get a peek inside through the windows or doorway to watch, giggle, and snicker off to go grab more people to come watch. The barber was just freestyling on my head, no guard, straight clippers and did a terrible job, with bald spots spaced sporadically through out, but oh well, what an experience. It only cost 300 CFA = about $0.60!! Services here are ridiculous cheap. I got it tidied up by a fellow trainee, Patrick, the next day after school. His name is Patrick Dennis and I have him in my Cameroon phone as P.Diddy. Francis was going through my phone and saw P.Diddy in my phone book and thought I knew the real P.Diddy. Pretty comical, I had a good laugh and told him I would introduce him to P.Diddy, TOMORROW, of course.