decided to update before disappearance

its been what i consider a normal week in dschang. had plenty of school work, but not excessive amounts. i spent the weekend planning for our development discussion about tribalism, interviewing folks about that and about ethnicity in general. i also skipped church and did laundry on sunday, which was tough but rewarding work. there was a tough power outage from mid saturday through mid sunday; poor lighting is annoying in the bathroom, and kills the tv-centered culture, but also i couldnt charge my cell phone or ipod. that kinda thing would be a problem in a tight situation, since i have no other means of communication. also no running water when there's no electricity, so we were running quite low on reserves until this morning. nothing especially interesting, though.
to correct a prior entry, the family's favorite show is in fact a comedy, not a soap opera, and its actually from burkina faso. there was another burina faso show on last night, so perhaps there is a decent afro-hollywood establishment round those parts. also some dubbed brazilian soap opera is often on everywhere here but i would really feel like i was wasting my time if i actually watched that while here.
what i have started doing is reading a lovely book i found in the SIT office - Star Wars: Tales from Jabba's Palace. I actually own it at home and i guess read it years ago, but its fun, and really takes me away entirely from the culture here. its a bizzare mental transition between that exotic space culture and this different kind of african life i am trying to lead. but i enjoy being able to do some fiction reading, at least.
upcoming: a new outfit, a bit more stylish, should be sweet. and after that, a rural bamileke village stay at unknown location from thursday through sunday. that will be interesting. but that also means i'll be out of computer range and possible cell range during that time. so wish me luck in that adventure. i'll give the full report for that in a week.