back with more from ngaoundere

sorry to have kept yall waiting; it was only 6 days away though. i havent bee frequenting the internet cafes here, despite some extra free time. also they were down the past two days anyways.
so ngaoundere has been alright. i've been chilling with the cockroaches, and we have a lights on, lights off understanding for the most part. some big freaky spiders have made a few appearances as well. the family life has gone alright, though my pregnant mother had been sick for the past weekish. the 11 year old has been cooking relatively simple stuff, which i ultimately prefer over chunks of cow fat attached to bone served with couscous mais (and thus eaten by hand). news earlier yesterday had been that my mama and kids were going to go stay with the grandmother for 3 weeks to be taken care of, and the little boy was already over there. i was to stay alone with my papa, which i was not looking forward to. since, however, mama had her baby! last night at 11pm at the hospital, a baby boy. i visited her twice during the day since we had class stuff near there, but have not seen her or the newborn since the delivery. i believe she still is going to be with the kids at the grandmothers, but now i have a better reason to visit. papa has been worrying about paying for the medical bills, which are incredibly much cheaper than the US (30 dollars, converted), but still a heavy burden for the family. so that is whats going on chez moi.
school has been about doing a PACA project with a local community. PACA stands for participatory analysis for community action, and is a tool used by groups like Peace Corps to guide local communities to determine community needs. there are 40 community members participating, split into 4 groups: men, women, boys, and girls (aged 14-24, and not married for the latter two), and each is matched with 3-4 students. so this project occurs over a 4 days period for 2 hours a day, longer on the last which is a full community affair, and hopefully will result in a community action plan, for which they may or may not get resources from a separate NGO. so its good in the giving back sense, but problematic a bit in the we're-not-qualified-to-do-this sense. i'm with the girls group, and its going well so far, since they seem more open to the ideas and activities. only one day down so far, though.
around town... ive been doing some fabric buying and such, got myself a stylin embroidered tunic and getting the matching hat tomorrow. ive also bought two pagnes of fabric at the marché, to be sewn in yaounde or dschang. everyone has been frequenting a milk bar, where they have good yogurt, and weve gone for folere, a local juice thing, a few times. i live around a number of other students, so ive also been visiting them a bit. what else... not too busy, but not too bored. ive been watching plenty of TV at home, but we only get one channel. my ipod is nice at night. and ive been getting plenty of sleep, except never around about 5am, thanks to the mad loud prayer calls from the next door mosque.
ISP stuff i've been slacking on, mainly because a lack of resources here. however, ive changed my topic slightly to now be about evaluating multipartyism in cameroon. its basically the same pattern of research, but now more focused instead of being about democracy here in general. this topic interests me a bit more, and i hope to be able to implement it without much problem.
no more campement of elephants on the schedule, which i believe was just an animal observing thing (but actually no elephants), but i plan to do something similar in may on my own. instead we are leaving early for kribi to hang out at the beach a bit early. that is monday. maybe you'll hear from me before then, but no promises.