December 2, 2009

First I need to start off by telling everyone that I ate grasshoppers and they were amazingly delicious. There is about two weeks out of the year where they come in swarms to the North West region. Market mami’s catch them and then sell them live at the market. The grasshoppers that I ate were cooked and actually tasted like pork, just crunchy. I would recommend trying them at least once, if you ever get a chance. I will admit that I still prefer our “grasshoppers” in the U.S. (you know, the pecans covered in chocolate).
Thanksgiving was a success although extremely tiring. Kristin and I met in Bamenda on Wednesday morning to take care of all the shopping. The plan was to buy 3 chickens (alive) and all the other ingredients for macaroni casserole, fried rice, mashed potatoes, coconut pie, banana bread and sweet potato pie. Luckily for us other people were bringing things such as homemade stuffing, mac and cheese, brownies and pecan pie. There ended up being around 25 people at my house, 20 of who spent the night. It was definitely a full house but great to be around a lot of American’s on such a special holiday.
The highlight of the day (besides the actual eating) was when Erin killed her chicken. It was an experience to watch and is one that I have to admit I could never do, nor do I really want to. I was proud of her for following through. She was a part of the entire process: she bought it, killed it, plucked it and then ate it (I am actually the one who cooked it). By eleven o’clock I was dead to the world even with a house full of guests but waking up at 6 to begin cooking really took it out of me. I love being a hostess (as most of you know) but man oh man is it harder in Cameroon! The entire time I was cooking, I was day dreaming of being in mama’s kitchen with two ovens, ones that you actually can tell the oven temp.
The dry season is finally here and although I have been looking forward to it for some time, I have to admit I miss the rain. The roof of my house is tin and it makes for a soothing noise to go to sleep to. On the up side there is no more mud or getting soaking wet every time you step out of your house. The down side of dry season is the dust, which I am told is not even bad yet. I have to soak my feet in steaming hot water to get them clean, which is a pain because I have to warm the water on the stove. I never realized that cold water doesn’t remove dirt that well. Kind of a gross thought actually, considering that I have been taking cold showers the whole time I have been in Cameroon.
I have just thrown a mouse out of my house for the second time in two weeks. Instead of eating them, which I thought is what cats do, Pockets likes to play with them. I think that the mama mouse had babies and I am dreading finding out how many there really are. The first night I found Pockets playing with the mice she was in the bathroom and would catch it in her mouth then let it go just to catch it again. Well, it got away from her and she became very upset. Luckily for her I found it on the counter in the kitchen and threw her up there with it. She happily put it back in her mouth and continued playing with it back in the bathroom. Finally I got sick of her torturing it so I threw it out side. A couple of hours later I hear her again in the bathroom, playing with something. Lo and behold it was another mouse but to my dismay she let this one get away too. Unfortunately it went into my bedroom and which made for an interesting night. For a couple of hours all I heard was scratching and running around and then I heard it messing with some things in my chair. I hopped up grabbed Pockets and threw her in the chair with it. Pockets could have been less amused. I basically shoved her face within an inch of the mouse and she could have cared less. She looked at me as if to say, “You woke me up for this?” The next thing I knew the mouse launched itself at me and then ran under my bed. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night. I kept having visions of little tiny mice running all over me in my sleep. Yuck.