A run down so far

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I meant to post this a little while back, but I didn't get around to it. It is just a short little list of things about Cameroon that strike me.

Considering we just got back from our Spring Break excursion to the Extreme North, I have a lot to write about, but it was such a mind blowing experience, I need a little more time to collect my thoughts. However, expect it hopefully within the next week or so.

Enjoy!
Andrew

- What drove me to come to Cameroon?
-Desire to see the opposite of what I had growing up
-Desire to find connections and common ground with people here.
-Desire to understand the social injustices that have been forced on Africa as a continent, and Cameroon as a country.
-To reaffirm my knowledge that Africa isn't a hopeless continent.
-To understand, appreciate, and learn to use my natural-born privilege for the greater good.
-To test myself and grow exponentially

What pushes me to write:
-The desire to eternalize my experiences, seeing as it will be one of the most important experiences of my life until now.
-To flesh out the daily dose of overwhelming emotions which I am confronted with.
-Because I may want to pursue a career in foreign journalism at one point or another, and here it is good practice.

What I've learned so far
-The three Americas
-The value of not being more than a tourist
-My deep-seated humanitarian desires and sufferings
-What real corruption is, and the many different sources of that corruption, both foreign and domestic
-How to deal with being a walking zoo
- The value of patience
-The ability to internalize a single moment

What I love about Cameroon and Cameroonians:
-The strength of the women here, despite their endless social oppression
-The ability to laugh, sing and dance, even when things are bad
-The cooking...OH the cooking!
-The dignity of even the poorest and most destitute of people
-The concept of family here

What I struggle with here:
-The ideas about gender and sexual roles
-The false assumptions about me because I am American
- What it means to live in a dictatorship, especially when we come from the "transparent" American democracy
-the depth of injustice