#61  4 Aug 1996
Dear Everyone:
     Gwen is at the end of her third week of her visit here, and
it could be best described as relaxing.  It also could be
described as damp.  After being here for more than a year and
thinking we had seen all the weather the area would offer and
after writing that the rainy season is mostly annoying, with
about an hour of rain a day, our meteorological education was
broadened, as it has been raining continuously for about a week,
although never heavily, varying from a fine mist to moderate
showers.
     Gwen made a trip to Douala Tuesday with Janice to see
whether they could fly north to do a little sightseeing but gave
up on such plans, because it would be difficult to schedule.  The
three of us, plus Roy Vella, the OIC volunteer who went to
Bamenda with us, went to Douala yesterday and spent the day
sloshing around various parts of the shoppable parts of town.  I
also got my first ice cream, or reasonable facsimile thereof, in
14 months.
     On Friday, when I have no classes, Gwen and I spent an
atypical day full of my typical activities.  I started my day
with a 5 mile run, including a swing by the post office to check
for mail (and found none).  After breakfast, accompanied by Terry
Luschen, a PCV in Kumba who stayed over night with us, we walked
about 2 miles to the Pan African Institute, where I copied some
software of mine and six pages of Math 209 notes onto a diskette
for Terry. As a secondary project, Terry will finish transcribing
my notes and edit them so that they are comprehensible to him.
Then I will sell the notes, for the cost of photocopying, to my
students, and Terry may use them for his calculus class (upper
sixth) in Kumba. I then spent some time with Gladys Njoh, whom I
am tutoring in computer programming. Then we left Pan African and
walked to  the nearby Provincial Teachers Resource Centre, where
I am in the midst of transcribing and editing a physics work book
for secondary students.   Last fall Terry had done some work
there, and he was able to direct me to some information that I
was unable to find.  When we left the Center, we parted company,
with Terry heading for Kumba and us for a copy place contiguous
to the university, where I left a copy of my Math 203 notes so
that they can be sold to the students.  Before the semester
starts, I hope Terry's notes join them there.  
     After a couple of hours on campus spent touring classrooms
and avoiding the French Ambassador, on campus to dedicate a
library building France donated, we walked about a mile to visit
a carpenter I use to make arrangements for installation of some
screens. Then we taxied to the bank, where PC wires our pay.  The
only bank in town, it tends to have slow service, but I was out
quickly, and we walked about a mile to Buea town for a late lunch
of omelets and chips at Thando Hut. There we bumped into Simon, a
secretary at Pan African; a local musician whose name I forget
but who gave us his life history (son of an ambassador, 10 years
in UK, three years in Ottawa, disinherited because of being a
musician) and a dissertation on African music and culture; and a
"returned" PCV who served near Mambe, who married the friend of
his host family from his training in Buea, and who is now here
with his wife visiting her family.
     After our unexpectedly leisurely lunch we went shopping in
the Buea town market, starting with a visit to my favorite Buea
personality (also now Gwen's without any prodding from me), the
Puff-puff lady.  A puff-puff (beignet en francais) is a raised
donut hole obtained by dropping a glob of wet dough into hot oil. 
Perhaps a puff-puff is a Cameroonian funnel cake gone awry, as
the puff-puff lady confuses the whole issue by scooping up enough
dough for a dozen puff-puffs in her hand and squeezing the puff-
puffs out, one glob at a time.  She works seven days a week, and
goes through three or four  pots of dough, each pot about 10
gallons in size.  At the height of her business each evening,
there is a huge crowd by her stall, queues being unheard of here. 
Anyway, after shopping, we taxied home to avoid walking in the
rain for two miles.
     Until next week,
     Edwin

P.S. We thank Margaret for letter and Rona for a letter and
unwrinkled photos, and Gwen thanks Chava, Aunt Carr and Grandma B
for her birthday cards. Happy 27th birthday.

                                             #62  11 Aug 1996
Dear Everyone:
     I am writing on the eve of Gwen's departure for the states. 
We have immensely enjoyed her moist long stay with us.  Despite
our being unable to travel much, I hope she has a much better
understanding of this part of Africa and its people.
     It turns out that Gwen ended up meeting many PCVs. In
addition, thanks to an overnight trip to Kumba on Thursday, she
got to meet a number of our trainers who have returned to GTHS-
Kumba to train 14 new Math-Science volunteers who are slated to
swear in on 29 August. 
     This week is the third week of summer school, and I gave my
first test, in this case as anxiety provoking for me as for the
students, because with 72 students registered, 77 showed, but I
only had 72 copies of the exam.  This led to my madly scribbling
extra copies piecemeal as the test progressed.  I have already
graded the test and the students, almost all repeating the
course, did surprisingly well, almost all of them passing. If
they continue to do well in the course I will have that many
fewer students in the same course this fall.
     In the small world department, this past week we received
from Rona Roberts a picture from a Kentucky news paper of the
wedding of two Cameroonians (friends of Rona? we are not sure)
who met at Kentucky State U. Later last week, Gwen and Janice,
during a business trip to a nearby village, met with a woman who
turned out to be the mother of the groom.
     This week we thank Judy Rosen, Judy Siegel, Ginny Delph,
Mimi Stanford, and John Sumner for writing, and I now answer some
of their questions.  Mimi asks: 1)have you lost weight? Both
Janice and I are a few pounds lighter than when we left, but both
of us had put on a few pounds in the last few months before
leaving. 2)Do you miss the computer stuff? Ironically, I mostly
miss having access to a word processor. I did not realize how I
had come to depend on being able to try prose out on the screen
and then rearrange and edit it at will. I miss that luxury. 3)How
sophisticated is the UB computer equipment? What they have is
reasonably up-to-date but in short supply. Of course the central
administration has the best and most plentiful equipment. The
Science Faculty all share one PC, although a number of the
faculty have their own. Ginny asks whether we are able to get
books to read. We do. IN fact, we have a substantial collection
in our house. My sister-in-law, Rona initiated our collection
with a surprise package about six months ago. Whenever we visit a
PC rest house, be it in Bamenda, Kumba or Yaounde we always
browse the library to be found in the house.  These libraries are
large but spotty, consisting of books left behind by previous
volunteers who had no desire to lug home books they had already
read.
     Until next week,
     Edwin

                                        #63  18 Aug 1996
Dear Everyone:
     I hope Gwen's flights back to the US were uneventful.  We
talked with Bill, and he suggested that things were fine with
her.  We have asked people locally about the existence of a tax
on goods being taken out of the country.  A number of the people
believe such a tax exists, so it appears Gwen bargained her way
out of paying such moneys.
     We had thought Bill would visit at the end of the month, but
he said that he will delay coming until things get settled for
him with his new job with my brother in Kentucky.
     Yesterday Janice and I attended a graduation party for one
of her GTC students, one of a very few to pass the GCE exam,
which will allow her to go on to two more years of high school.
We were unsure whether this was a contrived party where we were
the only guests, in the expectation that some money could be
extracted from the wealthy white man (a tactic encountered more
than once by Anne Loux), but the party was indeed legitimate. 
The student's father owns Afosi's book store, which is a few
doors away from the Thando Hut, our favorite restaurant. He
invited the owners of a number of nearby businesses, people we
have seen while shopping but not have had the pleasure of
meeting.  The party's structure followed a familiar pattern,
orchestrated by the familiar MC. One of the highlights was a
serious of dance routines performed and apparently choreographed
by the neighborhood children. The speeches were all in Pidgin,
but we were pleased to be able to readily follow them.  We were
further pleased to be able to introduce ourselves in Pidgin.
     When I first arrived in Buea I wrote that one has to know
three languages here--Cameroonian English, French and Pidgin--but
I erred in forgetting a fourth--sign language, which has a
vocabulary different from and larger than what we use in the
states. The differences, in particular, lead to confusion.  Here
one says "hello" by waving a flat palm facing out from side to
side (just as in the states), "please come here" by holding a
flat palm out and folding the fingers against the palm (a
feminine gesture of "hello" or "good bye" in the states), and
"come here!" by holding a flat palm facing in and folding the
fingers toward the palm ("please come here" in the states). 
Once, in Ngoundere, while I demonstrated the different gestures
to Janice, a taxi screeched to a halt because the driver thought
I had signalled "please come here."
     While talking, Cameroonians make a number of gestures to
emphasize their speech.  They emphasize "I saw" by touching an
index finger to the cheek below one eye; they emphasize "very
much" (more so "beaucoup") by slapping the open palm of one hand
against the closed fist of another.
     Conversations with taxi drivers are often carried out
completely in silence (and on the fly), but fluency depends upon
intimate knowledge of a given town. At any given location one can
point in one of six directions (straight this way, this way to
the left or right, etc) to indicate one of six major destinations
from that location. The taxi driver asks if you want a ride by
holding his arm up outside the window, with his hand forming a
cup and rotating slightly (an obscene gesture in Central America,
by the way). My longest silent conversation so far: "Do you want
a ride?" "Yes." "Where?" "To the University." "Sorry, I am going
to Buea town." "OK, maybe next time."
     Well, til next time,
          Edwin

P.S. Thanks to Gisela Ray for mail.

                                             #64 25/08/96
Dear Everyone:
     For us, just as for you, the routine is changing a bit. Last
week was the last week of summer season, the final in my course
is this Thursday, and I will (try to) submit grades the following
Monday. Then I get a three week break, during which Janice and I
plan to travel in the West and Northwest provinces, visiting
various of our stage-mates.  I assume most of the 79 summer
school students in my class are repeaters. I guess that about 65
of them will pass, which will make 65 fewer student in the course
in the fall.
     With embarrassing rapidity Janice's proposal to help fund a
large cooler for the Rural Women's Development Cooperative was 
approved, and on 15 July she had the money in hand.  Now she has
the responsibility of overseeing the project to make sure the
money is used as intended. (Perhaps the  "Peace Corps Parternship
Program" is meant as much to give the PCV junior executive
training as to help out the putative beneficiary.) At first it
was  a little difficult getting going, but Janice is now starting
to see progress on the part of the woman heading the project,
Fonkem Rebecca. Fonkem has identified the source of the money
which her organization is to contribute, and tomorrow Janice and
Fonkem will meet with the man who designed and will direct the
construction of the cooler.
     This weekend, Maggie, who was our pidgin instructor last
year in Ngaoundere and Kumba and who is now back in Kumba giving
Pidgin instruction to the new crop of stagieres, visited. This
gave her a small break from her teaching in Kumba, and, at
Janice's request, gave us a refresher course in Pidgin, with
Maggie only speaking Pidgin during her stay. 
     One of my main motivations for joining Peace Corps was the
desire to be fluent in a second language. Ending up in Anglophone
Cameroon has frustrated that desire. Instead, I have gained
working knowledge of three languages, French,  Pidgin and
Cameroonian English, with fluency only in the last, which is the
one I most frequently use by far. On the other hand, the
differences between American English and Cameroonian English are
fascinating and enlightening, a subject I will return to in a
subsequent letter. 
     We thank Larry Silberstein for sending us a definitive
ruling on whether barracuda is kosher (yes), and thank Joanne
Feigl, Davises, my mother, Bill, the Lotts, Stef Katz, Ken
Sawyer, and Gwen (letter of 1 July) for letters. Now I answer
some questions. What's going on with Bill and Natalia? Natalia
spent the summer in New Haven occupying Becky Krawiec's apartment
and Gwen's job at H. Pearce Real Estate. Now she is on her way to
Seattle, where she hopes to work for the year before returning to
school at Mt Holyoke. Bill left Bend Oregon for a job siding
houses in Atlanta, then spent some time (I know not how much)
working as a bike courier in DC before moving to Lexington
Kentucky and a job with my brother Steve and sister-in-law Rona.
He hopes to go to graduate school in geography in '97.
     Lotts ask whether we received t-shirts and stuff. Yes; thank
you. We are quite sure we previously sent our thank but blame the
erratic Cameroonian mail system for degrading the communications.
Do we get scheduled vacations? Mostly the ones that are built
into the University of Buea and OIC calendars. How's the garden
and what are local pests? The garden is in between seasons so
that we only have available at present squash, turnip, basil; yam
and sweet potato are on the way, and planting for the dry season
is about to start. Although there are a few rabbits and squirrels
around (although no ground hogs) and there are exotic rodents not
seen int he states, they have not visited our garden. A
neighboring rooster has been somewhat of a problem, and last dray
season a population explosion of grasshoppers, a normal
occurrence, completely eliminated all the leafy crops.
     This week we were disappointed to leave on the Voice of
America, which reports only the most salient US news, that Weird
Al Yancovic has a major hit recording. This rips the roof off a
tunnel in that part of the underground culture that we know. Dr.
Demento's joy is our sorrow.
     Til next week,
          Edwin

                                   #65  1 Sept 1996
Dear Everyone:
     I am writing you on Labor Day weekend, although, of course,
we are barely aware of it here. The sharp change in the tempo of
America's life marked by Labor Day seems so remote here, because
things move so more calmly and without punctuation.
     Janice got a little variety in her OIC workweek by engaging
int he administration of the Peace Corps Partnership money she
received for the purchase of a refrigerated cabinet for the Rural
Women Development  Council. First, she chased down Mr. Numfor of
Ekona (agricultural) research, the technical advisor for the
project. Then she, Mr. Numfor and Fonkem Rebecca of the RWDC went
to Douala to get prices for the various parts needed. Janice is
starting to realize that administering the project will consume a
lot of time.  Janice is also now teaching English three days a
week at OIC from 4 to 6, after regular class hours. She is very
much enjoying teaching, although she is frustrated by the
haphazard attendance of the six students.
     I gave my Maths 209 final on Thursday and, in the process,
had a confrontation with the Vice-Dean, some of whose foibles I
have previously described. It started by my complying with a
student's request for a second exam book even though I knew that
Vide-Dean Ntoko enforced a (possibly imagined) rule that each
student is allowed only one book (on the theory that a student
might purloin a second book for illicit use at a subsequent
examination). When we returned the extra books to Ntoko after the
exam, he noted that one was missing, having kept a strict
accounting of the books given at the start, the number of
students at the exam, etc.  He asked me about it. i said that one
student used two books. When he cited the rule I casually stated
I had forgotten it. He then demanded the extra booklet, even
though the student had written in it. I demurred, saying that I
should be punished, not the student, and grabbed all the exam
booklets from the people who helped monitor the exam. Ntoko was
adamant, saying no one was above the rules. I said he should
bring the matter before the faculty board and walked out.
     In all of these encounters I am intrigued by the cultural
dimensions, so I checked with some of my Cameroonian friends, who
felt there was nothing especially unusual with my disagreement
with Ntoko.
     (Two letters ago) Sandy Wruble asked whether it was getting
hot with the onset of summer. I answer indirectly by noting I saw
a child this week wearing a knit hat, with ear flaps down, and
mittens.  I answer more directly by noting that near the equator
terms like summer and winter have no meaning (especially with
"winter" only 240 miles south of here) and that in Buea it is now
the wet season and hence, what the Africans call cold (although I
doubt the temperature ever gets below 57F). Indeed, locally the
inhabitants bundle up, wearing warm hats (even fake fur ones) and
thermal underwear in the belief that such weather causes them to
catch colds, just as some in the US foolishly believe cold winter
weather causes colds.
     In an ongoing campaign to introduce pizza to Buea and
thinking two pizza restaurants are better than one [OIC Pavilion
also serves pizza. gek], we went to the Thando Hut last week to
try to devise a way to cook pizza on top of the stove. Amongst PC
material was a description of a "sand-pot" oven, which consists
of a large cast aluminum pot (quite common here) with a layer of
sand on the bottom and small tin cans, embedded int eh sand, to
act as a platform. Place this on a gas burner and you are
supposed to have an oven. I went to an ironworker and had him
make me a disk that would fit in a Thando Hut pan with Kamadjou,
the owner, had previously shown us. I installed two wire handles
on the disk and devised a wire gadget to hook the handles for
easy placement in and removal from the oven. Well, the first
pizza came out all right, probably suffering somewhat from our
looking too much. The second was superb, with Kamadjou saying it
was certainly as good as the stuff he used to serve at some place
in London called Pizza Hut.
     This week the mail really picked up and we thank Sandy
Wruble, Talia, Steve Krawiec, Becky Krawiec, Dave and Bertha,
Jane Johnson, M. Halpern and Melody Weisman. Also, we wish happy
birthdays to Rona, Steve, Eli and Noah.
     Happy New Year to all.
          Edwin

                                   #66  8 Sept 1996
Dear Everyone:
     I am writing you from a hotel room in the small village of
Bangem, as Janice and I are taking a little travel vacation. I
will start at the beginning and end up back in Bangem. Having few
responsibilities this past week and this coming week, Janice and
I decided to travel around and visit a number of our fellow
PCV's. We had no particular plan in mind, thinking that we would
just figure out our itinerary as we went. We started by dropping
in on Bonnie Scott who lives near Baffoussam and who was not at
home when Gwen was with us in our last attempt to visit her.
Well, our vacation got off to a rocky start when we found that
Bonnie again was out of town. Making a quick change of plan we
headed for Dschang to visit Charles Player, a former PCV from
Central African Republic who we knew was now a Cameroonian PCV at
the University of Dschang. We could not find Charles himself,
although we found his house. Camping out on his front doorstep
form 5 until 7 PM was unproductive so we walked downtown and
rented a hotel room, all the while keeping our eyes open for a
bunch of American college students in town as part of an exchange
program, thinking Charles might be with them. Eventually, we
heard American voices in the corridor of our hotel and connected
with the students. The next morning we connected with Charles,
and we spent the day exploring the University and the town. The
main campus is brand new, the best that $53 million of USAID can
buy, minus enough graft and bribery to cause USAID to pull out of
Cameroon in 1994. The massive building are in scale with the
small mountain on which they perch and offer a spectacular view
of the surrounding mountainous countryside, but their insides are
cold and impersonal because of their long corridors, many floors,
etc.
     The next morning we started for Santchou hoping to find
Cynthia and James Hall who teach English at the Lycee there.
Thinking there would be few if any bush taxis traveling the
mountainous dirt-road route, we set off on a 14 mile walk through
spectacular, verdant mountain scenery. There turned out to be a
very substantial flow of bush taxis on this route, and word soon
spread that a pair of crazy Americans were walking from Dschang
to Santcha. Hundreds of people greeted us along the way.  We
spent that day and the following day visiting with the Halls and
getting a better understanding of what life is like in a small,
isolated town, where one of the few amenities if electricity.
Wash water is obtained from a well outside their door, drinking
water is from 20 gallon containers filled in a town 20 miles
away.  The Halls have an indoor  pit toilet, plastic solar
showers which are warmer than and function better than ours, and
a primitive but quite functional kitchen.
     We left the Halls and headed for Bangem, a smaller more
isolated village, hoping to see Ben Swarthy. Because this is the
rainy season, the dirt road to Bangem can only be negotiated by a
four-wheel drive vehicle, in our case, an extended cab pickup
with Janice on the inside and I standing on the back and hanging
on to a huge stack of goods, along with six others.  The 20 mile
strip took two hours, including unscheduled stops, one almost
permanent, to negotiate axle-deep quagmires. Bangem is
sufficiently small for us to learn within second of our arrival
that Ben was away on vacation (perhaps trying to find us in
Buea?). After we found a hotel room we found Ben's Cameroonian
roommate who fed us and made us feel quite at home.
     Today we started early in the morning on what turned out to
be a 12 mile hike to and from a pair of volcanic lakes (called
Man Lake and Woman Lake by the locals) near Bangem. We rose a few
thousand feet to the circular rim, about 1 1/2 miles in diameter,
and entered a grassy plain which is punctuated by the two small
lakes and upon which herds of cattle and horses roam, tended by
Fulani who live in small villages nestled against the steep hills
that rise above the plain. We ascended a hill between the two
lakes, sat down, and simply stared in awe at our surroundings for
about an hour. 
     Tomorrow we will start heading back to Buea, but hoping to
be more successful in finding some of our PC friends along the
way.
     Edwin

P.S. We will not know until we get back to Buea whom to thank for
mail this week.
****
and a tag-along letter from Janice
     Our time away from Buea was quite an adventure. We were gone
for one full week but there is more travel to come.
     We never got back to Bamenda, though that was our plan. I
wanted to visit Rita in Bafut and see some woodcarvings in Bali.
But, once Bonnie was not home and some of the other stops we
wanted to make were in a southerly direction, it was impractical
to head up tot eh Northwest. The rides we took for the past two
days were on the hair-raising side. The most descriptive way I
have found to describe the trips from Melong to Mbangem, then
through Nyasoso to Tombel is to imagine yourself on an expert-
level ski slope without snow: Rocks, boulders and deep mud that
had us listing but never so stuck we couldn't "unstuck" nor tip
over. By the time we arrived in Kumba I was totally worn-out. We
recouped at the Azi Motel. The next morning we walked to the
Kumba Rosa to check mail. Terry stopped by unexpectedly and we
chatted prior to going to the market. I am in search of a meat
grinder for OIC and not having much luck, nor did I have any at
the market.
     We have been home for several hours within which time we
have chloroxed underwear, washed mud and more mud out of jeans
and other clothing, washed the glass louvres in the kitchen
windows, walked to the Post Office for Gwen's letters ...
     ...
     Tomorrow I will check for a FAX that hopefully will provide
us with information about holiday services at the Israeli embassy
(?) on Friday, in Yaounde. We will head out again on Thursday, if
all goes along smoothly.
     The skies are starting to look blue again, and it is not
raining daily.

                                             #67 15 Sept 1996
Dear Everyone:
     Janice and I are back in our Buea home after almost two
weeks of travel. Monday we left Bangem for Tombel in search of
PCV Kristen Lindsley who lives in Nyasoso but we heard was
directing a project in Tombel. The ride was quite interesting but
one which we hope not to repeat.  Sixteen of us were jammed into
the back of a Land Rover, protected by a makeshift tarp that
leaked during the rainy part os the trip and, at the same time,
made it stifling. As we came down out of the mountains on
monumentally muddy dirt roads that Janice likened to expert ski
slopes without snow, my respect for Land Rovers increased
greatly, undampened by the occasional geyser of mud that came
through the holes in the floor. Frequently I had the panicky
feeling that the Land Rover would capsize as it dipped one of its
wheels into an especially deep mudhole. Eventually (and wrongly)
I concluded this was unlikely to happen, but I later learned that
twice Kristen had been in vehicles that tipped. By coincidence we
ran out of gas just outside of Nyasoso, which gave me a chance to
find Kristen's house but not Kristen. Instead I found a new PCV,
Ray, who will teach at Kristen's school. He told me Kristen was
vacationing with Ben, the PCV we missed in Bangem, but that a new
PCV, Laban, was in Tombel. The climax of our rainy-season-bush-
taxi experience occurred 1/4 mile short of our goal in Tombel
when the driver, in avoided a Sargasso sea of mud by traversing a
ditch and heading down a back alley toward town, sheared off the
front wheel. After walking about for two hours in the rain in a
fruitless quest for Laban, we took a taxi to Kumba, stayed one
night in a hotel, and then returned to  Buea.
     On Thursday we hit the road again and headed for Yaounde in
the hope of finding a Rosh Hashanah service. Despite calling the
Israeli embassy a number of times, despite calling PC in Yaounde
and asking them to get information and fax us, despite asking
Alexis, a PCV who stayed overnight en route to Yaounde, to
explore the situation and fax us, we had heard nothing, so we
were traveling on faith (pun intended). Unbeknownst to us, Alexis
bumped into Joel Ittenger, whom she previously met at a bar in
Yaounde when she was being evacuated from CAR. When he asked if
he would help, she protested he couldn't possibly know where the
Israeli embassy was, and he responded he went to services every
Friday evening. So this Friday evening Joel took us to the house
of the Israeli ambassador where most of the Jews in Cameroon, all
14 of us, had what was to be for those attending a complete Rosh
Hashanah service, followed by our first kosher meal in Cameroon.
I had the honor of saying kiddish (blessing over the wine),
acutely aware of my Ashkenazic accent in a mostly Israeli
congregation.
     Most of the people at the service were from the Israeli
embassy, and it was clear that their lives in Cameroon are
radically different from ours. In the Embassy and their houses
they try to recreate first world enclaves behind high barricades,
staffed by armed guards, and they shuttle between the enclaves in
chauffeured cars. They were shocked that we have no car and use
public transportation. Ironically, we especially value the view
of Cameroon we get by using public transportation, including our
"interesting" trip from Bangem to Tombel. 
     Edwin

P.S. We thank Dave & Bertha for letters, as well as the Fineman-
Sesslers and Gwen. Dave Kniager asks if we have received the
package sent in March. NO, we expect it in the next few months. I
suppose this suggests that the window of opportunity for sending
us packages is about to slam shut.

***
It's clear from my mother's letter that they also went to Kol
Nidre services.
And happy birthday to Eli, Noah and Steve. only Elisha remains..
     gwen

                                        #68  22 Sept 96
Dear Everyone:
     It has been relatively quiet week for us in Buea. The work
for Janice at OIC was routine, while I have been marking time
With a few days advance notice, teh Vice-Chanceoor decided to put
off the start of classes for a week on the theory that (some of)
the faculty and the staff were exhausted from their first
experience with a vacation semester. Weeks ago, Janice and I made
a bet on whether classes would start in September. We won't know
for sure until after the fact, but I apparently won, with classes
now scheduled to begin on 30 Sepember. Of course, if my classes
are on a Tuesday-Thursday schedle I will trye to hide that
information from her; if my classes start in October, that's a
different story.  This coming week the students register for both
semesters, nd Friday afternoon there is a mad scramble to set the
schedule for the start of classes the following Monday.
     The extra week gave me time to tidy up a number of odds and
ends. Terry Luschen prepared a set of printed notes for my
calculus course, and I was able to edit his work and give the
notes to a local photocopying service for availablity to the
students. I met with Peter Njohjam, of the Mt. Cameroon Project
and improved some software I have been writing for him. I met
iwth Mafor Denis, of the Provincial Teacher Resource Center
(TRC), to hand over a word processed version of one of their
Physics workbooks, which I prepared. I also responded, on the
sot, to Denis's request for a paper to be presented at an up-
coming Provincial Conference of Physics teachers. This year I
hope to have a low profile at TRC, because Erin Hatch, a PCV from
our stage recently relocated to the nearby town of Mayuka, is
supposed to spend one day a week at TRC.
     I will finish wiht a discussion of our personal economics. I
will start iwht the income side so all you taxpayers will
understand how a tiny, nay miniscule, fraction of your money is
spent. Although the local currency is the CFA Franc (500CA=
US$1), I will quote everything in dollars. Keep in mind that the
per capita GDP here is $1000/year and htat the average
Cameroonian family has perhaps 6 members. Worldwide Peace Corps
pays each volunteer $24/month vacation money, and PC pays each
CAmeroon PC $320/month living allowance. Married couples have a
good deal, because 2 can live as cheaply as 1.5, but single PCVs
find the pay in Cmaeroon to be adeque, roughly comparable to what
a well-paid Cameroonian is paid. So, compared to the host country
nationsl (PC PC talk for "natives") we are not living high off
the hog. Our housing is paid for separately. In our case, the
university picks up the t ab; in some other cases PC picks up the
tab. I will continue next week wtih the outgo side of hte ledger.
     This week we both thank Margaret, Jean, Mimi Stanford, Jean
(again), Pearly, my mother, Gwen (twice), and Mindy Fineman for
letters, and Janice thanks Gwen, Brenda and Carolyn for birthday
cards.
     Edwin

                                        #69 29 Sept 1996
Dear Everyone:
     This week seemed to emphasize disorganization at school,
even though the University, by African standards, is well
organized.  Monday was supposed to be the first day of
registration but they also wanted to have an orientation for the
new students. Lacking previous plans, the deans and department
heads met with the registrar at 10, and he gave the orders for
how to run the orientation.  At 12 my college faculty met with
the students to start orientation. At the end of that meeting the
departments were supposed to meet with their new majors but the
departments instead demurred so that they could meet with faculty
alone and plan how to orient their new majors.  That pt off the
orientation of new majors until Tuesday morning and the start of
registration until Tuesday afternoon.  All done by hand, the
procedure requires each student to traipse around to the offices
of the teacher of each course to have his or her name recorded
and four copied of the registration form signed.  By Friday
afternoon, it seemed like the process was incomplete, because
substantially fewer students had signed up for my courses than
had been admitted for the majors requiring the course. 
Meanwhile, on Thursday, as if to demonstrate that other
organizations are also short on organizational details, I
received a hand-delivered letter from Pan-African Institute
(PAID) telling me I was to participate, as a presenter, in a
three day workshop this coming week.  This is the first I heard
of it. On the other hand, I left campus on Friday not knowing
whether I could participate in PAID's workshop, because the class
schedule for the semester which is supposed to start tomorrow (or
I lose my bet with Janice that the semester will start in
September) had yet to be released. Today I went to campus to see
if the schedule had been posted and ended up helping post the
schedule, with the person in charge of scheduling admitting that
classes wouldn't really start until Monday afternoon, because the
schedule was posted so late. So I think I win my bet, just
barely.
     Getting back to the economic discussion of last week, recall
that 500 Francs CFA=US$1, and we each get $320/month pay and
$24/month vacation allowance (and I did not mention we each get
$200/month of service upon return to the US), and the University
pays our rent.  It is not easy to translate the cost of living
here into US terms because our needs are simple, e.g. no need for
heating or cooling our house and no need for a car, and because
some items, primarily energy and imports, are remarkably
expensive while other items, e.g. food and labor is remarkably
inexpensive.  Now to the fiscal details.  Electricity is $.10/kwh
(compared to about $.07 in the Lehigh Valley). Gasoline is
$2.80/gallon. Water is $60 a year, although I suspect we
subsidize the public taps, which are used by the many people
without running water. A banana costs $.02, a grapefruit $.05, a
pineapple $.50. As Gwen and Talia know, at an "omelet shack" one
can get egg and a baguette for $.40 (marvelous omelets, usually).
Janice bought a shirt for me by paying $4.40 for two yards of
cloth and then paying $2 to a tailor to make it into a shirt.
[For comparison, we paid $6 for fabric and $16 for a tailor to
make me a suit. gek] Taxis, whose cost depends on the cost of
fuel and of the labor of the driver, end up costing me $.30 for
my 6 mile trip to the  University. This very brief list of costs
I hope gives some indication of what the cost of living is like
here.
     This week we thank for letters Gwen, Gwen, Bill, Stephanie
Katz, Becky Krawiec, Betty Benson and Ann Loux.
     Love,
       Dad (Edwin)

***
and he adds, in the midst of personal chores for me to do:
"Please, somehow, thank the people who offered to send me a
bicycle. It was an awfully nice gesture, but I will wait to see
what PC does." So--thanks to Norm Melchert and Jeanne's tandem-
riding blood donor, and anyone else I don't know about who
offered to ship him a bike.        ---gwen