New starts, new motivations

After the accident, and seeing good friends have their Peace Corps experiences cut short, I returned back to Edéa with a renewed sense of purpose. I have decided that, much as in life itself, there is no need to waste even one day. As such, I have poured myself back into the bank and teaching. I have developed a series of seminars which I hope to start giving in November, have worked with several people wanting help starting their businesses, and have worked with George on even more ways to help the bank be financially sound and grow. Frankly, you never know when things might change, whether you want them to or not.

Susan texted me last week to ask if she could come by for the weekend while she was en route to Yaoundé for a meeting. "Of course", I said, "I'd love to see you!" Susan was not severely injured in the accident, and I think that everyone involved still needs a little bit of togetherness. Its tough to return back home to be alone so soon after such an incident. With that in mind, Susan arrived, and we began eating. Since we both like to cook, we ate quite well in the several days she was here, including tacos with fresh guacamole and salsa, chicken salad, and breakfast burritos (not to mention chocolate chip cookies). My mother, upon her visit here, said that in my blog I spend a lot of time talking about food. As she was leaving, she said, "Now, I understand why."

I'm back in Yaoundé again for the SED steering committee. Since we're effectively without a program director still (five months and counting), the committee has lots of work to do over the next four or five days. When I arrived, I found many friends here for lots of different reasons, and even though I ended up sleeping on the couch for lack of beds, I felt good. Earlier in the evening a group of us headed over to the weekly US Embassy social gathering to have a steak sandwich, fries, cold beer and a movie. The movie turned out to be 'Spiderman 2', which was awesome! Loved it!