Archives for the Month of August 2008 on Marie Lathers's Cameroon Journal
Paris
After much running around yesterday and much help from various postal workers in Mississippi, we did get our passports and visas in time to get to the New Orleans airport, where we were promptly bumped onto a later flight!
Flew to Houston and then overnight to Paris. Linden, my 10-year-old daughter, watched Kung Fu Panda and I watched Sideways, still as good on the second viewing. She read a book about dragons and I read a book by Michael Chabon. Arrived safely and started using our French!
We are now in a hotel by the Paris airport since we have a layover. Tomorrow morning we go to Zurich and then to Yaounde, the captial of Cameroon. We should arrive in Cameroon in the evening to be met by Embassy personnel. Long journey!
I'm worried I'll forget to have us take our malaria medicine in the morning, so we are going to do it tonight. May as well get started!
Still waiting to depart . . .
Delayed in Natchez, Mississippi of all places! My daughter and I are supposed to leave from the New Orleans airport this afternoon, but our visas have not arrived from the Cameroon Embassy in D.C.! I found out there was a delay last Monday and have been working since then to get it straightened out. We were told the visas were sent overnight yesterday, but there is nothing here in the morning mail . . . so, on the phone with travel agent and waiting for the afternoon mail . . .
Hopefully, we can get out tomorrow before Hurricane Gustav hits and the airport closes!It's so sad that this area will suffer another hurricane, potentially a very powerful one. Hotels are full here in Natchez with people moving north to get out ahead of the storm, as we try to get across the ocean to Cameroon.More to come.
Cameroon September, 2008--June, 2009
I am a professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages at Case Western Reserve University. On August 29, I leave with my daughter Linden, who is 10, to Cameroon, where we will live for ten months. I have a Fulbright research/lecture award and will teach women's studies at the University of Dschang. Linden and I will live in Batoula, hometown of Professor Doho of the Modern Languages Department. Linden will attend the local public school for fifth grade. She is, of course, terribly excited. I will be more excited after I finally get through all the preparations!
Although I do not expect to be treated like a queen, or Mafo (see photo below from summer 2005 in Batoula, with the King of Batoula and the Queen Mother, Professor Doho's mother), I'm sure Linden and I will have an engaging and exciting adventure.
You are welcome to follow along as we adapt to our new surroundings and explore the country and its citizens. Engineers might be particularly interested since one of my goals is to bring a well to Batoula during my stay.
Stay tuned for our departure adventures, when we leave from New Orleans, spend the night in Paris, change plans in Zurich, and arrive in Yaounde on August 31!