made it to the end of the month like you made the b team

i was down to 2100 cfa, 1500 of which was for transport to the bank. so i play a game where i ask myself if i was a combination of a crazy old man and a crazy old woman, how would i make it through the afternoon. i appeared in the market and appeared at one of the palm wine shacks. 200 cfa later i had had a rich and oily bubbly drink and a story about 1952 and the death of nkha ngwu'. 50 cfa went towards fried dough and another 50 as contribution towards the memory of nkha ngwu' gold bond whisky fund for pa tanyi. i got a sack of rice for 100, then saw the woman to whom i had given 300 for six eggs because she told me she knew this dude with a motorcycle who could hook us up with a whole tray for 1300 and she wanted to see if anyone wanted in on it, because she couldn't front the whole 1300. she gave me my eggs and i convinced her to give me two small habanero peppers. 125 went towards a tin of tomato paste and beef bouillon cubes. she dashed me 5 cfa on the change, and i convinced another woman to sell me a small onion for 20. result was i ate a large plate of spicy rice and an omelette, with 60 cfa to my name, then i went back to the market and i was given a piece of stewed porcupine back and then given two beers and a meal of cabbage soup, plantains, rice, chicken and fish at a sendoff for canadians. there was lightning all day i don't regret that porcupine quill...

invidiousness

INVIDIOUS
i got a hold of irene lozano's essay "lenguas en guerra" and brought it to one of those shacks cafe-restau and had a salad and omelette. i came upon a word that seemed to be the spanish equivalent of invidiousness. i put the paper in my pocket and walked back to the house. after careful consideration i decided to leave the hat behind, and also all of my luggage. one of those cars with guys hanging out the window slammed its breaks and i jumped in and waited for them to repeat the same for anyone else headed in that direction. bamilike women are short-tempered and ruthless hagglers. one in our bus was heavily abusing the candied ginger girls and punched one of the motoboys. they had changed the venue of the meeting to a place i didn't know. someone told me that the bar could be found at "ferrouche"

there is no such things as street names here, only landmarks that everyone agrees upon that are representative of a street or neighborhood. in douala there is a marche rond point and also a ferrouche, because there's a roundabout where people occasionally hang out and sell bread so it became a taxi drop. bafoussam has carrefour madelone, which is the name of a pharmacy visible from the main street. after i arrived, without paying anyone who directed me, i was told that ferrouche is a mispronunciation of "fare rouge," red lamp, or the extinguished one of two traffic signals found in the city.

i went into the market and sent around word that i was looking for any book by claude lévi strauss, which people took to mean that i wanted to buy dress shirts and pants. i have recently taking to tell people that we're not going to meme pas discuter if you want to start with such a ridiculous price. some are not willing to believe that a white person should pay less than five times the actual price and refuse to bargain more on principle, and some will take notice and cut their first price in half, so that we can get to three times the actual price and work from there. murphy's law of haggling: you will never pay a fair price for something you want. i decided to leave the meeting abruptly and left my article behind. today it's no longer available for download.

the chargeur decided to sit with one leg inside the window, and the other leg and the rest of his body outside, going over speed bumps on the wrong side of the road at a speed that couldn't be right. the venality code of honor: if the sign advising you of an official's authority is rusted, if the policeman's coat is frayed and depicts an american sports club, if the observation post is made out of a material that decays every two years, you can bribe. if it is a woman or the official looks like he receives salary regularly, you may be able to believe what they are saying.

love will tear us apart

those of use who have been here eight months we were sitting at a bar one says just when i think i can't take it anymore i have to leave, something delays me, some indecision. i sent a child to bring me roasted pork fat and i recognized a gendarme captain from alou. he invited me to the ndungate' enthronement and we saw some canadians that didn't know the prices. we told them the prices. the gendarme told me the cost of the felt hat. yeah she said, whenever i realize how much i know...

we got ourselves tonight

why does everything you do feel like a meeting among jewel thieves and drug dealers? apostrophe. upon reading this statement the reader can best infer that
A) the writer is a jewel thief.
B) the writer feels like meeting drug dealers.
C) the writer believes that meetings are necessary for illegal transactions
D) the writer is responding to a common criticism
Circle the BEST answer.

i came out of school to the market and poked my head into a building. "mami o ka' la: bekweh lehk? m'm" i went to the next building to look for rice. "a mé méh" i knew i should have gone earlier. greet a woman sitting on a stool in a miasma of wood smoke. "o se nda kó? abe bekang" fufu and bitterleaf stew would do nicely, especially since she had several bottles of palm wine. a group of men formed and we all tasted the palm wine. it was the variety called lene', still sweet as it was tapped the day before. then we saw one of the men who sews dresses walking up the road with a five gallon jug on his head. he was coming from the farm. it was the freshest one could have without going directly to the palm tree. it was the variety called letijeh, which is much more alcoholic and leaves a residue of palm kernel oil in your mouth. it was bubbly. we arranged the sale of three litres for the group of us. after this the man increased the price because he realized that the bottle we were using was bigger than usual. passersby came to have a taste and found themselves staying. the next day i saw the dressmaker and he told me that he had a fresh shipment, just come right in here. there was a high quality of sitting around in the market those two days.

ngung tie

news in brief:

i found myself wandering around the carpentry district in dschang, tasting ginger juice and looking at some porcupine quills. i ended up with one in my hand. one of the chiefs asked me what it was and why i was holding it. i put it away and investigated the matter discreetly and found out that they were used to summon thunder bolts by wizards. note to self: avoid handling chickens in light of the bird flu

i bought a handsome ledger to lend a more prestigious air to my ngwe investigations. i made a small dictionary of about 400 words and made a resume of noun cases and conjugations. the next logical step was to work with my teacher to translate cortazar's short story casa tomada. one stumbling block was the phrase that is approximately "we entered our forties with the unexpressed idea that ours, that simple, silent marriage of brother and sister, was a necessary closure of the genealogy assented by the great grandparents of the house." discussing ancestors brings about some idioms that i cannot comprehend when they are translated literally. we decided on something like "both of us reached 40 years. i see that for us to live together in that particular house, our parents and great fathers did not know that they should never again stay in the house."

i announced a story-writing contest for my younger students and the winner i selected made a story, which i can reprint or paraphrase without permission since the author is unaware of her rights, that is approximately as follows:

"i want to write a story of my future. in my future i want to be a journalist. a journalist is the greatest person in the world. a journalist has much money. of course, my sister-in-law is a journalist. when i am a journalist i will tranlate news stories very fast. the job of a journalist is to translate stories. when i am a journalist i will speak in french always and i will speak in english only a little bit. a journalist is a very beautiful. a journalist should be able to read news on the television. a woman journalist wears a white shirt, a black skirt, and a black coat. a man journalist wears a white shirt, black trousers, and a black coat. one quarter of the world is a journalist. the journalist is the best person in the world. this is the end of my story."

i chose this one narrowly over a story about a girl that was too lazy to do farm work to pay for her school fees, and decided to become a prostitute. the story was about the girl's laziness, having little to do with school or prostitution, which seem to be the two possible destinies of a teenage girl in the village. another was about a girl named atacoco. her sisters were killed by a lion because the lion imitated their mother's voice. because atacoco never listened to her mother, she never listened to the lion either. atacoco's father kills the lion and they have a nice meal of lion meat. happily ever after.

m'mock market day

m'mock market day
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

-and i knew the permanency would slip, and i knew...

this is the market square of the richest region of lebialem. all of the irish potatoes, carrots and soybeans found anywhere near come from their irrigated fields. the next day i climbed a plateau that looked like a jeep commercial. my camera battery died before but it's just as well that no one believes me. all of the students spent the whole two days eating carrots and it was nice all of us to lie on the plateau eating carrots. they say you could see all the way to bamenda

the best restaurant in m'mock mbie

the best restaurant in m'mock mbie
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

it's becoming a problem because now i hate the sound of crying babies instead of the sound of crying baby goats, still because one reminds me of the other. i have to answer all phone calls by saying where i am and when i returning and when they hang up i feel frugal. the phrases "go come" and "yes no?" are perfectly acceptable. it doesn't taste the same if you eat with utensils

slackers

slackers
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

my roommate had designated our living room as the after party. before falling asleep i kept intentionally jumping eses. i woke up and they actually wanted to go to IHOP for the perfect end to their weekend. we got a booth and discussed the most convenient things to believe about everyone who was not present. the waitress informed us that the 70's had a very large impact on her when we asked whether it was real butter.

leur majesties

leur majesties
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

the porcupine. it is to show that there's no sneaking up on me

liger

liger
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

nadia said that the thing she loves most, speaking from the high authority of the offices of her distant high-school study abroad stay in nacadoches, texas, is the international house of pancakes. i let it pass. evening in the fresa club i had to hide in the greasy back alley until they smuggled me some leather shoes i could wear from the entrance to the owner of the shoes' tabe and that one song that was stuck in my head since the 17 hour ride from san jose to panama city. saying what i want to hear she says surely she'll remember the name tomorrow and i can download it.
-acordame manhana. me gusta como saltas los eses

guns

..
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

phone call at 5am from a drunk speaking in spanish about the abominable costarican soccer dlub, insulting me and everyone we know in common... put my face on straight "joder, serote, son las... dis, cinq heures, give my regards to everyone there"

pu'u

pu'u
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

and the differences i'd care not to listen for, an aspirated or non-aspirated k, a high rising tone or high level tone, it's the difference between death, deception and cocoyams; goats, being and loss; raphia twine and vagina

discipline

discipline
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

i had grand plans for the exactness with which i'd hyperbolize my annoyance with the popular music played in bars here. i would claim that most bars have up to seven songs on rotation of a possible nine or so which all bars must choose from. yesterday i counted all of the songs i'm used to hearing: grikatagrika, eto'o fils #1 and #2, marching band rap, decale, fausse traditionelle woman's voice saying africa like for cnn's "focus on africa" intro, on n'aime pas les blancs, flamboyant fat man with hawaiian shirt circa 1970's synthesizer, pastel robot. the list no longer makes sense. i must have written it during one of my bouts of matinal synesthesia. i got up to eight then heard another one. i don't care if it's 9 or 150 songs, the only good music is listened to by the people young enough and rich enough to spend their time and money... the college kids from bamenda come to this restaurant in dschang where the lady keeps the tv on canal+ where you can see music videos filmed in france or from french artists-- some cartoon with a cameo from red man, a girl named amerie (sounds like the word for bitterness) who doesn't wear pants.

and that is... the focus on africa join us next week