i don't want you to be alone

-yes, full-blooded spartan
-the battle of marathon. what was that about?
-true to my race, i remain laconic

cameroon, the party's over. no one thought this could last forever, and we're all the wiser for the experience. vale.

we could go to the pictures, spend some money

it fell to our lot that mierneska and i would carry bags of our own feces to a laboratory around rond point score then have our blood drawn. there were many street children around here before who would pick pockets but they have been disappeared so there's not as many now. but you can tell europeans always come here because when they try to sell me groundnuts in a bottle they call them cacahuetes instead of arachides. the cab driver stops at some point and laughs and starts to make a u-turn

tu vois, il y a l'inondation

i thought there should be some minor puddle then we'd get around but the driver found out quickly from his colleagues that our destination itself was in about a meter of standing water. we got out and walked along the sidewalk and quickly saw that this was no exaggeration. the street was inundated, flooded completely. you could float a boat in all that muddy garbage-filled water. we took a detour, going around the lake. we were able to get very close to the lab, but reached the border of the lake. the lab's guard, one of the 7-foot tall fulbe people from the north, came wading up and said he'd take our bags of feces and drop them off, but we had to get blood drawn too, so he said he'd carry mierneska in his arms and i'd wade in his wake. the water was up to my knees but we got to the stairwell and were walking up to the lab.

-that's fucked up, i say
-you're fucked up?
-no, the situation
-yeah, i guess you're right. it is fucked up

two women were there in the waiting room, one with a baby lying across her lap. they were talking in ewondo but used the word inondation. the one with the baby bounced the baby and made him smile and sung to him in french

we're never going home,
mon bébé,
we're going to sleep here
because everything's flooded

we came back to the office. on the way i bought a bottle of black label and its cost was the same as a month's rent. it's ok because i'm leaving in two days and i'm not going back to the lake to buy black market euros. in the office we made pancakes and sipped green tea with mint and a bit of cream, laughing. someone has an album of Cesária Évora who sings in Cabo Verde creole, saying:

Sodade
sodade
Sodade
Dess nha terra
São Nicolau
Si bo; 'screve' me
'M ta 'screve be
Si bo 'squece me
'M ta 'squece be
Até dia
Qui bo voltá

you would wish that they'd just shut up

i have been here with only women. all the furniture is out of order because of painting. i climbed onto one of the bunkbeds by way of the other bunkbed next to it. there was a queen size mattress on it. it is a twin bed. the mattress hangs over but i support the hanging end with the other bunk bed. i gave away my phone battery and the screen is broken, also all of my watches. that means i just sleep when i'm tired and wake up when there is brightness in the window.

of the three staple animals, which would you abjure, you who must abjure exactly one?

yesterday i bought some beef and fried it in butter on a low heat and it became curry. it was tough because i did not bother to sear it if i were to cook it short or cook it long if i were to use low heat. today i bought pork. i made chicharrones from the skin and made a respectable stir fry using the lard that came from frying the skin, low heat again since the stove is inferior to hotter stoves. of course it melts in your mouth and forgives you for however you cook it and goes well with pineapple. this is why i abjure beef. even though that means butter and milk as well.

i have to leave the room when they put on a women's movie. i end up denouncing its sexism, its reification of oppressive relationships. so in this one there is the president of the US and the president of britain. the president of britain is handsome, shy and awkward around women. this means he's not a player and should have sex with one of his aides. the president of the US is married and will have sex with one of the aides right from under the president of britain's nose. then there's some woman who bites her lower lip and spreads her legs slightly in an office environment and everybody jeers at her. a portuguese au pair who kisses her employer who is shy. but it was when she was leaving and he didn't chase after her. this is why i think the movie is a bad influence.

the mutengene education

riding in a taxi, sharing the passenger seat with a pickpocket. the seat slides back and the woman behind complains of her feet, the driver says no wait just push it like that, the thief says it keeps sliding back and forth, our hips rubbing together. i remember all those evenings in mutengene. say i'm getting out right here, confirm the missing 10 000 f note.
-dis donc, les monnaies sont tombées, aidez-moi un peu monseur.
we find a 100 f coin
-encore
we find the 10 000 f note.

thank you, mutengene

rick ross got a lot of dough too

on thursday morning nkemaka, who had missed the previous evening's party, though he had confirmed the time with me three times, was knocking on the door at 6:20 as if it were urgent. he started calling. i turned off the ringer, went back to sleep. at 6:40 there is still knocking, so i place a call.
-i'm still sleeping. come back in an hour.
at 7:30 i open the bottle of rum they gave to me and serve him a shot. myself i'm drinking green tea. he has about four glasses and becomes garrulous, fumbling through a monologue about "you the whites . . . companies, jobs . . . because the government wants you to pay school fees . . . and here i am a farmer . . . if only you can manage to bring me there . . ."
i put on a congolese video and tell him to keep an eye on the house, i'm going to school. i return from school to find two more guests, one of which brought beer. they are locked in a tragedy of the commons that will not turn out well for anyone. the rum is not good enough that i will drink any before noon or care if it is all gone, but this is an unexpected windfall for my guests, who are pouring tall glasses and drinking them quickly so as to be able to pour the next glass, out of an instinct to maximise their consumption with relation to that of their convives, more than a desire to get drunk.
i have a bowl of soup and pack a couple of bags. then i turn off the ndombolo and put on some crying in your beer circa 1940s tejano. people are still talking loudly, so when one stands up i hold his hand and pat him on the shoulder, saying "you have been so nice to visit, let me escort you out." the remaining two continue drinking quietly and the bottle is finished by ten. a girl comes over around eleven and brings me a plate of fufu and eru with smoked hare meat. i lick my fingers and wash the plate and order the girl to go home, because they are hitting on her and she's only 16 and already had at least one abortion.
mpi is discussing with me in the dialect about how he can obtain for me a human skull from world war I and a stuffed owl. he gives me the last of the rum.
-you know you are an elder you must take the dregs.
-no. i'm not drinking today.
-this is your house you must take the dregs. it is the tradition.
-i know the tradition very well. and in my house i do the thing that pleases me.
-i only want to explain the tradition to you.
-you should not bother me about how i conduct my affairs in my house.
-jesse, i do not hate you, you know. you are my friend. i like you.
-we are together.
i tie up various affairs in the market between three and seven. mpi returns after a long nap to collect his bag and tell me that rum is a bad drink and he does not like it. by six the following morning i have been given kola nuts, bananas, avocadoes, a coconut, a carved head and a rooster. bruno says as he's leaving:
-no need for long speeches. we have told enough stories already.
i am in bafoussam by eleven that same morning.
in baham i tied up the cock and went to the market. it was gone when we came back. we spent an hour circling the neighborhood, involving about 15 children and teenagers in the search. several people have advised us on the mindset of a rooster and how far he could have gotten by now and how he will not go where the grass is tall don't worry. one woman tells us about a type of spirit that may have confiscated the cock. it ends up being in front of the house.

and... ya, se acabó

the indians

o'neill
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

here a woman in traditional bakperi dress takes a break from fashioning a war canoe by hand in the coastal empire of idenau. jerry can't go to classic anymore is what i hear.

miel fluens

Noi pregheremmo lui, per la tua pace
Di quel, ch'udire, e che parlar ti piace
Mentrechè il vento, come fa, si tace.

Dante, La divina commedia

in Ulysses, Joyce only copies it like this:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . la tua pace
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . che parlar ti piace
Mentrechè il vento, come fa, si tace.

history is a nightmare from which i can't wake

3am. there is a mosquito net draped over my face and all darkness. the air conditioner is on so the power must be back on. i tried to figure out why my mind was fuzzy and my throat so dry. something about a bottle of smirnoff's that we found for only 4675 francs. also that the water and power went out right around when i finished plucking the chicken. there should be a bowl of intestines out in the courtyard somewhere. since the power was back i could have una linda taza de agua and finish uploading the files. the power was still out in the computer room, it so happened.

7am. i make a calculation that by the time the uploading finishes it will be too late to believe that i can get back to lewoh before the sun sets and rises once more. i lie on a sofa and start to read Ulysses. i agreed with the chicken's owner that if she let me have the back and the neck and give me those four potatoes that are about to rot then we'd have a bland and nourishing ten o'clock soup. brunch is a dark broth with potatoes and carrots, stale bread dipped softening and several cups of mint tea.

2pm. uploads are about 60% complete. i'll go home tomorrow. we were sitting here when i worked out the plan with stanley about his sister in ireland and the graduation photos of his sister in buea. he had been drinking all morning and sai

d the two of us would pass a jolly rest of the afternoon and evening drinking. i agreed to a bottle of soda water because one should be able to spot a bad idea. school was letting out and children were walking by screaming whatever nonsense fills their heads at that age. these two old men, nostalgic on their schooldays in the colonial times, were grumbling in some of the best english i've heard in menky about how everything has gone to hell since the british left the children don't even know what a verb of incomplete predication is anymore.

para que mis enemigos tenham olhos, et nao me vejam

the letter i got contained mostly scraps of paper ripped from an in-flight magazine. i went to the guy's office for the seventh time and he wasn't there. the office is nearby, though. last night there was no water and someone was in the bathroom vomiting. i had consulted with the people in the kitchen who said i shouldn't put chicken in the soup because they wanted to eat "sooner, rather than later," then noted that they were just peeling the potatoes and hadn't even put on water to boil so really i had a good thirty minutes before the time when the chicken would have gone in. i thought that i would kill the chicken but only if my own body was clean. i would shave also. it didn't take until i was naked under the shower head to remember that there was no water, but it was after i decided on the killing plan. i just went to bed and the water was back on in the morning so i had a shower and shaved, but the chicken is still alive. people are painting the compound so it's been eating chips of scraped paint.

the early bird gets his worm sucked for sure

kinship terms are always the hardest to translate. let's take ntse, which i consider to be some kind of person connected to you through marriage.

Our boss is sitting at the bar he owns. we are drinking the round of beer i bought for "successful academic year." the children are coming out of class and walking through the market. one boy walks past the bar. the boy's sister used to be in my math class. she's a sweetheart but not really interested in school. i guess about 15 years old. she had come into the habit of visiting the room of the boy who serves drinks in the bar. he's about 17 i guess and one of the teenagers that pa brings down from the hills in bamenda every year or so to earn a bit of money and learn social skills. he usually wears delectably tight women's bell bottoms with certain parts bleached so they might resemble worn-in jeans and flowing checkered silk shirts. he has a very high voice and sometimes bursts into a demure giggle, covering his mouth and through his voyou's eyes projecting the excitement of feigned guilt of intimacy, then scampers off, shaking his ass. the girl behaves more or less the same, but she wears plain clothes, a skirt and a soccer jersey usually. it will be her second child. pa greets her younger brother, "ntse ge!"

quam minimum credula postero

today took a long time. i was sleeping under a rough blanket because i put everything in the metal box. it was agreed that we'd take everything out of lebialem before the rains turned the roads into what makes ministers resign in disgust. at 5.40 am i woke up. by 7.40 we were in dschang at the bus station. as from this time a certain teenager was strutting around grabbing his crotch saying, a propos of nothing, chien vert, relishing the sound of his voice. he said it about 70 times in the intervening six hours. i was sitting on a bench with a sleeping grandmother whose foot was wrapped in a plastic bag. a young man gave her a bottle of guiness before she went to sleep. it was under the bench while she slept. the chien vert guy sat near to me when the bus left around two and kept saying chien vert until we got to bafoussam and he got off the bus. in bafia a young man suckling at a sachet of gold bond whisky tried to force the door open to get on the bus and the chargeur didn't let him. he kicked the bus. at one péage some ewondo kid selling chilled well water was yelling at me as we creeped by. i insulted him in nnwe and he laughed and told someone that i was speaking italian. i left my metal box somewhere in the courtyard once i reached the office in yaoundé around eight because i don't want to see it anymore.

i have a funny story to tell later.