fickle, and putting me in a pickle

so the internet has been down all over cameroon since my last blog post. it will work for about 5 minutes, then take literally 1/2 to one full hour to load a page. i am physically affected by the anxiety i feel -- i actually get heartburn as i wait for that one page to load. especially when that one page is a letter from a friend or an important correspondence for next semester. what does this say about me as a human being? i dont know, i'm just glad the internet is working today.

spent sunday to wednesday in the extreme north -- the "chicken head" of cameroon, as my friend matt likes to call it. IT IS HOT THERE. i mean the kind of hot that is dusty and sweaty and dry -- it's in the sahel region of the sahara desert, after all, that strip of land that encircles the largest desert in the world. maroua has been affected by western tourism and has large tourist markets where you can buy crafts, and also smaller markets where you can find less touristy things like pagnes and traditional northern garb. there are a lot of beggars, too, i would say more than in any other city i've visited. this is also due to tourism; children and the unemployed end up begging instead of going to school or finding jobs because it's more lucrative.

we camped outside waza national park on monday and tuesday night. tuesday was spent on safari! 15 students, seven staff, and two guides piled into the back of the SIT pickup truck and braced themselves on top of the van's cargo grate and we took off into the savannah. we only got halfway to the halfway point of the park's diameter on a six-hour tour -- that's how big the park is. in many places the grass was burned down so to make viewing animals easier. we started at 6:30am and didn't see much til mid-morning, just a few wildebeasts and some brush hens. then, as we came over a small rise, we saw something against the trees in the distance: GIRAFFES! we stopped right across the watering hole from them -- there were about 21 in the first group we saw. what a crazy-looking animal. when they run, it looks like they're in slow motion with their huge legs loping along and their long necks hurtling forward and back. altogether we saw 72 giraffes that day! no lions, no elephants, but a parkfull of giraffes. it was cool.

it's now my last day in ngaoundere. tonight we take the train to yaounde, where i will start my independent research project. i'm scared, but moreso really excited to start!