Sorry for the suspense.

I'm sorry, y'all. I didn't mean to leave you with that cliffhanger for weeks. My mom's visit to Cameroon was fun and eventful, and since I got home, I haven't felt inspired to sit down at the computer for more than ten minutes at a time.

To end the suspense:

1. The single most depressing thing that I have ever witnessed: one of the fucking useless men who runs the orphanage hit one of the kids (hard) on the head. I screamed at him for it, and asked why the hell he works at an orphanage if he doesn't like children. It sort of ruined my experience there, because now I worry about those kids instead of feeling at all hopeful for them. From when that happened (about two weeks before I left Cameroon), I was constantly on edge, expecting violence at every turn.

2. My plan for taking over Cameroon with good ol' New Deal Democratic values: Cameroon needs a WPA like nobody's business. The roads to remote villages are a joke, which is terrible--how do women in labor get to the hospital?! Oh wait...they don't. A WPA would create employment and install the infrastructure that Cameroon needs for public health and safety, and would generate further income by making the country more accessible to tourists.

3. The most bizarro night my mother and I have ever passed together: My mother and I traveled to the west of Cameroon with my host mother, which was a mistake for many reasons, one of which is that my host mother thought it was funny to take us to her family's house in a remote area without warning us that there would be no electricity or running water, no toilet, and that the house isn't even completely built. My mom kept talking about Deliverance. There were kids in the village who had never seen a white person up close, so they stared at us but wouldn't talk to us.

4. A man with 681 wives: In the town of Foumban we visited the royal palace of the Bamoun people. My favorite artifact was the skull of an enemy which the kings use as a cup. There was also a calabash decorated with enemies' jaws. But, the most impressive(/infuriating?) thing was a picture of the 17th of 19 kings, taken in 1915. One dude and his 681 wives. And we think polygamist ranches are evil...pssshaw--they ain't got nothin' on the Bamoun.

***

My trip home was a freakin' odyssey. Our flight from Yaoundé to Paris was canceled (Big Problem #1), so Air France put us up in a nice hotel for the night, but I was devastated because it meant that I couldn't go to Paris for two days as planned (Big Problem #2).

On the flight to Paris, my ears popped incredibly painfully (Big Problem #3), and then my period started about two hours before landing in Paris (BIG Problem #1). There were no supplies in any of the four plane potties, and I didn't bother to ask a stranger because I figured there'd be a dispenser in the Paris airport (Big Problem #4).

Oh but wait. Apparently the French don't menstruate or something, because IN THE PARIS AIRPORT, YOU CAN BUY HERMES SCARVES, CARTIER DIAMONDS, AND YVES SAINT LAURENT SHOES, BUT NOT A FREAKING TAMPON (BIG Problem #2). This was made particularly foul by the fact that I didn't have a change of clothes in my carry on and, all in all, had to wear blood-stained underwear and pants for at least 14 hours. Gross.

I had a long layover in Paris, then flew to Newark, only to find out that all flights to Atlanta for the night were canceled due to weather (BIG Problem #3). Delta refused to pay for a hotel room because the weather isn't their fault, and the airport hotels cost upwards of $150/night. I called customer service who told me, in slightly more polite words, tough shit. Finally, I burst into tears (for at least the fifth time of the day) in front of a sympathetic woman who gave me hotel and meal vouchers (Score 1, EJ, but a free hotel hardly makes up for the fact that you're stuck in Newark for the night. I guess it was at least a little better than sleeping in blood-stained pants on the airport floor...)

I waited over an hour for the hotel shuttle (Big Problem #5) and when I finally got to the hotel, they told me that they were out of rooms. I bitched them out, so they magically had a cancellation that I was able to nab (Score 2, EJ).

The icing on a shit sandwich of a 30+ hour day was that I started to feel sick as soon as I got into the hotel room. My good friend Rhea came to visit, and when I woke up the next morning, I vomited almost immediately. I vomited again when I got to the airport, and a third time when I got on the plane. I had chills the entire two-hour flight, and a deep ache settled into my bones. By the time I staggered into my dad's arms in Atlanta, I had diagnosed myself with Malaria III: The Malaringing.

(When I told Jon this story, he said, "The only thing worse than having malaria is having malaria in Jersey.")

I slept on the couch all day, wishing that I could enjoy being home, and my mom dragged me into the ER that evening. (The ER was actually really sweet. Compared to the African hospitals I became a little too familiar with, an American hospital was like a fancy hotel!) They gave me two liters of IV fluid and told me that they thought I had typhoid, but I saw an infectious disease specialist the next day (I wondered how many vectors of infection there were in the waiting room) who told me that it was in fact malaria.

But whatever. I felt fine by Wednesday afternoon and went out dancing Wednesday night. Infectious Disease: 3, Emalaria Jones: 0--but at least I kicked the third case's ass fast.

***

Being home has been easier than I expected it to be. I thought I would burst into tears a lot, overwhelmed at consumerism. Instead I vacillate between thinking it's awesome and thinking it's just totally frivolous. For example, I went into the grocery store, and my jaw audibly dropped at the variety of Jellos. I also had a special moment when I saw english muffins. I had forgotten that they exist.

Unfortunately, many of the foods I dreamed of have disappointed me. Pizza, burgers...not as good as I conjured them to be in my state of deprivation. The two things that have blown me away are White Cheddar Cheez Its and sweet corn. Mmmm.

***

Tomorrow, I depart for the next big chapter of my life: six weeks in Portland at a sort of journalism summer camp. I may update this blog again, as I reflect back on my time in Cameroon, I may not. If you haven't had enough of my irrational rants, though, dear readers, I will be writing a blog on Portland. Tune in at hipsterbildungsroman.blogspot.com.