The problem with d'oh! Or d'eau, water.

Water is one of those things that most people in the developed world take for granted. I can honestly say that I am not technically-minded enough to understand how water works. All I know is that sometimes I have it and sometimes I don't. Most recently, water was out for 10 days, making the record of days without water, and also the record number of days without bathing. The reason? The contractors who are building the road for the national agro-pasto comice (scheduled to take place in December, and all they have done is destroyed the sides of the already paved road). A major difference between developing and developed nations is thoughtful planning. The contractors, apparently, decided to start building the road without first talking to the water and electricity societies, meaning they just bulldozed over the existing infrastructure, chewing up our water pipes and electric lines. In addition to breaking the pipes, they also refused to fix them, meaning that until I got really pissed off and went to the regional delegate of agriculture, threatening the impending arrival of my supervisor, nothing happened. And the only reason our water tubes were fixed was because I am white. And also because I demanded justice. There is an expression here, when I am in my rights I don't budge. So, knowing my rights to justice and needing someone to take responsibility, I got water fixed in my village.

With the visit of my director, we visited my supervisor, who is responsible for many of the water projects, Peace Corps and not, in the South. He dragged us all out to a village about 5 km from my house to visit a former water project of a PCV. He told us that there were problems, but I didn't realize the extent of the problem until we talked to the chef of the village. The village, divided into two quartiers, has water conflict issues. They are all the same family, but what does that mean when you see that your water site is a little bit en brousse and the other quartier doesn't have to walk more than a minute to get water. So, the quartier up the hill is not only jealous that their point is less developed, but when there are water problems, it is the first site affected. This, of course, is all determined by the geographical features of the village and the fact that the water point is gravity-fed, not a pump. So vandilism happens. Tubes are broken, whether on accident or on purpose, and fingers get pointed. The chef, of course, denies all responsibility, and blames the quality of tubes, when the committee d'eau never finished their work with burying the tubes, leaving many of the sections exposed above ground. With a motivational talk from Hans, my supervisor, the village seemed to understand that it is their responsibility to take care of their water source, as les etrangers are not affected whether the village of Olem has water or not.

Which brings me to some of the many fears I have with doing my water project. Although the village is wonderful and has a strong sense of community, there are so many things that could go wrong. And once you get used to having an improved water source, it is not easy to go back when something breaks, which it inevitably will.

The rage: This one is going out to my baby's mama.

Le rage, or rabies. Here I am sitting in Yaounde at the Peace Corps office where I rushed in on emergency today to get myself injected with post-exposure rabies vaccine. These past fews weeks I have been dreaming of what blog entry I will write, and a week ago decided it would have to be on dogs in Cameroon. They, by far, have the worst life in the whole country. I realized this about the mother of my puppy, who I used to let into my house and would frequently feed. She came into my life a few weeks after I arrived in village. Papa Billy found her tied up out en brousse. He brought her back to village, and kept her chained up, waiting for someone to claim her. By the time no one came and it was decided that she was officially Papa Billy's new dog, we had become friends. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to run with me, but she would come and keep me company in my house. Until she went into heat. Before I knew it, she was pregnant and everyday I loved seeing how big she was getting. Soon she was HUGE and eventually gave birth to 11 puppies. And then she skipped over her youth and went straight to ragged mama, ca va dire if she were a person, she would be the drunk mother with a cigarette hanging out her mouth, bruises on her face from abusive boyfriends, refusing to nurse her starving baby. You get the picture. By the time I took my puppy from her, she had definitely seen better days; Her nipples are now hanging down like a 50year old mom who has never worn a bra, and her open wounds on her ears wont ever heal because of the flies. I have even started to kick her out of my house and I have stopped sympathetically feeding her.

To top this all off, Thursday she was mal a laisse, and would run up to certain men in village to bark at them. I asked why she was so agitated and Papa Billy replied that one of these men had been given a dog by the commisariate of something. This was a gift of food, though. So she could sense that he had killed a dog and was upset by it. Apparently on top of all the bush meat people eat here, they also eat dog. It is a delicacy that people say tastes good. This is evidently not a ntaionwide practice and probably exists in the more forested areas, because people tend to cultivate less. I accepted that this was the reason for the dog's behavior until Friday night when she would not stop barking at all. I was talking to my landlady and said something about how weird the dog was acting. She said, "Ils nous apprennent ca a l'ecole. C'est le rage." They teach us this in school. It is rabies. OH MY GOD, I thought. She is right, the dog is rabid! Unfortunately, because of our relationship (she will lick my wound-covered hands to greet me) and because my teething puppy is still trying to nurse, I believed that I was exposed to rabies. Yikes! That is scary! To top it all off, after I entered my house for the night, I stopped hearing the dog barking and convinced myself that Papa Billy had taken her en brousse to be killed. Which brought me initially to Yaounde Saturday morning in rush, convinced that on top of compromising my health I would have to kill my puppy.

After taking care of my booster shot, I returned home. Everyone was sitting outside. they all heard that I rushed to Yaounde for the rabies shot, but they all asked me where I was anyway. I told them, and everyone just laughed at me. Apparently the dog had calmed down and was back to her normal self. The next day I spent several hours walking with her, and she was completely normal. Which means that her agitation at the dog eaters was the best explanation. So now I will take my puppy to Yaounde to get him vaccinated because I can not risk another scare like this.

Also, I recently had sweet revenge on a menacing rat that fell into my quarter-full bucket with bleach water and couldn't get out. After 30 hours the thing finally died, and I will be able to sleep more soundly. Take that, rat!