Bogo ‘hut’ 1

I am finally here at the hut in Bogo except it’s not a mud hut, but a small house made of the same stuff I guess but painted. It has 2 large rooms and a bathroom which has a sink, bidet, toilet and shower tray with taps etc but no running water. There is water in the loo, but you have to flush it with a bucket. It’s not exactly dirty but the walls could do with a paint and everything is covered with a fine sandy dust. The sofa, chairs and table are very basic and worn. It has quite a romantic bed frame but fragile wooden slats made of mismatched wood and a large sponge for a mattress which is murder to sleep on in this heat. All mattresses over here seem to be similar.

There is a large cockroach a la Cuba style in my bedroom, but only the one so far. There are six sheep fenced in in the compound.

I need to sort out my hammock so I can sleep outside or a very large fan inside or I am not going to be able to sleep.

The guy who owns the compound is a lawyer in Yaounde and his mother lives here. They speak Fulfulde and no French so we can’t communicate, but yesterday they fixed the bed as it was broken and got someone else in the village to connect the gas canister to the cooking stove which they didn’t have a clue how to do it anymore than I did. One of the younger male members helped me to put up the mosquito net with an overturned pot as the chairs are so fragile in their construction and I am so heavy in comparison with people here that it broke as soon as I stood on it (health and safety – not!) The 2 women insisted I went and ate with them which was basically a large bowl of rice with some red sauce and a thin dried fish (eating together out of one bowl with 3 spoons) followed by a bowl of something that tasted like ground semolina with the consistency of milk. It wasn’t disgusting but I ate and drank a tiny portion and mimed I had a tummy upset which everyone understands here. I couldn’t face anything other than water yesterday. I’m not sick – it’s just so hot. I guess like animals adapt to the heat here by being thin so do the people. It’s not just that some don’t have enough to eat which is also true.