Ashia

Ashia. It's a beautifully pronounced word, either way you say it. You'll here it "AH-she-ah" or "AH-see-ah," depending on whether you're speaking English/Pidgin or French. The context doesn't really matter, it always seems to fit. It means, depending on who you're talking to, something along the lines of "Sorry about that," or maybe "Hang in there." Maybe even a little sarcastic "Sucks to be you." But mostly it's a genuine sentiment expressing sympathy.
So, that being said, ASHIA.
Ashia that I've neglected you. Sorry about that. Really. My reason is, unfortunately, not that I've had limited internet access or time, but rather that I've simply not made Goal 3 a priority. Peace Corps goals:

Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
So I've been actively working on two of three. Thats 66%. It may be a D in the American system, but we're looking at 13/20 in the Cameroonian system, easily seen as passing with flying colors. That being said, Cameroonian culture dictates that if you don't CONSTANTLY (maybe even multiple times a day) update your friends and family about your whereabouts and activities, there's something wrong. So ashia.

The reality is that it's tough. Making time isn't as much of an issue as making mental space. The Peace Corps prepares you to adjust to living in a new culture, but doesn't always prepare you to live in three cultures simultaneously. To be a Peace Corps volunteer means living in three worlds at once: your American culture, the host country culture world around you, and the culture of PCVs - others like you who are trying to cope with meshing the two countries' cultures, resulting in a third culture, a creole culture with some unique aspects of its own.
So at some point in the last year of my life, the term "culture shock" stopped referring to bush taxis, palm wine, and couscous, strange to my American context, and we PCVs started using the phrase more often to describe tiled floors, air conditioning, and wifi. It began as a joke but becomes more and more true with time. It's uncomfortable, this switching back and forth between cultures, and you become close to those who know a little bit about your other contexts and can relate. The new class of trainees arrived last week, and I was beyond pleased to find that one was from the Kansas City area and had gone to Missouri State (we even had a couple of my favorite professors in common!) and another was from just the other side of Springfield! These are the people I'm going to call when I want to make Bass Pro and Silver Dollar City references, when the yankees and Californians make fun of my accent [YES, there IS a linguistic difference between WINE and WHINE], and when I just generally want to talk about home.

"C'est un question d'habitude" is one of my most commonly used new phrases. "It's a matter of getting used to it." You'd be amazed what you can get used to. You get used to doing housework with no paper towels, cleaning chemicals, vaccum cleaners. You get used to not having running water or consistent electricity or coffeeshops or bookstores. You get used to not driving. You get used to having to recharge your phone credit every few days if you get too chatty. You get used to French and to not understanding the local language. You get used to never fitting in. You get used to the marriage proposals and the sexual harrassment, to the mud and to bright sunlight. You get used to not hearing from your family for over a week at a time. You get used to seeing pictures of your friends' engagements, marriages, and babies from home. You get used to always wanting to write home but never knowing where or how to start, for fear that you've become a different person in the mean time and your friends won't have any context to understand the New You that's writing to them. And so you put it off.

But none of these new norms and habits fully sink in, The only thing I've TRULY, deeply becomed accustomed to in the past year (or perhaps I should say the last three years, for those of you who know my life a little) is being unaccustomed. A year into Peace Corps service and I'll be the first to tell you that it's difficult, yes, but it's worth it a thousand times over. For every hour I've felt homesick or uncomfortable there's been days of happiness or at least general contentment. Cameroon is a beautiful and diverse country, and I'm already proud to have experienced as much as I have here, and I know the next year is going to be every bit as good as the last.

But I also really miss you back home.