I am doing well. The first week in country was pretty boring. we were staying in a hotel in Yaounde and we had meetings and shots and medical interviews at the peace corps office. We were not supposed to go out unless we were going from the hotel to peace corps or back theother direction. We did get an opprotunity to go to a soccor game. It was an exhibition match with the
both sides belonging to the cameroonian national team. we got special
seats on the side of the stadium reserved for special government
officials. toward the end of the second half the people on the opposite
side, in the general admission, got up and moved like flock of birds or a
school of fish towardthe exits. The game was called off and the players
were escorted off the field. Rumor has it that the stadium is built with
a certain amount of give in it and when the stands are full (it was free
admission so there were alot of people there) the staduim moves. The
other rumor is that the staduim is poorly constructed and that is why it
moves. at any rate the people on the lower deck got scared and left in a
hurry.

I am now in training in Banjoun, it is just south of Bafusam. I am
staying with a host family. when I arrived the mother was in the hospital
and there was a sister and two highschool age brothers in the house. now
that the mother has recovered, the sister has returned to university in
Yaounde. one of the brothers is visiting another older sibling so there
are only 3 of us in the house right now. Many other trainees have
families with a lot of children and some extra adults as well.

Training is going as well as can be expected. I am learning some french
It seems to be a slow process to me, but when I stop to think that I
have had less than 2 weeks of lessons, I guess i am doing alright. I will
most likely be assigned to the southwest province, most of the available
posts are there. There are three math-science posts in francophone
areas, north and east provinces. since all but one of themath science
voluteers started at the "novice low" french level there is some concern
about who will get stuck there. I indicated in my placement interview
that i would be willing to put in the extra effort to learn french, but I
think he had other people in mind for those spots.

I did some laudry the other day. I washed two pairs of pants and a shirt
and that was enough. I gave therest to my brother to do. he did some
yesterday and finished to day. It is so humid here that things take aout
2 days to dry. I offered to pay for the laudry service but he declined.
although he did say he would like some cookies and apples from town,
since I was comming to Bafusam to the cybercafe.

WILL What did I think?
A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this.
WILL (cont'd) Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.
A beat.
WILL (cont'd) So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President.

What a trip . . . you hop out of the plane and just plummet for thousands of feet -- cheeks waggling madly, clothes flapping, buffeting in the wind, quick glance at the altimeter gauge wheeling around to zero, then a tap on the shoulder, time to pull the rip cord, can't find it, instructor tugs it, quick deceleration as you get out of the cloud cover and then hanging free, moving slowly over an enormous quilt of grass fields and plowed fields and power lines and train tracks and houses and farms . . . pull on the togs to turn this way and that, practice the landing form, then coast in for an easy landing, standing up . . . people rush in to grab the parachute . . . and it's over. The only problem: it wasn't long enough. I definitely want to do this again.

i think we get an idea of jesus'
feelings on the matter when we compare his treatment
of women to that common (as i understand it) in
first-century rabbinic judaism. as far as the early
church, it looks like women were taking their freedom
in christ so far that paul had to write and ask them
not to "lord it over" (the verse is commonly
translated "have authority over") a man.
and in another way, i agree [that] to some extent the proof of spiritual claims is in the pudding. if i experience what i
can't help but understand as spiritual growth under a
woman's tutelage, that OUGHT to affect my position on
women in office. the bible safeguards us from
deriving wrong lessons from experience, but in some
ways too our experience must safeguard us against
wrong interpretations of the bible. for example, the claim that "god is love" only means something to people who have some idea what love is. ... i have to import something from my life in this way in order to be able to read the bible
without going #E$ing insane.

Baseball's declining crowds are hardly a secret. Attendance is down 3.2 percent from this time last season -- and that was down 6 percent from 2001.
But some places have it worse than others. Milwaukee, for instance. Only two
seasons after Miller Park opened, crowds are averaging 17,300 -- some 4,400
less than last season. At the same time, the season-ticket base has dropped
below 8,000 full-season packages, a level not seen since the mid-'90s at old
County Stadium. It's so bad that team officials are thinking about shutting
down the upper deck. "Yes, we're looking at it," Richard Cox, the Brewers'
vice president of stadium operations, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
"But there are lots of implications. We are reviewing our options and we'll
explain them to our staff." The action would mean moving about 400
season-ticket holders from the upper deck to lower sections. Tom Olson, who
heads Sportservice, the Brewers' concessionaire, is all for it. "I say let's
concentrate on where the people are," said Olson. "If there are a few
hundred people up there, let them move down." No word if this affects Bernie
Brewer.