Monday December 1st, 2003
Izadore left me two giant squashes before I headed to Yaoundé. Today, I cut them, and cook them. I make enough soup to feed us for a week. It takes about 6 hours of cooking over a slow (gas.. yay) flame. It is spicey, and good. I use lots of spices that I bought in Yaoundé. Did I mention that? I did manage to find time to do a bit of shopping for spices. I have also noticed that Lightwave (my 3d application) doesn’t play well with Panther (my new OS). The good news is that I have enough work to do on other things, that it isn’t a major problem.. but who knows when I am going to be able to get the next version of Lightwave… and that is a problem. It is supposed to be released this year, but rarely do launch dates actually match up with the press realease… and then, of course, it has to get to the VSO office, and finally, I have to pick it up. Sigh. My guess is that no 3d until sometime in January or Feburary. That is what I get for upgrading like that. The good news is that everything else works, and After Effects 6 is a great upgrade. They pretty much improved all of my favorite things.. So, I’m really looking forward to playing with it.
Alex came in with some sort of story about how all of the kids at the highschool were not going to be able to take their exams because the local photographer took their pictures, took their money, and was nowhere to be found; and a dossier without photos is a captial crime… so no photo, no dossier, no exams… etc. So, after some negotiating with Alex over terms and timing, I agreed to take the pictures. My terms were: they all come at once, because I didn’t want to be hassled every five minutes when another student showed up, and I wanted to get paid enough to reimburse the precious supply of photo paper that I have here (I have had a hard time finding more paper, and what I have is limitted). He agreed, and the mayhem began. It was originally 15 students. When all was said and done, it was somewhere in the low 30’s. For the most part, they came in one bunch, and Alex did deal with the organization… until the evenening, when a slow and steady trickle of students heard that I was taking pictures, and kept stopping by. I said no to everyone, and told them to organize a group for tomorrow through Alex.
The difficult part is that many of the students can’t really afford even my reduced prices (I charge half of what the going rate is here)… so by asking for any money at all, I am exluding many kids. If I don’t charge, I’m going to be completely burried in requests. More importantly, I will be constantly hassled for one or two photos at a time.