Heartbroken

Guys, there is always going to be in your dating life, that first girl that you spend so much time and energy going after and end up heartbroken.The one that at that moment you are ready to do anything for, in order to win her over.I was working at the time at Radio Shack and I had earlier met her at an engagement party.She said that I used to be her teacher back home and she introduced herself.We danced a couple of records and I did not pay much attention to her after that.At the time, she looked at little bit too young and I had different thinks in my mind.At this party,a winter jacket that I had recently bought was stolen, so I was not in a good mood for a while after the engagement party.We did not exchange any numbers and I had totally forgot about her.I ran into her one day on my way to work and it turn out she did not live too far away from where my job side was.She had also at this time loose a little bit of weight and that made her less appealing to me at the time .She knew now where I worked and promise to be stopping by to at least to say hi and talk to me.She did that a couple of times and later, she kind of disappeared.I did not see her for some time.All of a sudden, out of the blue she appeared one sunny afternoon and I took one look at her and I was like "whoa".She was a completely transformed woman.She had put on a couple of pounds, and this was at all the right places.She had on some shorts that reached at the knees,her legs looked totally groomed.All of a sudden I just find myself fallen for her.I asked for her number and she gave it to me.We talked for a while and she left.My friend and co-worker,Steve John could not help but commenting that "Afro-women are built men".I got some directions from her and told her that I will pay her a visit sometime.I did pay her a surprise visit sometime but thinks did not go on as I had planned.It was a surprise visit all right,I arrived at her door, knock on it and when she opened the door and saw that it was me, her altitude changed completely.I do not think at the time that her feelings towards me, were the same as I was feeling towards her.She did invite me in though.We talked for a while,general discussion.She told me about the hard times she went through with an uncle of hers before deciding to rent a place for herself.I left after sometime,with my romantic intentions all choked up inside me.Memo to the guys and girls,until you know that your relationship is really in an advanced stage,surprise visits are not a good idea.I strongly believe it is always a good idea to call, especially when you are dealing with females.For your guy friends, its okay to just pop-in, but that is not a cool move towards the ladies.Anyway, I had learn my lesson.She did continue to visit me at work though, but I had to play the waiting game to build up some trust before making my next move.The next move in the relationship came after I had left Radio Shack and I had gotten a job with Circuit City Stores.I had some extra cash available at the time and I also had some wheels too.I started buying her some gifts to try and win her over.I would buy her gifts like watches, take her to the shopping mall and spend like 100dollars on gift items.She was shocked at this,but I did not give her the chance to refuse the gift items.I would call her and we will talk.I would give her a ride to work.Sometimes,I would go pick her up from work and take her to her place.It looked like she had total control over what relationship we had.I tried to get laid quite a number of times but it did not work.She will play me around and say she had her exams coming soon, that I should just wait until the exams are over and we will get going.I will believe her, but as soon as the examinations are over, I would not hear from her anymore.It will be a while, and right out of the blue she will just called.She had become really attractive thought, and at this time in my life, I could not deal too well with attractive women.I came close to getting laid at one point when she called me up to give her a ride from work.I believed she was having problems with somebody, it might have been her old boy friend.I gave her a ride and she invited me in.She prepared some food and she had this all inviting look and ways about her.I stayed at her place and we talked and kissed with no complains from her part.Close to about 11pm, she excused herself and went and took a shower.It seemed like she had already made up her mind to sleep with me.She changed into her pajamas and I could not believe this was happening.She had rejected me so many times,I had just given her a ride without any expectations.As a matter of fact,though I still found her attractive, I had made peace with myself that if she never puts out to me,that will be okay.We went to her bedroom and she closed the door.We sat on the bed,about to get into action,when a late phone call came in.I could not believe my luck.It must have been her guy calling to make sure that she was not messing around.She talked and argued with the guy for a while and when she did hang up the phone, her attitude had totally changed.She was not in the mood anymore.I did not at the time,had the discipline to sleep with a woman on the same bed without engaging in something.I made up my mind,said good bye and left to go to my apartment at White Oak.

Ben Franklin U

Benjamin Franklin was an Accounting institution that I attended for a period of time,while I lived at Sligo avenue,Silver Spring, MD.I was in the process of trying to get my status regularised, and I did not want to stay out of school for an extended period of time.The school was attended mostly by professionals looking to pick some courses for a future examination such as a CPA or other accounting form of certification.There was no immigration requirement to attend the school,all you had to do was pay your course fees and you were ready to go.Ema,Wilfred,s girlfriend, told me about the school, and had mentioned how a number of Cameroonians had gone through the institution.At this time, I could not get admission into Howard University.My plans, were to go to Benjamin Franklin, take enough accounting courses and sit for the CPA examination.The school fees was reasonable at the time.I met a Cameroonian student there also, Albert Nguni.The guy used to give me a lift back from classes,quite an outgoing fellow also.There was an international student from the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire.We also had in my introductory classes, two fellows who were presently in the military.I also remember a Cameroonian lady who was married at the time with a kid.For the first semester at Ben Franklin, I registered for a number of courses, including a course in intermediate accounting.I had already completed the principles of Accounting courses while at Tri-County Technical College.The Accounting course was taught by a relatively young lady who worked full time for the Internal Revenue Services.I remember her vividly because she had a real sporty red vehicle, and she was quite full of life and vigor.I did real well in her class and I immediately became one of her favourite students.She mentioned her husband quite a bit during lectures, and later on had him substitute for her in a number of occasions.I took two intermediate Accounting classes with the lady, passed both of them with A grades before she terminated her teaching duties with the school.I remember a course also in History that I took.The student body was diversified.We had a lot of open discussions in this class about various topics, including early pregnancy in the African American population.I remember the lady from Jamaica, good looking, very vociferous in the class.She had suggested that part of the solution might be for the young ladies to start early masturbation.She idea sounded so strange and wild at the time.Come to think of it, she was just a little bit ahead of her time.I admired her courage a lot, as she defended her position.Benjamin Franklin University ran into financial difficulties about one year into my studies there.GW, George Washington University,stepped in and had an agreement in which students from Ben Frank would continue their studies at its famous university up till graduation.The tuition was to stay the same for the chosen students.All you had to do was go through a formal interviewing process with an administrator from GW.Some of my colleagues opted to go to GW, who would not want that option?I could not because I got eliminated in the interviewing process.It turned out that I had made an error in the application form for getting admitted into Ben Frank U.At the time, the application into Ben Frank U was mainly a formality.Nobody checked on what you wrote on it.Unfortunately for me, the guys from GW were pretty strict.They had gone through all the applications and even brought them for the interviewing process.I had mentioned that I was born at the time in Washington DC, which is quite a stretch.Washington DC, is far from Besongabang,Mamfe,to everybody that knows a little bit about this two places.That is how I missed out on a once in a life time opportunity.I was to learn my lesson after this.Always stick to the truth,you never know.Highly disappointed, I was to get my consolation when I got admitted into Howard University School of Business in the fall of 1988.

Lost property

I had a major setback in life when I lost a lot of my personal property while living in White Oak,Silver Spring.At this time, I worked at Circuit City and was rooming with Charles Tita and his live in girlfriend from Kenya,Lydia Kitsitu.Lydia, was instrumental in the breaking up of the relationship between Margaret and Charles.When we decided to give up the apartment at sligo avenue, Lydia helped us to get the apartment at White Oak.We lived at White Oak for some time before Charles got a teaching job at Shaw University in Raleigh,North Carolina and left Lydia and I in the apartment.He came back for a lot of weekends,making the long drive down I85 and I95 towards Maryland.Lydia and Charles had a female child and I believe child support payment was the root course of their eventually splitting up.Lydia, wanted more money for child support, Charles claimed that the money he was providing her for child support was more than adequate.It got to the extend that Lydia decided to end the relationship with Charles and we had to give up the apartment.Charles had all of his belongings with him in North Carolina.I had all of mine park up and I was making arrangements for a new place of resident.I took some clothes with me and left them at Epie Mathius,s place,he was a friend of mine.I then arranged for transportation to go and get the rest of my belongings.When I got there, my room had been broken into and the rest of my belongings were gone.Lydia, had arrange with the guys that were helping her move to broke into my room and steal my belongings.Clothes that I had bought over the years were all gone.I had worked at Radio Shack and I was presently working for Circuit City.Electronic equipments that I had purchased over the years were all gone.Vcrs,Tv set,speakers,cd player,tape cassette deck,audio surround sound system,audio cassettes,cds,video cassette tapes, they were all gone.Over the years, I had also recorded movies,soccer events,football games,boxing events,basketball and significant happenings on video cassettes.Those were all stolen.School textbooks,shoes,bed,mattress etc etc.Everything was gone.I had to start life from scratch and it was very painful.I went to the police and filed a report.I was given a couple of options, the "better"one being for me to try and contact Lydia and somehow persuade her to return my properties.The police were asking me for serial numbers of the missing electronic items.That is the best way that the stolen items could be tracked.They also said that I could take her to court if she would not cooperate.Of course, she did not cooperate and I had to take her to court.My reason for taking her to court, was that even if I do not get a favorable judgement, I would drag her through the judiciary system and get her name on record of being accused of theft.A future judgement or accusation will not be treated lightly.A court date was set,she showed up for court,after spending money to hired an attorney.The case was dismissed for lack of evidence but we both knew what the facts were.This is one of the reasons that I started to dread the idea of living with roommates.It took me years and a lot of money to replace the missing items.A lot of them could not be replaced at all.

Passing the CPA examination

The CPA examinations comprises four major sections;Business Law,Auditing,Financial Accounting and Accounting & Reporting.To receive a pass grade, you have to score at least a 75 out of 100 in any of the sections.If you pass two sections in one sitting, you can carry the results over,that way, you only have to sit for the remaining two sections.In college, you get to take a lot of Accounting courses that will cover most of the material that will appear in the examinations.Business Law,was probably the section that I received the least exposure to while at Howard University.I did Business Law 1&2,and that was it.When you do a little bit of research, you will come across a lot of advise on how to pass the examination.The most important one is probably, to begin by enrolling in a review course.I had to take the exam twice before passing all four sections.The best review course at the time was offered by Becker CPA Review.I would not be surprise if it is still the best CPA review course out there.In college, you are taught on how to be good in Accounting.Becker CPA review teaches you how to pass the CPA examinations.I first enrolled for all four sections in the fall of 1997,planning to sit for the exam in May of 1998.The fees for the four sections amounted to about 1200dollars.This included all the reading materials and practical worksheets that is provided to you.You get to choose between attending classes during the evenings;from about 6pm to 9.30pm two days a week or to attend classes all Saturday and Sunday.Most people that sit for the exams are already working people.They have jobs to go to.That is why most of the review courses will be scheduled late in the evening.The classes consisted mostly of a brief lecture on the subject matter and then you get down to some practical work.You get to do a lot of past questions.Home work is assigned at the end of each class.Any particular area of difficulty on the homework, is first taken care of before you move to a new topic.During the period that you are preparing for the examination, you are advised to study daily.Stick to the advise.Spend at least three hours daily,preparing for the exam.In order not to get bored,pick up a different section,when you feel a little bit overwhelmed by a particular section.I used to start each preparatory session,by doing a little bit of reading.Later on I will switch to either doing homework or practising on past questions.I can not place enough emphases the importance of past questions.There are only that many questions that could be asked in the examination, in one form or the other.So the more past questions you practised on the better your chances of passing the examination.Also try and attend all the classes.When I was in college, I had to work full time and attend school to keep up with my financial obligations.The only way that I survived college was to attend all my lectures.It is amazing how little reading you have to do when you keep up with all your lectures.The same rules apply for the review classes.Try and attend all of them.Becker,s CPA review had a section for Monday and Wednesdays and another for Tuesdays and Thursdays.Do not panic if you miss a class.Just attend one of the other classes.They are flexible.They will allow to attend any of the sessions.The actual review classes run for about three months.They take you until about a week into the examination.You are given a week off for final home review.By this time,you should have completed all the material.The day before your first exam section,get a lot of sleep,do not bother trying to master any more material.All your studies should have been done by now.Even during the four days or so that you sit for the exam,do mainly light review,do not panic,all the material that you had mastered will not disappears from your memory.It will be all there when you sit for the exam.When I took the exam for the first time, I was living in Hyattsville,Maryland.My grades I believe were;70,71,70,72 in no particular order for the four sections.A number of reasons accounted for my not passing the exam the first time.One,I did not take the review courses seriously enough.I did most of the homework,but not all of them,I attended most of the classes, but not all of the classes.To cap it all, i showed up late the first day of the exam.I got stuck in traffic, on I-95 going towards Baltimore.This totally threw my concentration off and I was not the same throughout the remainder of the other sections.If it is possible,during the three days or so that you sit for the exam,try and arrange for accommodation close to the examinations site.Or,plan on arriving very early everyday as I did during the November section and spend the extra time doing some light review before the morning exam.After coming so close the first time around,I was determined to make it the next time.I attended all the review classes,did all the homework and showed up on time for the exam.The week prior to the exam,I spent doing many light review.Also throughout the exam period, I did not spend a lot of time studying.I got a lot of rest,did very light review and everything feel into place.As a matter of fact, once the exam started, it was very boring for me to master any new material.I found out that once I opened the examination questions,all that I had studied came back to me.My passing grades were; Business Law80,Auditing81,Accounting & Reporting80 and Financial Accounting85.I remembered the day I got the results in my mail box.I called Agbor,my brother in Atlanta, and I said"guess what Agbor,I passed the CPA examination.

Deciding on becoming a CPA

Finishing college, is one thing and getting a job in the field that you studied, is quite another.One of the difficulties that foreign students face is that they have to go through so much just to try and graduate from college.Summers, are spend on a second job, as you struggle to pay down some of the bills that you have accumulated throughout the school year.Summers, are also when as a student vying to eventually get into the job market,you are suppose to intern with different companies.This is when you pick up the job experience that companies ask for when you are interviewing.Unfortunately,during internship,you do not get paid any wages.So, internship is not a luxury that everybody can afford.I got out of college planning to land a job in accounting, after graduating with a GPA of 3.01.Nice GPA,but my resume showed working experiences as a sales person with Radio Shack and Circuit City.I could not even begin to count the number of interviews that I went to.All the companies were impressed with my college degree,they like the fact that I was an accounting major,but in the end you get passed over for somebody with some job experiences.This was the case with a lot of my friends and country men abroad.I got tired of job hunting after a while and concentrated on my job with Circuit City.The pay was not bad,school was over anyway and the money that I made was used to clear up some overdo bills and current expenses.This was the advantage that I had coming out of college.I had job experience already,though not in the field that I would have preferred it to be.I was in the consumer electronics industry.A hot area of course during the early and late 90s.I would work for Circuit city for about 4 years before I began to get tired of the place.I started to look at different options.I looked into Computer Sciences.This would have involved my going back to school, more schooling means more school fees that I was trying to avoid.I decided that the logical step was to start preparing to become a CPA(Certified Public Accountant).The decision was made around 1997 and I started to do some research.Qualifying as a CPA would allow me to at least practise on my own if I could not get employment in a Public Accounting firm.

Finishing College

I battled a lot in the US trying the achieve the one reason that brought me to the country in the first place.When I was in Secondary and High school back home, my dream was that I will finish my education with a PHD.Reality steps in though, when you actually start pursuing that dream.Life in a foreign country is first about survival and later on education.I know of quite a few people you did not just bother to get a college education once they arrived the US.Some of they are barely existing.A few had figured out that you do not need a PHD to become rich, or well to do as we all taught in our younger days.We read about a lot of CEO,s and they started out in their companies in junior positions and gradually climbed to the top of their organisations.Most of them are BA holders.Very few of them hold a PHD.I did a lot of reading in the US, especially during periods that I was not enrolled in school.In one of the books, the Arthur advised on how to achieve your dreams in life.If you dream was to be rich one day, the earlier you start generating some king of income the better.Spending all your life in school will not get you there any faster.This is one of the reasons that, after I graduated from Howard University, I decided that school was over for me.It took me five years to graduate from Howard instead of the customary four, because I was out of school for quite a lot of semesters due to financial reasons.By the time I graduated It was quite a relief.I still owed the school some money.I was to take care of that latter.To graduate from college you needed to have accumulated at least 120hours of college credit.That divides to about 30credit hours each year.Once you feel that you have enough credit hours, you go to the registration office and sit down with one of the consultants.They start going through your college credits.They go through your electives, put a check mark to indicate completion.Later on they get on your selected major.To graduate in your major, you have to also complete a certain number of courses in the selected subject.They make sure that all the requirements in your major had been met.You are then given a validations slip showing that you have completed the educational requirements to graduate.You get your picture taken, so that it will be posted with the rest of the members of your graduating class.A book is published with each graduating class and your photo size picture gets to appear on it.I was thus, a member of the Howard University School of Business, graduating class of June 1992.Due to financial constraints, I did not get to pick up my certificate until June of1994,that was when I completed paying all the fees and dues owed to Howard University.

Champions league final 2008

The UEFA champions league final is usually a great festival.This year, it was organised in Luzhniki stadium,Moscow,with two English teams playing for the trophy, for the first in the history of the competition.Michel Platini,UEFA,s current boss is trying to broadened the appeal of the game,which explains the 2005 finals been held in Istanbul and last years final in Athens,Greece, while this one was held in Moscow.The two teams that made it to the finals were Manchester United(The Red Devils) and Chelsea football club of London,England.Manchester United was attempting to win the trophy for the third time,while this was Chelsea,s first participation in the final game.Manchester United and Chelsea FC have been great rivals of late, with Manchester United barely edging out Chelsea for the Premier league title this season on goal differences.Both clubs have some star power.With Manchester United,you have to start with their manager,Sir Alex Ferguson.The guy has been knighted some time ago, so he is not your everyday coach.United also has Portuguese international, Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the world,s best soccer player at the moment.There is also Carlos Tévez, the Argentine international, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinard, both English internationals and Dutch international star goalkeeper,Edwin Van der Sar.For Chelsea,the star power does not start with their coach.Avram Grant, the current coach is rumoured to be gone after this finals, no matter the results.Chelsea,s star coach used to be Jose Mourinho,who is currently in the job market.Chelsea does have a star owner in the name of Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire who bought the London based club after having made his fortune in the Russian Oil Industry.For the star players, Chelsea has a lot of them.Didier Drogba, their leading goal scorer and Ivorian international, Micheal Essien, the Ghanian international, John Terry, Frank Lampard, both English internationals,Michael Ballack, the German midfield maestro and Petr Cech, their goalkeeper.United had won the trophy twice before.In 1958 and more recently in 1999.Most United supporters will remember 1999, because in was the year in which they achieve the "treble", winning the premier league title, the FA cup and finally the European Champions league on May 26th 1999.That champions league run had a lot of great moments, the semi final match up was against a Juventus of Turin team that had the likes of Zanetti and a certain french man called Zidane.The teams tired 1-1 at Old Trafford stadium, before United went to Turin and snatched a 3-2 victory, being two goals down after just 11 minutes of play.United heroes that day included, former Trinidad and Tobago international star striker,Dwight York and his sidekick of the season, Andy Cole.The drama in the finals will be talked about for a long time to come.United went down 1-0 just after six minutes of play.The full 90 minutes will go by without an equaliser.Bayern Munich,s officials were getting ready to start popping the champagne.Three minutes of added time was all it took for the drama to unfold.Goals from super subs, Terry Sherringham and Ole Gunner Solskjaer after two David Beckham corner kick crosses, made the final score,United 2,Bayern Munich 1.There was drama in Wednesday,s United victory over Chelsea, in the form of extra time and the dreaded penalty kicks to settle the final outcome.Cristiano Ronaldo, opened the scoring with a great header in the 26th minute of play from a Wes Brown cross in.That was Ronaldo,s 42nd goal for the season for United in all competition.What a remarkable season he has had.Chelsea equalised on a chip in from a Michael Essien,s deflected long range shot in the 45th minute by Frank Lampard.That will be all the scoring in open play.Chelsea came close to scoring twice,Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard both were denied by the woodwork.Drogba got himself thrown out of the match deep into the second period of extra time,intentionally hitting United,s defender Nemanja Vidic on the face.Penalty shoot out saw Tévez convert for united,Ballack for chelsea,Carrick for United,Belletti for Chelsea,Ronaldo came,break his stride and missed for United.Frank Lampard made it 3-2 advantage Chelsea,Hargreaves scored for United to make it 3-3,Ashley Cole made it 4-3 for Chelsea,Nani tired it at 4 a piece for United.First "goat" of the match has to be John Terry.All he had to do,is step up and covert and Chelsea FC will be crowned European Champions.Terry slipped while taking his shot and missed slightly off the right post.United were back in it.Anderson and Ryan Giggs will convert for United.Ivorian international, Kalou scored for Chelsea.Second" goat" of the match has to be Nicolas Anelka.The guy had such a brilliant career start with Arsenal before prematurely forcing his way to a Real Madrid team loaded with so many great players.Lack of playing time and off the field activities saw his international career also suffer.As he walked to take his kick, you just knew he was going to crumble under pressure.He did,having his spot kicked saved by Edwin van der Sar.Heroes of the night;Cristino Ronaldo,Edwin van der Sar,Frank Lampard,the whole United team for bagging their third champions league trophy.Final score(6-5)Manchester United over Chelsea FC after penalty shoot outs.

The Lectures and school curriculum

Lectures at Howard university could start as early as 8am in the morning.This was very convenient if you happened to live around school campus.It could be a problem though, if you stay far from campus.I had quite a few experiences with some of this early classes.The first one,was when I took a course in Public Speaking, taught by Miss Brown.The class was quite open and we had a lot of frank and open discussions.It was in this class that I first met Kevin.Anyway, it was an 8am class and the class had quite a few international students in it.There was a heated discussion about African students and their relationship with their African brothers in the US.One of the shocks that will hit you went you get to the US, is to find out that the "brothers"there are quite a whole different set of people.It,s funny because with the same skin colour, you would think they will be our natural friends right away.That is definitely not the case.I was shocked, when in one of the discussions, a student mentioned that people in Africa were responsible for selling into slavery, black people that now live in the US.It,s amazing, the difference between both cultures.In Africa, people do not even mention slave trade at all.People like myself cannot even trace a family relative to the slave trade period.Anyway,it was a big shock to me.I am a very frank person and I did my best to defend myself.I told the class that one of the things you noticed when who get into this society, is that people are not friendly at all.The response coming from Kevin,was that African students like to keep to themselves.As to their being open to foreigners, the response was"you can visit somebody anytime you want to, but they have the right to choose whether they want to welcome you or not.We did a lot of class presentations.The class helped a lot because everybody got called up to stand in front of the class, and presented an extensive history of their life.We all got to know each other.I was always under the illusion that it was only foreign students that had personal problems, but after listening to one student talk after another, that illusion totally changed.Students talked about their credit card problems,about having to pick up numerous jobs to keep up with their "shopping addictions".At the end of the semester, we all took a lot out of the class and most of us stayed friends for quite some time.I did remember quite a few people, including myself, arriving late though, for the final examinations.Luckily, the final grade was based on performance throughout the semester.School curriculum, are designed to help students go through college smoothly.Unfortunately, as students, we always think that we know best.I remember enrolling into an advance course in mathematics and battling all semester to end up with a gentleman,s C grade.As a matter of fact I actually had a D grade in the course, but after pleading with the lecturer, it was curved to a C pass grade.To be fair, at this time I was pulling a crazy 11pm to 7am shift in one of my jobs.So I could barely stay awake during the lectures.I explain all this to the professor, together with the fact that school is really tough on foreign students.Anyway, the point I am trying to make here is that if you are attending college, take your time and go through it following the school curriculum.It is designed to help the students.If you are a freshman, please stick to the freshman courses.I did take some advanced classes without first taking the electives, and it was later on,when I took the electives, that I started to realise how important taking this early courses were to help you in the future.In my senior year, I remember taken a math course to try and improve on my earlier C grade.It this time, I had taken all the electives in the course.I breezed threw the class easily, as I witness some students repeat my earlier mistakes.The lecturer, at one time praise me about "providing senior leadership", after one of the test that we took.The math mystery had suddenly disappeared.The same principle applies to all the subjects.Forget about ego, go through the electives and by the time you become a junior, school will be such a breeze.For example, take the case of accounting, which was my school major.Start with principles of accounting 1&2,take intermediate accounting 1&2 and once you have mastered these, cost,management,federal tax 1&2 and advanced accounting will all fall into place.

Paying school fees

Throughout my educational life, I have been lucky enough to get admission into various government institutions.It started with government primary school Ndongo, in which I spend seven years.I passed the common entrance examination and the interview and spend the next five years in government bilingual grammar school Molyko,Buea.A token school fees of about nine thousand francs CFA was introduced during my second year at Buea.It was paid by those that lived in the dormitory.I passed, the GCE ordinary levels and spend two years at CCAS kumba.You guessed it, it was a government high school, no fees paid.I did a stink at the University of Yaounde for a year.During this time, no fees where paid either.As a matter of fact, the government gave us an allowance of 25thousands francs monthly for living expenses.Everything was to change when I arrived the US.My first year at Tri-County Tech was taken care of by my brother.The fees was not that much to begin with.When I got admitted into Howard University, the fees was 2000dollars a semester.There were two semesters yearly, excluding summer school.The first year at Howard, I did not have much problems coming up with the money because I had been saving money for school for the past two years or so.I cruised past the first year and had the advantage of working throughout the summer,paying down some credit card bills, while preparing for the fall semester.Fall semester went okay, but I ran into some problems during the Spring Semester.This was during the period that I had lost my job at Burns Security.The money that I was earning at Radio Shack could not cover all my expenses.I hard to drop out of school and it was a very difficult period for me.There was to be one other semester that I stayed out of school .Education, as I found out in the US, requires financing.US citizens, the ones whose parents are not well to do, apply for student loans, grants and other forms of scholarships.This is how they take care of their financing,so once they come to school, they concentrate on their studies.These options are not available to foreign students.I was to be taught a number of tricks that would help me during difficult periods in the future.The most popular one used by a lot of foreign students was to apply for one course and paid the fees for the single course.Once your fees are paid, your payment slip is validated.It did not matter how many subjects you choose, so long as the fees for each subject was paid.Once you are validated in the finance department, you can then go back to the registration office and pick up additional courses for the semester.You still had to pay for the courses before the next semester.You did buy yourself some time though.We had to pay for our textbooks also.There was a fellow who lived in DC, you could get used textbooks from him.Smaller textbooks, you just made photocopies of the chapters that you needed.I graduate from Howard University in the Summer of 1992, but did not pick up my BA certificate until the summer of 1994.That was when I had completed the payment of all the fees that I owed the school.

Higher education

When I arrived Washington DC in the summer of 1986, I spend some time adjusting to the environment, taking care of myself while attempting to save money for further education.My plans was for me to get a degree in accounting before looking at other educational opportunities.I started researching schools and settled on Howard University.This is a predominantly black institution located on Georgia avenue in downtown Washington DC.So many prominent African-American personalities had attended the institution.At the time that I attended Howard University, it had a population of about 25000 students.There was a large African student population there also.The tuition was also very reasonable, the federal government provided aid to the school as some kind of minority assistance.I met the person in charge of admissions and presented them with my grades from Tri-county technical college and they had me request for an official transcript to be mailed directly from my former institution to Howard University.I was to begin school in the fall of 1988.That was about two years after I had arrived Washington DC.I lived, at the time in Sligo avenue, Silver Spring and took the bus to school.Let me introduce some of my friends at Howard University at this time.I can think of Leke, Andy, John, Burnley,Peter Asanga,Henry Foumbo,Marie,Patrick and kevin, just to name a few.Leke was from Nigeria, he drove a cab to make a living while attending school. John was from Ghana.Andy and Burnley were from Cameroon, we took a lot of classes together and attended quite a few parties together also.Peter and Henry are friends that I had known back home.Patrick was from the Caribbean island and quite a colourful character.Marie was from the Democratic Republic of Congo, then called Zaire.Kevin, was born in the USA.We did not get along when we first met, but we became very good friends as the years went bye.Kevin was in the military as part of a programme, were you receive financial assistance while serving part time duty in the military.We all were accounting majors.Accounting was a very hot field at the time,difficult but still popular.You had to attend all the classes.You had to do all the homework.You miss one single class and you will never catch up the rest of the semester.Burnley, started out as a computer science major but later on switch to accounting.

Security Work

While I was at Radio Shack,the full time job that I had at Fantle's drug store came to an end, and I had to look for another full time job.A friend of mine, Edie, informed me about a Security company that was hiring around the Silver Spring area.The name of the company was "Burns' Security".The place had quite a few Africans working there, mostly Cameroonians.I applied for the job in Vienna, Virginia and after being hired, was send to the Silver Spring location to begin duty.Edie, Nick,Nambeke Edward, Ernest, to name just a few were some of the names of the guys that worked at the company.There were various working shifts, including the 11pm to 7am shift, the 7am to 3pm shift and lastly the 3pm to 11pm shift.Our immediate boss was Ernest, a friend of all of us, so you could pick and worked on what schedule is convenient to you.Most of us either had a second job, or were attending school.The pay was really excellent and the work involved very little stress.You could also get over time duty which pays you time and a half.I had accumulated quite a few credit cards from my schooling during this period and the extra income that I was getting from the security job did help a lot in paying down my debts.The job involved a lot of sitting around also, so most of the time it was convenient to bring in a book and do some reading.In terms of the actual duty, you hard to go around each floor of three big buildings and make sure that everything was secured.Downtown Silver Spring, where we stood guard is quite a pleasant sight.The Silver Spring metro station is just to the right of our location and there were good looking apartment complexes all around the area.A lot of businesses had their offices in the building.American Express was in the building, so was Comcast Cable, Merrill Lynch and a commercial bank.It was a place to make contact for some future appointments.My work at this place ended for some reasons that I still cannot figure out up till today.We had already being hired, worked for about six months, and right out of the blue the company said we were to go through a security back ground check.Remember, this was way before 9/11 was to occur.I had a strong feeling that one of the main office supervisors, who stopped by once in a while did not enjoy my working at the place. I received bad news that I did not pass a security clearance check.I could not think of anything that I could have done that would make me fail a security check.Anyway, I had other issues that prevented me from fighting.I was to passed various background checks in the future. I left Burns Security and had to get by with the part time job at Radio Shack for a long period of time.My income felt drastically and my credit card bills began to mount.I tried in vain to land another job, but it proved to be very difficult.

Early working life

While I was working at Fantle's part time, I stumbled into a Radio Shack and started talking to John, the store manager.Radio shack is part of Tandy Corporation, an electronic chain of stores that spread throughout the US.I got my first sales job working for them sometime around 1988 and I was to stay there for the next five years working in both part time and full time basis.The company paid you either a commission based on your sales or a minimum wage if you were not performing at all. So this was my first chance at being paid based on performance.The company provided you with a lot of training and then threw you on the sales floor to perform.There was a lot of turnover,part of the reason was that people came in and wanted to make a lot of money right away.It usually did not work out that way.Selling takes a lot of time and effort, especially when you are a novice.You have to start with product knowledge.This involves having a thorough knowledge of all what you are going to be selling.In front of the customer,there will be no time for you to go look at owners manual.You could consult with one of your colleagues, but this would not provide a good image for the customer.Once you have the product knowledge down, you have to then build on your confidence in meeting strange people and turning them into your friends.Sales is a trade for patient people only.You have to keep going at it until you can build up a good customer base.There are periods when everything is going to flow easily, mostly during Christmas, when people have a lot of money,have done their home work and are willing to spend it without any questions.Once the Christmas and thanksgiving holidays are over, you are down to selling skills to make a living.I got hired at the Radio Shack in Langley Park, just about the same time as a guy from India called Steve John.His parents and the rest of his brothers and sisters had moved from India and relocated in the US with their dad who worked with the federal government.I came into the electronic industry pretty blank,but he had quite a bit of knowledge.Our original staff consisted of John, the store manager,Tony,an experience sales guy from Jamaica,Donald,who had dropped out from Howard University to take care of family affairs.There was also,Raj,another guy from India, he was in the military and mostly worked part time.Debbie,the lone female in the staff,worked with the federal government full and spend Saturdays and Sundays working with us.At Radio Shack,it was welcome to the world of consumer electronics and later on,personal computers, cellphones and ham radios.The Internet was still to come.Steve introduced me to 401ks, the musical world and saving money in general.This was to aid me a lot latter.I started picking up also on the cultures of the society.I remember at one time one of my co-workers had asked me whether I owned a VCR at home, and I said no and everybody looked at me as if I was from the stone age.Latter on, there will be characters like Doug Posenberg,a guy who claimed to have been a walk-on at Penn State University.He would be dismissed later and investigated for shady activities.Our original manager faced the same problems.Tandy Corporation sued him for a million dollars worth of losses and he had to be tried in a court in Texas.Jeff was to come in later as a manager.He made a lot of noise when he came in about how poorly the store was being ran and he did not last that long either.He had a good looking automobile and his ambition was to own his own laundry business.Mike came in later and by this time, Steve and I were the guys with the know-how in the store.Bonnie Jacobs was to come in later.She invested a lot of money into company stock.You could have seen the expression on her face when Radio Shack stock started appreciating.At this period of time, the idea of owning stock was foreign to me.In sales,especially in a retail stores, there is usually a lot of down time,employees used this time to catch on various activities such as, improving on product knowledge,testing new products,keeping the store tidy and at times plane goofing around.We watched a lot of movies,football games on Sundays.Sundays were the slowest days.

The Move to Washington DC

When I got back to Clemson, my brother had some bad news for me.I was to leave South Carolina because of some immigration issue.After consulting with some of his friends, he decided that the best option was for me to depart for Washington DC.My problem could be better dealt with over there, where there was a large immigrant population.I called Enochong, a cousin of mine in Washington DC and he accepted that I should came stay with him in DC.I parked up my little belongings and boarded the greyhound bus from one of the nearby towns, destination, Washington DC.The journey was long, it took about 13 hours and I arrived at the Silver Spring station and called up my cousin.He came and picked me up and took me to his apartment in Takoma park.The apartment was shared with a lady, Mary Labole, I believe that was her name.They both lived as roommates, nothing more and they both attended the University of the District of Columbia(UDC).It was a school with a large Cameroonian population.The apartment was spacious and we got along with Mary very well.I got a job right away at a McDonald's, located in East-West highway in Bethesda,Maryland.The place was called the "Cameroonian McDonald's" because just about every Cameroonian who arrived DC had worked at the place, at one time or the other.The pay was around four dollars fifty cents an hour and you get a free meal during your work shift.It was not the best of jobs, but it was not bad also for your first gig in town.I pretty much worked during this period, which was winter while I tried to regularised my immigration status so that I could attend school.There was time to watch TV and make some new friends and meet old acquaintances.Peter Asanga, I schoolmate from Lycee Bilingue in Buea was around.Eric Yenika, also from lycee Buea lived nearby.My immediate cousins, Esther and Richard Tambe were all within the area.Peter was to be my close friend for a long time in the US.Eddie Nkwelle, a classmate from CCAS Kumba was around also.We had attended school together in kumba and he had also lived in Tiko, where my parents lived.So there was enough company right away and more was to come.My cousin had gotten married as soon as he arrived Washington DC.He had gotten his immigration status regularised and he could pretty much live where ever he chose to.He got admission into a school in Missouri,in the Midwest and decided to relocated there.I had to look for a different place to live because the rent at my present location was going to be too much for me.I talked to a couple of my co-workers, Wilfred and Nguni, and the three of us decided to rent a place and share the expenses.I did put up with a Cameroonian for about a month or two before we found a convenient location.We found a two bedroom apartment in Sligo Avenue, Silver Spring.We paid a flat rate for rent and all the utilities were included.The area was very convenient, since it was metro accessible.This is important if you do not have a car.You have to live in a location were it will be easy to get a ride through metro to work and to school.The metro system in most big cities are really good and they are also very affordable.Wilfred was to get a car latter, when he met and started dating Emma.She was to move in almost immediately.We did not complain because she came and help us with most of the cooking.Nice Bakweri girl, with a lot of drive and determination.Nguni was not too thrill with the arrangement and we were to split ways latter on.I, Wilfred and Emma found a different apartment at Langley Park,Maryland that we could afford at the time.The rent was decent, but the location was terribly.It was at area filled with drug dealers and you basically had to go passed them on your way home.The place was metro accessible though and we had to deal with living there for the time being.Life as an immigrant consist of patching up living arrangements with people that you have never met in your life sometimes.The good part is that everything is spelled out clearly.Everybody knows that rents are due by the fifth of each and every month.You knew you had to get a job, which everybody did and you knew you had to stay out of trouble.Anyway, during this period I met and dated Melvis,Cameroonian girl who was originally from the West Province of Cameroon.Emma and Wilfred got concerned about my lonely ways and introduced my to her.Lovely lady, hard working.We met when she was working at the McDonald's at East-West Highway and I had gotten a job at a Sports and health club.We got along very well for sometime before trouble set in.Relationships are sometimes tough to maintain when you are barely fighting for survival.Anyway, she spent quite a bit of time with me after work and we did have a good time while it lasted.While at Langley Park, Agbor and Shirley did visited a couple of times.They slept over after being to Kilimanjaro, the nightclub in DC ran by the guy from east Africa.They did advise us to try and look for a more convenient place to live.We promised to do just that, thought it was not going to be easy.Two keys words, "Credit History",a good one of cause, you need that to be able to do just about anything.Rent an apartment, buy stuff on credit, rent a car, get a good job, etc, etc, etc.If takes time to build one up.So we had to wait until we could find somebody with a good credit history to help co-sign for an apartment for us.It took us about two to three years, but we did find a kind fellow who at the time worked at the Cameroonian embassy in Washington DC.We find a third roommate, Wilson and got a place back at Sligo avenue, this time from across the street from 700 sligo avenue.The new address was 735 sligo avenue and we rented a three bedroom apartment.Wilfred lived with Emma, they had a very long-term relationship,Wilson had his own room, while I had mine.The location was good, the living room was large and we got a lot of praise about how nice our apartment was.We were to stay at this location for a very long time.I would say about five to seven years.At one time Wilfred and Emma left, but they were replaced by another couple, Charles and Maggi.I was to graduate from Howard University, made a party a the location before we finally gave it up.While I was at this location, I got a part time job at a place called Fantle's Drugstore.The place was located in Wheaton, Maryland and a lot of Africans worked there.Getting a job is networking, that is why at times when you come to a place, all you see are people from the same ethnic community.I spend some years at this place.Umi worked here, she was from Gambia,Barbacar, was from the Sudan,there was a lady from Nigeria and another lady from Gambia.I met Vera,who was from Ghana.She worked with us briefly before leaving for another gig.Herbella,a co-worker hooked us up and with dated for quite sometime.The lady from Nigeria used to say I and Vera were like two innocent people finding their way through life at the same time.Anyway everybody agreed that we were two innocent people.

Summer holidays

The fellow that we were going to live with, while we looked for work picked us up early in the morning and we started the drive toward Gainesville, Georgia.Muller, that was his name had an old automobile that he could maneuver pretty well.We arrived home quickly and met the rest of the household.It was a two bedroom apartment that Muller and Tambe, his roommate had rented out and we were to patch in for the holidays.I believe that we bought some mattresses that we used to sleep on the floor.Living in Gainesville was a little bit different from living in Clemson, South Carolina.The place had a large Cameroonian population and it was as if you had never left home.There was a lot of negative competition and jealousy going on.A lot of quarrelling and police calling and I was faced with a whole new set of problems.Muller had an African-American girlfriend, so did his roommate, Tambe.They will help introduce me to Kathy, who was my first girlfriend in the US.Nice, quite and good looking girl, she was brought to the apartment by Tambe's girlfriend and we clique right away.So, apart from James, all the men were hooked up with ladies and it was going to be a memorable summer.I found my first job in Gainesville through the effort of Tambe.It was through an employment agency and we were sent right away to a saw packaging factory.The work was not that tedious and involved very little heavy lifting.We worked eight hour shifts from Monday to Friday and got paid very decent wages, way above the minimum wage that I got in Clemson.We had the weekends free to ourselves and that was mainly when Kathy would come over.The work also made you tired, most of the weekend was also spend catching up to some rest.Beer is relatively cheap in the US, especially the made in USA brand.The alcoholic contain is also not too high.So we did party quite a bit.Muller did not drink, but he made up for that chasing skirts.He had a hugh reputation before moving oversees and he did his best to keep it up.I and Tambe did stick to your one girlfriend and I believed Tambe did end up having a child with his.I did not stay that long in Gainesville.Anyway, we played soccer and did some jogging in a nearby community college.Tambe had tried out for football at one time, so he was in pretty good shape.I was also and we did join a soccer team that took part in a soccer league competition.The job a the sawmill lasted for about a month before the agency informed us that our services were not needed anymore.Muller helped find us employment in a chicken factory.There are lots of them in Gainesville and the job is not easy at lot.When we weren't doing some heavy lifting, you were required to stand on your feet for long hours packaging chicken nuggets as they go through a processing device.The noise out of the machines were also deafening.Anyway, it was summertime, the pay was good and one had to make some money for living expenses and tuition for fall.We visited some nightclubs, the clubs were decent, mostly trouble free and this provided us with an opportunity to bond further with the ladies.I did start doing a bit of reader during the weekends, to sharpen my language skills. I bought most of the novels from the local supermarket.Best novel I read during this period, late John Deloren's"Hard Driving".During the holidays the household got larger went Cletus arrived from Cameroon.He was a relative of Muller.Quite and shy fellow who was a good story teller.A lot of "manyu"people lived and worked in Gainesville.I use to make a joke that if you came to the US, lived in Gainesville and return home, it will be as if you had never left Cameroon.The new immigrants did work hard though.The ladies put in as much working hours as the men and they had a lot to say about the quality of women that the guys were going out with.The summer holidays was almost coming to an end and I decide to leave for Clemson.James stayed behind and planned on returning to school after the summer was over.Tambe accompanied me for the drive from Gainesville to Clemson and we took turns driving in a quite summer morning towards my destination.We arrived Clemson and met my brother who had stayed on for the summer to continue his research.Tambe met him and spilled out all our holiday secrets.

Back to school

Winter down in south Carolina is not really that bad.As a matter of fact throughout my stay there it snowed only once.I started the second quarter of school and it went on pretty well.Some of the subjects that I really liked were English Literature, History and Accounting.There were some very good lecturers, I could pick out the guy that taught us History.Very knowledgeable in world events.I took two of his classes.Our accounting teacher, a lady from Anderson, south Carolina was also very good.She introduced us to computer as a useful tool in the field of accounting.I believe it was during this semester that NASA had a major space accident with Space shuttle Challenger disintegrating 73 seconds after being lauched, killing all seven crewmembers aboard.I remember the day vividly because I was in school when it happened and we all had to run to the library to watch CBS provide a live fed from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Everybody mourned Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who was to become the first civilian to make it to space.In terms to sporting activities, our school had very little infrastructure.I can only remember one single day when a volleyball competition was stage in the campus.Anyway, I finished the quarter with just about all my grades in A's.This would be my last quarter in the community college. We ran into some financial difficulties and we could not afford for me to go to school in the spring quarter.Jobs are very difficult to get in small towns, especially for immigrant students.So what most people do is to go to the big cities during summer holidays to earn some money and return when school resumes.I was very disappointed with the fact that I had to stay out a quarter because I was doing so well in school.I did manage to have some jobs around the area, but it mainly involved house cleaning jobs that provided very little income.As a matter of fact I do remember a job that I had with a nursing home that paid the minimum wage.I had it for about two weeks before running into some difficulties.The job involved general maintenance around the nursing home environment.Moving little items around and arranging conference rooms and cleaning some offices.I had an elder guy who was my supervisor.We got along very well.He was a fanatically supporter of he Clemson tigers.That is one of the reasons that I remember him because he spend most of the time talking about the team.I believe he was a season ticket holder and he attended all the games, home and away.Anyway, the job ended after one day the supervisor showed me an area where I was to dig a ditch.That was it for me.I just told him no and we both agreed that was to be my last day of work.I came back latter to collect my paycheck.I spend the period of spring mostly watching television from a small black and white screen and playing soccer in the evenings.It was during the spring that James, a friend of the first male in our family arrived the US to continue his studies.He stayed in the Washington DC area for about a week before making the trip down south.Very funny fellow, he had a lot of stories to tell.We welcomed him and got him admission into my former school.The spring period ended and it was on to summer holidays.James had a cousin of his in Gainesville, Georgia and he started making arrangements for me and him to go there and spend the summer holidays.The idea was for us to get jobs there and make some money before fall came along.

Christmas break

Most of the time, in the African community the white girls that go out with Africans are on the whole not really that good looking.I always wonder sometimes why these guys could not just go home and get themselves some decent looking girls.Shirley was different though.She was decent looking by any cultural standards.I met her and other members of her family.I met her brother who attended UVA with my brother and her junior sister who was with a boyfriend of hers.Dating white women is a two side issue.The woman can help you in your new environment,but you also blow your chances of ever settling down with an Afro woman.At least, that is how it was in our community during this period.Shirley and Agbor had a long term relationship and when they did eventually break up without getting married it did create a tough situation for my brother.Our family friend in Alexandria had a pretty decent apartment.He had lived in the US for a long time although he was going through some rough times.He had landed a very good job when he moved into the Washington DC area but had just recently lost it for some unknown reason.He got another job but he did not seem to be as happy as everybody back home thought he was.He worked as an accountant and at the time the wife was still a student at Howard University in Washington DC.Their daughter was very young and he had to shoulder all the responsibility of keeping the family going.Babies are very expensive to raise in the US, so people do a lot of planning before having children.His planning was very good, it was just a case of bad timing in term of his losing his first job.I believed he did some part time work and so did his wife in a hotel.Anyway we had a nice time with them, spending Christmas and watching the clock turn to past midnight on new years eve.The Washington DC area had a huge immigrant population and it was reputed to be a place for party goers.The feeling was that those around the area paid more attention to their social life and did not care a lot about getting a decent college education.So people always advice you to stay put in the small towns and finish your schooling before attempting to hit big time city life.Overall the Christmas break was enjoyable and we all had a decent time.Although the weather was cold, just about everybody who had made it out of Cameroon to the US felt better about the new environment.We visited museums and parks around the area.We went to a popular night club at the time called Kilimanjaro, I guess it was operated by a guy from east Africa.I meet some friends there from my secondary and high school days back home.We talked, they all seem happy.I figured out that the fact that they could generate a steady income played a great deal towards making them happy. On January second we started the drive back towards Clemson, South Carolina.We did some sightseeing on the way back, stopping at the famous University of Virginia(UVA),a school that so many prominent US politicians had attended. We passed through Charlotte, North Carolina. An ancient but very beautiful city.We arrived home safely and at was just a matter of days before my next school quarter was to begin.

Meeting some friends

Let me introduce a couple more of the people that I will be interacting with throughout my stay in the South. There was Bill who was doing a PHD and was a close friend of my brother.The guy was an exercise freak who could hold his liquor pretty well.There was Carlos from south America, Brazil in particular.And lastly there was Karen who had a big crush on my brother.Lovely lady who was on the heavy side but knew how to have a good time.She organised most of the parties where you could get unlimited liquor.I got introduced to these big beer containers that looked like water fountains.What you had to do was pour out liquor as if you were pouring water into a glass.It reminded me of a classmate in Lycee Bilingue Buea whose onetime dream was to be able to pour out drinks out of a tap like water.He could have felt quite at home in this environment.Since it was summer holidays I spent most of my time learning how to drive.My brother provided practical lessons while I studied the driving rules and regulations in order to obtain a driver's permit.Most of the cars are automatic so it is not too difficult to learn how to drive.By the time fall started I had learnt how to drive and obtain my learner's permit.I enrolled at Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, South Carolina.It was a two year community school and I was to began accumulating credits towards an eventual degree in Accounting.After meeting the director of admissions Jacky Henry, I took some test and was handed a booklet with all the school rules and regulations.The friend from Suriname, Melvin and the Cameroonian, Emmanuel also attended the school.We had at this time also moved from the efficiency to a one bed room apartment.We took along the couch that double up as a sleeping bed.I slept in the living room while my brother used the bed room.When school started he would drop me off at school and picked me up later after he had finished his studies.I am sure I had provided him with my schedule of classes since the cellphone revolution had not kicked in yet.The arrangement worked out pretty well.On some occasions he let me have the car after dropping him off at school and I would then pick him up after my classes. The community college operated on a quarter basis. There was the fall, winter and spring sessions.I did the first session and it went pretty well.My brother paid the school fees and I made him proud by having mostly A,s and a B I believe.The end of fall semester saw Christmas holiday come around and we were invited to spent some time in the Virginia area were Shirley and our family friend lived.The drive to Virginia is about six hours but we ended up doing more than that because we got missing somewhere after North Carolina.There was a particularly area where it got so frustrating because we kept going round and round the same area for about three hours.Men are so terrible with their macho attitude when it comes to asking for directions.Anyway it was a tiring experience and we did eventually make it to Alexandria and stayed with Mr Tabot and his wife and then little daughter called Michelle.

Life in the South

As we drove down towards Clemson, South Carolina we tried to catch up on pass events since my brother left home.We did stop by a Mcdonalds for my introduction to the world of big mac and french fries. We arrived Clemson safetly and drove to a little town called Pendleton which was where our apartment was located. As we entered the apartment I was taken aback at how small the place was.It was an efficiency no doubt but the place was smaller than where I was living before moving to the US.There was one bed and a couch that could be easily transform into a sleeping bed. That was where I was going to be sleeping for the next three to six months. I sensed things must not have been moving smoothly with my brother as we all had thought back home. There had been earlier warning signs before I came. The first was that earlier arrangements that we had made for me to come over were squashed when he suddenly relocated from the Virgina area to South Carolina. Secondly the school that I got admitted into was a community college instead of a four year institution as earlier planned. Enough about earlier problems though. The Pendleton, Clemson area is what you call a college town. In otherwords the town really comes alive when students are in campus and dries up during school breaks. I happen to arrive during the summer when there were some students attending summer school.There were a few people that I was introduced to. A few Nigerians, they are everywhere in the planet. Most of them attended Clemson University on a soccer scholarship. There was a friend from Surinam called Melvin who help to show me around some places. He had an old car that could move around pretty well. There were three Cameroonians from the French speaking part of Cameroon(francophones as we call them back home). One of them was called Emmanuel, he was the boastful one, that is why I still remember his name. The elder brothers, one was studying for his masters and he had a white girlfriend and the eldiest one was doing a PHD program. He had an African-American fiance.He was the more focused of them all.My elder brother had enrolled in a masters degree program to try and improve on his chances of getting into medical school which he could not get into after undergraduate studies. He was getting an aid from the university while he did research. His girlfriend was called Shirley and she had recently travelled to Southern Africa for some research work.I was to meet her latter.We lived on the aid that my brother was getting from the university. It was enough for us to get bye for the moment and I did not have many complaints at all since I was pretty much happy to be in the US.Throughout my life I had never really been an active person when it came to exercising. But than was to change. I found out that because just about everybody owned an automobile, you had to allocate some time for exercising or working out as it is popularly known here. So each day after my brother returns from summer research it was on to the soccer field to try and get back into playing form.I had and still possess pretty good soccer skills that was developed during my days in primary and secondary school. So it did not take long for the skills to resurface. We played manly pickup games. There was always a crowd around the many soccer fields ready to go at anytime. I bean to gradually introduce jogging into my daily playing routine and I found out that the jogging improve a lot on my stamina in the soccer field. Some of my brother's friends had suggested to him that I could be able to get a soccer scholarship in one of the local four years colleges. But for reasons that was obvious to me and him that was not an option for me.We prepared most of our food, my brother did most of the cooking. We did occassionally ate out which I liked. We were invited to many parties. People had money to spend so there were parties going on all over the place.Weekend nightlife consisted mostly of going to a local nightclub or drinking beer in any of the Travens around town.

Returning home

For the past 20 years I have been living in the United States and I decided to return to Cameroon, a country in Central Africa which is my country of Birth. I left Cameroon in June 1985 at the age of 23 to go and study in the United States. I arrived at Dulles International Airport with practically no money because the little cash that I had was spent on the plane ride for food. The fortunate part for me was that I had relatives that were already living in the US. I had two cousins, a close family friend and a senior brother who had been living in the state of Virginia for the past six years but had recently moved to Clemson, South Carolina. I got to Dulles Airport, made a few calls with the assistance of an attendant from TWA and got my cousin to pick me up. I was taking to the home of a former Cameroonian attache to the US who is now of late and the wife ordered pizza for me, my cousin and a friend of his. From there my cousin took me to his place of resident which he share with two of his friends who had arrived the US about a year ago. We were living in one of the street apartments in Washington DC and I loved the place a little bit. So far coming from Cameroon, a third world country you could not help but be impressed by the new environment. I was impressed by the quality of the radio station signals. This was during the 80s when from where I came from the radio stations were broadcasting using AM and SW signals. The FM stations signals were really impressive and I spent I lot of time listening to music from the radio stations. After about four to five days living with my cousin I was picked up by a close friend of my family. One of my first impression of the society was how it was hard on new immigrants because they had to be at work just about all the time to try and keep up with the expenses of their new society. I spend about a week with my cousin in Alexandria, Virginia and during that period a party was organised at his apartment during which I met quite a few people from Cameroon.Parties are the best places to meet old friends and get news information about what is doing on back home. I talked to my brother in South Carolina and we stated making arrangements for my travelling to meet him. One of my luggages that was delayed during transition from one flight to another was delivered to me in Alexandria and a flight was booked for me to travel to South Carolina. I arrived at an Airport in Columbia, South Carolina using a discount airline that is since folded. I got to meet my elder brother after eights years since he left Cameroon. I could still recognised him and he could likewise. He looked just a little bit bigger, not fat and we started the drive down towards Clemson. He had recently bought a car that we were riding in and was still making payments on the car. Since this is my first blog I will end here for today. Will continue to post from tommorrow.