Friday in the Park with Alie

Early last week, my good friend Alie Collins, who is here with me in Yaounde, and I decided to have an adventure to Centre Ville on Friday to buy fabric and find our way to the park for a picnic of sorts (and the return of French Fridays)! As soon as our intensive French class ended on Friday, we caught a taxi to Marché Centrale and being two white girls who are often mistaken as twins (which is especially funny since Alie has a twin - hi Hily!- and we don't look alike), we were instantly surrounded by vendors trying to sell us phones and food and many other things which we sternly refused. After forcing our way through the crowds and holding hands to cross the craz streets, we finally arrived at our destination: CICAM, the main fabric store in the city! And what an incredible place it is! Rows and rows, shelves and shelves of BEAUTIFUL fabric, 6 yards for 5000 CFA (roughly 10 USD)! Alie and I each bought 2 different patterns which are too gorgeous do describe in words, and saw the Women's Day fabric that we need to buy soon! We were so pleased with our purchases; we the ventured back through the crazy market to Casino, the ritzy grocery store where man expats and diplomats shop. We were able to afford crackers; cheese, some Cameroonian egg roll type things, and...a piece of chocolate cake! We then dodged taxis and vendors to make it to the park we had seen for our picnic. We looked most ridiculous eating our purchases, not that we normally don't look ridiculous - we stand out like it's our job. We were having a grand ol' time people watching, chatting and observing the guys who carry buckets of beignets or sandwich materials on their heads to sell for lunch, when of course the random male Cameroonian student comes over to talk to us. The conversation involved us telling why we're in Cameroon and for how long, and ended when he asked us if we were married and we promptly responded with, "Yes, we both are" holding up our left-hand ring fingers which have silver rings of some variety on them for this purpose. When he asked us how long we'd been married, I said 2 years and Alie said 1 and he promptly left. We were about to get up and leave when this happened to us again, this time with two men. One spoke French, he other English; the French speaker sat down next to Alie and struck up a conversation, asking if we were sisters and then asking for her phone number in the course of 10 minutes. We've learned some strategies, and Alie employed the "fake phone number" in this case. I got sucked into conversation with the English speaker who was holding paper and pen and told me he was doing a survey for a class on tourists in Cameroon. I answered his questions, and then he asked for my number, and I used the "we just got here and don' have phones yet" strategy. Instead we exchanged emails (I gave him an old one) and when I asked to use his pen and paper from his survey to write mine down, I realized he'd been pretending all along so they could come talk to us. His pen didn't work and he hadn't actually written anything down. He foiled his own plan. Alie and I excused ourselves after this, saying we had a meeting and had to get a taxi, which was true. Definitely an adventure and an example of what we deal with everyday in Cameroon. Generally, these guys mean no harm but we keep our guard up still. Even after this, Alie and I are thinking of making this a weekly tradition (the picnic part not the fabric part, we'd be broke!)

In other news, Mama Solange is making me traditional dresses with the fabric I bought and finished one today! It is gorgeous and huge and has pockets and is so comfortable! I'm hoping to upload pics this week!


Some other things I loved about this week/why Cameroon is such an experience:
~ A man offered Harry and I a live chicken as a gift on the street on Tuesday. We didn't take it, as we weren't sure what we would do with it during our Environmental Management class.
~ A random woman I had never met before stopped me on my way to the Dickinson apartment yesterday to tell me that I should stay in Cameroon past May. Don't worry, I told her no.
~ Have I mentioned the great lizard chase of Wednesday? Alie and I walked into the yard of the apartment to find Ben running out the door, looking like he was going to cry. Turns out he's afraid of lizards and a probably 10 or 12-inch long one had crawled under the door into the house. So the great lizard chase ensued to try to steer it outside, spearheaded by Morgan, Alie and I. We tried to save it for about half an hour with lots of screaming and climbing on furniture, but in the end it committed suicide by lodging itself in between two walls. At least we didn't just spray it with Raid as Ben had wanted!
~I found awesome dark chocolate here for the equivalent of a dollar for a huge bar.
~There was, hands-down, the BEST thunder-and-lightning storm of my life here last night! I was staying at the apartment last night and as the boys were cooking, the electricity went out on our side of the city. Morgan, Katelynn and I went out on the 2nd floor covered balcony to watch as the street turned into a river and the entire city lit up when lightning struck. I wish I could have captured it on film! The boys had to eat their dinner by lamplight (thanks to Harry's flashlight that straps onto his head like yours does, Dad). Luckily we regained power prety quickly, but I think this is definitely the start to the rainy season and it's early this year!
~Today my host sister, Patricia, nd her boyfriend, Cedric, showed me more of Yaoundé. They took me up to the Congressional Palace which has great views of the city, and then to this really nice botanical park in the centre of the city, and also got ice cream (yummm tiramisu gelato!). As we were waiting for a taxi to go home, I saw two men galloping by on really pretty horses! TIA - This Is Africa!
~ Even though it's ridiculously hot, I would love a warm shower. That being said I do love a good cold shower every night not because it feels good, although I am refreshed after, but because cold showers help me feel clean and like a real person. Even when there are 3 dead cockroaches in my bathroom.
~ I'm really lucky to have a washing machine at my house and not have to do clothes by hand (don't worry Dad, I did help Morgan do hers by hand so I get the experience), it was annoying when I was down to my last few pairs of underwear and couldn't do laundry because it's reserved for Saturdays and Sundays.
~ And last but not least, Morgan and I split a Kribi pizza yesterday and it was GLORIOUS! It's the first semi-American food I've had while here and was exactly what I needed. Just so you know Kribi s the beach town we visited our first week here and the pizza had ham and Cameroonian pineapple on it. The satisfaction was comparable to that I feel after eating a Chipotle burrito - yes, THAT good!

I think that'll do it for this post - hope it finds you all well! Hope you're not getting blasted with snow, and even though it's hot here I love the weather and already have a pretty great tan! Also, just throwing it out there, I love long email updates about life wherever you are, regardless of how boring you may think it is! kaitlin.irvine@gmail.com

love from Cameroon;
kmi