girls weekend

Joyeuse Paques - Happy Easter! A quick post before I head off on the last big trip: a week in the Extreme North! My weekend started on Tuesday after Orality and has been one of my favorite here in Cameroon! Our group was really spread out this weekend - 6 people went to Mr. Teku's village starting Wednesday, Alie went to her host family's village of Dchang, and that left me, Gina, Soo and Emileigh with the apartment to ourselves and much to explore! Thursday, Soo and I set off on a quest to find a good hair place to get braids. And yes, I now have braids and have left them in for more than 7 hours. They are kind of like cornrows, only halfway back and it looks pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. And it only took 3 hours for both of us to get tressed. Then, we ventured with Gina and Em to the new Korean restaurant here (surprisingly and deliciously, there is a population of South Koreans in Yaoundé, which Soo, who is from South Korea, discovered). It was amazing and a nice change in cuisine, with super fast service, something unknown at Cameroonian restaurants! We even saved 10% because Soo is Korean, so we used the leftover money to buy icecream and made plans to meet Friday morning for an all-day Marché Mokomo extravaganza. Friday was also Em's 21st birthday and we set off to make it a good one! After finally located the pre-made kaba section of Mokolo I went a little crazy and got 2 new kabas - pictures to come - and Em got a pair of lightly-used Birkenstocks for 4 USD!! LOVE Cameroon! After meeting up with Soo, who had somehow survived the jersey vendors solo, we taxied to Briqueterie for lunch of soya, beignets, and fresh yogurt, at Em's birthday request! Freshly roasted meat has never tasted so good! Then some fabric shopping and a bit more braving Mokolo before Gina and I headed back to the apartment to be bums and watch chick-flicks (nothing wrong with that though!). I headed home after a while because Mama So was cooking hamburgers, and we spent the evening watching music videos and singing and dancing (she also told me I have good taste - African taste- in fabric, which is pretty much the highest compliment she could give!). Saturday was a total girls' day. We continued Em's birthday celebration by watching more chick-flicks, dying Easter eggs with fabric-dying inks that may or may not be toxic, wine and chocolate rice krispy treats! Plus, I went to traditional African dance class (I still can't dance, even though the Chieftain, the head of the rasta-men who teach dance says if you can eat you can dance) which was really fun and the chicken at the chicken-and-beer bar was by far the best ever.

After a sleepover at the apartment last night, I returned home early so I could go to Easter mass with my host family. My colored eggs were a hit, and Mama So insisted we make some for the family reunion after mass. Mass was fantastic - Catholic church here is infused with African traditions, particularly in the music, and it is just so much more dynamic. Everyone was there in their Easter best, and I was definitely the only white person there, which I am growing to not really notice. When we got home from mass, Papa Fernand, Joey (Bambi's new preferred name), Jason and I colored eggs without dye using just crayons and it worked beautifully! We departed for entre-nous, the family reunion with some beautiful eggs, chicken and plantains (Papa Fer is quite the artist!). The reunion was a blast and one of my host cousins (blanking on the name) took me under her wing and we chatted in a mixture of English and French all afternoon. The food and the company were fantastic and I felt like such a part of the family! And my French has definitely improved since I first met everyone in February!

Alright, that's it for now - I leave for the Extreme Nord tomorrow night (woohoo 17-hour train ride + 7-hour bus ride!) and don't return until the 21st! I'm crossing my fingers I see a giraffe! We'll be going on a safari and visiting a ton of markets, so prime souvenir time! I hope all is well in your corners of the world, thanks for reading and I'll post when I get back from what promises to be an epic trip!

Love from the land of endless fried plantains,
Kait

P.S. I got to see a week-old African baby, my new host cousin Lincoln, Monday. African babies are way cuter than American and white babies in general. I make an exception to my babies-are-ugly rule because of this.