Welcome to my new life in Africa…

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Tontine

One day last week, Gramps told me that we would be drinking a lot of palm wine at Monsignor Mature’s house the following Sunday for some type of event. I had no idea what he was talking about and thought I must be misunderstanding him. However, I waited in anticipation for whatever this event would be. So Sunday rolled around and Gramps had me follow him deep into the forest in front of our house. After about a 20 minute walk, we finally arrive at very remote house that sat among some of the tallest and thickest palm trees I have ever seen. When I walked into the house, there were a large group of men sitting, maybe 20 or 25, and staring at the only white man in the room, me. I only knew a few of them but those I did know I slapped and snapped, which is a Lable greeting where one guy slaps another guy’s hand and then snaps his fingers with the other guys (I would be way too white to do this in America but I definitely get away with it here). Anyways, I sat down and before I knew it, money was being thrown on a table by all in the room. One guy pulled out 5000 CFA, another probably 15000 and then what looked lik the oldest guy in the room pulled out a giant wad of cash probably worth around 100,000 CFA. All of this was going into a huge pile on a table in front of me for some reason I didn’t know. A little bit of a side note: In Cameroon, there is no such thing as welfare, social security, or loans, for that matter. Therefore, each village has to come up with a way to produce money for those in need. In Lable, this comes in the form of something called a Tontine and this was the event Gramps had taken me to. All the men of the village had gathered to help out those most in need. In the end, three men were given relatively equal amounts of the all the money. Then, a gigantic gas can and thirty or so cups were brought out. All celebrated with a large amount of palm wine that was in the gas can, which is probably why the palm wine tasted like gasoline. A la santé!!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

I

10/2/2010
Last week I went to get some authentic Cameroonian clothes tailored. Gramps took me to his guy and luckily for me, this man spoke a little English and understood that I wanted a boubou made with matching pants. For anyone who doesn’t know what a boubou is, google it, it is amazing. Originally the guy gave me the homme blanc price but Gramps and his sister, who came along with us, talked him down to a solid eight grand (in CFA, of course) . Pictures will come soon. After that adventure, we went back to his sister’s house where we were served some cous-cous and fish gumbo. I will be happy when the day comes that I do not have to look my food in the eye before I eat it. Then we went to the supermarket so I could get some much needed supplies for washing my clothes and cleaning my water (same substance). This market is in downtown Bafia and, I am not going to lie, it is definitely not a safe area. I felt as though I was being watched and not with the amusement I have experienced in Lable, but suspicion and maybe some malice.

Speaking of risky situations, the Peace Corps flew us into the city of Doula, Cameroon. The city is so dangerous that normally PVCs are not allowed to visit for any reason. When we exited the airport, we were guarded by about 20 police officers and loaded on a bus that was surrounded by gawking people. One person tried to steal a bag of ours and was beat off by an officer. We then had police cars escort our bus through the streets, which were so crowded that the officers had to literally push motos out of our way. Once we got to our hotel, we were not allowed to leave and officers with Uzis guarded the door. Welcome to Cameroon.

By the way, I am sorry for the spelling and grammar but I am writing this on the fly due to the electricity situation.