Cameroon Continued... Day 2.

The second day of our trip was one of the most eventful.

After breakfast we went to the market close to the Muslim quarter of Yaoundé to buy some fabric for the Christmas gifts that Valerie and Joseph had promised us: a shirt for Andreas and a dress for me.

This market was UNBELIEVABLE. I don’t think I have ever seen so many, many people and cars in between, such chaos, so many colors, so many different smells and so much noise.

We did not take the camera with us, so I don’t have any pictures of this market (it would have been too dangerous because of thieves), but I found one on the internet; just to give you an impression. 

Armand, our driver, did the miraculous and found us a parking spot (I have never seen a person back into a parking space more skillfully!!!) and so we went on our quest for some fabric. Again, it wasn’t easy to enjoy what we were seeing because of the slight harassment. I have never seen so many beautiful kinds of fabric. They have patterns that are totally different than those that we are used to. We had decided before that it was best to buy the same fabric for Andreas and I and, even though, the variety was enormous, we decided on the same fabric within just a few minutes. Valerie was amazed and could not

Joseph and Armand.

believe it. We are true soul mates. Hehe Andreas also found a highly qualitative fabric for a suit.

After that, I also got some sandals that would fit the dress and then we went on.

We were amused to see that while we had been gone, our car had been used as a stand for sponges; but since we needed them anyway, it was quite convenient. LOL

I still have that sponge and use it to train my broken thumb… 
 
After that, we went to the Muslim quarter and bought all kinds of meat with special spices. It was fascinating to see how they cooked and prepared the meat right in front of our eyes. Thank goodness that we are no vegetarians, but Valerie felt a bit queasy because of the smell and the blood.

Buying lunch.

Trying typical Cameroonian food.

We spent a long, long time sitting in a bar on a balcony eating the meat we had just bought; I have to stress again that I tasted things that I had always refused to try and it tasted so very good.  




Andreas and I like it hot (*cough cough*) and so we had to live with the consequences of this fondness on the next day… But more about that later.

At the tailor.

Armand drove us around town for a while (he and Andreas got along perfectly without speaking each other’s languages; it was so cute!) and I think we saw almost the entire city. We stopped at the tailor to get measured and to order our cloths. The tailor was super nice and kind and we were both thrilled and already anxious to see the finished products… Yes, we are both quite impatient. 

Then the day took a slight turn to the sad side. This is an anecdote that I would like to share, just to show you how much of a difference between white and black there still is. It was such an honor for Armand, the chauffeur, to drive us around on that day that he insisted on introducing us to his family. His wife had just moved out and he wanted to ask her to come back home with their children.  Can you believe that he thought he would have a better chance of convincing her, just because there were 3 white people with him? I am still shocked about this worldview and, I may be very, very naïve, but I had no idea that people still thought that way. I had no idea that it was such an HONOR to be surrounded by “les blancs”.  This had me thinking for many days and I still cannot grasp it.

This impression was reinforced later that evening when we went to a restaurant called Café de Yaoundé, where we sat in a beautiful garden surrounded almost exclusively by whites…

Impressions of the day*:

 

Don’t look at the pictures if you do not want to see dead animals!