What color does your day have?

I had the weirdest dream on Tuesday night, a dream that is too complicated, too confusing and too complex to describe. Let’s just say it was a combination of my trip to Africa, LOST, the plane in the Hudson river and my marriage…
This dream was so powerful that it still lingers on in my mind, it still affects the way I feel today.
It is interesting how a dream can determine the color of your day, the mood, your feelings, the way you go about things etc.

So, the color of my day on Tuesday was orange, a very bright African orange. I cannot really explain it, but this color was omnipresent in my mind. Do you know that “feeling”? Do dreams ever affect you in such an enormous way?
On Tuesday I felt like I could die from melancholy, and it still has not really worn off. I miss my sister more than usually, I think about our trip to Cameroon all the time and I am homesick for Yaoundé, Valeries little house there and the time we spent there.

I have since dreamed quite a lot (last night I dreamed of Mad Men), but none of these dreams has had the same effect on me. So, my color of the day still remains the same.
I hope that it will change soon though. After all, I want to experience all colors of the rainbow and not just one.

See you soon, little sister!

This morning, my sister set out for Yaoundé again.

She flew from Zürich, but they left at 3.30 am, so I was not able to see her anymore.

However, she called me during her layover in Paris and sounded so very happy and excited. I am thrilled for her, but will miss her like crazy.


The last time she flew, she took this unbelievable picture - just thought I'd share... - :

                                     

We will see what she experience this time. But I am sure that it will be just as big an adventure than the last 2 times she went down to Cameroon; even if she will only stay for three weeks this time.

I sure hope she will bring some "arachides" with her.  :) 

Wrapping up my Cameroon story

My sister is leaving for Cameroon in a few days and I still haven't finished all my posts about our trip…

I won't bore you with travel details anymore, but will try to summarize the last week in one post.

Ok, let´s try this:

After our time in Kribi, we found a driver who owned a pick-up truck with which we could master the 4-hour drive through the jungle to Ebolowa (it was AMAZING!) to spend a day at La Comice, the biggest agricultural fair in Cameroon. Ebolowa was the city I liked the most. It was very modern and not too big, quite clean and not too far from the capital, but still really close to the jungle. 

On Sunday Andreas and I took the bus to Limbé and spend 4 very intense days that definitely brought us closer together.
Limbé is a small beach town in the Anglophone part of Cameroon, however I had the feeling that the Limbeans neither spoke English nor French. It was quite amusing.
We stayed at a hotel in the Botanical Gardens, enjoyed even more delicious food, walked around the various markets and spent most of our time sitting at the Atlantic Ocean letting the mind wander. I had a feeling of freedom that I hardly ever experience.
The Limbeans astonished us. We had been a bit worried about traveling alone because of the color of our skin, but we were welcomed with open arms. Unlike the people in Yaoundé, the Limbeans waved at us, smiled at us and made us feel at home. It made everything even more special.

I was a bit heartbroken when we left.

We returned to Yaoundé on our 6 months wedding anniversary, which we celebrated with Valerie and Joseph at the restaurant we went to when I was sick. 

The last day in Cameroon was filled with tears, wistfulness and the attempt to soak in as much of the African way of life as possible. Andreas and I went to mass before we headed to the airport. The parting was really, really difficult and almost nobody could hold back their tears (it was, of course, especially painful for my sweet sister).
I cannot believe how much time has passed since then. Craaaazy.

Thinking and writing about this journey now makes me want to go back again. I think I will have to find a way to fit into my sister´s luggage. lol

"La vie est la drogue."

Can you believe that it is already March? 
Where did February go? What have I done in this month? What happened to the first 2 months of this year? Wow.
And I still have so much more to tell you about our Cameroon trip.
So, while I am trying to wrap my mind about the fact that 1/6 of the year is already over, I will take you all the way back to January.

On our 2nd day in Kribi, we went to a Pygmie village and to the Lobé Waterfalls.

It was a very controversial trip that sparked a lot of discussion among us.
 

We boarded a pirogue and enjoyed a wonderful, quiet ride on the Lobé River. After about 30 minutes, we arrived at the Pygmies village. We walked around for a while before the chief of the tribe showed up. Our guide commented on the fact that the chief was clearly drunk with the words:
"Sa vie est la drogue." And that drug is called palm wine.

Despite drinking hard wine the way we drink water (even the babies drink nothing but wine and mother's milk) and eating hardly anything, walking 100 km a day is not unusual for the chief who is about 60 years old. However, he cannot be sure of his own age because they obviously do not have any kind of birth certificate and they do not have to go to school or any other official institutions. So, the mother determines the age of the child. They can get older than 100 years despite their self-destructive behavior and way of life. 

The chief of the tribe was much smaller than me (I'd say he was about 1.40m tall), but his children and grandchildren were already much taller. So, it is clear that this type of people won't exist much longer.

I am not certain about the morals of going to that village, walking around and watching them as if they lived in a zoo. On the boat ride back to the landing place we had a lively discussion about the morally, Christian and humanly "correct" thing to do (if such a thing even exists), and we did not come to a conclusion; quite naturally. I have to admit that my curiosity, my thirst for knowledge and my fascination for other, alien cultures won and I looked into their huts and I talked to the chief with the help of our guide who also served as a translator.

Since I was 11 years old, I have been reading many, many autobiographies about people who grew up in cultures so different from ours that it is almost impossible for us to even fathom their way of life. So, I have always been fascinated with this subject. My husband does not and did not understand my "behavior"; he could not look into their huts because it goes against his principles and he felt 'very' uncomfortable' during our time in this village. He is probably the better human being for that, I was just captivated by everything I saw.

In the end, it is up to each individual to decide what he thinks is justifiable. What are your thoughts?



The Day (and more) in pictures:

Trip to Kribi

Valerie buying our tickets.

Le Centre de Voyage.

On Tuesday morning, it was time to set off on our excursion ot Kribi.
After we arrived at the bus station at about 7.30 am, we waited in the bus until it was full – 5 people had to sit  in every single row, no matter how tall or how big they were; this lead to some VERY funny scenarios (I wish I could have taken pictures, but I did not want to be disrespectful).

Waiting for 2 hours would have been fine, had there not been vomit on my seat. But, I survived… The ride was actually quite good and the road was not bad at all.

Our bus.

The cute thing is that there is only one road leading out of Yaoundé and after 2 hours, there is a traffic circle with one exit to Douala (the commercial center of Cameroon) and another one to Kribi. It was fascinating to drive through the rainforest with vegetation that is so different than what we see it every day. The bus stopped a few times in order to give street vendors a chance to sell “arachides” (the best peanuts I have ever eaten), manioc, bananas, banana chips, melons, water, soda, but also toilet paper, books, bibles or handkerchiefs.

It only took us about 3 hours, instead of the 4 that Valerie had told us, until we arrived in a still untouched beautiful, little fishing village.

However, this will change soon as the government decided to build a huge port in Kribi at one of the most beautiful, heavenly beaches I have ever seen. Chinese companies are already building new roads and I am sure that it will not take long until this little piece of paradise is destroyed. 

The taxi driver that had taken Valerie and Joseph all over town the first time they had been to Kribi recognized Valerie right away and was smiling like a child when he saw her, knowing that he would make a lot of money in the next few days… 

Our beach.

Our hotel was cute, clean and right at the beach. I instantly fell in love with this it and could have stayed there forever just feeling the breeze of the ocean on my skin and listening to the sound of the waves.  There is something about sea air that makes me feel alive and fresh and able to think clear; I always feel 100 % better when I am staying close to the ocean.

But I digress… 

Marina de Kribi

We had dinner in a wonderful restaurant at the marina and were able to take a very romantic walk on the beach until sunset.

It was the perfect start to 3 awesome days on the beach.

Full Moon in Kribi.

The day in pictures:

A random anecdote:
There were a few children playing at the beach who, upon seeing us, wanted to touch “les blancs”. Joseph told Valerie never to let them touch her because nobody could know whether they were really only children or demons hidden in the bodies of children.
This statement surprised us a bit.

Even though Joseph is Catholic, reads the bible every day and goes to Church at least once a week, the traditional set of beliefs of the Cameroonian nature religions is still omnipresent in his everyday life.

New beginning

Today is the first day of the new semester and it feels weird to be back in my university.
I have been lethargic all day yesterday, crying all night and was in a really bad mood this morning. I am a routine kind of girl. I like routine, I thrive on routine and it is always hard for me to adapt to change; however little it is.
I stayed in my pyjamas all day yesterday thinking about everything that happened in the last 2 months. It feels like an eternity. All the changes inside and outside, the travelling, celebrating Christmas, New Year`s, fighting with my body and mind, the creative wave I have been riding on, spending all this wonderful time with my husband, having soooo many ups and downs in my personal development; how can all of that fit into such a short amount of time?
And yet at the same time, I wanted to do so much more. I had planned on working and experimenting with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign etc., wanted to create a new wordpress website or even design my own website, clean my computer and organize my pictures. Oh well, I am human and can`t do it all.

Even though this semester just began, it migh be a short one for me. More about that in a later post.  

Haricots verts

While I am working on a blog post about my conversation with a therapist and the decisions that I am faced with now, I present to you a some lines about the most delicious food. 

Ahhhh, the irony...

Everybody who knows me, knows how much I love green beans; especially when my mom prepares them. In my opinion, she makes the best green beans in the world.
Well, that is what I thought before visiting Cameroon.
The beans there taste so incredibly delicious that I think I could go through my whole life without eating anything else.
You can taste that they are fresh, not processed, not imported, not chemically altered etc. I believe I ate them every night.*
We took a huge bag of fresh green beans home with us and ate them on the weekend. Yummy yum yum.

The same applies to most vegetables, fruit (as I have heard; even my husband, who never eats fruit, couldn't get enough of it during our vacation), meat and, of course, fish. Everything just tastes a whole lot richer and much more intense. 

What?! No, I am NOT eating an ananas!

But the beans, oh the beans were soooooooo good. 

Here are some impressions of the delicious food we enjoyed during our vacation:

*I tried my very best to NOT have a bad conscience while eating, but I wasn't successful. However, it was easier to eat than usually.

... we have to live with the consequences of our choices!

... and make the best of it.

Well, Andreas and I ate so much of that meat prepared with Cameroonian spices that we were sick on Sunday and Monday. Especially I was the one who felt as sick as never before. I will spare you the details; let's just say that it wasn't pretty... Every time I caught my reflection, I startled: I totally looked like a drug addict or a living dead with huge black rings under my eyes. 

However, since we expected to get sick at some point, we were prepared. Also, the fact that my mom is a pharmacist helped with our first-aid kit. :)
We talked to Joseph’s mother and sisters and they told us that even locals would get sick from these special kinds of spices. The only thing that was a tiny bit unnerving was the fact that we still did not have any water at home. So, we decided to go up to Mont Fébé and spend the day at the pool there. It wasn’t ideal, but we could at least use the restroom…

It was an especially beautiful day, but I don’t think that I even noticed the wonderful view of Yaoundé on that day.

At the end of the day I felt so sick that I had no scruples anymore. When I saw that there were couches in the very fancy restaurant we went to, I decided to change the table and lay down while the other three were enjoying their delicious dinner. By the time we got home, I couldn’t even walk on my own anymore. I was so very lucky that we had to postpone our trip to Kribi for 2 days; I would have never been able to travel for 4 hours as we had planned.

On Monday we felt a bit better and we had water again, so we could take a shower! YES!!!!! :D

Since Joseph had to go to a meeting, which could take an hour or 5 (time is irrelevant in Cameroon), Valerie, Andreas and I took it easy. We had breakfast and then strolled around a beautiful garden in the center of Yaoundé, “Le Jardin d’Amour”, where all the young couples spend their time.

It is still very uncommon for lovers to show affection in public, kissing is basically a no go and holding hands is also seen as reprehensible. Being gay is still considered a punishable offense. So, one has to be careful walking around kissing or holding hands. A lesson, Andreas and I had to learn the hard way. But you have to respect the customs and points of view of the country and just adapt in order to not offend the locals. 

The rest of the day was rather quiet except for the fact that I had a fit of laughter while standing under the shower soaped from head to toe and the turned off the water – again. Supposedly for 5 minutes, BUT this being Cameroon, I decided to use mineral water instead in order to not catch a cold and it was the right decision as it took them about 50 minutes… The best thing about it was that the family knew that I was taking a shower and they still went ahead and turned the water off, instead of waiting 3 more minutes until I was done. I thought it was hilarious. We could learn something from their serenity.

The day in pictures:

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!

Gummibären

... and THEN (maybe 15 minutes after I wrote this http://intercontinentallife.blogspot.com/2011/02/trapped_08.html), I experienced the following:

Andreas & Gabrielle

Gabrielle (the cute baby girl of on of Joseph's sisters) had been scared of Andreas from the very first moment she saw him. She screamed as loud as she possibly could every time he came near her (I am not sure if she had ever seen a white man before).

But when Andreas gave her a few Gummibears we had brought with us for the kids, she was at first skeptical, looked at her mom and did not rely know what to do. After a few moments she took one and ate it and from that moment on, Andreas and Gabrielle were practically inseparable for the next two weeks.

Food, healthy or not, unites people. It can break barriers, its language is universal. When I think back over the last 2 weeks, I notice that we had the most wonderful conversations during breakfast, lunch or dinner. I just wish my mind would not have wandered back to this dark, dark place all the time.

I will never forget this moment; the moment when Gabrielle started to trust and like Andreas -
just because of a handful of Gummibears...

As time went on my mind started to relax a bit. The thoughts were still omnipresent, but the voices weren't as loud as they were and are in Europe.

The reason for this is quite certainly the fact that I was not surrounded by this evil, harmful and sick media world that is almost unavoidable in the western world. Women care about the way they look like in Cameroon too, but the pressure is not even slightly as extreme as it is here.

The other reason is that my mind had just too many other impressions to process to dictate and direct my thoughts into the "anorexia" direction.

P.S. I was told a few times that women whose husbands do not have a "big belly" are viewed as bad wives.

Trapped.

I had totally forgotten about this blog post I wrote on the 1st evening in Yaoundé.

I wrote it after watching "The Black Swan" while we were relaxing for a couple of hours and will just post it now - more than 3 weeks after I wrote it... But it doesn't matter since the feelings and the anxiety is still omnipresent.

Here it is:

I feel trapped; trapped in this body that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, despite all my efforts.

Trapped with this mindset that makes me think I am constantly, second by second, gaining weight.

Trapped with this brain that does not ever allow me to enjoy anything, anything at all.

Trapped in a situation that seems impossible. No matter which way I will choose, I will not be able to enjoy anything.

If I choose to gain weight, I will feel ugly; will not be able to look at myself anymore, will despise myself, will not enjoy a moment of this vacation.

If I choose to not eat, I will not enjoy a single time at a restaurant or café; although, I know I won't enjoy it either if I decide to do what everybody else does. My mind ever stops worrying, never stops being guilty, never stops making me feel despicable. Not one single moment. It never relaxes.

My husband came in while I was eating a bag of candy feeling horrible with every single piece I ate and despising myself for eating it but not being able to stop. He entered the room and told me that I was standing there entranced enjoying what I ate. Oh no, I was not enjoying a single bite, not at all. It was the complete and entire opposite. But I could not stop.

I should be excited about this unimaginable adventure that we are embarking on, but ALL I can think about is my body and my weight.

I hate it. I am trapped and I can't get OOOOOOUT.

P.S. Since I wrote this blog post, I have gained 4.5 kilos, which was necessary for my health and (which my gynecologist told me in round terms last week) for survival. However, the time frame was too short for my mind to be able to cope with it.

Cameroon continued.

During our time in Cameroon, we stayed in the Centre and the South of the country. Our journey started -as I have written before- in Yaoundé, then we went on to Kribi (a beautiful little city at the Gulf of Guinea), we drove through the rainforest to Ebolowa and finally traveled to Limbé (a coastal city near Mount Cameroon).

We spent the first 4 days in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, going to different markets, getting to know the way of life of the Cameroonians, eating traditional food, getting sick (we knew it would happen and were prepared...), spending a day at a pool on top of one of Yaoundé’s seven hills and strolling around the “Jardin d’Amoure.”

Joseph showed us his hometown, taking us to all kinds of wonderful and very, very interesting places. You usually take a taxi to go from one place to another, but on our 2nd day we had the luxury of having a chauffeur, Armand, who drove us around all day long.

After a good night’s sleep, our first “African” shower with ice-cold water (my tip for your next Africa trip: you should not leave your towel, your clothes or anything else that you don’t want to get soaking wet in the bathroom; due to the extraordinary African craftsmanship, the entire bathroom will be cleaned while you are showering.) and a few cups of delicious coffee, Valerie, Joseph, Andreas and I sallied out to spend the day in the city.

What impressed me the most on the first day were the colors. You hardly see dark fabrics; almost everybody is wearing beautifully cut dresses with incredible, colorful prints. I found it wonderful and charming to see the way the Cameroonians combined traditional and modern cloths.

It wasn’t easy to enjoy strolling around the markets because of the crowds and the vendors trying to get “les blancs” to come to their market stands. However, the flavors, colors and the variety of the produce were so impressive, extraordinary and so unfamiliar that it was almost too much to take in all at once.

After a few hours we had enough of the crowds and went up to Mont Fébé, one of the 7 hills that Yaoundé was built on, and enjoyed the beautiful view of the city. Leaving all the craziness and business of the markets behind, we used this time to have a cup of coffee, talk and get to know each other a bit more.

our view from Mont Fébé

The day ended very harmoniously with another delicious meal that Joseph’s sisters prepared for us. Again, the taste of the fish and crabs and even the potatoes was totally different and unfamiliar. Andreas and I LOVED it.

At some point during the afternoon hours, the water was turned off and we were left without this luxury for the next 3 days...

Before going to bed, Andreas and I had to chase a nasty mouse that I discovered on our mosquito net around the room, trying not to giggle too loud in order to not wake the family... We ended up spraying it with a spray we had bought against cockroache

Andreas and Joseph; or as Andreas put it: "2 cool guys"...

The beginning...

After a VERY hectic day of last-minute shopping, packing and trying to clean the apartment at least a bit before our journey, my husband came home long past 11pm because of a business dinner. We went to bed without having finished packing our suitcases. My husband had not packed ANYTHING at all. We slept for about 2 hours and got up at 3 am to get ready. We left the house on time at 6 am, but we were already stressed out by that point.

From that point on however, everything went very smoothly.

We flew to Paris, both falling asleep right after boarding the plane.

We changed flights there and all I remember about the Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport is the yucky weather and the long time it took us to get to our terminal.

You cannot really see it on this picture, but it was rainy and cold and grey and we were glad to leave! J

Both Andreas and I were incredibly excited. We kept saying over and over again how we would have never thought we’d ever go to Cameroon. I remember us staying at our gate waiting for boarding and just grinning from ear to ear, everybody else most have thought we were crazy…

The flight was VERY comfortable, also we did not have a window seat and the woman next to me refused to open the window; so we didn’t get to see anything of the African continent before we landed.

The food was the best I ever had on an airplane. Good job, Air France. B (However, this fact made it hard for me to enjoy the first few hours in Cameroon and made me feel guilty about eating a darn Kitkat for the next few hours and days – darn eating disorder!!!!).

The flight was short (6 hours), Andreas slept most of the time and I FINALLY had the chance to watch THE SOCIAL NETWORK and, oh my god, what an incredible movie it is. I have heard Cliff Ravenscraft (@gspn on twitter) rave about it for months now and couldn’t wait to see it. Cliff, you did not promise too much. It IS a fantastic movie and had I not been too tired on our flight back home 2 weeks later, I would have watched it again. I also watched LIFE AS WE KNOW IT with Katherine Heigl; a typical movie for her: cute but rather insignificant.

We arrived in Yaoundé at around 6pm and this is the very first view we had of AFRICA. :D

The first thing we noticed was the enormous amount of people. It was pure craziness.

Valerie, Joseph (her boyfriend), Serge (Joseph’s brother) and his driver Armand picked us up from the airport and we drove to Joseph’s home. 6 grown-ups, 4 suitcases and our hand luggage (we had to bring some things for my sister too) in a small Mercedes.

We were welcomed by the whole family with such warmth, love, affection, sincerity and joy that we felt at home instantly.

They had prepared a delicious dinner for us and we spent the night catching up with Valerie and Joseph on what had been happening in the previous few weeks.

And thus our adventure began…

Our home in Yaoundé: