These holidays were truly… special. As for myself I can say I did have a white Christmas! However in order to grasp the entire Christmas spirit the story must start on Friday the 21st of December.
A Pre-Christmas Story
It was the last working day before Christmas. Of course half of the office called in sick, a terrible Christmas flu ad to be going around, since everyone here is so hard working and would not skip work on purpose to have a longer weekend! Well as the day was ending I started to pack my bag early in order to be out the door at 6:30 pm and I could meet up with Richard, as it was his last day in Cameroon, before he took his flight back home. Even Kasia jumped into a sardine ride from Buea to catch are British friend and say goodbye. Well, 6:30 I was out the door and waiting for Richards call. As we finally got a hold of each other he was stuck somewhere in Douala in traffic, thus I advised him to go straight to the airport and well we would probably meet somewhere else in this world again. As Kasia arrived, filled with disappointment, we head of to catch some food and beers to start our holiday spirit. Since we were up for a change we did not go to have our world famous brochette, no this time we turned left and looked for something new. We found a little stand in a corner where Kasia ordered Plat Avocad and I an omelet sandwich. Well let me tell you these dishes were amazingly good, but you do not want to know how they were prepared. Since we were already trying out new things, we went to bar not known to us before called Barcelona. Nothing special, however, something truly special occurred there. Of course the tables were filled with people, mostly men crying out la blanche je t’aime je t’aime. But there was a small table across the road which belonged to Barcelona as well at which we sat down. No harassment, no marriage proposals and actually cold beer!
We had a toast on Richard who was most probably flying over Mount Cameroon at the moment and headed back home as we had an early start planned the next morning.
Around 12 pm at night my phone starts ringing. Since calls around that time are mainly calls from stalkers who wish to marry you I ignored it and went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later Kasia’s phone started ringing, which she did pick up. It was no stalker; it was Richard at the airport, telling us that he had missed his flight!
To get to the point this is the story: The traffic was not the reason, as he made it to the check in on time. He was directed to a gate at which he was waiting. The plane was said to have a delay, thus no extra worries were needed. After waiting for a while, he decides to ask the staff about the plane and merry Christmas, he was told he was waiting at the wrong gate and the plane left without him! Douala Airport has six gates, the staff members told him to go to the wrong gate, there were no signs, and no announcements. It seemed like a bad joke!
Luckily the next morning we went to the SwissAir office and without much arguing, even though I was well prepared for some, we were able to change the ticket to Sunday without further charges. Thus shortly after Richard took off to Yaounde as his flight no left from there and Kasia and I got ready to start are Christmas holiday.
Motos and squished tushies
The taxi ride from my place to R-Point where you take the cars to Buea or Limbe normally takes at most 10 min. Since traffic here does not know any rules and during holidays chaos seems more than normal we were stuck in the taxi for almost an hour. Cars facing all directions trying in all directions! It was then that we had the fear that we would never arrive to Buea in order to get our hair nicely braided, thus we decided to take a moto to Buea instead. At R-Point, we searched for a fairly stable looking moto with a driver who gave us a fair price. It did not last to long, so of we went… the driver, me in the middle, Kasia in the back. As we were leaving Douala, the driver asks us how the roads to Buea were as he had never driven there before! Furthermore, he asked us how many police controls there were on the way… clearly hinting that he had no papers or license :) The adventure was about to begin! Due to our various sardine rides before, we were quite confident about the way, concerning the police controls it was the driver’s responsibility to get through them as we had all our papers. The ride was fun. Various things were flying against our faces, especially nice was the truck in front of us carrying sand and little stones which kept on falling on us.
After 30 minutes both of my feet fell asleep which was making it quite difficult to hold the balance and I was fighting not to loose my flip flops. Kasia on the other hand had to worry about each little bump as she was threatened to fall of the bike after any weird move. Almost at Buea, we decided to change positions in order for me to get life back into my feet and Kasia to get rid of her back pain. Woohhooo as I was sitting on the back, I was amazed of what she went through. If you sit in the middle you sit on the seat and are pretty safe due to the front and back squishing. Nevertheless, if you sit at the back, you sit on some metal parts with have your behind sticking out. It was quite a sight! Since I did not feel as confident on the back as Kasia di
d I held on to her like a baby Koala on the moms back. After 2 hours we arrived safe and sound!
After a short break at Kasia’s place we went to get our hair braided around 3pm. Unfortunately no green was found, thus green and red braids were not possible. Kasia chose a combination of brown colors, and I went for red and black. At 8pm we were finally finished! Since I was not allowed to
stand up during the hair creation, my butt was seriously numb and flat.
To end the day in a traditional Buean way we went to have dinner chez Oliver. The best roasted fish you will ever taste!
Madison Park
Sunday morning we woke up early to catch a bus to Limbe. As we were sitting in the bus, Kasia could not believe that we were actually sitting without being squished and not having to wait and hour or two for the bus to get filled. Here in Cam you pay per seat, thus what happens is that children do not get a seat and have to stand in very awkward positions during the entire ride, while the parents sit. This was the case of a father with his two sons next to us. A good person as I am :) I offered to take one of the children on my lap so they could all sit. I am not joking, I guess it was the first time someone has ever offered something like that, because at first they couldn’t believe it and you should have seen that kids face, he was terrified of being able to sit. I do not think I have ever seen a kid so stiff on someone’s lap.
Once at Buea, of course we were not spared the long discussion with various taxi drivers to take us to Batouke, a small village near Limbe, where Madison Park was based. But with strong words and will you do receive what you want. We were relieved when we saw the sign Madison Park on the side of the road. We got dropped off and after asking some nice ladies if this was the correct way we walked down towards the beach. This short walk turned out to be more of a hike down hill. With flip flops quite a challenge! But at last we arrived. It is a great place!
Better than any hotel in Limbe. For children it has a huge playground, with all sorts of sport activities, for adults it is a place for pure relaxation. You sleep in tents right next to the beach, you wake up to the sound of the waves, you can relax and read a book in a hammock, you can take walks on the beautiful black sandy beach and boogie-board or surf on the waves. An additional plus to this place is Roland. He is a very nice Cameroonian who works and practically lives at Madison Park. He is very helpful, friendly and nice to talk to. Funny was that I read about this place on a blog of an American Peace Corp member, Bill, who works in Buea and spends most of his weekends at Madison Park. Apparently, Bill is not the only American Peace Corp who likes to come and relax there. During the day more and more kept on showing up. Some of them were there for one day others were going to spend Christmas there just like us. I must say, they were all very enjoyable people, with interesting backgrounds and Cam stories.
After a day of boogie boarding we started to get hungry and decided to go to our standard place, down beach, to have some shrimp and calamari. I guess the first time was either an illusion or too perfect to ever happen again, thus this time the food there was a catastrophe. The orders were completely wrong, shrimps were burned and of course they tried to overcharge us. As we were leaving and very disappointed about the bad service, a lady came running after us on the street. She was holding Kasia’s bag which she had forgotten on her chair. Thank god! There was all her money, her camera and mp3 player, basically all the valuables you have here in Cam. We were so amazed that everything was still there. Someone in Europe would have kept the bag and not bothered to come and search for us. This gave us the hope back for a great Christmas. The highlight of the evening was the pitch dark hike down to Madison Park. However we made it alive and with no major falls and breaking necks!
Christmas Eve
Monday morning we were woken up by an Opera German version of “O Tannenbaum” over the park speakers. It caused some confusion at first, because if you get out of that tent, you see the ocean, the black sand, palm trees and feel the heat it does not quite feel like Christmas at all.
Christmas started with some swimming, fighting with the braids and the sea, and reading in the hammock. During this moment of relaxation Kasia and I started to plan our Christmas dinner. To keep it near our traditional Christmas dinner we decided to buy a chicken and roast it. Problem here is though, you can only buy living chicken, which met killing it, plugging the feathers and making it look not like an animal before eating it yourself. Quite a task for to spoiled western girls like us! I guess it was the thought of killing the chicken and the laziness of climbing up that hill which stopped us from buying the chicken. Well eventually we had to eat; therefore we followed the tip of the Americans and went to a place called the hot spot for a traditional Christmas Dinner. What did we order? Cheeseburgers and fries :) You might mock us now, but believe me a cheeseburger is luxury here in Cam, and I must say it was one of the most delicious cheeseburgers I have eaten in my life! This restaurant was definitely in a hot spot. It was in the botanical gardens of Limbe write at the cliffs. There you had a beautiful view down at the beach, if only it were not dark or if only there were lights!
Back at Madison Park, the Peace Corps joined by one British tourist were all gathered around a table drinking palm wine. Not being used to staying up late in Cam I wanted to join the group, nevertheless I preferred to have some wine on the hammock and dream away.
A White Christmas
Since the majority was American, we followed the tradition of actually celebrating Christmas the 25th. Thus after waking up we decided to go dinner shopping for the big event at night. I was in charge of the plantains! Not only did I prepare them in the Cameroonian way, I also prepared them the South American way as my mum has showed me and they truly were a hit! We even managed to get our chicken :) The guys from Madison Park were kind enough to do the dirty work and handed us over a dead chicken, still with all the body parts, but at least dead! What made us even luckier was the fact of Marcel’s presence. He was a designated cook and took the task to prepare the chicken, so even less dirty work for us. While we were cooking and preparing, which took the entire morning and afternoon, Madison Pak came alive as it filled up with families. Most of them were friends and family of the owners of Madison Park which were there to celebrate Christmas as well. You somehow got that Christmas feeling of a full house as in the movie “Home alone”.
Dinner was ready! We all sat down around the table and enjoyed our bbq grilled chicken, with various side dishes and palm wine. It was then that I looked around the table and realized… this truly is a white Christmas in Cameroon, who would have thought! The dinner was topped at the end with Marcel’s banana flambé.
In order to burn some calories, Katie, an American Peace Corp, and I decided to do a car race. See pictures for further details! It was great fun!
In order to get some Cameroonian spirit we ended the evening with some traditional Dancing with the kids of the landlord. Oh no, that was not the end, we ended Christmas sitting around a great camp fire right next to the beach!
Theme Song for Christmas
Leeeeee poisssson le poissson
Hihihi Hohoho
(let’s see who knows where this son gis from !)
New Years with Shakira
For New Years Aiesec was going to prepare a party, which we were supposed to attend to. Well, let us say everyone believed a party would be organized, however no one was organizing it until I told them to do so. Nevertheless, I also told them I will not attend it, as I had other plans.
Well, the Buean Interns Kasia, Robert and Sebas, also from University Maastricht, came to Douala and stayed at my place for a couple of days. Following the great Christmas dinner tradition, we wanted to create one for new years as well. In the freezer I still had one kilo of shrimp from my housewarming party, thus it was now or never. We spiced these over night in chili and garlic. Since Sebas is a vegetarian a large variety of vegetables was offered as well. However, those who know me know that vegetables have no added value in a dinner for me! Instead of palm wine we had rum and homemade Whiskey. It was a true delight!
The phones kept on ringing asking for us at the Aiesec Party, however we were enjoying our little get together very much, thus there was no hurry from our side. This so called New Year’s party also had a catch. Well all of Aiesec Cam was invited; it was organized by the Aiesec Presidency in Douala, however without our consent the interns were chosen as sponsors. This meant that everyone was able to come eat and drink, but we had to pay. Well, you can imagine that this great organization did not really work out. I already told them in advance that if I come I would not pay as I would not stay long and not eat or drink there.
Well 11:30 we decided to get going in order to show our faces at the MC house for New Years. We had a very nice taxi driver, however who confused his taxi for a turtle. Well, other days I would have stressed him. Today I actually enjoyed the slow ride through Douala. Nevertheless, we made it on time. The MC house was filled with people we did not really know, but well everyone seemed to be having some fun. The clock hit 12 and we interns started hugging and wishing happy New Year to each other. Strangely the Aiesecers did not really react. 10 minutes later we knew why! That is when the started their countdown. Unbelievable! Even 2008 started late in Cameroon!
Well of course then we were not spared from the random hugging and kissing of sweaty, drunk strangers. Kasia and I quickly escaped and went outdoors in order to get some air. I had some conversations with some fellow Aiesecers and when I turned back to Kasia I found here in a deep discussion with the head Aiesec Representative of Yaounde. A very strange character! Well as you might have guessed the topic was payment. I want to emphasize here, that we have been there for 15 minutes, he is holding a beer and as can be seen had various before, and Kasia was empty handed. Still feeling a little bit of rage which fills up each week in Cameroon, I was more than happy to join into the discussion and get some anger out. In a polite manner, I told him that interns are not there in order to support the drinking behavior of Cameroonian Aiesecers and that if they want to give a party they should pay for it themselves. Furthermore, I reminded him of my housewarming party which cost me 20 times more then what they spent and I never asked anyone for a cent. I was waiting for a rebottle, but nothing came. Thus discussion was finished, we did not pay, and to be fair left to have our beer somewhere else. We found a little place around the corner with loud Cameroonian Music and cold beer. People were sitting outside and dancing on the street. This was the atmosphere I was looking for. Due to some slight rain, very weird at this season, we stood right next to the speakers under a little tin roof. The lady who brought us our drinks was so happy that we were spending New Years at her place that suddenly there was a drastic change of music. We were actually listening to Shakira! Dancing next to the speakers, watching the rain, enjoying the beer and watching all the happy Cameroonians dancing around, made me see that this was a fantastic start into 2008. With big smiles on our faces we went back to the MC house to pick up our fellow interns and head back home.
Oh something I have to add! First day at work in 2008. I do not know if I ever told you about our office building. Apparently it is one of the fanciest skyscrapers in Douala. It has 12 floors and four elevators of which one only works at the time. Remember those rides in amusement parks where you are in an elevator which suddenly stops and shoots up in the air and drops down unexpected, well I guess these elevators were the inspiration for those rides. I always made jokes when I heard people knocking inside the elevator not being able to get out, well today first working day in 2008 I was one of those knocking inside the elevator, stuck with another 10 people with the most lovely perfumes.
To continue the day, I had to go and perform an inventory check at a bank in the morning. My appointment was at 8:30. Having adapted to Cameroonian working times, I arrived at 9. Basically, I was sitting on a couch playing forgotten warrior on my cell phone for 3 hours until the lady holding the key to the safe I needed to check arrived. Actually this blog entry was written by hand during those waiting hours after my forgotten warrior would not make the one jump to the hill and kept on dying.
P.S. Due to current internet problems, can not really call them current anymore, pictures will follow!
A Pre-Christmas Story
It was the last working day before Christmas. Of course half of the office called in sick, a terrible Christmas flu ad to be going around, since everyone here is so hard working and would not skip work on purpose to have a longer weekend! Well as the day was ending I started to pack my bag early in order to be out the door at 6:30 pm and I could meet up with Richard, as it was his last day in Cameroon, before he took his flight back home. Even Kasia jumped into a sardine ride from Buea to catch are British friend and say goodbye. Well, 6:30 I was out the door and waiting for Richards call. As we finally got a hold of each other he was stuck somewhere in Douala in traffic, thus I advised him to go straight to the airport and well we would probably meet somewhere else in this world again. As Kasia arrived, filled with disappointment, we head of to catch some food and beers to start our holiday spirit. Since we were up for a change we did not go to have our world famous brochette, no this time we turned left and looked for something new. We found a little stand in a corner where Kasia ordered Plat Avocad and I an omelet sandwich. Well let me tell you these dishes were amazingly good, but you do not want to know how they were prepared. Since we were already trying out new things, we went to bar not known to us before called Barcelona. Nothing special, however, something truly special occurred there. Of course the tables were filled with people, mostly men crying out la blanche je t’aime je t’aime. But there was a small table across the road which belonged to Barcelona as well at which we sat down. No harassment, no marriage proposals and actually cold beer!
We had a toast on Richard who was most probably flying over Mount Cameroon at the moment and headed back home as we had an early start planned the next morning.
Around 12 pm at night my phone starts ringing. Since calls around that time are mainly calls from stalkers who wish to marry you I ignored it and went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later Kasia’s phone started ringing, which she did pick up. It was no stalker; it was Richard at the airport, telling us that he had missed his flight!
To get to the point this is the story: The traffic was not the reason, as he made it to the check in on time. He was directed to a gate at which he was waiting. The plane was said to have a delay, thus no extra worries were needed. After waiting for a while, he decides to ask the staff about the plane and merry Christmas, he was told he was waiting at the wrong gate and the plane left without him! Douala Airport has six gates, the staff members told him to go to the wrong gate, there were no signs, and no announcements. It seemed like a bad joke!
Luckily the next morning we went to the SwissAir office and without much arguing, even though I was well prepared for some, we were able to change the ticket to Sunday without further charges. Thus shortly after Richard took off to Yaounde as his flight no left from there and Kasia and I got ready to start are Christmas holiday.
Motos and squished tushies
The taxi ride from my place to R-Point where you take the cars to Buea or Limbe normally takes at most 10 min. Since traffic here does not know any rules and during holidays chaos seems more than normal we were stuck in the taxi for almost an hour. Cars facing all directions trying in all directions! It was then that we had the fear that we would never arrive to Buea in order to get our hair nicely braided, thus we decided to take a moto to Buea instead. At R-Point, we searched for a fairly stable looking moto with a driver who gave us a fair price. It did not last to long, so of we went… the driver, me in the middle, Kasia in the back. As we were leaving Douala, the driver asks us how the roads to Buea were as he had never driven there before! Furthermore, he asked us how many police controls there were on the way… clearly hinting that he had no papers or license :) The adventure was about to begin! Due to our various sardine rides before, we were quite confident about the way, concerning the police controls it was the driver’s responsibility to get through them as we had all our papers. The ride was fun. Various things were flying against our faces, especially nice was the truck in front of us carrying sand and little stones which kept on falling on us.
After 30 minutes both of my feet fell asleep which was making it quite difficult to hold the balance and I was fighting not to loose my flip flops. Kasia on the other hand had to worry about each little bump as she was threatened to fall of the bike after any weird move. Almost at Buea, we decided to change positions in order for me to get life back into my feet and Kasia to get rid of her back pain. Woohhooo as I was sitting on the back, I was amazed of what she went through. If you sit in the middle you sit on the seat and are pretty safe due to the front and back squishing. Nevertheless, if you sit at the back, you sit on some metal parts with have your behind sticking out. It was quite a sight! Since I did not feel as confident on the back as Kasia di
d I held on to her like a baby Koala on the moms back. After 2 hours we arrived safe and sound!After a short break at Kasia’s place we went to get our hair braided around 3pm. Unfortunately no green was found, thus green and red braids were not possible. Kasia chose a combination of brown colors, and I went for red and black. At 8pm we were finally finished! Since I was not allowed to
stand up during the hair creation, my butt was seriously numb and flat.To end the day in a traditional Buean way we went to have dinner chez Oliver. The best roasted fish you will ever taste!
Madison Park
Sunday morning we woke up early to catch a bus to Limbe. As we were sitting in the bus, Kasia could not believe that we were actually sitting without being squished and not having to wait and hour or two for the bus to get filled. Here in Cam you pay per seat, thus what happens is that children do not get a seat and have to stand in very awkward positions during the entire ride, while the parents sit. This was the case of a father with his two sons next to us. A good person as I am :) I offered to take one of the children on my lap so they could all sit. I am not joking, I guess it was the first time someone has ever offered something like that, because at first they couldn’t believe it and you should have seen that kids face, he was terrified of being able to sit. I do not think I have ever seen a kid so stiff on someone’s lap.
Once at Buea, of course we were not spared the long discussion with various taxi drivers to take us to Batouke, a small village near Limbe, where Madison Park was based. But with strong words and will you do receive what you want. We were relieved when we saw the sign Madison Park on the side of the road. We got dropped off and after asking some nice ladies if this was the correct way we walked down towards the beach. This short walk turned out to be more of a hike down hill. With flip flops quite a challenge! But at last we arrived. It is a great place!
Better than any hotel in Limbe. For children it has a huge playground, with all sorts of sport activities, for adults it is a place for pure relaxation. You sleep in tents right next to the beach, you wake up to the sound of the waves, you can relax and read a book in a hammock, you can take walks on the beautiful black sandy beach and boogie-board or surf on the waves. An additional plus to this place is Roland. He is a very nice Cameroonian who works and practically lives at Madison Park. He is very helpful, friendly and nice to talk to. Funny was that I read about this place on a blog of an American Peace Corp member, Bill, who works in Buea and spends most of his weekends at Madison Park. Apparently, Bill is not the only American Peace Corp who likes to come and relax there. During the day more and more kept on showing up. Some of them were there for one day others were going to spend Christmas there just like us. I must say, they were all very enjoyable people, with interesting backgrounds and Cam stories.After a day of boogie boarding we started to get hungry and decided to go to our standard place, down beach, to have some shrimp and calamari. I guess the first time was either an illusion or too perfect to ever happen again, thus this time the food there was a catastrophe. The orders were completely wrong, shrimps were burned and of course they tried to overcharge us. As we were leaving and very disappointed about the bad service, a lady came running after us on the street. She was holding Kasia’s bag which she had forgotten on her chair. Thank god! There was all her money, her camera and mp3 player, basically all the valuables you have here in Cam. We were so amazed that everything was still there. Someone in Europe would have kept the bag and not bothered to come and search for us. This gave us the hope back for a great Christmas. The highlight of the evening was the pitch dark hike down to Madison Park. However we made it alive and with no major falls and breaking necks!
Christmas Eve
Monday morning we were woken up by an Opera German version of “O Tannenbaum” over the park speakers. It caused some confusion at first, because if you get out of that tent, you see the ocean, the black sand, palm trees and feel the heat it does not quite feel like Christmas at all.
Christmas started with some swimming, fighting with the braids and the sea, and reading in the hammock. During this moment of relaxation Kasia and I started to plan our Christmas dinner. To keep it near our traditional Christmas dinner we decided to buy a chicken and roast it. Problem here is though, you can only buy living chicken, which met killing it, plugging the feathers and making it look not like an animal before eating it yourself. Quite a task for to spoiled western girls like us! I guess it was the thought of killing the chicken and the laziness of climbing up that hill which stopped us from buying the chicken. Well eventually we had to eat; therefore we followed the tip of the Americans and went to a place called the hot spot for a traditional Christmas Dinner. What did we order? Cheeseburgers and fries :) You might mock us now, but believe me a cheeseburger is luxury here in Cam, and I must say it was one of the most delicious cheeseburgers I have eaten in my life! This restaurant was definitely in a hot spot. It was in the botanical gardens of Limbe write at the cliffs. There you had a beautiful view down at the beach, if only it were not dark or if only there were lights!
Back at Madison Park, the Peace Corps joined by one British tourist were all gathered around a table drinking palm wine. Not being used to staying up late in Cam I wanted to join the group, nevertheless I preferred to have some wine on the hammock and dream away.
A White Christmas
Since the majority was American, we followed the tradition of actually celebrating Christmas the 25th. Thus after waking up we decided to go dinner shopping for the big event at night. I was in charge of the plantains! Not only did I prepare them in the Cameroonian way, I also prepared them the South American way as my mum has showed me and they truly were a hit! We even managed to get our chicken :) The guys from Madison Park were kind enough to do the dirty work and handed us over a dead chicken, still with all the body parts, but at least dead! What made us even luckier was the fact of Marcel’s presence. He was a designated cook and took the task to prepare the chicken, so even less dirty work for us. While we were cooking and preparing, which took the entire morning and afternoon, Madison Pak came alive as it filled up with families. Most of them were friends and family of the owners of Madison Park which were there to celebrate Christmas as well. You somehow got that Christmas feeling of a full house as in the movie “Home alone”.
Dinner was ready! We all sat down around the table and enjoyed our bbq grilled chicken, with various side dishes and palm wine. It was then that I looked around the table and realized… this truly is a white Christmas in Cameroon, who would have thought! The dinner was topped at the end with Marcel’s banana flambé.
In order to burn some calories, Katie, an American Peace Corp, and I decided to do a car race. See pictures for further details! It was great fun!
In order to get some Cameroonian spirit we ended the evening with some traditional Dancing with the kids of the landlord. Oh no, that was not the end, we ended Christmas sitting around a great camp fire right next to the beach!
Theme Song for Christmas
Leeeeee poisssson le poissson
Hihihi Hohoho
(let’s see who knows where this son gis from !)
New Years with Shakira
For New Years Aiesec was going to prepare a party, which we were supposed to attend to. Well, let us say everyone believed a party would be organized, however no one was organizing it until I told them to do so. Nevertheless, I also told them I will not attend it, as I had other plans.
Well, the Buean Interns Kasia, Robert and Sebas, also from University Maastricht, came to Douala and stayed at my place for a couple of days. Following the great Christmas dinner tradition, we wanted to create one for new years as well. In the freezer I still had one kilo of shrimp from my housewarming party, thus it was now or never. We spiced these over night in chili and garlic. Since Sebas is a vegetarian a large variety of vegetables was offered as well. However, those who know me know that vegetables have no added value in a dinner for me! Instead of palm wine we had rum and homemade Whiskey. It was a true delight!
The phones kept on ringing asking for us at the Aiesec Party, however we were enjoying our little get together very much, thus there was no hurry from our side. This so called New Year’s party also had a catch. Well all of Aiesec Cam was invited; it was organized by the Aiesec Presidency in Douala, however without our consent the interns were chosen as sponsors. This meant that everyone was able to come eat and drink, but we had to pay. Well, you can imagine that this great organization did not really work out. I already told them in advance that if I come I would not pay as I would not stay long and not eat or drink there.
Well 11:30 we decided to get going in order to show our faces at the MC house for New Years. We had a very nice taxi driver, however who confused his taxi for a turtle. Well, other days I would have stressed him. Today I actually enjoyed the slow ride through Douala. Nevertheless, we made it on time. The MC house was filled with people we did not really know, but well everyone seemed to be having some fun. The clock hit 12 and we interns started hugging and wishing happy New Year to each other. Strangely the Aiesecers did not really react. 10 minutes later we knew why! That is when the started their countdown. Unbelievable! Even 2008 started late in Cameroon!
Well of course then we were not spared from the random hugging and kissing of sweaty, drunk strangers. Kasia and I quickly escaped and went outdoors in order to get some air. I had some conversations with some fellow Aiesecers and when I turned back to Kasia I found here in a deep discussion with the head Aiesec Representative of Yaounde. A very strange character! Well as you might have guessed the topic was payment. I want to emphasize here, that we have been there for 15 minutes, he is holding a beer and as can be seen had various before, and Kasia was empty handed. Still feeling a little bit of rage which fills up each week in Cameroon, I was more than happy to join into the discussion and get some anger out. In a polite manner, I told him that interns are not there in order to support the drinking behavior of Cameroonian Aiesecers and that if they want to give a party they should pay for it themselves. Furthermore, I reminded him of my housewarming party which cost me 20 times more then what they spent and I never asked anyone for a cent. I was waiting for a rebottle, but nothing came. Thus discussion was finished, we did not pay, and to be fair left to have our beer somewhere else. We found a little place around the corner with loud Cameroonian Music and cold beer. People were sitting outside and dancing on the street. This was the atmosphere I was looking for. Due to some slight rain, very weird at this season, we stood right next to the speakers under a little tin roof. The lady who brought us our drinks was so happy that we were spending New Years at her place that suddenly there was a drastic change of music. We were actually listening to Shakira! Dancing next to the speakers, watching the rain, enjoying the beer and watching all the happy Cameroonians dancing around, made me see that this was a fantastic start into 2008. With big smiles on our faces we went back to the MC house to pick up our fellow interns and head back home.
Oh something I have to add! First day at work in 2008. I do not know if I ever told you about our office building. Apparently it is one of the fanciest skyscrapers in Douala. It has 12 floors and four elevators of which one only works at the time. Remember those rides in amusement parks where you are in an elevator which suddenly stops and shoots up in the air and drops down unexpected, well I guess these elevators were the inspiration for those rides. I always made jokes when I heard people knocking inside the elevator not being able to get out, well today first working day in 2008 I was one of those knocking inside the elevator, stuck with another 10 people with the most lovely perfumes.
To continue the day, I had to go and perform an inventory check at a bank in the morning. My appointment was at 8:30. Having adapted to Cameroonian working times, I arrived at 9. Basically, I was sitting on a couch playing forgotten warrior on my cell phone for 3 hours until the lady holding the key to the safe I needed to check arrived. Actually this blog entry was written by hand during those waiting hours after my forgotten warrior would not make the one jump to the hill and kept on dying.
P.S. Due to current internet problems, can not really call them current anymore, pictures will follow!
