The Little Things

I don't really know what to write about... the past few days have consisted of up and downs, and a lot of small daily happenstances. We've been watching movies, reading our books we got from the Reading Room in Yaounde, and doing chores as the power goes on and off. Dinner is usually postponed until 7 or later because Fadi and Lum are fasting from sunup to sundown for Ramadan. Sometime in the next few weeks, before Ramadan ends, the whole family is going to join them in fasting... as well as we can, anyway. I don't know how they do it, but it looks like I'm going to find out!

Today we took a taxi into town to go dancing, stopping on the way to see about getting SIM cards for our phones, and getting soaked as we walked/ran through the rain to PresCafe for some chocolate cake and coffee to fortify our poor, wet souls. But when we arrived at dancing, there were cars and people everywhere. Upon peeking inside we saw a table up on the stage and bunch of important-looking people in hats sitting and talking. So no dancing today! But right outside is the stand where we always buy plantain chips, so it was worth the trip to town. Not that it's costly in any way - only a few hundred francs each way for Katelyn, Sarah, and I all together. I love this place. 

I feel like I should probably mention, and not just in passing, the food! Though I've already written plenty about eating chocolate and junk food, we've had plenty of Cameroonian food, some of which I find delicious, and some of it not so much... Fufu and jamma jamma, for example, which is a staple in most Cameroonian homes (so we've had it more than once). The fufu is a corn mush about the consistency of playdough, and jamma jamma is a mixture of vegetables and greens that taste like, as Liz (a teacher at the missionary school in Yaounde) put it so delicately, "someone mowed the lawn and put it in a bowl." I have to agree, although it's more akin to mowed seaweed than grass, in my humble opinion. 

But there have been plenty of African delicacies I've sampled and loved! For one, there's always a huge variety of fruit; we've been eating watermelon, pineapple, and papaya almost every day, and we just had some passionfruit yesterday that was quite delectable. And of course puff-puffs, which are by far my favorite Cameroonian treat. We also usually have a live chicken running around the yard waiting to be decapitated and gobbled up. They are everywhere here - wandering through the streets, being carried by people riding motor-taxis, or squirming in a bag brought by a house guest as a gift. I had the privilege of seeing Delphine, a woman who works in the Jackson's house as a cook, chop off a chicken's head the other day... a singular experience. But amazingly, it didn't put me off chicken at all - I still love it just as much as I did before. Good thing, too, because it's a common meal in Cameroon. So are potatoes, rice, avocados, and pepae, a spice we grow in the garden. We have plenty of American food here as well, plus our secret stashes of soda and candy, so it's quite the variety. 

Well, for not having anything to write about, I realize I've rambled on till it's longer than all my other posts. Oh well, I hope you've enjoyed my accounts of our everyday life here in Bamenda. And even if you didn't, well, there's more to come, I can assure you!