Ok, so I am one for exaggeration. But I think if the block of 24 hours to which I am now referring is not the strangest block of 24 hours in my life, it at least makes for the top 10.
In my recent trip to Campo, we arrived Monday afternoon. Tuesday was the day we spent planting soy in the morning, and I sold 11.5 kilos later that afternoon. Finally, after finishing with formations, Judith and I are ready to go. We run into one of the head Gendarmes in town, who bribes Judith with a case of boxed wine to drive the 5 km south to Campo Beach to pick up wine fresh from Guinea. We also pick up some passengers, including one guy who works for the Minestry of Elevage, doing stuff with fish monitoring (although I probably misunderstood) and a graduate student from Yaounde, looking at the petrol effects on fishing. We return to Campo to pick up the president of the agricultural group platform, and another mamman, as they, too, were travelling to Kribi. Right as we stop the truck in town to pick up the engine stops running. We sit around, fiddling with the engine for a while, when someone who the president referred to as "a famous mechanic from Douala on retreat" comes to help us. After a while of watching him smoke a cigarette, and staring over all the helpful bystanders, he decides we need to gerryrig the car. This basically involves a technique known to many as hotwiring the car. Right on. At last, it seems the car works again. So, it seems we are on our way out of town. We drive to the Gendarmerie to drop off the box wine. Right as we are pulling up, the car dies again! I watch as a gendarm with something that resembles a wire cutter tries to unscrew the bolt in the place where we have gerryrigged the battery. At last, after realizing trying to use a wire cutter to unscrew a bolt by turning it to the right (rightie tighty, lefty loosey just isn't the same in French), a gendarm who wants a ride into Kribi pulls out the proper tool (le cle) and fixes the wire so the car works again! Here we go!
Only, wait. Not really. About 5 km outside of Campo, a truck is stuck in the mud, and right next to the truck, a pick-up is stuck, too, both on their way into Campo, making the road impassible. After eating a few mangoes (arguably the best food season here), I hop out, take off my sandals, hike up my skirt, and go knee-deep into mud to try to push the pick up out. This need to help was not caused by my desire to leave Campo, or my want to help people. Instead it came from the fact that on the way into Campo the other day, the man who works for Min. Elevage told me that men are stronger than women because woman can't push cars. So, I managed not to fall in the mud, and learned to keep my foot in my mouth. At last, we pushed the pick-up out, and Judith had the car out of the swampy spot. And we were on our way! Only, not. The car stopped working probably 30 times over the 75 km stretch back to Kribi. Each time, we managed to arrange the car so it eventually got us back to Kribi. Once in Kribi, the pick-up stopped entirely as we are dropping off the mammas. Judith, exhausted from a drive that took 5 hours, decided to rest a while in Kribi. Finally, after several hours, we find a mechanic who is very good at what he does, and perfectly arranged the car!
Instead of returning through Yaounde, an extra 100 km on a paved road, because now Judith has spent lots of money trying to fix the car, we decide to return through Lolodorf, all on dirt road, but much shorter. We are told the road is good, so we take off. About 10km outside of Kribi, we are stopped at what might have been the result of someone with the worst idea ever. A truck driver decided to turn around a 10 wheeler on the narrowest strech of road, resulting in a stuck truck that blocked the flow of traffic. We stop the car and wait and eat mangoes. About 20 minutes later, another, slightly smaller truck arrives, backs into the stuck truck, and tries to knock the truck out of its stuck position. You have never seen this, except maybe at a demolition derby. They try several times, but to no avail. After another 30 minutes, a bulldozer comes and bulldozes a new path around the stuck truck to enable traffic to pass, right through someone's front yard! The whole time as this was happenening, I kept thinking that this would NEVER happen in America; the housewife would run out of the house screaming and the husband would hire a lawyer to sue the state. MERDE!
The rest of the ride back was incredibly beautiful, and we stopped in Lolodorf to say hello to another volunteer. The road between Lolodorf and Ebolowa takes you through some isolated villages, around some mountains, and deep into the forest. It is truly beautiful. As we continue along our journey, we note all of the villages we pass. Some villages don't have signs, so we stop to ask the villagers. In what was definitely the best reaction I have ever received as a white person in Cameroon (even topping small children crying in fear), was a girl of about 13 and a boy of about 10, on their way home from the field, looking at me in fear, and despite Judith greeting them in Bulu, they dropped the bags they were carrying. The girl ran, without looking back, into the forest, while the boy took off down the road from where we came. That's right, apparently I instill fear in teenaged children, also. The only thing I can think is that they saw my sunglasses and thought I was an alien from outer space with vacant black eyes. I just wish I could have been there when they told their parents at home later.
So, it was a bizzare 24 hours, that ended with me exhausted at home, eating popcorn for dinner.
Also, I spent the weekend back with my host family in Bangante. In Cameroon, there are two steps to a funeral. The first is the deiu (or something spelled like that) which is the burial. The second is the funerai, which is a huge party. The burial was passed with a lot of wailing, fainting, and falling. You can imagine that it was not like a funeral in the states. Fortunately I was only there for a few hours of wailing, which I was told later by my friend who was also in for the funeral had happened throughout the week. But the funeral was well passed, and I enjoyed being back again for the first time in a long time. This is especially true, as I have, as of today, been in Cameroon for 6 months, and have a very new perspective on my time here.
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