Kribi

This weekend we went to Kribi, a resort town in southern Cameroon, and honestly, it was paradise. Within five minutes of arriving we were all in the water and declaring how we were never leaving. You look out on the ocean and its perfect -- no motor boats or crowds of people, just the occasional fishing boat. It doesn’t hurt that a week ago, I was in Boston shoveling two feet of snow and suffering in single digit weather. 

While we have only been in Yaounde for four days, going to Kribi was so nice considering how overwhelming the past few days have been and gave us a chance to slow down. We left Yaounde at 10 am on Friday arriving at Kribi at 2 pm. It’s a long drive but interesting to leave the city and see the villages and rainforests (someone told me it’s the 2nd biggest rainforest in the world? though Im not100% sure of that).

Kribi isn’t the resort town the way it is in America, but it is certainly seen as such by Cameroonians. In the US though, you would describe Kribi as quaint and undeveloped. We spent Friday afternoon on the beach, swimming,  enjoying the sun, and getting beer and ice cream from the hotel bar (is there an un-obnoxious way to mention beer when you’re 21?). Every month we have a stipend from Dickinson that all students on Dickinson student abroad programs receive and while in other countries (ie: European) the stipend doesn’t go very far in Cameroon we have money to spare. So a bottle of beer is, at very most, 1000 francs which is only $2 though in the city it is usually 500 francs. For dinner, we ate at the hotel having what seems to be the ultimate in Cameroonian cuisine -- rice, chicken, fish, palatines, and fruit for dessert. The food is so fresh and tastes amazing, but I am getting tired of the rice/chicken/fish combo and the thought of five months of the same thing is a bit exhausting. That said, my diet is so much better here than at home and I never eat any processed food.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to Lobe falls. The waterfalls were beautiful and fell directly into the ocean and we took a short ride in a fishing boat around them. The ride was a bit terrifying since the boats are like leaky canoes (ie: a boy in the back was literally scooping out water). Afterwards, lunch on beach (shrimp, palatines, and beer) and then back to the hotel for more beach for the rest of the day. Next day, home to Yaoundé. 

One of the more memorable moments from the trip was early on Saturday as we watched the fishermen haul in their catch. At one point, I went a little closer and took a picture of the scene and when I walked back I looked up at our group and just had the feeling of knowing how weird we looked. We stick out horribly and that is a completely new feeling -- never before has my skin color brought me attention, but now our skin is so pale that we seem to glow. I'm not saying I haven't thought about how privileged I am being an white American, but rather that I just haven't had to experience it before (or had people touch my skin and shout out "la blanche!"). No one here assumes we are Americans (and if our nationality is brought up, they guess German or French) rather we are simply seen as Westerners which gives me a lot to think about. I always am aware of everyones eyes on me because being white here immediately says "foreigner" and there is no way around it. People are always telling us "Welcome to Cameroon," something you could never say to a stranger in the US.

Also, on Thursday before we left for Kribi I met my host mom! She is super nice and speaks both French and English. I'm living with her, her husband, their three children (ages 9, 15, 18), a poor girl she took in from the North-West region so she could attend school, and two students who are friends of the family who are attending university in Yaoundé. Oh, and the grandma. So including myself, it is ten people (!). The family speaks French, English, a language native to their village, and pidgin. Pidgin is really the coolest thing, to explain it quickly it is slang but in recent years it is honestly becoming its own language with its own syntax and is mixture of both French and English words. You wouldn't use it formally, but it is the language you hear on the street and used with friends.

For example:

How are you? --> How now?

I'm going to the store --> Id go store

I want to go --> Je veux go.

I move in tomorrow, so I hopefully I can describe the family/house in better detail then.