March 8th, International Women's Day.
alors, Bonne Fete!
Honestly, this was one of my favorite days in Cameroon and will always be something I remember.
So after waking up and having a special breakfast of fried dough , I put on specially bought hot pink Women's Day kaba and went off to school. Now, for weeks, all the seamstresses have been displaying this year's fabric from their storefronts and LaKing, the big fabric store in Centre Ville has been having lines out the door as women rush to buy their fabric. But nevertheless, as I went to take my taxi, I felt terribly self-conscieous. I just had that feeling you have right before you go to school on Halloween and you wonder if you're the only person in costume. But, by the time I got to the main road, everyone was shouting out to me "Bonne Fete!" and I am pretty sure I have never been recieved so well in Cameroon.
At 9 am, after taking the necessary group photos of all us in our traditional Women's Day dresses, we headed downtown to watch the parade. I was afraid it was going to be similar to Youth Day, but downtown was hopping and the women were all lined up to march and were shouting out to us to join. We all would've died of heat exhaustion had we tried to walk so sitting and watching was more than enough. All the women who work in varying government dept. and some businesses (hospital, insurance, a nursing association etc.) marched by in this giant groups, wearing -- bien sur -- this years fabric, and just waving and smiling. Again, much better than Youth Day where you had the principals yelling at students to improve their match formation. I could go on attempting to describe the scene, but hopefully I'll find a way to upload photos here.
Afterwards, we went to a popular local bakery and bought some street food. Ahh street food. Again, something worthy of its own blog post (and again, here I am writing about food). But anyways, for 300 francs, I had a baguette filled with avacado, egg, sausage, piedmont (hot HOT spices), maggi (soy sauce-ish), and tomatoes. Then we headed to Chicken&Beer of earlier fame which while normal quite on a weekday was packed,filled with the African Mamas who were hanging out with their girlfriends and just boozing in the middle of the day. Bonne Fete. The Mamas --and this is truly their name, reach middle age and strangers call you Mama or Ma Mere -- were wild, starting their own dance floor and just holding court in the bar. It was fantastic. Nothing though compared to when we joined in dancing. They flipped! It was so wonderful to see the women so happy and pleased with us for, despite the wild difference in age and nationality, joining in and fully embracing the culture. Not only did the women crowd around us and kick up their dancing to even greater intensity, but everyone else in Chicken&Beer started taking photos of us!
So that was our day, parade and bar. And really, it was such a great day. Everyone just seemed to so happy and you couldn't help but see the feelings of sisterhood.
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