Gaelle, the iPod, new observations and cake!

Thursday morning, I was walking up the street to grab a taxi and ran into two school girls. I happened to be wearing my bucket hat and sunglasses, and one of them had a bucket hat and sunglasses on too. The girls smiled and greeted me, and I told the girl with the hat on that I liked her hat. She just grinned and said she liked my hat back. When we parted, she said, “I love you.” Kinda weird, but hey, whatever!

When I reached the orphanage, I was greeted with open arms by Champion and Gaelle. Gaelle is Maria’s niece, and Maria is the orphanage administrative assistant. Maria will bring Gaelle some days to the orphanage so that she can play with Champion since they are close in age. Gaelle is 2 and just as cute as can be with her little turned up nose and round face (see her pic below). I had no choice but to pick up both kids, one in each arm, and carry them up the steps into the sitting area.

I introduced my iPod to the orphanage kids on Thursday, and those interested in it were actually very patient waiting to get an ear piece. The kids love to listen to it, which I don’t mind sharing it with them since they don’t have a radio at the orphanage and the TV no sound. I was going through my ipod’s menu yesterday when I noticed it had a video on it, which was odd because I don’t watch videos on my ipod and hadn’t downloaded any. I opened it up to see a 6 second close up of Janvier’s face-lol. He had no clue he was caught on video, and I doubt the kid who made the video knew what they were doing either!

I came to the realization this weekend that with Africa being a large coffee bean grower that I haven’t seen coffee sold or served anywhere here. You know how the U.S. has a Star Bucks on every corner or some kind of coffee shop, but you don’t see that here. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I just thought that it was interesting that I haven’t seen coffee anywhere. It is actually kind of refreshing not to see restaurant or coffee chains here like McDonald’s, Star Bucks, KFC, etc., because these chains are in Europe and kind of take away part of the ambiance of the European experience (or at least I think so).

Eggs are sold everywhere here and are not refrigerated. Stores/stands will usually have cartons with about 24 eggs stacked on top of one another right next to the checkout counter. Akobe and I stopped the other night to buy some eggs, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the difference would be between refrigerated and non-refrigerated eggs. My guess is that refrigerated eggs probably last longer.

Akobe bought a cake mix this week for me. She said she never knew a white person who didn’t like to eat cake. Come to think of it, I don’t know any white people who don’t like cake either-lol. It will be interesting to see what it tastes like, and I’ll be curious to see if there will be frosting on it. What’s a cake without yummy frosting, right?

I’ve had a few people ask me about donating items, and I have found that shipping here is quite expensive. Please stay tuned soon for a blog explaining about material/monetary donations…

Photos of the my neighborhood, the orphanage and the kids now on Snapfish

For those of you following my blog who are not on Facebook and aren't able to see my photos, please feel free to view my photos on snapfish. No need to register yourself. Enter my email address, scwade1@yahoo.com, and then enter the password africa. Here is the website: http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/welcome

I now have 5 albums; The Orphanage, The Orphanage Kids, My Neighborhood, Douala and Ethiopia. Enjoy!

Le Blanche, the new ride and Boo Boo's great adventure

On the way home in the taxi, we passed a huge confrontation in the parking lot of popular gas chain. All these men were gathered in a big circle surrounding the men who were arguing. The driver stopped soon after we passed the gas station to drop off a passenger. As the driver slowed down, we passed two men on the right side working under a car hood of which one of the two men saw me. As I sat there waiting, I heard a man yelling, “La blanche, la blanche, la blanche” (the white) over and over again to get my attention. I mean really! After hearing enough, I stuck my head out of the car and yelled back to him, “Le noir, le noir, le noir” (the black). He started cracking up at my response, as well as everybody in the taxi. As the driver pulled away, I stuck my arm out the window and waved goodbye without looking back at the guy. I told Deanne, Akobe and Jeromie my story later and they were all in stitches.

In the past 2 weeks, Jeromie has been looking at buying a used car. I had asked him if he had a death wish or just wanted to play Russian roulette, but instead with a car, with all the crazy drivers on the road. (You couldn’t pay me enough to drive on the roads because the drivers are so ridiculously out of control here.) When Jeromie got home last night, he told me that he bought a car and asked if I wanted to go see it. He bought a red RAV4 and was very proud of it. It looked to be rather well taken care of versus some of the other cars I’ve seen with “for sale” signs on them. Jeromie said, “Now we can all go on a beach trip!” I was thinking, “Oh goody, just what my white ass needs is to be hot and sunburned here! I’ll talk safari trip later this weekend with him…”

Earlier in the day, Boo Boo had worked really hard to walk from the end of the bench around the coffee table (pushed up against the bench) to the other side of the bench. Last night, I was watching Boo Boo walk around the living room table while the others ate dinner. I had just finished my water bottle and given it to Boo Boo (he loves to hold and play with water bottles). He lost his grip on the bottle, which slid to the other side of the coffee table out of his reach. Boo Boo proceeded to walk up and down the coffee table trying his darndest to reach the bottle without having to make the effort to walk to the other side of the table. At one time, he was staring at the bottle and started making sucking noises as if he was going to try to suck it over to his side of the table. After a bit, he finally decided to make the effort to go to the side of the coffee table and was so tired he decided to suck his thumb a bit to rest briefly. After his rest, he then finally rounded the corner to reach the other side. He finally was able to grab the bottle and as soon as he touched it, it rolled to the other side of the table-lol. The little guy had worked so hard to get to the other side only to lose the bottle again, so I handed it right back to him because I couldn’t stand that he had lost his reward so quickly after working so long and hard to obtain it! We all had a good laugh at Boo Boo and his efforts in about a 20 minute time span.

The "freakshow" and orphanage photos

When I arrived at the taxi stop Wednesday morning, I had someone come up beside me and start (or attempt) to talk to me in English while walking with me. He introduced himself as George, and all I really understood from him was that he was sick and was interested in America. He started to follow me to the orphanage, so I stopped prior to making a right turn toward it. George asked for my number, and I told him I didn’t have a telephone. He then asked me for my address, and I told him that I didn’t know it and was only aware of my taxi stop. George asked what I was doing this weekend, and I told him that I was going to the beach with my host family. George was very persistent at wanting to see me this coming weekend, and then hands over his telephone number and e-mail address for me. All the time he was talking to me, I was thinking, “Yeah, you’re sick alright, freakshow.” George finally left after my “promising” to e-mail him, and I stood where we had talked for a bit just to make sure that the “freakshow” didn’t follow me or do anything stupid.

Wednesday afternoon, when I pulled my camera out of my backpack, you would’ve thought I was giving away free candy as quickly as the children swarmed around me. They immediately began to pose for me, so they weren’t shy at all. I made sure to get an individual shot of each child so as not to be unfair or show favoritism.

On the way home from the orphanage, I ended up having to take a second taxi. He started small talk, which I’m used to by now, and then asked me for my phone number. Go figure.

Boo Boo, football and unexpected surprises...

Since I arrived, Jeromie has nicknamed David "Boo Boo." David seems to like his new nickname, and we all use it now. The kid cracks me up in his walker because the stupid "stoppers" (as I call them) always get caught when going to the floor onto the carpets. When he gets stuck, rather than crying and getting frustrated like most babies, Boo Boo sits and sucks his thumb. It happens often, so I guess he knows eventually someone will come to his rescue.

Boo Boo always fights going to bed every night. Sometimes when I hold him, I'll rock him to sleep. BUT, just when his eyes start rolling back and getting heavy, he'll quickly sit up as if to say, "What'd I miss? What'd I miss?" That will happen about 5 or 6 times before he finally falls asleep while sucking his thumb.

Boo Boo can pull himself up and sit up, but his "attempting" to crawl could use some work. He'll be on his stomach and lift all his limbs in the air, as if he is about to fly or swim in the air-lol. In the past week, he's finally figured out the crawling bit and that he's gotta work at it to actually get anywhere or to reach that toy he wants so badly that is out of his grasp.

While working at the orphanage yesterday, I was working on the computer when something caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and a big rat had entered the living room and went behind the bookshelves. Ugh! I asked Solange about it, and she said that there were "beaucoup" rats, which means that there are a lot. I hadn't encountered any in the 2 weeks I had been there prior, so I was not at all happy to see that the children are living in a rat infested house. I'm thinking I may see if I can find some rat poison here and donate it for them to use. There's no sense in the kids being exposed to filthy rats

I played football (soccer) with the kids yesterday also. It was so much fun, and I had a good time making the kids laugh by acting goofy. Mostly all the kids played barefooted and one or two played with flipflops on. Unfortunately, there is not much room to play in the yard, but we made the most of it. At one time, Melanie was goalie and I was chuckling to myself watching her dancing and making faces while everyone was preoccupied with trying to get the soccer ball.

On the way home from the orphanage in a taxi, it stopped and picked up a lady with a baby and 2 little girls. The girls were probably about 3 and 4 years old. When the girls saw me sitting in the front seat, they waved immediately and greeted me. While riding along, the 3 year old had her chin propped on my seat staring at me. After riding a few minutes, all of a sudden I felt this little index finger poking the side of my neck. It was as if she was checking to see if I was real or not-lol. It was too funny.

Saturday Night, Jan. 22

Akobe, David (the baby) and I left the house and headed over to Deanne's salon to meet her. She was still working and the wedding started at 5 pm. We didn't leave the salon until 6:30, so much to my disappointment, I did not get to see a traditional African wedding.

I knew the bride because I had met her just a few days before the wedding at Deanne's salon. She greeted us on the pathway to the house we were going to, and she was dressed in a shorts jumpsuit. When we arrived to the wedding reception, I was fairly surprised at the mix of informal/formal wear. The older women were all wearing their traditional cabas (dresses) with headwraps while the younger people were all dressed casually (tank tops, t-shirts, jeans, etc.). We entered a house where the sitting area had a buffet set up (of course we missed all the food) and music was playing. This small room also served as the dance floor, which was only about 5' x 5', so needless to say it was just a little cramped. We were all offered a beer and needed a bottle opener for them (no twist caps here). A guy used a soda bottle with the plastic cap on it to open the bottles, and when it didn't work, he just used his teeth. Yikes!

After we were served a beer, I was immediately invited to the dance floor where only women were dancing. I guess people wanted to see the white gal's moves-lol. I got up and started dancing, and the women on the floor started clapping and yelling as I danced. The music was jammin', and we all had a good time dancing. It was hot as hell though in that tiny room!

I decided to take a short break from dancing and went outside. I thought I had seen a calico kitten earlier, and I saw a little boy petting it. The poor thing was skin and bones, and it was probably only about 5 weeks old. Of course, you know what a sucker I am for cats, I picked it up to pet it and love on it. Somehow I was able to hear it purring in my ear over the music. Even if it was hungry, I think it would've chosen to be loved over eating. Unfortunately, something startled it, so I put it down soon after.

I stepped up to the porch to rejoin my friends when I encountered a young baby boy. He was walking, so he was probably about a year old. As soon as he saw me, he started to cry uncontrollably. The closer I got to him, the louder he cried. I'm assuming that I'm the first white person he's ever seen and that I scared the bejeebus out of him-lol. I had to walk around him to get up to the porch, so I walked up the porch steps as far away as I could get from him. In the meantime, another little girl had walked up the porch steps to console him and was hugging him around his neck. It was soon after my scaring the poor child and David falling asleep in my lap that we decided to leave the reception.

We grabbed a taxi and headed up to Roundpoint, a roundabout section of the city. There was a diner-type restaurant there called Glacier where we decided to grab a bite to eat. It was nice and cool inside. It was rather dark though, but had a bluish glow inside. We ordered and then Akobe paid; apparently, one must pay prior to dining due to previous customers walking out. We all had a hamburger to eat, and I must say that the burger was much better than Europe's burgers. It actually tasted like it was real meat-lol. It had onion, ketchup and mayo on it. Afterward, I had a small cup of chocolate ice cream. Much to my surprise, the ice cream really didn't taste all that sweet. (The ice cream I had a Deanne's home was so much better, especially since it had the small bits of shaved chocolate in it. I'm going to have to track that ice cream down now that I think about it...)

After eating, we all decided to head back home since it was about 10. It was past the baby's bedtime, plus we were all tired and hot. Deanne works on Sundays too and had to be up early.

More random observations...

If you're a man and have to pee, just go on the side of the road. No need to worry about being arrested for public urination. I've seen 3 men urinating with no attempt to hide in order not to be seen. Yuck!

If you have a nice home or own a nice apartment building, it is fenced and has a security guard at all times.

All TV commercials have white actors. It's hard to understand this since the majority of Cameroonians are black.

The SyFi (Science Fiction) channel is here.

I rarely watch TV here, but I have seen the following American TV programs/movies on TV here when passing by the TV: X-Men, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Curious George, Yo Gabba Gabba and the A-Team.

I saw an advertisement for the Super Bowl on TV the other night when watching a football (soccer) match. I'm curious to see if the same commercials are shown here during the SB. My guess is probably not...

If you drive a motorbike and get pulled over, you just pay off the cop for your not having a driver's license. (It's no wonder people can't drive here if they've never earned/received their licenses!)

Why there aren't more pictures...

I haven't taken many pics here because I've learned that you need to know someone personally before taking a picture or ask a stranger if it's ok to take their pic. I am going stir crazy from not photographing everyday, but I'm weary that I draw so much attention with my being white and am afraid I may be robbed of my new camera since white people are assumed to be rich. My being white and having my camera on me just screams "TOURIST!!"

Photos

For those of you following my blog who are not on Facebook and aren't able to see my photos, please feel free to view my photos on snapfish. No need to register yourself. Enter my email address, scwade1@yahoo.com, and then enter the password africa. Here is the website: http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/welcome

Click on the Ethiopia album and the Douala, Cameroon album.

I apologize for not uploading these sooner, but I have run into difficulties nearly daily trying to upload on snapfish. I finally had some luck today uploading!