Forever Summer

A few days before I left for Cameroon I was leaving a drugstore when the clerk tried to convince me to get a flu shot. I declined and chuckled to myself, knowing that I was headed to a land lacking winter, snow, and (presumably) the need for flu shots. Little did I know that the annual flu shot would be among the long list of shots that we received our first few weeks here. And although I was wrong about my lack of need for a flu shot, I was spot-on in my weather expectations. Training in Bafia was in the tail end of the rainy season, but was still consistently hotter than it had any right to be. And since coming to Bamenda I've been quite spoiled when it comes to weather-I don't think it has gone below 65 degrees my entire time here. I don't ever see any thermometers or weather reports but I would estimate that an average day gets to the high 80s during the day and dips to the low 70s in the evenings. It's borderline perfect. My friends up in the Northern Region are dealing with some more extreme heat, but here in the Northwest we live in an eternal summer. I came out of a meeting the other day to a slight breeze and caught myself shivering. Literally unacceptable. 

But as nice as the weather is, I don't take advantage of it as much as I should. Living just outside a city means that the heat is sometimes more of a burden than anything else, as I often find myself crammed in a cab with six other people or sweating through my clothes as a trek over to my office. But last week was Edith's birthday and she had the idea of spending the afternoon at a local hotel with a pool. It was the best. Swimming outside in late January-not something I get to do much back home. And although the water was a mysterious shade of green (some things are better not to ask), it was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. And although I was under the impression that most Cameroonians don't like to swim (many people that I've talked to never learned how), we were treated to quite a display of Cameroonian athletic prowess and swimwear choice. 

Waterproof camera fun!

On Saturday I planned to spend the day chilling at home and finally working on my report for the first three months (we do have some sort of accountability in the Peace Corps…) and went over to my neighbor's house to greet her (Cameroonians are very big on the idea of "greeting" someone. It's not uncommon for me to get phone calls from someone that I knew at one point (e.g. my carpenter) just calling to ask how I am. Once they are assured that I am doing fine, they hang up…). I somehow found myself agreeing to accompany her to Food Market to buy her groceries for the upcoming week. I had been to Food Market once or twice, but never with a Cameroonian. And it turns out that it's an entirely different experience to go with a local (I guess that should have been obvious). I'm not going to be able to do it justice, but Food Market is HUGE. I had been to what I thought was the entirety of it, but it turns out that what I had known as Food Market is only a small part of it. One benefit of living such a large city is that my access to resources (especially food) is borderline unlimited. You just have to know where to look. I'll never shop like a Cameroonian (I'm just not willing to haul back so much food at one time, nor am I ever cooking in such large quantities), but it's a fascinating experience. We had a list of three or four things, including ripe plantains, groundnuts, spices, (all for Bridget), and green peppers (for me). We started in the groundnut "section", which is really just one of the many places where you can buy dried goods. They had endless bags of rice, beans (red, white, and speckled), groundnuts (peanuts), and many other items that I couldn't identify. We gave the chosen market mama a list of things that we wanted and she either sold them to us or found someone else who could and farmed out our purchase. She also lent Bridget money before the transaction so Bridget could go find a snack which she was shopping (baton de manioc and spicy peanut butter-not my jam). After she had located all of our requested items, Bridget paid her and added the money for the snack loan. Fascinating. Next on the list was a bunch of plantains. We found a bunch that looked good (probably 40 plantains or so, most of which looked like they were about to fall off the stem). I wondered how we would carry all our plantains through the market as we continued shopping, but I needn't have worried-we paid and then left them for collection later. Perfect. At this point I began to fully appreciate how large Food Market truly is, as we had been wandering around for quite a while and hadn't even come across the part that I had previously thought the be the entire market. There was a market just for fowls (live chickens), an aisle for traditional Northwest clothing (all in black velvet, my least favorite…), a square just containing tomatoes and onions, and a truck unloading more plantains than I have ever seen in one place. To say that it was overwhelming would be an enormous understatement. In the midst of Food Market it seemed impossible that anyone in Cameroon could be hungry, much less in Bamenda. But as we learned in training, food security is multi-faceted. More on that another day. Just as I was about to hit my breaking point, it was finally time to go. We had all the things on our list plus a last minute addition of dried crayfish. Yuck. Food Market was a fascinating place to visit, but I don't think I can handle the idea of shopping there on a regular basis. 

I've gotten into the routine of trying to spend at least one full day each weekend in my immediate neighborhood hanging out with my neighbors and generally taking it easy. There isn't much to do sometimes, but it's nice to take some time to get caught up on some of my chores and prepare for the week ahead (not that my weeks are always that exhausting. But still.). The kids in my neighborhood are great and always seem to be out and about either washing or playing. Some of the houses in the neighborhood (including mine) have running water, but others don't and the kids in those houses can often be seen hauling water home. So there is never a shortage of children hanging out looking for things to do. A few days ago I had made a promise to my next-door neighbor that we could play with my Frisbee together (have to put that Carleton degree to use somehow…) and I made good on it this evening. We headed out to the small side path that's across from our building and started to throw. She started off afraid to catch the disc, but picked it up in no time and was soon asking me to teach her how to throw a forehand. A big shout out to Marlena and Scoots for all their Frisbee instruction these past few years-looks like it's finally paying off. Just as she was getting the hang of it, we found ourselves gaining a small crowd of neighborhood kids that also wanted to play. Soon there were five or six of us playing in a narrow street, and the disc was going everywhere. As of last week it was dry season, but this past week has brought a surprising amount of rain and the disc was quickly covered in mud. But the kids weren't fazed at all (somehow I ended up in the muddiest section of the street and the reddest hands) and they all learned really quickly. It wasn't quite the same as lazy afternoons on the Bald Spot, but lazy evenings (at least for me) on our dirt/mud street aren't a bad substitute. 

TL,DR: Weekend playtime is some of the best playtime. Pool parties, market explorations, and Frisbee in the evening make for quite a pleasant way to spend time here (or anywhere??).