A Weekend Wedding

This past weekend I attended my first wedding in Cameroon. The son of a neighbor was getting married. We have been waiting for the date of the wedding for a while (the date continued to change every couple of weeks). So it finally happened.

Things started bright and early Friday morning with the doting ceremony. You could kind of consider this the exchanging of vowels in a church – it’s what ‘seals the deal’. The man basically gives his bride offering. Next there was lots of cooking for the women. Peeling potatoes with dull knives, plucking chicken feathers, cooking over a wood fire – fun stuff. Later in the evening there was some celebrating at the mother of the groom’s house (where also all the cooking had taken place). We ate food, listened to music, some dancing. Then about 8, all the women loaded into cars to go ‘take the bride’ and bring her back to her house (you could kind of say the equivalent of a bridal suite except she never really left it and stays there for a week).

The next day started again with more cooking which this time I actually helped with a little, kind of, by cutting potatoes. But I had to leave to pick up my outfit for the rest of the event. We had ‘team fabric’ – matching fabric for the party. Then about 5, there was another small event involving the groom. Dancing, music, shouting, throwing of money, painting his hands – all of this was involved. After a short break to rest up some, there was another brief ceremony involving the groom that took place in the ‘bridal suite’ house. I think it was a story or a blessing or something (it was all in the local language so I pretty only understood the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’). Then the real event- the evening party. It of course followed African time – starting almost 3 hours. There was a ton of food and drinks and music however no dancing (rather odd). The groom was there again but still no bride. This time there was at least bride stand-in – her younger sister. Everything wrapped upabout 1am and although all the events were finished, we still hadn’t even seen the bride. So the next day, westopped by to see her and take some pictures. Altogether a very fun and tiring weekend but I don’t know if I’d want to have a similar wedding – the bride not attending a single event – quite the opposite of how things are in America.

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Reception

Stand-in Bride and her bridesmaids (+ us of course)

Ramadan

Well after 30 days of fasting, the month of Ramadan is coming to an end. The festivities started yesterday with the prayer outside of town in a large field. Then parties, lots of food, gifts and greeting people – barka de sallah. And things are not over yet – there’s still Fantasia tomorrow.

Here are some photos from the first day :

Prayer

After prayer...

Friends at prayer

Hanging out with some neighbors

Another neighbor

Home Décor

I still don’t quite understand people’s sense of style here and what’s considered nice, acceptable, etc. And my lack of understanding style here also applies to not just what people wear but how they decorate their homes. There seems to be a few basic essentials that most Cameroonians include in decorating their room or house. Here are some of the basics:

fabric draped over the walls (in lieu of paint)

fabric in every doorway even if there is a door

placemate-like pieces of fabric for the sofa

giant posters with either Arabic writing or half-naked couples hugging with the writing ‘Romance’

fake flowers

other various random decorations such stuffed animals, glamour-shot like photos, Christmas lights year round

Notice the fabric on the couch, the hanging various trinkets along the wall including an old balloon

Fabric everywhere, fake flowers on either side of TV, heart shaped pillows oh this is a male's room

Games

In a place where Toys-R-Us and Walmart and all those other fabulous stores don’t exist and therefore don’t allow children to buy every possible toy they could want, children here have to be a bit more creative when it comes to playing games and having toys. There are a old school basics here like cards, marbles and a board game like Parcheesi but most of the time, children end up recycling things to make toys. Here are some of the most common games kids in my town play:

An old tire and a stick - they run as they push the wheel with the stick

Just about the only board game available in town

Toy cars made from wood, old cans, rubber, etc

A game kind of like tic-tac-toe

Fasting for Ramadan

Well it’s that time of year again – Ramadan. Last year, I had just arrived during about the 3rd week of fasting and didn’t really know what exactlywas going on. But this year, I really wanted to try fasting if not for the whole month then at least a couple of days. Most of the community is Muslim where I am and I felt like it would be a good experience and opportunity to better understand and be a part of my community. I asked friends here about the exact times and other details in preparation for fasting. Then as themonth of July finished, I waited for the first day. According to the projected Muslim calendar, the first day was to be August 1. However, about midnight July 31, I got a couple calls from friends waking me up to inform me that fasting would actually start that morning. So Sunday I got up at 4am to eat breakfast then didn’t eat or drink again until the 6:30pm prayer. (I would later find out that actually some people started on Sunday while others started Monday – either day would have been fine. It’s based on the moon so some say they saw the moon Sunday while others say Monday).

Today makes almost a week now of fasting and I hope and plan to keep going the whole month. Days 2 and 3 were kind of difficult but now I am more ‘adapted’ as people say here and it isn’t too bad although I do really have to be conscious of not eating the whole day otherwise without even thinking I pick up a cup of water or start to grab something to snack on.

As another part of integrating during this time, I’ve been working on trying to cook traditional foods. So first, not really something I cook, but many people break fast by eating dates so I try to make sure that I eat a couple of dates first before eating or drinking anything else. Then I usually eat bouille and gossay (like beignets). The bouille I make and am still kind of trying to perfect and then I buy the gossay but hopefully will learn how to make that too in the near future.

Dates from Saudi Arabia that a friend gave me

Women selling food by my house for 'breaking' fast

So here is one way to make bouille (there are many different variations this is just the particular one I know best).

Ingredients :
small amount of rice

peanut butter
sugar (add to your taste)

corn starch

Cook the rice first. While the rice is cooking, sift the corn starch (at least here you need to – it has to be really fine to make the bouille smooth). Then put the peanut butter in a bowl and add water. Break up the peanut butter – basically you dilute the peanut butter. You will want to sift that peanut butter water as well to get out any big parts of the peanut butter.

Once the rice is cooked keep the pot on the stove and add the peanut butter water. Stir preferably use a gourde (apparently special for making brouillie). Then before adding the corn starch, dilute that as well with water – make sure to mix well. Then slowly add corn starch while stirring. Keep stirring while the mixture cooks. It should start to get thicker. Then you add sugar depending on how sweet you like it. Then once it all thickens up a bit – it’s finished. You can eat right away or likemost people here, store in a thermos until it is actually time to break fast.

bouille

gossay

Summertime

School’s out and summer’s in full swing. And just like back home, students take summertime to enjoy hanging out and taking a break from school work. For a lot of students here, that means traveling. After getting their final results from exams and school they hit the road – they go back to their village or to a bigger city like the capital. They usually go work or visit other family. So now at the end of July, Banyo has just about no students left which can make doing work and activities a little difficult when you don’t have participants. However, there are initiatives going on that focus on educating youth. Here are some from this month:

- Vacances sans SIDA which was organized by a youth club and held sessions and debates at the hospital for a week

- Colonie de Vacances which my postmate and I organized to teach about HIV/AIDs and theatre. Participants created skits at the end of the week.

- Weekly activities such as learning to cook, sew and about HIV and STDs organized by the youth delegation

All the activities are meant to empower youthand alsoobviously give them something to do when there’s no school. The activities arefree and open to all youth which here a youth is anywhere from about 10 – 25 or older (kind of like as long as you aren’t married and have kids).It can be difficult sometimes because of student’s unpredictable schedules and also because everyday students leave for vacation. But for those who do attend, they really learn a lot and have fun. And with only about a month left before school starts again, students are really trying to make the most of their time left.

Hand Holding and more...

So I know it’s been a while – not much I can do about that. But it is summer break here now and pretty much that means everyone goes on vacation and I have lots of time to enjoy just hanging out and noticing the simpler things of life in Banyo. So here are in fact some daily habits from life here that would probably not really fly back home:

- the lack of tissues - people just kind of lean over and blow their nose into the air/ground. Oh and putting your finger in your nose is also quite acceptable.Pretty much tissues are strictly for wiping dust off a chair or bench before sitting down

- brushing teeth while walking around outside, maybe down the street – stroll and brush

- going to the bathroom in public – quite acceptable particularlyfor men to just go on the side of the street – I mean I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go and out in the open is probably cleaner and less smelly than a latrine

- hand holding between men – good friends like to hold hands sometimes right? This does not have the same meaning at all that it may have back in home

Now while some of these actions may be seen as inappropriate back home, there are things we do that are not really accepted here. Apparently for a woman to cross her legs has some negative meaning so important to try to remember that when meeting with big wigs. And then of course there’s the left hand – no eating or handing or taking things with your left hand which can be quite challenging to always remember particularly being left-handed. But at least sometimes after they reprimand you about it, they do point out that Obama is left-handed too.

Some good hand-holding shots