My expectations: I figured it would be a dirt road for a
good part of the drive. I expected way less people (which is very niave of me)
and I also was thinking it would be flat and a little more dry looking. Also I
expected to buy food on the drive for lunch (if I trusted it but I had my
snackies just in case). I also expected it to be 8 hours.. ish. And fairly
minimal traffic. Also animals, I expected to see many animals (like not Zebras
and Elephants and Lions, but animals maybe like something more simple). Let’s
see what else was what I was expecting…
I wasn’t expecting but 1 stop.. and one bathroom break.
OKAY the actual event of the drive:
We got into the car and put our suitcases in the back two
seats so we could put the toilet paper we were picking up. SO WE LOADED the car
with toilet paper. I mean the entire trunk stacked until behind the first row
of back seat where we were sitting.
First of all it’s day time so Douala was A MESS. Absolutely
crazy traffic and people.. people EVERYWHERE.. I’m not meaning people were out.
I mean EVERYONE was out. Markets all the way down all of the streets and round
a bouts with 30 cars within it and within 15 feet of the actual circle, plus
another 20 mopeds and a semi or two going through. Like 4 lane (okay exaggerated, maybe a 3
lane) round about.. not because it’s a huge round about.. because they decided
to put a circular blockade in the middle of a street corner and everyone goes
at the same time. In between every car and every miniscule normal amount of space between cars was a
moped or motorcycle thing.. with anywhere from 1 to 4 people on them. Oh and
inbetween the motorcycles and cars and trucks there were people walking with
baskets and sticks and products and beans and peanuts on their heads, in their
hands in trailers and carts. Down the streets was the same deal.. when there
was a break between markets.. maybe 10 blocks.. it was about 50 mph on the
skinny road… with usually 3 lanes of cars on a 2 lane road. Dodging other
cars.. passing at your own pace, even when other cars are coming, no we did not
dodge motorcycles and people.. they dodge our van.. and our van dodged semi
trucks and larger vans. In Africa, the biggest gets the right of way absolutely
the opposite from the U.S. I mean people dodge motorcycles, motorcycles dodge
cars, cars dodge vans, vans dodge semis.. and so on. Instead of using blinkers
here we use horns, and instead of slowing down to allow someone out of the
street we use horns to signal “GET OUT OF MY WAY.” Oh man it was beyond
interesting and we had only been going 20 minutes.
We saw rows of lumber, then food, then furniture, and
tables, and chairs and fruit and beans and bread and well just about a lot of
millions of things along the roads of Douala. We stopped at a bakery and bought
bread “to eat along the way” Rose had said. We went in and she picked up two
things of President Cheese (like a spreadable little triangle circular thing
I’ve seen them in the US) and 3 loaves of French bread. Also.. here was the
interesting part.. SARDINES.. erg. So my dad and I glanced at each other like..
eww. It was only 8:00 at this point so we weren’t eating soon. We went on our
way and got out of the city.. which meant not quite so crammed buildings but
still people and cars everywhere but now not so jammed that we could go about
50 to 70 miles an hour depending on the town (really village of homes and
markets) we passed through.. which was every 10 minutes still at this point. We
stopped at a fruit stand and Rose and Aman bought papaya and some pineapples
for us. The man peeled and sliced a fresh papaya for my dad and I to eat and
when I asked what the funny green things were he said Avocado. So he also
sliced us a piece of one of those. It was really yellow but very sweet and I
started to feel a little off just in feeling unsure about everything we were
doing and eating and the bumpy winding car ride. By now we had papaya, toilet
paper, suitcases and pineapple in our car.
We continued on our way slowing down only to go over the
massive or little or flattened or big or rough types of speed bumps at the
entrance and exit of each village. Also stopping to pay “Tolls,” basically just
people stopping people to pass for a price. Many many many children approached
the cars at each of these to sell items. We bought fresh roasted peanuts at one
place, they were really good. At one of them I woke my dad up in a hurry cause
some kid was holding a weird rat like scaly looking armadillo shaped but very
light brown colored and without the lines of the scales like an armadillo,
weird looking animal with a REALLY LONG flat tail. Ew.
Oh then we stopped and I had to use the restroom of course
but this was like totally just people roasting scary meat and who knows what..
but as soon as I asked Sister Rose decided she needed to go too. They charged
us 100 Francs which is about 20 cents and it was a no toilet seat toilet and no
flusher and a bucket of water with a rusty pale I’m pretty sure was to try to
flush it… however I was not about to touch that. I didn’t even attempt to wash
my hands in the sink. I used massive hand sanitizers after that. Oh and I
brought my own tissues into the bathroom… not my little Charmin TP .. my dad
handed me like kleenex’s which as you girls probably know just isn’t the same
as good toilet paper so I was mad at myself for buying it and not using it yet.
At this place the driver bought fried plantain, but I didn’t
feel like eating anything. We stopped only two hours again later and had lunch.
We sat at a little picnic table outside some building and Rose asked us to buy
a drink at least (well she payed for it). We got a grapefruit like soda that
was extremely sweet. Then Rose opened the cans of sardines and the cheese and
got a knife for the bread.. guess what! I ate it. I ATE SARDINES! I did pick
out the spine cause that really grossed me out. But you cut the French bread in
half, open a piece of cheese and smear it in, pile some sardines (piling being
putting just a small small amount on for me) and then eating it like a
sandwich. It was very interesting. Fishy, salty. But hrm I tried it before my
dad did J.
It was a very different experience. So we left there and drove on.
We stopped and got “bush” mushrooms, cause they were
gathered from the bush not a nursery. And we stopped and bought MORE papaya,
cause it was “from natural” so not a farm of papaya trees. So we had everything
you could imagine in that van. Ha ha. We drove through the bigger town of
Bamenda where my dad and I saw an albino person, and we got gas there and rode
through to Njinikom.
Here is Sister Rose picking out the papaya on the side of the road. It comes in sizes small to large!
Here is Sister Rose picking out the papaya on the side of the road. It comes in sizes small to large!
So in Njinikom we met with the Hake’s and put our stuff in
the house and went to evening mass at the chapel on the hospital grounds. We
walked around to see the different areas of the hospital and met many of the
sisters. Then we came back and had delicious Wheat Berry Soup Terry had made
(kind of like minestrone but with wheat berries not pasta and with some other
spices). Then it was bed time. I fell asleep like before my head hit the
pillow. I slept very well.
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