Day 1 Yaoundé 03/29/2010

The hotel we are staying at was not Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego or The Drake in Chicago however it was more than enough for us. The Hotel le Tango had air conditioning, a working shower, a flushing toilet, a restaurant and bar, and an occasionally working television. We actually saw a CBS telecast of college basketball through ESPN’s international broadcast. March Madness knows no bounds! We had to meet Felix today at 0900 and we had things to accomplish today: get a train ticket to N’gaoundéré, find bottled water, find coffee, and get a lay of the city. Courtney made sure we did the most important one first. You guessed it: find coffee! We found coffee in the restaurant and we awkwardly ordered our little breakfast in what little French we knew. We met Felix and went to the train station. Unfortunately this was serious roadblock #1. Without prior reservations being made, we have to wait three days until Thursday evening to get a train out to our final destination. While somewhat disappointed at the delay, we were anticipating possible problems with the train as we had heard stories from other people. Unfazed, we went to find water at the local supermarket. This was successful, outside of being unsure as to how much everything was. We then persuaded Felix to give us a tour of the city which was breathtaking. We saw every government building in the city, a couple parks, the local hotspots, and the US embassy. We were able to do this with only a couple funny moments. First, we got a lot of stares and were being persuaded into buying things in the back of the cab. Courtney deferred to me to saying ‘no’ to the incredibly cute children. Secondly, Courtney, who if not a physician would have definitely gone into photojournalism, took a lot of pictures. All of them acceptable, except snapping pictures of the US embassy; they didn’t like that at all. Courtney got yelled at by an armed guard and Felix was quick to tell Courtney “don’t do that.” We made it back to the hotel after our sight-seeing adventure. We have been attempting to brush up on our French. Also, being the rainy season it rains every afternoon so staying in is not such a bad thing. It’s similar to Chicago during the summer with the heat, humidity, and then thunderstorm in the afternoon. It looks like we are staying in Yaoundé for a couple days so we may meet a few contacts here over the next few days. Will keep you all posted!


Much love from both of us.

-Brent Brown