Courtney and I were able to get away and go into the city after our first trip to the hospital. Lauren, who had been in N’gaoundéré for 5 weeks and spoke fluent French, was our guide. We walked the 45 minutes to downtown from the mission with great pleasure as we had been feeling a bit cooped up. We strolled all around town and saw all the little restaurants and shops. This was no easy task. In order to move we had to navigate through mobs of people, motos (motorcycles), and cars, through a cloud of dust, and with the local youngsters yelling “Nassara, Nassara!” (meaning “hey, white person…”) from every direction. That being said we had a lot of fun. We eventually made our way to the petite marchè (small market) which is ironically larger than the grande marchè (large market). Lauren showed us the fine art of haggling a local seller at the market; which is actually, we found out later, a large part of the Cameroonian culture and West Africa in general. We were able to snag an ‘authentic’ Cameroon World Cup soccer jersey and a ‘real’ African necklace. After that we went to Courtney’s dad’s favorite restaurant when he stayed in town: The Plazza. Unfortunately the cooks weren’t there and the waitress didn’t know when they would be back. All they had to offer was drinks, which was not going to be satisfying enough. So we wandered to another place where the cooks were there. However, they only could offer about half of their menu. Despite the limited options, we were very happy with the meal, especially since we got some fried plantains (a delicious substitute for French Fries!). We then got the Cameroonian version of ice cream, ice flavored with vanilla and chocolate extract, which was actually pretty good and thoroughly refreshing. We got a taxi home to the mission feeling full and content Now we were ready for a great Easter Sunday.
Brent and Courtney
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