LE BLANCHE

Woke up with my mom at 5:15- yes, I'm still attempting to get on her good side. Heated the water for the morning "bucket bathing", made breakfast of haricots and spices on baguette, cleaned and chopped up the vegetables for tonights dinner, and cleaned "le salon." For as modern of a family the Tchebe's are, the elements of their traditional culture are still present in their day to day lives. For example, the broom we use is one that mom makes from dried palm leaves (we sweep the carpet with it...no vaccum cleaners). I had about 5 more examples, but my entire post just got deleted (these computers are driving me crazy), so I'm moving on. Vite Vite!

After class today, decided we would brave the heat and the intmidating Mokolo market again (one of the largest in Central Africa). Everywhere you go throughout the market, people are shouting "le blanche! le blanche!", some grabbing arms and attempting to pull us into their shop. The good thing here is that we were culturally informed it is totally inappropriate to touch a woman in public, so we can reply with some sass "ne touche pas!" and not sound rude. It's unbelievably liberating. Also, I've discovered from the blunt conversations with many Cameroonians that there is very little need to be politically correct. People say what they mean, and it is so refreshing.

Had another proposal (not quite as romantic as the dirty taxi...but pretty close) with a man attempting to sell me a Lions jersey. At least this time he was sitting and I was standing...close to getting on his knee? Anyway, it happened in the sidewalk while I was being crashed into by the massive amounts of shoppers in about 90 degree dry heat...magical.
Ended up Went to a boulangerie to buy a cake for tomorrow's celebration of the September birthdays. Heading to Dschang (more rural) Saturday for 2 weeks! Time to learn how to say "I'm not allowed to eat bush meat"