It's Friday night and I am in the
nearby town of Mora with a couple other volunteers. We are helping my
friend Liz move out of her house the next morning and have just
finished a week-long camp for her primary school girls. We are all
exhausted, and some of us are sick and lying on mattresses on the
floor. Claire and I volunteer to make a run into the market to pick
up omelet sandwiches for dinner.
It's light when we leave, but is
starting to get dark by the time we arrive at the market. The power
has gone out, and by the time we find an omelet stand, most of the
light is coming from motorcycle headlights driving by. We ask if we
can order omelets, and the man at the table says yes, but there are
no eggs. Can someone go get eggs? Yes. Is there spaghetti (a standard
component of a Cameroonian omelet)? No. We give up on the spaghetti,
take a seat, and order a glass of hot, sweet tea while we wait for
the eggs to arrive.
There are a few other men sitting
around the table, drinking tea or having dinner. As Claire and I
converse, the man next to us starts listening in. British or
American? He asks us in English. It turns out his name is John, and
he is from the southwest, an anglophone region. He has just arrived
in Mora a few months ago, and seems relieved to find others with whom
he can speak English. He has a job doing some kind of environmental
protection, and speaks passionately about how Cameroonians need to
care more for their environment. I try to quash the bitter part of me
that wonders how much of his words will actually turn into action. My
phone dings, and I have a text from the others at the house that
says, “Where are you? Also, bring toilet paper!!”
The eggs arrive, but now there is no
gas for the little stove. Our chef borrows some coals from someone
cooking nearby, and starts fanning them vigorously with a plastic
plate. As they heat up, someone comes over with a bucket of
spaghetti, and it is added to the omelets. Claire shines the
flashlight on her phone over the fire to help the cook. It turns out
it takes a long time for an omelet to cook over a fire.
After two hours, all of the omelets
have been finished, covered in mayonnaise, and stuffed into
baguettes. My phone rings, and it's Emily at the house. Are we still
alive? Also, can we please not forget the toilet paper? We pay and
thank the cook and say goodnight to John. We dodge motos in the dark
as we cross the street and pick up a roll of toilet paper. A man
outside the boutique shouts “hee haw” at us – a Cameroonian
interpretation of a Chinese greeting, and their favorite way to
harass Chinese people. Claire and I are both blonde.
We find a motorcycle to take us home,
as we don't want to walk home in the dark. A crowd gathers to watch
us climb on, and people start shouting “Sarkozy” at us.
Apparently now we are French. The moto is large enough to carry both
of us and the driver, but has a mysterious number of pedals. Claire's
feet end up underneath the feet of our driver, and my feet are
balanced precariously on pedals of different heights. As we leave the
market, the lights suddenly turn back on.
We pull up at Liz's and give a couple
coins to our driver. As we walk successfully back into the house,
Claire and I agree that buying dinner in Cameroon is a whole lot more
interesting than going through the drive-thru.
