Cameroon - 14 January, 2001

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We have a slow start to the morning and wander down to the hotel restaurant for some breakfast.  Over breakfast, we decide that we cannot stay at this hotel any longer.  While it is a nice place, clean, safe and friendly people, we need water.  So we pack up and head out to look for another place to stay.  We wander over to another area that has a couple of places listed.  After about 30 minutes, we get there, only to find out that they are full and that they have, in any case, double the price given the summit meeting that is taking place here.  So, we use the phone at the hotel to call a few other places, only to find out that they are all full.

We decide that we have no choice but to head back to the same hotel again.  This time we find a short cut over a stream (open sewer) and the rail way tracks.  Once back at the hotel, they re-confirm that they do not have any water, so we decide to try a few more calls.  This time the Catholic Mission answers the phone and they confirm that they have space available and at a reasonable price.  So we decide to head over there.

We need to take a taxi, as it is too far to walk.  We pile into one and head off.  We drive around for a bit and, while we know he has gone in the right direction, he cannot seem to find it.  After asking a few people and heading here and there, we get to it.  He drops us off, but hangs around to see if we will stay there.

We find the women who runs the place and as we approach, she gives us a long long up and down.  We tell her that we were the ones who called about the rooms - she asks us if we are missionaries.  We tell her that we are not - she said that we had told her that on the phone and that we could not stay.  After a bit of back and forth, she said that we were not dressed well enough - we needed long pants.  We told her that would not be a problem, and she decided to let us stay.

We got our rooms and took a long awaited shower.  After cleaning up, we walked into town for some lunch (taking off our long pants as we exit the place). We ended up at Dolce Vita, a nice place overlooking one of the main streets and squares.  We then spend the afternoon in an internet cafe, heading back to the hotel before dinner.  Before we entered the mission, we put on our long pants (some of us have the convertible pants, so it is easy).  But as we are doing this, the women from the mission walks by - all she does is give us a big smile as she sees us putting on our pants.  We have a good laugh.

After taking it easy for a while, we head across the street to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  It is quite good, except the portions are a bit small.  After dinner, we head to one of the local bars for a drink.  It is a small, crowded and load place.  We find a table outside near the street - a bit quieter, but we have the smell of a women cooking fish on the sidewalk. We play some cards while having a drink.  While sitting there, we witness one disturbing episode.  Up the street, between two cars, we see a women hit hard by a man, fall to the ground and then thrown like a sack of potatoes into the back of a station wagon.  The car bounces on its springs from the impact.  Two men jump into a car each, and then head off, doing a quick u-turn right in front of the bar.  Not sure what it was all about, but not much we could do.

We got back to the mission shortly before midnight and went to sleep.