Back to Foumban
We stopped past Titus’ to pick up Akilah’s boubou. It was really done beautifully. I can’t believe she paid the equivalent of $5 USD for the embroidery work that was done on this thing. I’m talking around the neckline, the sleeve line and the trim of the dress! It’s beautiful.
Think it’s time for me to get something made with African pagne. Kind of strange to be here and my concentration is more on the cargo pants and slacks I want Titus to make for me; but where else will I be able to get four pairs of slacks and two pairs of cargo pants, tailored to fit for less than $50 USD? If you find a place, I’ll go there.
To get home we decided to take the Savannah bush taxi. It really wasn’t a bad ride. Now that I’m getting use to driving through the scenery, things don’t appear to take as long anymore. They don’t anyway. We’re talking about 60km from Bamenda to Bafoussam. That’s not far at all.
When we arrived in Bafoussam we stopped past Bafferie II (Bafoussam case), Akia and one other guy were there. Akia is the manager of the Bafferie II so she’s there quite bit. She ended up staying in Bamenda just for the day, and will be returning next week. There’s a huge party going on there for PCVs or something like that. The guy lives in Kuombo and will have a Superbowl party next weekend. Wow, what I wouldn’t do to just be in front of a television watching the Raven’s “get their man” on.
Shortly after we arrived, Judd and Brooke stopped past. They’d just returned from Foumban purchasing masks and visiting the palace. Made sure to find out what he’d paid for the masks he bought, don’t want someone to try and cheat me when I finally go to purchase some. He bought two mask and paid about 6000 CFAs each. That’s pretty good, so I’ll know where to take them to when they begin bargaining. I believe he said the guy started at 15000 CFAs. Guess they naturally double the price of the item and figure anything over the normal is good.
Heading back to Foumban we decided to check the Foumban gare for bush taxis, there was one there, but we wanted to make sure Muongo Voyages didn’t have one ready. Again, we’d rather take the agency vehicle and be certain we’ll get all the way to Foumban, than to try something else and get dropped off part of the way.
Muongo didn’t really look full, so we headed back to the Foumban gare. By the time we got back there, the van was filling, the chargeur told us there was room, but by the time we tried to get seats we were finding out they were all taken. Now why would this guy keep telling people there are available seats, when there aren’t? Akilah got really pissed at this and wanted to vent with the guy, but one thing I’ve learned since being here, no amount of explaining the errors in what someone is doing will make them understand that they were wrong.
So back to Muongo it was. By the time we’d arrived there there were about four seats remaining, so I quickly bought our tickets. It’s funny, the guy in the window knows Akilah’s name by heart and basically had her ticket ready; he just needed my information.
Our driver was really ridiculous. It was almost as if he were scared to use the gas peddle going down the hill. Either that or his feet were permanently attached to the brake. We were stopped twice by gendarme for document checks. They were pretty harmless. Its almost as if they can sense when there are foreigners on bush taxis. Once again, once he saw our ID’s we were free to go. Is that because it was obvious everyone had their proper documents and there would be no “cadeau” so he moved on after viewing the one’s on our row.
Interesting, what exactly does one get out of accepting “gifts” to overlook something? Doesn’t that destroy the integrity someone in that capacity is trying to protect? One of the reasons they do the stops now is to identify people from neighboring countries who could potentially be spies. But how many of them have actually run into spies? And if so, won’t the be able to get away if they just offer the right kind of “gift?”
Wish I could say we don’t go through that in the states, but I’m sure it happens on a smaller scale somewhere, just not to the mass extent it does here. Doesn’t matter, wrong is wrong!
Dinner was leftover chili and rice and a nice cold d’jino.