The Voyage North

Sunday, December 2, 2012 – The Voyage North

Our trip north started just over a week ago on Friday.  That morning, we said our goodbyes to everyone who was not traveling to the Grand North, and piled into busses for Yaoundé.  We got going a couple of hours later than scheduled, which was fairly expected, and made it to Yaoundé around noon.  I went and got some pizza and smoothies with some friends once we got there, which was awesome.  The pizza actually tasted like something you would get in America, and the smoothies were delicious.  After that we hit up a grocery store for some supplies for the train, including pretzels, pringles, water, and boxes of wine.  By the way, I found out that in most other countries they are called bretzels; I think that makes more sense. 

Around 4 PM we went to the train station, and finally departed around 6.  There were four people per ‘room’ and we had the whole car to ourselves (minus one Cameroonian guy in one of the end rooms).  It was a pretty fun train ride, just talked with people and did a bit of drinking.  We had to hide our drinks from train personnel – when they were going through and checking our tickets they told us that we weren’t allowed to drink on the train, which we didn’t know beforehand.  The ride lasted about 16 hours, and we made it to Ngounderé , the capital of Adamoua, the next morning.  It’s too bad that it was mostly at night, I would have liked to see more of the countryside.  I was on the top bunk with the window open at my feet; I ended up almost kicking a bunch of my stuff out of the window.  I literally found my shoe wedged between the window frame and the bed, with my camera between the shoe and the bed.  I got lucky. 

We hung out in the Case (pronounced cause) in Adamoua (the place where PCVs can stay when visiting the city) for a few hours – our baggage that we sent a week before still hadn’t arrived.  That afternoon when it got there, we loaded up two different busses, one for the Extreme-North and one for the North, and said our goodbyes.  The ride took about 6 hours instead of 4 to get to Garoua, so we got in that night.  We were greeted by my post-mate, a guy from my cluster, and another volunteer from my region.  We spent the next hour or so unloading everything into the Garoua office.  Apparently the people who went to Maroua in the Extreme-North got greeted by a bonfire and beer Olympics.  Not complaining, just saying, Northerners. 

We stayed 3 nights in Garoua instead of the four that we thought we were going to stay.  That time was pretty much spent going to the market, opening our bank accounts, checking out different places to eat, and going to bars.  Luckily a couple more PCVs came into town, and between the group we got a lot of help opening our accounts (which took literally all morning, so much paperwork), and looking for stuff that we needed in our posts. 

Since my house was empty, I had a lot to buy.  My post-mate and another PCV were especially helpful finding things and negotiating prices.  Over those few days I was able to get a stove (a little one kind of like a camping stove), a propane tank, a little fridge, a mat for my floor, a mattress, and a couple of pillows.  All in all, I ended up spending quite a bit of money, including all of my moving-in allowance and the money that I had bought from America.  The mat really ties the room together though. 

I have to say – so far I really like the North.  There are aspects that I don’t like, such as everyday being 95-100 degrees, and this is the cold season.  Apparently during the hot season, March-May, it gets to be 135 degrees in the shade.  Not looking forward to that.  The rest of it seems good though.  The people are nice, and they don’t derange (the French word for bother) you like they do in the Grand South.  I’ll get into the culture and my town, Guider, more next post.