Bilingual Day and Food in the North

Bilingual Day and Food in the North – Sunday, February 10, 2013

Tomorrow is International Children’s Day.  I’ll be going to a festival next to the stadium, the same places where the cultural day was in December.  It should be similar to Bilingualism Day that happened a couple of weeks ago over at the Lycée Classique.  There were a lot of ‘Grands,’ or important people there, along with the teachers and students of all three Lycées – Classique, Technique, and Bilingue, along with the primary schools and the teacher’s college.  The students put on songs, dances (some of which were awkwardly provocative), and skits about why bilingualism is so important and how it will open up the world to you.  Some of the little kids were really cute, just yelling all of their lines.  They actually talked about Canada several times – apparently Canada and Cameroon are considered sister countries, they are the only two that have English and French as their official languages. 

Youth Day is pretty important in this country, along the lines of Women’s Day and Teacher’s Day.  I’m assuming there will be more skits, songs, dances, and a lot of protocol between the Grands.  It should be interesting.  I hope to take part in planning it next year.  My counterpart wants me to be there at 9 AM when it starts. 

My travel plans have changed.  Instead of leaving Tuesday, the day after Youth Day, with my post-mate and some other people, I will have to leave Thursday or Friday.  The Country Director (CD) is coming to visit the area and will be coming to Guider on Thursday.  My post-mate is leaving and one of us needs to be here to greet her, so I have to stay a bit later than planned.  I’m hoping that she gets here early so I can head to Ngounderé on Thursday.  It’s the capital of the Adamaoua, the region directly south of mine, and the place where we catch the train south to Yaoundé.  Odds are I will probably not be able to leave until Friday, the day I catch the train.  It’s a shame because I have friends that will be in Ngounderé on Thursday that I want to hang out with, but I will be able to take the train with two of them on Friday. 

I thought I would talk about the food available in the North when you want to eat out.  First of all, every breakfast consists of beans and beignets along with a tea that has a lot of sugar and ginger in it.  The beignets aren’t covered in sugar or anything, though we can get those in the bakery in Garoua.  Basically they are just fried dough, but they go great with the beans. 

Usually we go to a place called Super Restaurant in Garoua, which is the exact same as Titanic in Guider.  Usually we get beef, it’s kind of strips cooked with onions and a sauce, or fried chicken, but the chicken is more expensive.  As a side, we can get fried plantains, fried potatoes (kind of like French fries), macaroni, or salad.  The salad is a bit sketchy though – a friend found a bug in hers once, and we usually wash our vegetables that we eat raw in bleach water, which I’m sure they don’t do.  Of course, everything is served with Magi, a thing kind of like soy sauce, and a hot pepper sauce called piemont on the side.  The best part about Super that Titanic doesn’t have is that you can get smoothies!  Usually pineapple and banana, sometimes they have papaya, guava, and mango as well, though not every time.  As with everything here, it depends on the season.  Titanic is usually called Magic Door by PCVs because of a door frame in the back that is really small and makes everyone who stands next to it look gigantic. 

There is also street meat, called soya, pretty much everywhere you go, and we have started to find the places we like best.  This is always beef, fried, served with a piemont powder and sometimes bread.  The bread here is basically baguettes.  There is one place that we can go to in Garoua and get pork sandwiches though.  They are pieces of pork fried, served with piemont and onions on bread.  The guy knows a lot of the PCVs, and tries to give us as little fat and skin as possible. 

All throughout the country there are fish mamas too.  These are women who served fried whole fish wish pieces of onions and tomatoes, mayo, and piemont sauce.  We usually get baton de manioc as well.  These are manioc (or cassava), a root vegetable that has somehow been turned into a gelatinous type thing that is in the shape of a rod and wrapped in a leaf.  When I first got to Cameroon I wasn’t a huge fan, but I like it now.  Especially with the mayo and piemont sauce.  You always eat fish with your hands, a lot of time from the same plate.  I definitely don’t eat as hygienically here as I do in The States.