Fête de la Jeunesse

 The 11th of February the "Fête de la Jeunesse" is celebrated in Cameroon. It is a day for the children and youths, when the pupils and students in schools in Cameroon march in a procession. This year we were a part of this celebration in Ngaoundéré. It reminded me a lot of the celebration the 17th of May in Norway! The march took place at "Place de l'Independance", the independence place in Ngaoundéré, where all big feasts use to be held. Ten thousands of people had met up! In the procession were also orchestras and dancers. Even though the marching route was quite short (less than 10 min.), the number of students in the procession was very, very big! On the tribune sat the "Lamido" (the traditional king and Muslim leader), the Governor and other important people in the region.

Johanne and me were part of this march as teachers at Centre Socio Ménager. All of us teachers had got clothes sewn with the same fabric, and so had the students. They had sewn their dresses themselves! Most school classes dressed in their uniforms, and it was nice to watch the children march in uniforms in different colours, singing songs about "Here come the young ones..." (in French)!

When we marched and approached the tribune with the important people, we stretched one arm towards them in respect while we passed them.

Here are some pictures from the big day:

 

 

 

 

That was last week-end.. This week-end we are ready for travelling again! Tomorrow morning we are travelling to Maroua, north in Cameroon together with the other Norwegians here. We are leaving at 8 o'clock, and expect to arrive at a hotel there at 17 o'clock, so it's quite a long drive! We return Sunday, for a missionary meeting on Monday. Then I get visit from Noway, from Pernille and Julie Tuesday or Wednesday! I'm really looking forward to that :D

Wish you all a good week-end!!

Picnic with the choir!

Saturday two weeks ago was spent on a mountain near by (my second time on this mountain). After we'd attended choir practise Tuesday, Thursday and Friday that week, I was looking forward to our first social gathering with the choir. Because when we have practises, we use just to sing and dance for 2 1/2 hours without any pauses...Before the trip we were going to wash the church, which the choir often does. Therefore we met up by the church at 7:30. There were some people there already, and they had started washing, but told us to sit down... After some hours there, washing a little and waiting for more people to come, we finally started to walk around 11 o'clock.

Arriving on top of the mountain, I learned that it was time to play games. Some started to play card-games, and I played a game I've never played on a mountain top before: Monopoly (in French!). With the bills blowing away sometimes, it was a bit difficult, but we managed to find a way to make it work. After having played a while, and I'd just started to built some houses, we're tired of playing, and stopped. Then it was time for other games. The Cameroonians made a circle and started to play singing and dancing-games. We also learned them a game, called "Hi-ha-ho" (almost like "The Sheriff"). That was was fun! "Bro, bro brille..." was also part of the games ;)

Playing ludo

After a while people started to become hungry and thirsty. Then the leaders announced that those who hadn't brought food for the picnic had to go to a place a little away and stay there, while those who had brought food ate... Then most people left. I was also very hungry, and I had brought  some biscuits. But I was unsure if I should eat it now. It wouldn't feel right to eat while the others sat behind some rocks not far away, having nothing to eat...I also thought that people would ask for food and water if they saw I had it.

But then I saw that some of the other Cameroonians also had brought food, actually big bowls with spaghetti. They sat in groups and shared the food. To me it seemed like they were hiding a little behind some rocks, so that they could have the food for themselves and not had to share with too many people. And I understand that! So then I also ate some biscuits and drank the rest of my water. I think I learnt a lot by the feeling I got when I could eat biscuits (for 3000 CFA/36 NOK, that's more than one days salary here!), bought in a shop with imported articles, while others didn't have anything to bring. It didn't feel fair, and I felt ashamed.

Ready to perform their song

One group performing their song

After some of us had ate, we were divided into groups, and the leaders organised a Bible competition. The leaders had brought their Bibles, and the group who first found a certain Bible verse got 1 point. That was the first part of the competition. The next part was a quiz, and the last one was about making a song with the themes "Young and Christians" and performing it. We got 10 minutes, the persons in the jury gave points to the groups, and the best group won. When we summarised the points from all the parts of the competition, it was actually my group who won, so that was fun :)

At 15 o'clock the picnic still wasn't finished. I'd drunk my last rest of the 1/2 L. of water a long time ago, and we were all were thirsty. And us Norwegians couldn't manage it more. Therefore we said "good bye" to the others and went down the mountain and straight home. Arriving in our house sunburned and tired, we went straight to the fridge, and I drunk almost 1 L. at once! What a trip! I still can't understand why every gathering here has to last for such a long time... But I can say that the Cameroonians are persistent!!

Rainbow Happy Orphanage!

Helping each other ;-)

Fun to draw with the colours they got from us! It was difficult to find here in Ngaoundéré, but we found when we travelled to Kribi and Kenya :)

 

 

 

 

 

And even more fun when we hang up their drawings at the wall!!

Since Johanne had got braids, the children found out that I also had to get it, so I also got nice (?) braids...

Gadjiwan

Last week-end us youths were invited by Solbjørg to visit her in Gadjiwan, so then of course we went! Gadjiwan is a village in the bush 6 hours drive from here, not because it's so far, but because of the bad road! Especially the last part was bad, with a lot of BIG holes in the road., therefore we used 2 hours to drive the 25 last km.! Though we sat a little tight with 8 persons in the car, we had a really nice trip, we even saw some monkeys crossing the road :)

After we had arrived safely in Gadjiwan Friday afternoon, and got a good lunch from Solbjørg, we went on a trip sitting on the back of a pickup. People looked even more surprised of seeing white people here than in Ngaoundéré, and I was also surprised to find out that almost no one knew French. Most people from this village have not gone to school, so they only speak their mother tongue, the local language pèrè or also fulani. So then we had to learn some more fulani..."Sanou", "Jamna", "Jam", "Ozokko".


 Saturday we went on a walk in the village. Solbjørg shown us around, and we visited many different families.
 

Walking on the main road

 

Making peanut butter, by starting with crushing the nuts with a stone

One of the persons we met was a girl around 15 years old. She was born without eyes, by she was still very happy. Now an old woman took care of her, and we visited them in their little house.

This is another of  the families we visited, sitting outside their house. 

Outside the house, a man is digging a well, hoping to find water

New roof?

Washing up

Serving couscous with fish ;)

In the evening we went on more visits. On the first one we got couscous to eat, not really a surprise. Normally people here just sit on the ground, but since they were ashamed of that, they gave us chairs to sit around a table. While we were eating, it was suddenly totally dark. Then we got a lantern and used our torches, cause there is no electricity in this village.

The next visit was at the house of the Muslim leader in the village. Here we got to sit on the floor, as they normally do, eating makkala :) 

In the evening we watched a movie in the village. Then they just placed the little TV on top of a car, and since there's no electricity, they used kind of a compressor I think. A lot of people, children and old people met up, because there's not often they may watch a movie. They gave us some plastic chairs to sit on, while the rest stood or sat on the ground, under trees or by the well (there's no installed water in the village neither). The movie was in French, so during the film, a man frequently stopped it, to translate to the local tongue pèrè. And when we come to a funny part of the movie, it was shown four times! And still it was as funny the fourth as the first time :) I think it was a really good and special experience to watch movie in this way, outside in totally darkness together with around 100 others!

Watching movie

Next morning we went to church. It's the first church I've been to without any chairs, only some stools. Luckily the church was built with stairs up from the middle and out in a circle. But we had a nice time there, before we went back home to Ngaoundéré.  Except from seeing around in the village, Runar, Kristian, Andy (Kristian's friend), Johanne and me played a lot of cards, tried to hunt the big rats on the loft and got a lot of good meals and cakes at Solbjørg's house. I think we had I really nice and exciting trip to Gadjiwan, we got to see so much. For me it's strange to think about that there they live without electricity, installed water, phone connection, cars, TV's etc...There are so big differences from Norway. In Gadgiwan they live life in a very simple way. But even though they have much less than us, they were very hospitable, always welcoming us and we were served food from people we had never seen before. Amazing!