Beginning of Kribi Adventures

I'm going to split my posts about the last two weeks in Kribi up into three or more sections. This is the first one.

Written the Second Day in Kribi:

We left the SIT office at 8am Saturday morning in order to drive south to Kribi. Kribi is a a coastal beach town about 5 hours from Yaounde by bus. In order to get to the office on time, I left my house before anyone else was awake, Saturday is the only day that the whole family sleeps in. I had packed the night before, getting ridiculed for how much I was packing for “only two weeks” although, at this point, I’ve been in Yaounde for just about 2 weeks and have already used/worn everything I was packing for Kribi. 

Marianna read on the bus ride to Kribi

After a relatively uneventful bus ride during which I napped and played games with the others, we arrived at the Kribi “guest house” that was our accommodation that night. After getting our room assignments and dropping off our bags we all immediately changed into bathing suits and headed down to the beach. Oh how I wish I had brought my camera to the beach that first day! It was so perfect and so much fun. I spent the majority of the time in the playing in the water. There were those in the group that clearly had never spent much time in the ocean saying thing like, “even when I’m standing, doing nothing, the water pulls me back.”
   
     None of the Cameroonian student know how to swim so, for them, the ocean is a very scary thing. We got Christelle and Arsen to come in a little bit. Although, they never made it past where the waves were breaking. They both seemed to enjoy the water, just as long as they were at a depth that they could comfortably sit.

After over two hours in the water, we wandered back up the guest house for a dinner of fresh fish, fresh fruit, and rice. After dinner we were given information about our new host families. My host family consists of two daughters (11 and 15) a mother that designs and makes dresses, and a business-man father who owns a boutique in town. I was also excited to learn that I would have my own room! It’s not that I can’t stand sharing a room and bed with Gael, I was just looking forward to the prospect have getting my own personal space for a little while. 

The interior of the guest house.

The rest of the evening was spent spending quality time with the other students, who, outside of school hours I haven’t really gotten to spend that much time with. I also spent sometime playing with Christiane’s sons who are accompanying us while we’re here. Nathan, the 4 year old, was collecting snails and putting them “with their family” all in the same place. Before going to bed, Ariene, put my hair into four tight french braids that lasted until the morning. I finally went to bed, later than usual, in the room that Christelle and I were sharing. 

Ice Bucket Challenge Cameroon- When there's no water to shower
this is what you have to resort to...

The next morning I woke up to rain and choir music coming from the Church next door. We had the morning, following a 7:30 breakfast, to do what we wanted (with the very strong suggestion to start working on the pile of homework that is due this week). So, what did I spend most of my morning doing? Swimming. Monica, Cora, Danny, Elias, and I went down to the beach and spent another 2 hours in the water. Ariene also came with us, and with some serious support, we got her to come all of the way our to chest depth. She only lasted a few minutes but it was still exciting to have her come out and join us.

We returned from the beach hoping to take showers before meeting our host families only to realize that the water didn’t work in most of our rooms, and barely worked in all of the others. With some serious team work and the help of some rainwater, everyone was able to at least rinse off before lunch. After lunch, we pack up our bags and headed of to meet our new host families. 

As I said before, my host family has four people in it. The house is pretty good sized. One enters through a gate and, by turning right, can enter the house through my host mom’s reception/workspace that holds her sewing machine and is where she greets her clients. Through that is the living/dining room which, although very nice, seems sparse after my Youande family’s very full living room. Beyond the living room is a hallway that contains my sister’s, my parent’s and my rooms. At the end of the hallway, you find yourself outside. To the left it a courtyard-type space where laundry is hung and the dog lives on a chain. Straight ahead is the kitchen, which is technically unattached to the house. To right is the bathroom, also technically not attached, and barrels of water store for kitchen and bathroom uses. Around the corner to the right, brings you back around the house to the front gate. 

The family is very excited to have me, I am the first student that they’ve hosted. When I arrived, my host mom sat me down and asked me a whole bunch of questions. The daughters, who apparently had greatly anticipated my arrival, were both very quiet and shy. After a while, I got a tour of the house and then was invited to unpack. I was also told multiple times to act as if it were my own house. After unpacking and showing my sisters pictures of home on my computer, I was served a very large dinner of fresh fish, fried fish in a peanut sauce that consisted of even more smoked fish, and rice. While I ate, my host mom sat with me and asked me even more questions. 

The moment that stands out most in my mind from our dinner conversation was my mom’s shock when I mentioned to her that we had mosquitos in the US. To her they were always presented as an “African problem.” I had to explain that, while we do have mosquitos, we don’t have malaria which is what defines the difference between African and American mosquitos. After dinner, I had to turn to homework. But almost as soon as I had sat down in my room, my host sisters came in asking if they could play with my hair. I said yes, of course! Like Ariene had, they found the texture of my hair very difficult to manipulate but enjoyed it nonetheless. Once they’d finished with my hair, they moved on to exploring my iPhone and Cameroonian cellphone, not that I minded, there’s not much on either. Although, when I plugged my phone into my computer to charge it, a whole ton of pictures that they had taken with it popped up.

All in all, I’m excited for our two weeks in Kribi which seems almost a Cameroonian paradise if only someone would turn down the humidity.