So tomorrow is Youth Day (Journée de Jeune) in Cameroon. It is a national holiday where all the young people get off of school and, as I am sure I will find out, celebrate in any way they can. Needless to say, I am very excited to be wrapped up in my first national Cameroonian activity. However, the funniest thing is, as I am writing this, my host family is watching President Paul Biya give the annual speech before Youth Day, filled with grand gestures of perfect education systems and an impeccable democratic, modern government, with no corruption and no problems. While I sit on the couch, trying to understand his slow, gravely voice on the television, everyone else in the room has fallen asleep. When my host brother waved his hands in front of their face without their flinching, I nearly keeled over laughing.
Paul Biya is a touchy subject here. Last night, my host parents had some friends over, and when they found out that I was a history major, they asked me to give a summary of Cameroonian history (in FRENCH!). Now, I think I can give a pretty decent summary in English, but in French, I wasn't so sure. However, I gave it my best shot, and was actually able to get a lot of my points across with only minimal help from the table. Needless to say, I was quite happy. After my brief history, they asked me what I thought of Paul Biya, to which I just smiled and said "pas de comment." Judging by their reaction, that was the right answer.
In other news, I'm running incredibly low on clothes, and am not able to do laundry until the weekend. Looks like I'll be scrounging for my less dirty clothes until then! C'est pas grave...T.I.A afterall =)
I'll try to write again soon. Watching Biya on the screen just gave me the approprate inspiration, I guess =P
A bientôt!
Andrew
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