Kribi Weekend
I spent the weekend on the beach at Kribi with my friend Louis and her boyfriend’s cousin Gael.
We left Douala friday on the ‘noon’ bus which actually left at 2:30p. As I’ve noted in the past, the inhabitants of Douala are notoriously pushy and even though the guy at the door of the bus tried to take the tickets in the order in which they were numbered, the yelling mass of people tried to push their way onto the bus all at once. After some pushing of our own, we took our seats in the front of the bus, An optimal spot for picture taking.
The bus ride from Kribi to Douala was about 2.5 hours and costs a little over $4 (2000CFA).
In Kribi we descended from the bus into a crowd of taximen who tried to secure our business. Gael, very much a woman of Douala, was a jerk with most of them but chose a friendly looking man with a dilapidated taxi. We went to the Centre de Repose Sonel where we were to stay the weekend. The Centre de Repose Sonel is a private retreat for employees of the American-owned power company AES Sonel. Louis’s boyfriend’s Dad used to work for AES Sonel so he was able to get us rooms for free. The rooms had air conditioners that didn’t work and full bathrooms but no running water.
I watched the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.
We went to the barcadere on the beach where Cameroonian women cook freshly caught fish. We ate, then headed back to hotel. Louis and I played around in the sand while Gael sat there. Gael rarely seemed to enjoy herself. I was still jumping around in the sand and Louis was sitting on a rock when a coconut fell a few meters away from Louis. While Louis contemplated the best places to stand in order to avoid death-from-falling-coconuts, I took it upon myself to open the thing. I tried several things unsuccessfully and one of the security guard came over. “Let me help you” he said, beckoning for the coconut. “No way this is my fight / Ca c’est mon lute” (I often respond with both English and French when people address me in English). He coached me through how to open it without any tools and Gael, Louis, and I enjoyed coconut in the cool night breeze. I waited out a stomach ache, then slept remarkably well despite sweating lightly most of the night.
The next day, we lounged around at the beach. I built a sand sculpture which I enjoy doing. And we laid around at the beach. We ate at around noon and called our taximan (taximan is what they are called here, even by the francophones) to bring us to the Chutes de Lobé (Lobé Waterfalls). These waterfalls are some of the few in the world to fall directly into the ocean. We hired out a pirogue, a small wooden canoe, to paddle around the bay for a better view of the falls. The girls wanted to go out that night so we rested the rest of the afternoon at the hotel.
I watched the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean for the second time. Then slept.
When I woke up and got ready, there was a guy I didn’t know with Gael. His name was Patrick. He was from Douala, liked to talk a lot, was rather boisterous, and I don’t think ever fully sober. I assumed he was a relative or a friend of Gael. He came with us to eat fish at same fish stalls and went with us to the nightclub. Louis told me the next morning that he had said that ‘he was paid to be there for our protection’. Louis and I, who paid for the trip, didn’t pay him. So it turns out we don’t have any idea who he was.
At about 11:30p we left to go out. The night club was an experience. On the moto, Patrick asked me if I was alone in my room. I told him yes and he told me I was going to taste/try (gouter) an African. I very akwardly told him no and he reassured me that if I used a condom it would be fine. I felt especially akward but he ceased to press the point. We got to the club and I told Louis, “hey I think Patrick tried to sell me a prostitute.” .
Louis told me she’s heard that when a group of women goes out by themselves to the nightclub, they are usually prostitutes; Marius confirmed this when I asked him last night.
We got to the club, Java nightclub, which is inside a hotel. They almost didn’t let us in because I was wearing sandals. I’ve noticed that shoes are the most important article of clothing here. I’m sure I could have gotten in with a t-shirt as long as I was wearing nice shoes. We were seated at our booth, served a half-bottle of whiskey with a bottle of coca-cola, and Louis and I made sure we had enough money to pay for the four of us. We danced for a while to various kinds of music: some African, some American, and even some salsa which made me glad. At around 3am, I was dancing by myself and reflecting on how glad I was that I was not a woman and therefore didn’t have to dance with Patrick, when some woman just started dancing with me. She was real agressive, so much so that I physically pushed her away several times. After a few minutes I asked “are you a prostitute/vous etes prostitute?” She answered (in English) “I like to have fun and party and be free.” (yes). Where I had been repulsed and generally wierded out, the holy spirit gave me a moment of God’s compassion and I responded, “God has so much more for you / Dieu a plus pour vous.” I don’t know if she didn’t understand or didn’t care but it didn’t seem to process and I escaped to the bathroom. When I left the safety of the bathroom, I found a seat at the bar and sat there tired and traumatized. I grabbed Gael to see if she was ready to go but she said it wasn’t safe to leave before morning. So I continued to sit there. The same woman came and talked to me briefly as she was leaving. Then some other woman came and told me “I have to dance with you.” to which I politely refused.
These women have worth; God loves them. Jesus befriended them (It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick!). I don’t want to treat them like trash; they are not trash. But I wanted them to leave me alone. I responded pretty sternly.
I went to go sleep in our booth where I was awoken by a third woman who asked why I was so sad in a booth by myself. She left me alone after 5-10 minutes of suprisingly normal conversation. The DJ played “Men in Black”; I was too tired/tramautized even to dance to Will Smith. At 5:30 Gael woke me up to leave.
Back at the hotel God gave me a beautiful lightning storm over the Atlantic ocean. Further south down the beach the platform that fills tankers from the end of the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline lit up the sky with its bright orange flame. I watched until the sun started to light the clouds and then laid on top of my bed, stretched out so as to maximize heat dissipation, and slept.
I woke up a few hours later and wen’t down to the beach to spend some time with God and process the night. I ran into a couple Germans, Tobias and Henriette, who I had met briefly the day before. They are two very pleasant medical students from Munich who have been in Yaoundé for the last 6 weeks on a medical exchange. Tobias (if not also Henriette) is a Christian. We talked for several hours about our experiences, impressions, ideas. They gave me a bottle of German SPF25 to replace my African SPF60. I was so grateful to have them to talk to in the morning. It helped remind me that I wasn’t crazy.
We caught the 2:00ish bus back to Douala and made it home before sunset. I showered, and ate, and slept.
It was a crazy weekend. Keep commenting please. My stomach has been doing better since Saturday. I’m taking Flagyl for 10 days to try to kill the bichos. If that doesn’t help than I think it’s probably not in fact the bichos. I’m going to the west this weekend for a baptism. I think I’m going to get to climb a mountain. Heres a final few photos.
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