when everything goes wrong...

What a week!

First, the raining season is now actually starting. Even if people were expecting more rain and sooner, I'm sure that i'll have enough, knowing that the road are going to be impassable and the swimming pool closed... On the other hand, rains clears up the sky (so foggy these last days that i never saw it blue) and avoid dust on the road.

note that when it comes to build a gutter at the entrance of the mayor's house, the work is done right away (which is not the case for pump repairing or waste collecting in other areas...).
Add to this the fact that:
-we haven't gotten water on the tap for more than a week (even during the day, when I now leave the all the taps open, hoping that they will fill the containers in my absence),
-my fridge stopped working,
-I can't switch my laptop on because of the old battery,
-power cuts occur now everyday, sooner and sooner.

But the last thing also has its good side. As a power cuts occured as soon as I entered my office, I decided to go with my boss for the assesment of the ongoing works.

The occasion for me to learn a bit about local urbanism, with bridge construction to allow cars driving between to districts:


or pump repairing next to the Cultural Center ( in this rural area, people have to take the water in the river, 3km away when the pump is broken...).

Power cuts are not bad when they give you the opportunity to discover a bit more about the difficulties to overcome in the area, like taking care of babies, task given to 10 years old kids:

or going to the market with products from the fields when there is no car driving on the trails:

but also nice mountainous lanscapes:







Saturday, April 4th: Bamendjou Chepan

As I didn't know what to do that weekend, the tourism office offered me to join them to the chefferie Bamendjou for its 2009 CHEPAN festival, celebrating the values and tradistion of the Bamendjou people.
http://www.bamendjou.org/fichiers/index.htm

Royal palace:



and its numerous pyramid-shaped roofs:


Museum opening:



yes, cameroonian people recycle! ;)

and they are not as poor as they look...

Beginning of the festival:


some example of traditional and religious costumes:




Cothes fabric made for the occasion, as it was for the International Women Day or the RDPC festival, or many other occasions.



Women parade:


They give you some of the leeves that they shake, wishing you to have twins, sacred children in the Bamiléké belief.

sounds cool when showed like this, but when you think that the main part of the ceremony is talks (Cameroonians must love it because every festival I attended so far was as boring as that one), and that it takes the entire day, you understand why we decided to leave after 2 hours...

Other than that, I try to forget the bad weather and technical issues with Yemba lessons and dinners with friends. I already learned how to cook some cameroonian dishes that i'll be please to make for you later! :P