More after 1 May

Since I am in Douala and I will visit Limbe and Buea in the coming three days, I will get more update after I arrived HK on 1 May.

Keep visiting afterwards =]

Culture difference?

We chose an overnight travel back from Bamenda to Douala. We thought that we were lucky as the bus left on time (10:30pm). At that moment I was already very sleepy ( I normally sleep before 10pm in Kumbo), the music in the bus was loud and I thought that it would stop soon (as from my experience last time, the bus driver turned off the music when it started to leave). I kept waken up because of the music several times since then. At around 1pm, I was sort of mad and I shouted to the bus driver, 'Could you stop the music please?' (There was no way for me to walk to the driver seat and talk to him as the bus was moving down in a very fast speed T_T). One of the ladies in the bus laughed and said 'You know what...hahaha....The white man wants to stop the music hahaha...Here is Cameroon..hahaha'...and a series of words which I don't understand) in an annoying voice. Afterwards, the bus driver turned the music even louder. Ok, maybe it's a culture difference that they listen to African pop music at night while sleeping??? However, some more people tried to say 'turn it off' during the journey.
At around 2pm, the bus stopped for a while so that people can get out for food or something. I asked one guy sitting next to us if it's normal for the bus driver to turn on the music in such a horribly loud sound at night and he said that it's not normal though it could happen. I asked if he enjoyed the music and he replied that he could only enjoy it during the day. Another guy sitting in front of me told me that he asked the bus driver to lower down the music but he rejected as there was only one volume for the music. Jeff was angry and he tried to talk to the bus driver again. The bus driver laughed at him and walked away. Jeff followed him and said that there were babies in the bus and how could he turned on the music so loud but the bus driver kept walked away.
The journey continued and the lady who laughed at me kept talking in a very loud voice about me asking the bus driver to stop the music. Another black man got angry and walked to her to ask her stop talking. The lady shouted back, ' You are not Cameroonian!' Luckily they didn't fight and the lady stopped talking finally.
The music kept playing for the whole journey!!

It was a horrible 7-hour journey to me!!!

Teaching little kids

I went to G.N.S Meluf today to teach those students in drawing thank you cards for donars. Due to this experience, I realized that teaching little kids is never an easy job, esp when you don't speak their language.
They did try to draw those cards and I'm sure that they enjoyed it!

My last week in Kumbo

I will leave Kumbo on 25 April and spend my last week in Douala and Beau to visit the two universities.

It is a busy week for me - teaching in schools in the morning and giving tutorial lessons to form 5 and form 7 students who are living near me. :D

There is neither light nor water this week T_T
Light just came half an hour ago!!! Hopefully it will stay longer so that I don't need to use candles any more :P

About the school building project 關於學校興建計劃

Thank you for all your support! We have already got enough fund to finish the whole project. The reminding amount will be reserved for another school building project in Cameroon.
感謝各方的支持，本計劃已籌得足夠的善款，而工程已踏入最後階段，將於明天完工．
所有餘款將用於另一個由Navti foundation 籌辦的學校興建計劃．

文化周之與會見Fon

時至今日，這兒還有「王」的存在，人們稱之為fon．fon並沒有甚麼實際的權力，但人們對他亦很尊重．fon 有許多妻子，聽說有些fon有多達一百位妻子呢，而本任fon有三十多位妻子．他們與王子公主們都住在「皇宮」內．文化周於「皇宮」附近進行．對於皇宮使 用引號的原因是這兒一點也不像皇宮，我無意中走進了一所我還以為這是古代遺址的房屋，原來這是其中四位王子的居所．其他皇親貴族的房屋也差不多，比一般平 民的房屋還要也很簡陋呢．
無意中又走進了現任fon的其中一位妻子的屋內，坐了數分鐘，沒事可幹，便離開了．正當我準備離開皇宮之際，再遇上那位「妃子」，她說她正四處找 我，fon要會見我呢．
她領我到大閘之後，並說我要彎下身子，fon來到了，她便叫我向前走，我不知道是否還要彎下身子，便站起來跟fon對話．
fon問了我的名子、國籍及來了Kumbo多久，他好像不滿我已在這兒兩個月也沒有拜會過他（但我知道有文化周時跟人家說笑要見fon，他們說這是不太可 能呢．），然後便叫我離開了．「妃子」帶我離開，並送我一支芬達汽水，說是fon給我的禮物．
後來我發現，原來於fon面前，你要一直彎下身子，儘管你正跟他對話，但一直這樣彎下身子，fon能聽到我們在說甚麼嗎？
真的很有興趣知道fon的居所是怎樣，而他又是否喜歡當fon呢？

Cultural Week

兩年一度的文化節於本周舉行．今天我終於也能抽空到場觀看！
剛到場時有許多人在圍觀，完全看不到那些表演，有位婦人看到了我正努力舉起相機，便替我開了條路，讓我站到最前XD
這個文化節會有一些傳統儀式的演出，這些儀式已不再進行了．今早的表演是於「戰爭」前或用來嚇怕野獸的儀式．他們會先跳一種特別的舞蹈．然後便是圖中他們的搶火環節，他們會把火放進口中．其他人則在旁唱歌．其後他們會邊飲酒邊殺雞－－徒手殺雞！

整個表演也很有趣呢，特別是看到他們那種「臨記」的表情！