Thursday, February 12th, 2004

I'm getting ready for my big vacation! I leave in a few days, and I can't wait! I'm going first to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea where I'll spend a day or so checking out the island. Its a volcanic island just off the coast of Cameroon, and is a former Spanish colony. Its supposed to be nice, and there are apparently lots of Americans there, since they've discovered oil offshore there in the past couple of years and are beginning the exploration process. It'll be interesting to see what kind of effect that's having on such a small island.

After Malabo, I take a direct flight to Madrid where I'll meet some friends from college and a couple of others. We'll tour around southern Spain including Cordoba and Seville, before crossing the strait into Morocco. We'll then spend about a week going to cities like Casablanca and Marrakesh. I'm already getting my camera prepared for the workout its going to get. This could be on China scale here (800 pictures in three weeks).

Yesterday, in case you didn't notice or it didn't show up on your Outlook calendar, was International Youth Day. In Cameroon, this is a great excuse to take the day off work, and make all the kids parade around in military formation in their sparkling uniforms. The lineup started at around 8am, and the parade finally started around 10:30 with the kids parading basically in age order. About a third of the students were chosen from each and every school in the Edéa-metropolitan area (that's a joke), which amounted to about ten thousand students marching a route of about two miles, taking almost three hours from the time it started- and there were no Macy's-type musical numbers in front of the reviewing stand holding up the parade. Every school brought along several of their teachers/handlers to make sure the kids kept in four even and mostly straight rows. My favorite part was the youngest kids, in schools called Maternelle, or pre-school. They didn't have to walk the whole route, and got to go first. They were absolutely adorable. I was able to get a couple pictures of them, but many of the whole parade. I was only asked once by a police officer who I was and why I was taking photos, which I thought was pretty good for openly taking pictures of a public celebration like that. Once I told him I was Peace Corps, he let us go.

After the parade was over, and the police had hit a few students with a stick to clear a place for the awards ceremony, my friend Alain and I went to have a drink and a sandwich from my buddy, the soya man. Soya is what they called grilled meat, fish or chicken for sale by the piece. Good stuff. After eating lunch, we went to the cinema because it said they were playing "Spiderman" at 2pm. We got inside and they had just started playing "The Rock", a good enough movie with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery. I was a little surprised, this being my first time in the cinema of Edéa, to find that the projector for the large screen was broken and they now show movies on a 25" TV on a high stand in front of the rows of seats. About 45 minutes into the movie, one of the kids in the audience stood up and said, "This isn't Spiderman (pronounced Speedermon), we should all demand our money back and leave!". So, about 3/4 of the audience got up and walked out, only to be told that the Spiderman disc was defective, but they could choose another movie and they'd put it on right away. So, they took off "The Rock" and put on an old Jet Li Hong Kong kung-fu movie. I suffered through this for about an hour until I couldn't stand the heat or the movie any longer.

This past weekend, I went to Douala to check out the artisan market and get a new cartridge for our printer. The artisan market is a little on the disappointing side, after years of seeing African arts at summer street fairs in New York. The selection was somewhat limited to wood figures and masks and some bronze. The vendors were predictably aggressive, and the prices were fairly high, at least I thought so. I've always thought vendors should start around 4 times the lowest price they're willing to settle for. In Douala, they started around seven to eight times, which makes bargaining ridiculous. For example, something you should probably pay around ten dollars for, they start at $80, which forces you to start around $2. They look at you like you're crazy and you do the same back to them. Its not a great basis for a relationship.

After that was over and I came away with some small items, I went to the computer store. The owner was in, the guy who sold us the computer, and I went up to say 'hi'. He then invited me to lunch, which was a great Lebanese meal (he being Lebanese). We talked a bunch and plan on getting together again when I come back to Douala.

Saturday night, I went with my postmate, Will, to a festival out at the Catholic Nunnery. There was a sort of agricultural exhibition and a big stage. The program for the evening was a singing contest between three local church choirs. It was fantastic. They sang in the local dialect with movements and drums and the whold shebang. I wish I had had a tape recorder and camera to capture it all. After the singing, Will and I met up with his co-workers who were there, and sat down for a few drinks at the make-shift bars to close out the evening.

Book Report:
Well, sometimes you just get hung up by a book you don't really care for, but since it takes about a hundred pages to figure that out, you're committed and feel like you have to finish reading it. As a result, it took me about six weeks to finish "Love in the time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I realize that he won the Nobel prize for literature, but that was for a different book. I don't know what to say about this one other than it was Jane Austen in style but dictionary in content. I did finish it though, but cannot recommend it, unless you're having trouble sleeping.

Immediately after finishing, I wanted to get back into the swing of reading with enjoyment. Luckily, I had brought with me "A Man in Full" by Tom Wolfe, the author of "Bonfire of the Vanities". Set in and around Atlanta, its a terrific tale of old versus new South and how they conflict to change the lives of four main characters. Its a lengthy almost 800 page read, but it flies by and is entirely enjoyable, especially if you're familiar with Atlanta and its people. Not high literature, but highly recommended.

On the heels of "A Man in Full", I was on a role and barrelled into Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News". I had seen the movie when it came out on video, but had forgotten most of it. Believe me, Kevin Spacey is not who you envision when reading the book. Another fast read, but much more interesting from a style standpoint, and quite enjoyable. These are characters you can really care about, and even relate to, despite the fact they live in the frozen tundra of Newfoundland. Recommended.

Next up is my vacation reading of Tom Clancy's "Without Remorse", which should be good if I get stuck in the airport for hours on end...