Wednesday July 8, 2009
More surveying today, yesssssssss. We stopped for puff-puff and beans for breakfast on our walk up to the storage tanks. Over the course of the day, we surveyed from the tanks to the school, Ngolo quarter, Carrefour quarter, and Tombe quarter. We’ll finish surveying all the other quarters tomorrow morning. Two visitors arrived today. Julius’s cousin Franklin and Carine’s sister Catherine will stay with us in the village until Friday. We bought a chicken to butcher tomorrow to welcome our visitors and celebrate completion of the project.
Our first interquarter match as members of Veterans FC was supposed to begin at 4:00. We went to the pre-match meeting a little after 2. (It lasted forever) The game before ours didn’t even begin until 3:30. All the players were excited for the white Wheeling Jesuit mayos that we would sport for the match. These jerseys will also be part of the reward for the team that wins the whole tournament. Most of the rules for the tournament were pretty normal. They even imposed fines when players receive yellow or red cards. The funniest rule by far was a ban on using juju magicians to aid your team. If a team was caught using juju magic they would lose a point in the standings.
The match itself was unreal. I’ve never played a sport in front of so many spectators in my life. Perhaps 1500 villagers surrounded the field. Veterans FC is made up of former/older players from all quarters of the village. The inclusion of whites only added to the excitement and interest in the match. All three of us started the match and played the entire first half. I played defender until about 15 minutes before halftime when I was moved to midfield. We scored the first goal as the result of a throw in from Mark. The goalkeeper misplayed the ball after it was headed by one
of the Veteran players. The whole village went crazy. They couldn’t believe that Tombe was down 1-0 to the old guys and the whites.
Tombe ended up scoring about halfway through the first half to even the score. Brian, Mark, and I chose to come out after playing about 10 minutes in the second half. The match ended in a surprise tie at 1-1. Many villagers predicted Veterans FC to lose 3-0 or worse. At the postgame meeting, we collected all the jerseys and the club elected its management. There were at least 10 leadership positions for a team that will only exist into early August.
Thursday July 9, 2009
We completed the survey in less than 2 hours this morning. Finishing the survey was cause for celebration (as just about anything is in Cameroon). Naturally, we had a couple of beers at the chairman’s place and a couple of cups of palm wine at Lillian’s bar. After a short nap, I awoke to see Franklin butchering the chicken while Carine and Catherine prepared spices and side dishes. Tonight we had the best meal since I’ve been in Cameroon. The chicken was beyond excellent. We also had boiled potatoes and rice.
The celebration continued into the night. We invited over some friends since it was pouring outside. Spoons was by far the most popular game. Everyone was scrambling for spoons, yelling at each other, and laughing. I’m sure we sounded pretty crazy to the villagers walking by outside. It was great way to end our last day of work.
Left: Typical Cameroonian meal including plenty of veggies, fish and some hot pepe :P
More surveying today, yesssssssss. We stopped for puff-puff and beans for breakfast on our walk up to the storage tanks. Over the course of the day, we surveyed from the tanks to the school, Ngolo quarter, Carrefour quarter, and Tombe quarter. We’ll finish surveying all the other quarters tomorrow morning. Two visitors arrived today. Julius’s cousin Franklin and Carine’s sister Catherine will stay with us in the village until Friday. We bought a chicken to butcher tomorrow to welcome our visitors and celebrate completion of the project.
Our first interquarter match as members of Veterans FC was supposed to begin at 4:00. We went to the pre-match meeting a little after 2. (It lasted forever) The game before ours didn’t even begin until 3:30. All the players were excited for the white Wheeling Jesuit mayos that we would sport for the match. These jerseys will also be part of the reward for the team that wins the whole tournament. Most of the rules for the tournament were pretty normal. They even imposed fines when players receive yellow or red cards. The funniest rule by far was a ban on using juju magicians to aid your team. If a team was caught using juju magic they would lose a point in the standings.The match itself was unreal. I’ve never played a sport in front of so many spectators in my life. Perhaps 1500 villagers surrounded the field. Veterans FC is made up of former/older players from all quarters of the village. The inclusion of whites only added to the excitement and interest in the match. All three of us started the match and played the entire first half. I played defender until about 15 minutes before halftime when I was moved to midfield. We scored the first goal as the result of a throw in from Mark. The goalkeeper misplayed the ball after it was headed by one
of the Veteran players. The whole village went crazy. They couldn’t believe that Tombe was down 1-0 to the old guys and the whites.Tombe ended up scoring about halfway through the first half to even the score. Brian, Mark, and I chose to come out after playing about 10 minutes in the second half. The match ended in a surprise tie at 1-1. Many villagers predicted Veterans FC to lose 3-0 or worse. At the postgame meeting, we collected all the jerseys and the club elected its management. There were at least 10 leadership positions for a team that will only exist into early August.
Thursday July 9, 2009
We completed the survey in less than 2 hours this morning. Finishing the survey was cause for celebration (as just about anything is in Cameroon). Naturally, we had a couple of beers at the chairman’s place and a couple of cups of palm wine at Lillian’s bar. After a short nap, I awoke to see Franklin butchering the chicken while Carine and Catherine prepared spices and side dishes. Tonight we had the best meal since I’ve been in Cameroon. The chicken was beyond excellent. We also had boiled potatoes and rice.
The celebration continued into the night. We invited over some friends since it was pouring outside. Spoons was by far the most popular game. Everyone was scrambling for spoons, yelling at each other, and laughing. I’m sure we sounded pretty crazy to the villagers walking by outside. It was great way to end our last day of work.
Left: Typical Cameroonian meal including plenty of veggies, fish and some hot pepe :P
Ben, I'm so happy to read that the magazines made it to the village. I did my best to include absolutely everyone I could in one way or another. I have some news for Mark about the article -- can you ask him to e-mail me at dewald@udayton.edu when he has a chance? I'm not sure what e-mail account he's checking this summer.
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