A funeral, Cameroon style

I know its been a very long time since I’ve updated this blog. I had written a very long, beautiful piece of work, unfortunately the floppy disk I saved it on doesn’t work anymore. That happens a lot here, it must be the humidity. It’s really a shame, what I had written can never be replicated :(

I am sitting in the village bank I work with, using the computer in hopes it wont crash and there wont be a power outage. If all goes according to plan, I will save this onto a disk and bring it to the internet café tonight and cut and paste it to my blog.

Yesterday was simply a fascinating day. I attended the « funeraille » of the mother of the richest man in Cameroon. I wore my African clothing, called a booboo. A booboo is basically a long robe a some matching pants made out of fancy African material. My host family had one made for me, and it is probably the most comfortable article of clothing I have ever owned. Oddly enough, all the African men at the event were wearing Western style suits. We toured the rich mans compound, which includes individual houses for each of his 30 wives. Yes, he has 30 wives, some say he has 50.

Pat and I showed up around 11 am only to see that the ceremony had already begun. This was the large public portion of the event which includes dancing, prayers, speeches, etc. There were about 3000 people in attendance including several kings, diplomats, and the rich man himself. When we got there, we were quickly intercepted by a large, bouncer like man in a black suit who told us he would escort us to our seats. We followed him to the large covered area of seating, walking right in front of all 3000 of these people. Most of them were probably wondering what this white guy was doing in a booboo. Each section of seating was labeled. Somehow, Pat and I were placed in the «Elite» section directly behind the rich man. Why we were placed there, I don’t know. Maybe we looked more important than we are. The religious portion of the ceremony lasted about 2 hours and there was a lot of sitting down and standing up and sitting down and standing up ; I’m guessing it was a catholic event. After that, there was dancing. Lots of dancing. Ceremonial African dancing, and drumming. It was all amazing to see. Stay tuned for photos. This was the cultural stuff I had imagined seeing before I came. Everyone was wearing a different type of material which represented the group, or village from which they came. All of the rich man’s immediate family had a special material, and there were many many family members. When he has at least thirty wives, there’s no telling how many kids he’s got. Leopold, the man who invited us, made the comment «it’s impossible to distinguish his wives from his daughters, because some of his wives are younger than many of his daughters.» Wow.

Pat and I were among the 400 or so priveledged people to be invited to the lunch/dinner feast held inside the banquet hall of the palace. We ate like kings, and drank french wine and champagne. We were the only white people in the place. We were sitting with two artists, a singer/songwriter and a poet. The singer had recorded a song dedicated to the woman who died. He got to perform it in front of the crowd and he gave a copy to the Rich man himself. Apparently, it’s not easy being an artist in this country, because the singer later told me that he had been waiting 9 years for this moment. He also said that this was all made possible by our (Pat’s and my) white skin. Since he was with us, he was able to get in the banquet, and since he was sitting with us, everyone assumed that he was a legitimate artist. This is in his own words. It’s very strange how people perceive westerners here. They give us this label of importance, and affluence. They are often so honored when we just say hello to them. Sometimes it’s flattering, but usually it makes me feel akward, I just want to say «hey buddy, you’re just as important as me.» Then again, a lot of people in the streets yell at me and call me “cracker.” Maybe it all balances out in the end.

I’m at the cyber café now, and I found one that may enable me to upload my pictures, and there’s even a CD burner that I can use to save everything to! Technology is coming to Cameroon...Now, I just have to wait for that laptop which should be here next month. Thats when this blog will start to get interesting, cause I’ll have the time to write more thorough entries from the comfy confines of my apartment.

Until next time...