Fongo Tongo

a week ago saturday i got sick for the fist time, so i missed the waterfall fieldtrip. nothing big, according to my host mom i ate too much "pimant" (spicy sauce) at madame essola's grilled fish house the night before. i have no regrets, it was delicious -- but my stomach was not very happy with me. instead i went with thomas to fongo tongo on sunday. seven of us -- thomas, therese, their daughters lynn and melissa, me, and my sisters rosine and marion -- packed into the five-seater SIT truck and bumped along all the way there (i'm really surprised the truck didn't bottom out). thomas has a new house in fongo tongo right across the road from his brother's chefferie (chief compound). its kind of like a weekend home, except its a really nice appartment with rooms underneath for other family members. we had lunch there, and then thomas and therese took me with them to a deuille -- the mourning day after someone's death. in this case, and old woman had passed away after a good life, so it was more of a happy celebration. many people returned from other towns, and all were dressed up, whether in modern styles or more traditional. the custom is for younger women (me) to follow the grandmas of the family around as they greet others. most people greeted me in yemba, to which i was to reply "ng" (meaning yes). when i did that everyone would laugh and shake my hand. mostly i had no idea what was going on but it was a great experience!

this week, every house in town has "arbres de paix" (similar meaning as an olive branch) on their windows and doors to protect against the fée who has apparently come to dschang. according to the kids (and the nightly news!), the fée is an old woman who carries a dead baby on her back and has no face. she goes from house to house asking to use the bathroom, and if you let her in she kills your family. my parents scold the kids for talking about it, but they are totally freaked out, and it was on the news for crying out loud! when we asked our french professor about it, he said that the typical response to such a rumour is for everyone in the community to conform, because if something goes wrong at a house where they did not put up the arbres de paix, everyone will say they did not respect the spirits and brought the bad luck on themselves.

we were supposed to go to bamenda this weekend, but the trip is postponed to monday. the leader of the opposition anglophone party in cameroon, john fru ndi, has agreed to meet with us! but he won't be in bamenda til tuesday. apparently bamenda is the place to go to buy pagnes...i cant wait!