The View from the Road

I spend a lot of time in transit. Whether walking the 20 minutes to and from school, taking a car to Ngaoundere, or riding a moto through the city, I've had plenty of time to take in the view. I've compiled for you a quick list of some of the more interesting things I've seen - so without further ado, here's a glimpse of life in Cameroon, as seen from the road.

• Two children standing on a moving cow cart, belting out the Tarzan yell to two utterly disinterested cows
• A cowherd watching over his herd with an electric guitar strapped to his front
• Snoop Dog's doppelgänger (or possibly the actual Snoop Dog, searching for his missing guitar player)
• A handful of 10-year-olds cheerfully supervising a bush fire
• Lots of cows
• So, so many cows
• Some cow sex
• A monkey, once
• Vendors with absurdly large piles of stuff on their heads
• Vendors with absurdly small piles of stuff on their heads (my personal favourites are the ones with single blocks of soap)
• A genderme who stopped an entire car to greet la blanche
• A cow that insisted on running down a restaurant alleyway, forcing the herder to chase it while the rest of the herd trotted unconcernedly down the middle of a busy road
• A woman who came THIS CLOSE to being hit by a semi truck while crossing the road - terrifying
• Goats that don't give a shit 
• A checkpoint manned by a sullen sheep (the gendermes were sharing a beer down the road)
• A semi truck flipped on its side
• An exasperated mother trying to persuade wo adorable toddlers to cross the gutter on a plank of wood (the first finally rushed across the 2-foor gap while clutching her mother's hand; the more reluctant toddler eventually crawled his way across on his hands and knees)
• A far-off house fire (the difference, I was told, is that the smoke was black. If the smoke is grey, it's just another bush fire)
• An outrageously beautiful starry sky