the fon of bemenda, etc...

last sunday, sophie and i left for a "mission," which is an exciting word for a business trip. our destination was a town called bamenda. bamenda is located in the english-speaking part of Cameroon, which was quite a relief to me. i could actually have intelligent conversations with people! before we got to our hotel, we stopped by a lake outside of the city. it was nice, but on the way up the dirt road to the lake, we were exeptedly detained by a fallen tree. so we walked the rest of the way, which was probably 3 kilometers away. it was a good hike though. the hotel was the nicest in the city, but dont read too much into that. it was plain, which would have been fine, but the water didnt work. i worked 1 out of 10 times, which was puzzling, so it was like hotel camping. good times. that night we went and had a great dinner with a bunch of retired Cameroonian UN workers. it was so interesting being with them, hearing what they thought about the government and what should be done and what their region was like. they were retired politicians but they farm now. the food was great too.

the next morning we went to a smaller town called bafut and visited a palace there. this palace was a compound which housed the fon (a big chief) and his extensive family. by extensive, i mean extensive. this fon had 16 wives and about 50 children. alot right? his father had 150 wives and over 400 kids! in the compound was a temple that was 600 years old (pictured), devoted to ancestor worship. only the fon and his family could enter it. the fon (pronounced "fawn") gave us a tour of the palace and then took only sophie and i into a small shedlike place in which was kept sacred elements of their religion, like masks and jewelry and ornaments. this place was separate from the public museum and only certain people got to see it! it was incredible. the public museum was interesting too. there was a bible in their native tongue translated by SIL. it was great to see so much cultural identity in a country that has lost so much of it. after the palace, we visited a businessman who started a charity foundation. he was quite eccentric. he wore a white sports coat and and white shirt with rhinestone buttons, which made me feel like i was back in the 50's. that night, we went to a man's house for dinner. he was the head of the opposition party in Cameroon politics, so this dinner was also idealogically interesting. after the meal he presented sophie and i with woven straw bags. the next day we returned to Yaounde, and that was that.