Last week we had class every day from eight in the morning until seven at night and I was sick with a cold (not serious but just tiring and annoying). I tried to post yesterday but was stopped first by a frozen computer and then by two power outages and therefore lost the first half of three posts! I gave up and went home to make my papa chocolate chip banana pancakes for his birthday. There wasn't any power in the whole town last night so I successfully made pancakes by lantern light and without baking pouder and with a smashed chocolate bar instead of chocolate chips. They were delicious!!

Anyhow, I promised that this blog wouldn't be only about food. This past weekend our group traveled to BAmenda which is in the anglophone part of the country (the western part). The sprawling tin roofs of the city are surrounded by a mountain landscape that is dotted with waterfalls. Stunning. It is impossible really to use words for the weekend as, at this point, my head is still churning with thoughts and questions. Most interestingly, we visited the fondom of the BAfut people. A tour of paradoxes, our guide (dressed in a navy suit) was one of the fon's 47 wives. She spoke to us of the importance of maintaining tradition as we meandered through a museum built by the Germans, the same people who colonized the tribe. We also met the chief (fon) of the Bafut> he was sitting on the worn stone foundation of the oldest building in WEstern AFrica (kept intact by a fire that has gone out for 600 years and which also serves to preseve the building and appease the ancestors) holding his cell phone in his hands and speaking to us in English. Hopefully this brief picture highlights the complex relationship between tradition and modernity, the constant battle and unending questions.

Along with meeting his majesty, we also had the honor of having lunch at the house of the leader of the main opposition political party in Cameroon, John Fru Ndi. He actually won the presidential elections of 1992 but they were overturned by the "democratic" government.