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i got on the bus that made an unprecedented detour to alou market. we vented the radiator, loaded goats and cocoyams on top. on the wooden door of some shuttered mud brick building there was a notice written in chalk:

do not sell yams hereby order [illegible signature]

the passengers start making a commotion and the driver stops. i see the rear part of a goat hanging down from the roof with its legs struggling against the window for traction
-na goat, na goat. he for fall.
-he go break window, if he break na window...
[exit motoboy]
-shidong fo' yo' corner, hold he
then back to the junction where, as one of the few companies that is registered as a company and doesn't have to pay informal roadside taxes, the company has to take all of our identity cards, make a passenger list, and hand tickets to all of us. for 19 passengers and one apparently illiterate clerk, this takes about an hour and a half, during which i manage to eat breakfast and discuss business. i met a canadian anthropologist and some children that gave me a piece of scorched chicken head. i allowed them to have the internal organs, heads and feet in exchange for helping me to pluck them

the anthropologist told me that it is likely that ngwe has six noun cases, or genders

sa'a

sa'a
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

i was driving south. my girlfriend had stopped worrying about me driving her car long enough to fall asleep. we hit the southbound weekend traffic. i saw jarrell liquor store, pulled in and woke up my sister to buy me a bottle of rum. i realized it was sunday then. no one was pleased with me to have delayed the trip when we were so close to home

ngep

ngep
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

i mean what was it all for anyways? you people...

ngep

ngep
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

commercial fowls from western countries, of which frozen exports have been restricted recently, are fed antibiotics beak clipped etc. this fowl has a more honorable ending: on top of a bus in a raphia basker for twelve hours and degorged with a dull knife. a bamenda fowl. he cost the equivalent of twelve dollars. you should appreciate how important i was to eat part of him.

ngung

ngung
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

choogeh choogeh: porcupine.
laugh as it pleases you. it tastes like a very buttery and tender chicken. she is preparing to add it to an okra sauce

anzeh'e

anzeh'e
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

from left to right: raphia baskets, habanero peppers, coconuts, more peppers, sugarcane, papyas, sweetyams, fermented cassava, pineapples, avocadoes

mama hay que marear

i am told how to get to the airport from lewoh:
-sit at your house until you hear the motor run up the hill jump in. two bumpy hours on a hillside 1500cfa unless there is an imaginary refinery workers strike 2000cfa
-get out in dschang and buy fish pies when people start yelling at you yell back bafoussam if they yell back in an enthusiastic way, jump into another moving van that was imported in such a way that it could be classified as junk so it has been welded together with rebar at the seams. this car will stop 17 times, half to pay for coffee for soldiers, half to pick up passengers or attempt to
-in bafoussam beware the people warning you about thieves, which happen to be thieves, but this doesn't make them special. anything you buy will be counterfeit, even the cab ride to carrefour madelone. they may try to drop you off elsewhere if there isn't anyone else that wants to go.
-buy a deux cent loaf of bread, water and nigerian porno on vcd at the bakery/supermarket/gambling booth. use the bread when you eat the stew that they give you while you're waiting under a pavilion of rusty sticky oil drums.
-when the eighteenth and correct bus arrives after 2.5 hours quickly finish your stew or make it into a sandwich (let's hope you bought the bread) have your nigerian porno and small money ready for when you see children selling pineapple and passion fruit at the péage. also have it ready when you cross the temporary bridge with the temporary banner thanking the president for giving enough money to rebuild the only road from douala to limbe and you don't feel like reaching all the way back there for your passport when they ask.
-in douala everyone is a thief unless they are rich (has beens) or is holding too many children to be one. get into the bus that everyone else gets into, the one that is too good to use the right hand side of the road. when it looks empty and you think you are where you don't know where you are and nightfall was since, there is probably a hotel
-...
-in barranquilla airport they sell cerveza aguila at a little stand
-waste whatever money is left on your pocket just to see if they'll actually agree to that price. you should have a pittsburgh steelers watch, several drinking horns, a belly full of pineapple and brouchettes
-it was at least seven eggs that got crushed.
-dutifully arrive home 56 hours later.

decatur

it can be hard to move around. i said i could walk this way but then people might recognize me and i get caught up in some affair or this way but it's longer and we need to buy sugar. so we walk off. my friend sees me
"oh i'm glad i ran into you. i want that you should come to my house to eat some viper."
so i go to eat viper
"yes i was travelling from menji and i saw some women on the road beating a serpent to death. i jumped out of the car and begged that they should dash it to me. they said that i should give them a kilo of fish, which i think costs around 700 francs. i finally agreed to give them 500 francs. the stomach was full of eggs."
as i finish my viper i am informed that the man whose five dollar billl i recovered from his son is at a nearby place, so i go there to finally finish the matter and give him francs for it. three men speak in dialect and i can only make out "give him bottle" i say it is not necessary but they say it's only palm wine, so i have to drink the palm wine.

we go back to tiko

three seven

they are always against nonprofessionalism, venality and guanxi in the government sector, but there is the human side of the story. what about the person who totally gets hooked up because the guy at customs is his friend? and that made christmas special.
two or three words in fulfulde, somehow provening from new york inner city:

hook'em-to give, to gift, to dash
chedda, ndala-money

a friend of a friend of a friend in douala decided he was my other friend's personal go-to guy. he got a hold of a car and convinced the fulfulde-speaking airport personnel to give us access to all levels of the airport, went to the police station where duylinh was politely detained until she had a visa, convinced the immigration officials that her work was part of a valuable international mission, which it was and is, that hydroelectric project... got a free visa and we went to the bakery.

there was a great uproar when i ate lunch in some hidden soiled wooden bench within the bowels of the douala market, gutters overflowing with eggs, soggy papers, papaya rinds, cigarette butts and empty personal-size plastic bags of whisky from portugal, flies and their progeny. before the unsanitary conditions could get the best of me, i ate two papayas, which cure all stomach problems up to duodenal cancer.

we saw historic downtown douala with the cement factory and flour mill. more influence than you think. cimencam: people here are always constructing constructing and anyone building in a city or too good for honest to got mud bricks will have to use cement, and the flour (la pasta) fuels the bread epidemic that is spiraling out of control. bread is so good. you can have twenty loaves of bread for the same cost as one hundred pounds of cassava.

more pidgin:
potch: to cause indigestion or diarrhea (spanish empachar)
mop: mouth (middle english, lower jaw)

Shakespeare's Tempest Act IV, Scene 1:

ARIEL.
Before you can say 'Come' and 'Go,'
And breathe twice; and cry 'so, so,'
Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.
Do you love me, master? no?

dry as stockfish: emaciated, thin

Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene 4:

FALSTAFF.
'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried
neat's-tongue, you bull's sizzle, you stockfish- O for breath
to utter what is like thee!- you tailor's yard, you sheath, you
bowcase, you vile standing tuck!