Observations about Cameroon

After being here some days I've already noticed some big differences from Kenya to Cameroon. The first thing I noticed is that in general, the country is silent. People are quiet, there's seldom any music out on the streets and there's much less traffic. When we were in central Yaounde, which is the capital city, I was almost stunned by the silence. People didn't say a word, some people were working on a house, and you could even hear the materials moving against each other when they carried them. Sauda is more noisy than Yaounde.

The second thing, of course, is language. They speak french all the time, and people who don't know us always assume we know french. However, it's never hard to find someone who knows at least a little english, and so far I've been able to do the little grocery shopping I need without any major problems. A smile, body language plus the few words of french I know goes a long way.
Here in Ngandouere, around the missionary station, we're likely to bump into a Cameroonian speaking fluent Norwegian though. To sum up, language haven't been much of a problem so far.

The third thing is kind of related to the two above, but still; In Kenya people are in general more contact-seeking. It's very easy to start a conversation with a Kenyan. In Uganda that was harder, and Cameroon is somewhere inbetween those. It might be that it's hard to start a conversation when you don't know the language, or that many have already tried but I failed to notice since I don't understand. It doesn't seem that white folks are as big a deal as in Kenya, where we got used to kids jumping up and down and yelling «HAWAJOO» as we passed by.

Although the circumstances are very sad, I'm happy I get to experience two different cultures. We have a great few months ahead.