Saturday, August 10, 2013

Une Ode Pour le Sud

Tyrion: "The northerners will never forget."
Tywin: "Good.  Let them remember what happens when they march on the south."


The south region of Cameroon gets a lot of flak.  Its too "derangey."  The people are lazy.  They're rude.  Well, lets talk about the positives.  South, how much do I admire thee?  Let me count the ways:

1)  It has a rainforest.  All it needs is a high profile celebrity to give it publicity, maybe promote ecotourism.  *Cough* Sting.

2)  Getting "deranged" builds character.  You learn to verbally defend yourself and call people out when they deserve it. 

3)  Its relatively safe.  Getting "deranged" is the worst that they do.  Its not like Yaoundé or Douala or Bamenda where they've got a lot of thugs.

4)  Sometimes you don't want to be surrounded by a lot of Westerners.  The South only has a few volunteers for its size and sometimes thats good.  Sometimes, its good to be away from "the culture within a culture", aka Peace Corps Volunteer culture.

5) As a fellow PCV once said, "You can see above the ankle."

6)  No trouble hearing anybody because everyone shouts down here.  You never have to ask yourself if you're being rude, because well, nobody else asks that of themselves either.

7)    You will learn about fine cuisine.  Ok, not really.  Unless you consider bush meat with manioc as such.   You will learn about interesting cuisine, for sure. 

8) You never have to worry about wearing a jacket.  Its not cold like the mountaineous regions.  Its also not extremely hot like up north.  Its just humid. 

9)  Water shortage?  What's that?

10)  One word:  Kribi.

Ah, the South, what can I say?  We make a good poster, at least, right?