January 26th, 2016 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
On Christmas Day this past December, I was at Hilda’s house and Hilda and I were conversing various topics ranging from current issues to everyday cultural differences to travel plans. When I shared my travel plans to Kribi, one of the beaches in Cameroon, with Alex, I shared that there is a limited number of resorts by the beaches. Hilda explained to me that going to the beach as a vacation is a western culture. Most Cameroonians do not go to the beach as a vacation for various reasons. When they are on vacation, they normally choose to visit their families. Money is another big reason many Cameroonians do not go. I told her that I didn’t realize that vacationing at a beach is a western culture but I could see her point because in the US and Europe during the summer months and holidays when the weather is warm, many beaches are often crowded and traffic heading towards the beach can often be horrendous.
Alex and I took a four and half hour bus to Kribi from Yaounde. While the bus was booked solid, there was no traffic going to the beach.
When Alex and I went to Kribi, I definitely noticed that very few Cameroonians were at the beach. Majority of the people at the beach were clearly foreigners. I will admit that I wanted to walk up to many of the people and interview them and find out what brought them to Cameroon. The beach was not crowded even though it was during New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. It was actually rather quiet. This shows what Hilda has explained to me – Cameroonians generally do not spend the holidays at the beaches unlike many from the western countries.
Kribi is a lovely beach with light brown sand and warm ocean water. However, the landscape looks very developing. The buildings in the town center are shacks. They look like poorly constructed buildings that are found all throughout the country. Kribi does have one unique feature that is rarely found at beaches and that is waterfalls flowing right into the ocean. It was a surreal and beautiful scenery. Alex and I spent about an hour admiring the beautiful scene.
As we also celebrated New Year’s Day at the beach, we enjoyed a big dinner that included salad, shrimp and pork. Shrimp is a speciality of Cameroon, especially since the country’s name was named after a river with shrimp. When the clock hit midnight, the hotel lit the fire on the beach and people danced around the bonfire and played music. Many people including Alex and I launched sky lanterns into the sky. It was a beautiful New Year celebration, and it was wonderful to experience in seeing how it is celebrated in another country.
Shrimp with cream sauce and mushrooms and french fries
