Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Bon House - Again


On Saturday night we went to another bon house, this time the host was friend and neighbour Sylvester, who dressed up in his traditional North West dress. He and his wife became proud parents to a second daughter last week. He told previously that the baby would be called first lady however decided Annyvester was better, again an amalgamation of his and his wife's names, Ann and Sylvester. The party was held in Mutengnae which is just down the road where is wife works and lives with her family. It is a pretty rough town and not a place for young white folk to be out and about by themselves at night.

We got a lift to the party as Sylvester had organised a guy to drive his car and stay sober so us and the other from Buea could get home. The evening started in the usual Cameroonian fashion, late. Then there were various speeches from Sylvester and the presidents of various groups. This was all done in Pidgin and we did pretty well following it all. Each group then performed some dances then the dance floor was open to all. Sylvester loves dancing so was having a great time joining in the various woman's groups dancing with them. He then got covered in talc (not sure why, but we have fun shouting white man at him afterwards!). We danced a little, the party was due to go on to 6am we were not keen on staying this long but worried how we would get home not wanting to go alone. The driver was of course drinking by now so that was not an option. Didimus and his wife also decided it was time to go home and Joyce had been at the market all day and was pretty tired. So we all walked up to the main road and got a car home around 2am. So another evening of fun and dancing. These Cameroonians know hoe to have a good party (after all the ceremony and speeches that is).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Are you going to adopt a similar naming convention for your offspring?

Heatheph?
Joeather?
Hevseph?
Joesether?

Or maybe not.

Ann said...

Personally, I liked the name "First Lady."

And Richard, your name suggestions inspired me so much that I thought of one for your future offspring= Richieclare.

Sounds yummy, huh??