Merry Christmas!!
Here's our "la blanche" mama noel Jessica bearing gifts - Ho ho ho!
But before Jessica and the others arrived, Christine, who spent the night, and I got up bright and early Christmas day and went out bird watching. It was a beautiful morning. We walked out of my house and tuned down a small road out back that eventually becomes a small path that leads down to a river and then up the neighboring mountain. We've walked it months before so we knew the trail but we never continued all the way up the the other side. This time feeling a little more adventurous, we decided to carry on, curious to see where we would end up. Well wouldn't you know it ended up chez Victor, my counterpart! We arrived at a house with mushrooms laid out to dry, and I thought to myself, hey, I know this house, this looks familiar. And sure enough, it was indeed Victor's, how exciting to accidentally end up at Victor's compound where I could wish him and his family a Merry Christmas in person!
Smiling Victor
He gave Christine and I a grand tour of his mushroom operation and handed us to take home not not one but TWO big sacks of beautiful oyster mushrooms and a bottle of red wine - so kind.
mushrooms!
We were also greeted by the local women's group that happened to be meeting that day at the meeting house chez Victor. After the traditional going around shaking everyone's hand introducing ourselves they honored us with a song - it was so spontaneous, so moving, I was almost in tears. At this moment I thought, no doubt about it, I am definitely in Africa.
A song, for us!
Christine and I eventually looped back to the house and had a few moments before some of the volunteers started to arrive. I invited the surrounding volunteers to come for Christmas since I had the tree, decorations, music and even a christmas movie, all thanks to the previous two volunteers, it was one big slumber Christmas party.
Zara brought some of her delicious Lentil Stew and helped me make Potato Gnocchi and Pesto Sauce both from scratch!
Zara rolling out the Gnocchi - messy but fun
I don't know what possessed us but we decided to do a headstand in celebration of the day
Christmas upside down
A nice and original Christmas! It was rare to find mushrooms in Douala (other than imported). Once (in 12 years!) we received some from West Cameroon, but I don't recall if they were the same kind you had. It was a real gourmet treat!
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