Well, it’s official, after years of being in the marching band my acquired skill set has finally proved itself useful in a career setting. By this I’m referring to the Labor Day parade I marched in with my co-workers from the health center this past Saturday. I’m not sure why, but people really like to march in parades in this country, any chance to get up in front of a group of people and walk in step, and they’re on it like white on rice; youth day, women’s day, worker’s day you name the people’s day and I can almost guarantee there’s going to be a procession.
Saturday morning I got up early and headed down to eat breakfast with Bernadette’s family and get ready for the Labor Day festivities. I guess I never really thought of Labor day as a big party day, probably because for me it always represented the last day of freedom, the coming of a new school year, and so long to white shoes, but here it’s much more a celebration for “the working man.” All the workers associations make t-shirts or buy matching fabric and then throw these big parties.
Part one of the Fête de travailler (The workers’ party) was supposed to get kicked off at the sous prefecture (kind of like the fair grounds) at nine o’clock, but this is Cameroon and NOTHING ever starts on time so I putzed around for a couple of hours and then right around noon things started moving along. It was the usual opening ceremonies with the singing of the national anthem, big wigs giving speeches, and then the tunes came on. One thing you should know about Bankim is that in the whole village there is apparently only one song that people can march to and so that song is played on repeat for the duration of the procession, over and over and over again (were talking hours of the same song on the same crappy speakers). By the end it’s so stuck in your head that you find yourself humming it all week long, or at least I do ;)
So round one all the groups march around the route on foot, then round two everyone loads up onto cars and trucks and does it again. Highlight of the foot parade was hands down the Bankim Boucher’s association. Somewhere in the brainstorming process they decided that it would be a good idea to march with a cow leading their group. Funny thing about cows is that they like being walked on a leash just about as much as they like being ridden… not one bit! Much to my amusement both were attempted and the entire crowd was rolling on the ground laughing (probably wouldn’t have been so funny if the guy had been gored, but he wasn’t so I felt laughter was the appropriate response). Second highlight of the parade and my favorite part was the moto taxi men’s tour. Aislynn once said that the moto taxis are kind of like bike messengers in the states. They’re all the young 20 something guys who pride themselves in being “trendy” (side note trendy in Cameroon equals R Kelly and knock off sunglasses) and hang out next to their bikes all day trying to look cool and impress the ladies. Anyways this group was the last one in the parade and apparently once around wasn’t enough because they opted to go round two and by the time they were at round three the police were chasing them. While I was watching this all I could think about was that scene at the end of Animal House when the renegade “eat me” cake float breaks into the death mobile and all hell lets loose. Classic.
Part two of Fête de Travailler was a dinner party and dancing. Everyone at the hospital pitched in a little money and some of the ladies whipped up a spread of food for our little throw down. We had the party at one of the local bars and all the invitees (a.k.a. all the important people) showed up to meet us there. Someone busted out a microphone and we had to listen to the same speeches from the morning again (like no kidding the exact same speeches, word for word), but once all the formalities were over and the table was cleared the real fun began. Loud music, lots of booze, and dancing hands in the air like you just don’t care… what more could you ask for? Everyone was eager to show how to dance Cameroonian, which I must say is so much easier then American dancing, and I was on the floor all night. All in all I had a great time and I can’t wait till next year ☺
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