Traffic

So, I finally started the infamous Spanish class yesterday. It was much more fun than I had anticipated! I really enjoyed myself! But, the drive home was rather torturous. Here in Cameroon, any time the President leaves his house, the police close off all the main roads a few hours before he leaves and keep them closed until he is well away from the city. Not very cool. It causes quite a problem in the city, since a lot of the main roads are already closed due to construction. So, cut off the rest of the main roads, and, well, you're pretty much just stuck sitting for however long the President decides to keep the main roads closed. He does that so that no one will try shooting him while he's out and about, I guess. There are better ways...but I'm not here to talk about Cameroonian politics.

ANYWAY, I got to my Spanish class a little early, saw Josh sitting with his class eating his snack (he was so sweet! He came up and gave me a big hug and wanted to introduce me to everyone in his class!), and I even got to talk to his teacher for a minute. She's super nice and the perfect first teacher for Josh. I think she's just as strict as I am, so I believe that's helping Josh to feel more comfortable. He is doing so much better, and I'm SO glad!

Ok, so I taught the class--teaching basic pronunciation ideas (that all vowels in Spanish sound exactly the same ALL THE TIME...oh, I love Spanish!!) and we did numbers and a basic conversation.

Afterwards, I left to go home. I had dropped Andrew and Claire off at playgroup before I went to the school, and I was planning to just stop by early and play with them before I took them all home. Well, my plans changed. I got to the top of the main hill on my way home and it was completely and totally blocked. What??? So I stopped some kid on the street and asked him what was going on. The President was passing through. Oh dear. I started to panic just a bit, because I've heard horrible stories about when the pres goes through...like the time that they blocked off the road at 8am in anticipation for him to go out, and it was STILL blocked at 6pm, and he just decided not to go out!!!! Not really very nice. All those people just completely stuck all day long. Yuck. That was the first thing that went through my head. That and the fact that I HATE to be in bad traffic, and let me tell you, when this place has bad traffic, it's beyond anything I've ever experienced! At least in LA or D.C. the traffic is sort of orderly. Everyone is pretty much going the same direction and knows that there are rules about driving that you should follow. Not here. It's a MESS!! If you see the picture at the top, take away the nicely lined up cars on the one side and behind the mad mass of cars. Then, take that mad mass of cars, and put it all over the city. No one goes merely forward. They just go. That is Cameroonian traffic.

Luckily, just at the moment that my panic was rising, I saw another car with a license plate that I knew going a different route, so I followed it. It turned out to be the mom of the kid who's house my kids were at! (Did anyone follow that sentence??) I felt SO glad to be behind her! Not only because now she would know why I haven't picked the kids up yet, but because she is French and knows all the roads of the city! Wow! I must admit, that I felt very blessed to have seen her!

So, we drove up through the big market and over to another route home...blocked. We were just so close, but the police would not let us through! So we asked around to see if there were any little side roads going through that we could cut through and maybe get to another road that may not be blocked. We found one and started down. It was a very interesting drive, to say the least! But, unfortunately, it was pretty blocked, too. So, I sat in my car, inching my way forward through an unknown street in the middle of a random city in Africa. Gotta love these experiences!! I called Pascaline to let her know what was up, and she said she was going to take the kids home. That was fine with me... (Although, I must admit I did think that she was going to walk, but when I finally made it home, Claire says, "Mom! We got to come home in a TAXI!!!" Ha! Well, at least they're having interesting experiences! And they made it home...)

Well, I was finally able to inch my way forward to a main road. I didn't know which one it was. But, it was ok, because my friend was still in front of me. Once traffic started moving, though, I lost my guide! I had to take a whole lot of deep breaths and just pray that I was going the right direction!!! So, I just drove up a big hill, and through a street where it seemed everyone else was going, and ended up at Nlong-Kak round point...and let me tell you, I was never so happy to see that crazy round-about!!!!!!!! It's just minutes from my house! I was so grateful!! I KNOW that I had a LOT of help finding my way around during that time. And to think that I was panicky merely about driving to the school. Ha. Piece of cake now. After sitting for 3 hours in horrible Cameroonian traffic, well, let's just say that I've been broken in. What an adventure.