Knock-off Haviana sandals: 800 cfa
Lunch for 5 from a roadside African restaurant: 2,600 cfa
A couple dozen mangoes: 600 cfa
An hour of tennis lessons at the Bangui tennis club: 3,000 cfa
Orange sodas and fresh rolls at Café Phoenicia: 1,700 cfa
Boat ride on the Oubangui River: 2,000 cfa
Dinner at the restaurant on the rocks: 5,000 cfa
Hot chocolate from the Grand Café: 1,250 cfa
The experience of it all: priceless
Maybe I splurged a bit this past weekend but it was worth it. There are some things you just can’t put a price on. More than once I just couldn't help but laugh at my African life.
Here are a few snapshots of my random African weekend:
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| Christelle, Lisa, and Mylene |
1) Me crammed in the back of a little bus with three high school PHC girls, a goat, a dead monkey, and a whole bunch of Africans all chatting it up in Sango as we head to the market to go shoe shopping.
2) Getting my hair braided by Lisa, Christelle, and Mylene. The process was a bit painful and I looked a little ghetto when they were done but whatever.
3) Overheating in the humid 100-degree weather. I was comfortably settled on my porch reading a book on Saturday when all of a sudden my phone started making strange ringing noises. I flipped open my phone and read the warning message: Calls or applications should be shut down to cool the phone. You know it’s really hot when even your phone starts freaking out about the heat!
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| Blanche in front of a random memorial |
4) Playing tennis with Blanche. We should probably stick with soccer because it was painfully obvious we’re not tennis players. The workers at the tennis club laughed at us a lot but Blanche and I had fun and, thanks to all the coaching, by the end of our hour of tennis we could actually keep the ball in the court.
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| me and Blanche: Tennis experts! |
5) Waking up freezing to a thunderstorm Sunday morning. It’s supposedly dry season but it rained for hours straight and I had to pull out my sweatshirt. I was supposed to play in a sports ministry soccer game at the university for True Love Waits but that didn’t happen and Heidi said it was raining too hard to go to church so I read, watched Psych, and ate pancakes instead.
6) Bartering for mangoes. It’s mango season and there are people darting all around town with long sticks picking mangoes off the trees and then selling them. There’s a row of mango vendors a couple blocks from my house. Why they all decided to sell mangoes at the exact same place I’m not sure but it made bartering a whole lot more fun!
7) Going for a walk with Matt and Caitlin that turned into a trip down the river. We met a random guy by the river who told us he had a dugout canoe and could take us for a ride at the great price of 2,500 cfa each. I had nothing better to do so I bartered him into taking all three of us out on the river for a total of 2,000 cfa.
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| out on the river! |
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| Matt, Caitlin, and me |
8) Eating out at the Ubangui Hotel restaurant on the rocks. Shortly after ordering we watched an African head out to the market and then come back after a while with the ingredients for the food we’d ordered. Nothing like fresh! Good thing there was live music and a beautiful view of the river to keep us entertained while we waited.
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| The Ubangui River |
This is Africa.
Nothing happens fast and things rarely happen as planned. It’s random. One day you think you might die from overheating, the next day you’re wearing sweatshirts and making campfires in your driveway to keep warm. You barter for a pile of mangoes from a bunch of goofy young boys and then turn around and spend twice that amount on one cup of hot chocolate at the café down the road.
I’ve decided it’s best not to overanalyze life in Africa…
Love it. Hate it. It’s easiest just to embrace it.
(p.s. 460 cfa = $1.00 us)
(p.s. 460 cfa = $1.00 us)
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