Arrival at last!

After a few flight delays, I finally landed in Douala! My irrational paranoia caused me to set not one, but three alarm clocks at my hotel room the night before, but this did not seem to matter,as my nervousness prevented me from sleeping anyways.
Upon my arrival, I was swarmed by people wanting to 'help' me with my baggage. As I've learned, this means try to take it from a weary passenger and then demanding a ridiculous fee. I was doing fine avoiding this until the very end, when one rather persistant guy managed to pull my backpack away from me in the crowd and carry it for about 4 meters out of the door. For this unwanted 'help' he tried to get me to pay him 10 euros! Luckily I was saved by the MC president, Wilfred and whisked away with Catherine into a taxi. Here came my first shock - the roads were so crowded with people walking, on motorbikes, and in cars. With everyone going in different directions, this seemed like a prime example of organized chaos, but somehow we avoided hitting those that we passed within millimetres. At one point, we turned into a narrow street only to discover that there was already an oncoming vehicle ( and apparently no room for opposing traffic). My first thought was that we would have to back out and take an alternate route, but in Cameroon, they make room, with both vehicles climbing sharply onto the steep banks to either side and driving at about a 45 degree angle to pass each other. We arrived shortly at our destination of the MC house, and I was introduced to Thierry, Bernis, and a common occurence - a blackout. For a moment I rummaged through my bag in search of a flashlight until I realized that the darkness was of no great concern to the rest of the house's occupants, though they lit candles shortly thereafter (quite possibly for the benefit of the disoriented foreigner). We were briefly acquainted, and then left with the other intern, Christina, to enjoy some typical Cameroonian street food. We wandered down the street for a few blocks ( avoiding gutters and holes) until we came to our destination, and settled down to our meal of roasted fish, cassava, and an enormous beer. I discovered quite quickly that wasting food is taboo, and was frankly informed by Christina that since she had to eat the fish head when she arrived, now it was my turn. I gazed down at the cloudy, crispy eye with a slight sense of foreboding, and was much relieved when informed that the eye should be consumed last. My fate was momentarily delayed. When the last fin had been eaten, the time had come. This type of fish is served with a spicy sauce, and I fooishly thought that it would be wise to dunk the eye in a generous amount of it to camouflage any unnappealing flavours or textures. Key word - foolish. After tackling the strangely rubbery/hard eye, I was in a disgusting, dribbly, nose-running state of regret. Chugging beer was to no avail, as I attempted to cover my shameful dribbling with my hand. I had forgotten to bring tissues, and there wasn't a napkin in sight. Thierry saved the situation by buying some from a street vendor, but the day ended with several lessons. Among them that tissues should always be at hand when dealing with unfamiliar food and haste of spicing.