I Say!

Great to have a lie into until the princely time of 8.30AM. It's a leisurely start to the day, doing boring little jobs that always seem to accumulate.

Take a cab down to the Mount Merry Health Clinic, where S gets a sometimes troublesome wrist looked at. I notice on the wall (amidst the many pictures of the Pope) a sign exclaiming that "75% of all medical bills will be paid if you are a member of the Buea Diocese". I believe that the vast majority of people in Africa are religious because they choose to be, and this is their path to enlightenment and salvation. I also can't help feeling that some are religious because they simply can't afford not to be. The clinic looks clean and efficient, but I wouldn't want to stay here. If you're unfortunate enough to require admittance, a private room, minus any health charges, is 3 quid a night, and a shared one is about 80 pence.

I go down with C to the local neighbourhood of Soppa to meet a local chief, who has some sort of agreement with C to farm some of her father's land. He, and his wife, are very affable characters. One of their sons is in Spain doing something or other, but I don't ascertain what exactly as he can't seem to understand what I'm saying. On the way back to the taxi, we catch some EPL in a friendly little bar. The chief gets the drinks in and I initially refuse my bottle of water, before deferring to African generosity. C reproaches me later for not immediately accepting it. I ask her what I should do if I really don't like what is being offered. She informs me that I should ask for something else instead. S sits and disagrees with her. All around the world, attitudes change, and young and old people see things in very different lights.

Walking back to the house, we meet a number of local characters, some of whom have had a cheeky couple. One of the inebriated, shouts to me that he's C's husband, and then changes this to her brother. The other one of the comedy duo is my namesake (important in Africa), and on discovering this fact, gets me in a bear hug and attempts some kind of continental cheek kiss thing, but they'll definitely be none of that sort of thing. I'm not bally French, you know!

People here are so friendly and genuinely interested in visitors. I'm always taken aback a little by just how warm the ubiquitous "welcome" greeting always is. I wonder how different an African's arrival might be greeted by many in the UK and elsewhere.

There were two more funerals today (in a very small town). We met a scattering of mourners during our town meet and greet on the street walk (C is very well known in the area). When we get back home afterwards, C says that one of the men was a brother of the deceased (his sister). Apparently, she had recently questioned why both her brother's wives had died in slightly surprising circumstances. Now she is no more herself. I can honestly say, though, I looked at the brother at the time, and really felt that his mourning clothes had a really "lived in" look about them.