Picnic, African style

"The bus leaves at 06.30, and if you are not present by then, you are not going at all." The board of my choir, Gospel Singers, do not seem to appreciate the term "African time", but no matter how hard they seem to fight it, African time always gets its way. So by 09.15, we were actually on our way to the village Wak (we thought).

We also thought we were going in the Gospel Singers' bus,

but all of a sudden it went away full of other people, so we ended up sitting 21 persons in this shabby car with 15 seats:

 

Photo: Samuel Fomgbami

The lack of space, the hard seats or the loose door did not spoil the joyous mood. Nor finding out that we were not going to Wak after all. Someone important had decided that we were headed for a small place with possibilities to take a swim near the student village Dang (12 km from Ngaoundéré) instead. 

Photo: Samuel Fomgbami

For some, the fact that we had to walk for 45 minutes to get there seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but as we got there, the walk was already forgotten. After we had crossed the river,

 

we reached a place that resembled any Norwegian beach a random summer day (except that there were no beach): a lot of young people where enjoying a Saturday with friends, food, a bonfire, guitar playing and swimming in the COLD water. 

 

  

 

Some hours later, after having crossed the river on our way back, we spent a few moments in prayer and worship together with another choir that also was there, 

before we went happy, tired, laughing and singing back to Dang to find taxis going to Ngaoundéré.

 

In other words: a wonderful Saturday spent with wonderful people!