Cages: It's All About Perception

The other day, a bird flew into my apartment. It was flying all over my main room (containing my kitchen/living/dining room). I really wanted to take a picture of this birdy flying around my house, but I was afraid to let it out of my sight in order to go get my camera. So instead I just sat down and watched it fly around, keeping my fingers crossed that it didn't poop anywhere, until it found its way back out the open window. 

More recently, I was gazing out my window when I spotted a bird gazing back at me. It was sitting among the baby green bananas on the bananier (banana tree) outside my "kitchen" window, just hanging out. As I was looking at it through the bars on my window, I thought sarcastically, Who's in the cage now eh birdy? That would be me!

But then I realized… Wait! I can't be in a cage! That goes against everything I believe in! And more importantly, the name of my blog!

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

I have gotten many questions about the holiday season here in Cameroon, so I'm going to try to give you, my wonderful wonderful readers, a picture of what it is like here. 

Cameroon is very religiously diverse, being primarily Christian (including Presbyterian, Catholic, and other some other denominations) and Muslim. Religion here isn't quite the same as in the US, because those beliefs are held simultaneously with traditional "animist" beliefs about sorcery, vampires, ancestors, etc. But nevertheless, people are pretty religious and, at least in my experience, the religious diversity makes people pretty tolerant of other religions and beliefs (although they are NOT tolerant of a lack of belief). I knew ahead of time that my post and more generally my region is primarily Catholic, so I knew they would celebrate Christmas. I just didn't know how.