Limbé

Located in the Southwest region of Cameroon, Limbé is one of my favorite towns in the country, and my preferred beach vacation destination here in Cameroon. After Christmas, I spent a few days there both for business and pleasure. I needed to visit Limbé City Library, one of the participating libraries for the Books For Cameroon project. I thus used this and gave myself a few days of vacation hanging by the beach and eating amazing seafood.

Limbé is an English colonial town, and I dare say the cleanest, more orderly town in Cameroon, far better organized than the political and economic capitals of Douala and Yaoundé, respectively, both Francophone cities (remnants of the French colonization).

The Limbé City Library became a participate of the Books For Cameroon project when a Cameroonian living in the US emailed Peace Corps Washington about participating. When his email reached me, I happily agreed because I love Limbé, and the beach. 🙂

The former librarian Maggie and I have been corresponding via email. When I finally met her and the library, I was thoroughly impressed. It’s already a well-functioning library with card catalogs, reference materials, and even a kids corner. Their biggest need is more books, which is where the project comes in.

Here I must comment on the wonderful Cameroonian hospitality. Maggie and I met to tour the library and she graciously invited me to her home after the visit. Her sister was getting married that day, so the house was filled with a flurry of activities – chicken killing, food cooking, people singing (rehearsing) and the like. Maggie introduced me to her family, and showed me photo albums of her family that are abroad. She made sure to tell me that her home is always welcome to me when I visit Limbé and she also wanted to see if I was able to attend the wedding that evening. Weddings here is an ALL night festivity and since I was to travel back to Yaoundé the following day, I kindly declined the invitation. It blows my mind how nice she was to me, a total stranger that she has never met just two hours prior!

Oh, funny side note. One of the many people I met at her house met me and said, “oh, I follow you on Twitter!” It was so strange for that to happen here in Africa! Oh, the power of social media!