According to one of the guidebooks, Limbe is one of the centres of English resistance in Cameroon, Bamenda being the other. Cameroon is kind of like Canada in reverse, official-language-wise. Both French and English are official languages, but English is only spoken in North West and South West Province—the rest of the country speaks French. Given the earlier statement, I was awfully surprised to spend most of our mini-holiday on the beach doing the talking because everyone we encountered spoke French—some exclusively. So if Limbe is a stronghold for English-speaking Cameroon, well, I think they’re losing.
“There’s no accounting for taste.” That’s my dad’s favourite way of explaining personal tastes that are incomprehensible to him, like living downtown, and riding bike in winter. The inexplicable factors which determine an individual’s likes or dislikes are probably the only way I can explain why my favourite nativity scene contains a horribly caricatured black magus, a random adoring child attired – to my fancy – like a Roma person, an old shepherd carrying some sort of blunderbuss. And a haloed holy family with an 18-month-old baby Jesus. This is the "Christmas Manger Set – the Christmas story in beautiful cut-out scenes and life-like figures." See how the 1940s-era family admires the realistic flourishes, like raw wood beams and straw protruding from the edge of the roofline; the rough, broken wood of the stalls; the tasselled camels; the richly dressed magi; the woolly sheep; the Bethlehemites on the path in the background, ostensibly out to get water, judging...
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