Skip to main content

Signs of Cameroon: the continuing story

A business in 3 Corners Bekondo:
Doctor of Engines: Chainsaw, motorcycle

On a truck:
Don One
[the fun thing about this one is trying to guess what this moniker might mean. Is the truck named “Don Juan”? Is it “done won”, i.e. Pidgin for “I have won”? or is it something else entirely?]

On the menu at Handicraft Restaurant in Bamenda:
Bonne Appetit
Scrabble eggs
Marshed potatoes
Avocardo bread

Roadside sign in Bamenda:
Church of Christ
Service Center
(my question is whether the service centre is part of the church or completely unrelated but sharing the same sign. I suspect the former, but it’s amusing to consider the latter.)

Businesses in Bamenda:
Never Mind Cold Store
Second Hand Tenis Shop [This is a shoe store]
World Trade Center [A store selling appliances, as best I could tell]
Confidence Man: Provisions/Cold Store

Business in Santa:
Titanic Photo

Business in Yaounde:
God’s Bussiness Centre

Packaging on small-serving cookie packets:
Parle-G: “World’s Largest Selling Biscuit”

A bridge crossing a river on the plateau between Loum and Dschang:
Black Ouata
[Say the second word out loud to hear what the river is really called]

Painted on a hearse travelling the Buea road:
Last Jouney

At the crossroads in Ekombe:
Cold Wa
Ter

A small shop close to the taxi park in Ekondo Titi:
Unity Fashion Shop
Ping Centre

In Mutengene:
Boomerang Barbing Sarloon

At the Melrose Hotel Le Prestige:
Help us to serve you by your constance payment in advance.

Come one come all.

You are not suppose to carry away our hotel property. Mostly in your rooms.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
That's great. Don't you just love when the English language is so hilariously butchered!? I personally will not frequent establishments that have grammatical errors in their printed, laminated, and PAID FOR signs. Surely someone should have proofread them first!

FYI... we read your blog all the time. You sure do have some interesting stories. Thanks for sharing.

Liv (Kris' wife)
June 13, 2008 at 7:50 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our pensions for ICE? Stop it now!

A campaign from LeadNow with a few spicy sentences from me. The CPP is funded by the wages of 22 million people across the country, LeadNow says, and the Investment Board has a responsibility to ensure those savings are not used in ways people fundamentally reject. Dear Mr. John Graham, CEO of CPPIB, and CPPIB board members, I am writing as a contributor to the Canada Pension Plan—one of millions of people whose wages fund this plan and whose future depends on it. This is our CPP, and it must answer to us. I am horrified that CPP investments include companies linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In effect, the people who pay into CPP are having their own money used to help fund Trump-era immigration enforcement and the harms associated with it. Canadians are appalled by the actions of ICE. What a betrayal you would use our own money to fund these bullies violating human rights.  CPP is not abstract capital—it is our deferred wages. Contributors should not ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keep Israeli warmongers out

Dear Mr Carney After promising to follow international law and arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, you lost your nerve and failed to deny him passage through Canadian airspace.  However, you finally spoke up after Minister Ben Gvir's egregious display of sadism. Now you have another chance to keep that backbone tall, standing against genocide, by preventing the representatives of Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries from attending CANSEC in Ottawa on May 27 – 28, 2026.  This request was recently brought to your attention by ICJP and Just Peace Advocates. In their request, they provided significant evidence in support of our position that entry ought to be denied under section 35(1) of the IRPA, on the basis of the companies’ ongoing cooperation with the Israeli military during its alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Elbit is Israel's largest private defence contractor. Its finan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bread not bombs

Yesterday, I saw a post from a Dutch antiwar organization: Geen Bommen maar bomen. “Not bombs; trees instead.” I love it.  Today, I saw a campaign from MCC: “bread, not bombs.” So I wrote adapted their letter to write to the prime minister et al.: Sure, money is important, but even more crucial is air to breathe and food to eat.  War makes money for a tiny fragment of human population, but for the vast majority, war means displacement, loss, deprivation and at worst death. Even for those far away from war, like here in Canada, every bomb that drops leaves not only a crater in some distant soil but also further deepens the desperate carbon crisis we are in, which will exact its retribution faster and faster in wildfires, droughts and floods.  That is why I am writing to you today.  Canadians did not vote for war in the 2025 election.  War does not lead to security.  How could the hunger, displacement, and worsening impacts of climate change lead to sec...
Post a Comment
Read more