Cameroon

Our African country average is really lacking this month, so we're going to try and throw a few at the end here. So today we were on to the curve of Africa with Cameroon. 

Cameroon is like taking all of Africa and rolling it into one place. They have beaches, and jungles and nearly 300 different ethnic groups, including the pygmy tribes. 

Cameroon is one of the wettest places in Africa. It is home to awesome animals like the giraffe, lion, antelope and the Bongo (kind of like giant deer with stripes- I feel like everyone knows what a Bongo is, and then I think I only know them because they have a bunch of them at the Animal Kingdom). 

 Oh, and they also have the Mandrill Monkey (those blue, red and white ones that look like baboons, and are the largest monkeys- I think, I feel like I read that- I'm doing this one without a book in front of me, sorry!) 

It also rains, a lot. Cameroon is the wettest country in Africa, and one of the wettest places in the whole world. (It usually ranks in the top 10 of wettest places). 

Cameroon has been a country since 1961- when British Cameroon and French Cameroon merged, which then makes sense why the official languages are both English and French. 

The love their coffee, and their soccer. (They were the first African country to make it to the quarterfinals in the World Cup). 

But some of our facts about Cameroon were not so fun. 

One third of the country lives below the poverty line. 

Thanks to Boko Haram it's not safe to visit the Northern part of the country. In fact, there is a US Travel Warning, telling travelers to avoid all areas of the north because of terrorist risk and violent crime. 

They are said to the be origin of HIV, where some scientists think an infected chimp was eaten. 

And our landmark is Lake Nyos- the most poisonous, dangerous lake in the world. Thanks to it's location on top of magma, it omits CO2. In the 1980's their was an eruption, and it killed 1,700 people and over 3,500 livestock by poisoning the air supply. 

The boys made their Cameroon postcards. 

Calib's featured some mud and straw homes. 

Peyton and Hayden both noted that the northern area of Cameroon is too dangerous to visit. 

For dinner we had Hot Pot Potatoes (African Stewed Potatoes), Cameroonian Fried Spinach, and Pineapple. 

This dinner earned five spoons up. 

The main dish was surprisingly popular for it being a stew, but it didn't really have the consistency of a stew. Sometimes for me especially, stews have a muddled flavor. (I think it has something to do with my lack of a sense of smell). But in this one, every ingredient really represented itself well. The Spinach was hit or miss with the kids (Asa and I loved it), but the boys are always pretty pleased when pineapple shows up for our fruit. 

Peyton colored in Cameroon in purple, right next to Equatorial Guinea. 

65 Down, 128 to go!