L'Américaine au Cameroun

We got an unexpected break from training today, so we headed out to a fancy hotel we'd heard sells burgers and fries. May sound normal to you folks back home, but to someone who has had plantains boiled, fried, mashed and covered in fish sauce, someone who regularly engages in conversations about rice and beans at Chez Ibrahim, Chez Roger or Gaston's for lunch and someone who saw an entire pig head in a pot last night (along with plantains, of course), a burger and fries sounds heavenly.

But first, there's this thing that happens in Cameroonian restaurants. Things get finished. Over there, in the land of Wallmarts and Ralph's and Longs, when things are finished, you buy more. Better yet, you buy more before things are finished and then things never actually finish. Not so here. Example: A group of us are in Dschang the weekend of site visit and decide to splurge for a nice meal. We think we've spotted a decent restaurant - meaning it serves either chicken, beef or fish with either fries or plantains - and stop to speak with the woman there.

"Do you have everything on the menu today?"
"Yes, everything."
"Ok, good."
We sit and look at the menu. Personally, I've been craving me some fried chicken and french fries, so I start off:
"I'll have the quarter chicken and french fries."
"Potatoes are finished."
We all snort a little 'humph' through our noses and another PCT asks:
"Is anything else finished?"
"No."
"Nothing else at all? You have everything here except for the potatoes?"
"Yes."
Not bad.
"Ok, I'll have the chicken and plantains."
"Chicken is finished."
"What is there today?"
"Fish and plantains."

So we left and went back to the bar we'd been to the previous day, a cold beer place - as opposed to a fresh beer place. I have absolutely no idea why beer that's not cold is fresh but that is the way things go. If you order a beer, they'll ask if you want cold beer. If you ask for cold beer and it's finished, they say there's only fresh in a way that's sort of like, "Cheer up, the chicken may be gone and you may hate plantains by now and the beer may be warm, but at least it's fresh." I've not seen anybody turn down a fresh beer yet.

I should have known better than to expect the hotel to actually have the burgers, but I didn't. Those were also finished. The other PCTs went back toward Bandjoun for rice and beans at either Chez Ibrahim, Chez Roger or Gaston's but I just couldn't take yet another plate of rice and beans. So I wandered off looking for a restaurant I tried a few weeks ago. I found it: My soda was fresh, but my fried chicken and fries were excellent. Patience won, even though the mayo was finished.