Shaun and I are spoiled by a very generous Cameroonian, who has become known to us as our Cameroonian grandpa. He is a friend of our landlord’s, Bertrand, who occasionally helps with yard maintenance as he knows a ton about gardening. We blogged about him here when he brought us flowers on what happened to be our anniversary.
Since then, we have seen him on and off. He always makes a point to stop by and say hi to us when he is helping Bertrand with something. Gillian, our postmate, and I ran into him in town on December 23. After sharing Christmas plans and wishing each other the best, he showed up on the morning of Christmas Eve with a giant bouquet of flowers and a bag of spinach for us to add to our Christmas feast. Spinach is very difficult to grow here and therefore is not available at the market. He has learned that we love it and always shares his spinach with us. In return, we gave him some red leaf lettuce from our garden as he had never seen or tried it before and a postcard of Portland, which he claimed was the most beautiful city he’d ever seen (we think so too!).
This morning, we were again treated to more tropical flowers from our local Grandpa. Without pre-arrangment, he drops by our house and arranges the flowers on our deck for us in our one flower pot. They are huge, beautiful, and so tropical compared to any bouquet we are used to. He, again, brought us spinach. This time, we traded him for cilantro and jalapenos, hopefully he can make a big Mexican feast!
Every time he comes, we love asking him about what to grow and when, as the “seasons” here don’t really exist. He promised to come back in March and help us plant the next round of fruits, veggies, and flowers in our garden.
More than the promised gardening he will do with us, or the flowers or spinach he brings us, he is always so happy and excited to see Shaun and I. It is refreshing to sit out on the deck and chat with him about the simple things in life, and for that, we are thankful to have our Cameroonian “Grandpa”.
The flowers he brought us today.
27 months in Cameroon 