So there you sit, gorged and bloated, promising never to eat that much for Thanksgiving. And promising to start back on your exercise program, just in time for the holidays. If you were here in Yaoundé, you would have no excuse, because tomorrow is Friday Night Fitness!
That’s my name for the weekly ritual of exercise at the Rond Point Bastos, the traffic circle near the American Embassy, at the terminus of Avenue Jean Paul II. (Eventually there will be a photograph of this circle HERE.) During most of the week, the most striking feature is the 25-meter tall steel sculpture shaped like a giant pick-up jack. Electric lights are strung across the frame, and I’d imagine that as the holidays approach it will shine bright in the night.
For now, the show is underneath the sculpture. The Rond Point is the conjunction of several interesting routes in western Yaoundé. One leads past U.S. Embassy Yaoundé. The opposite way leads to a swanky neighborhood calls Bastos, with big houses and lost of other embassies and missions. Another rises toward Mont Febé, where the Presidential Residence is hidden in the hills overlooking our neighborhood, and the government-owned Mont Febé hotel.
This Mont Febé route relates to our fitness routine: Saturday and Sunday mornings many Cameroonians head up the hill toward and past the hotel as part of a ritual. Walkers. Runners. Chatters. A former prime minister. Diplomats. Some head up to the hotel, others higher into the fog that sometimes cloaks the hills, many to group exercise sessions at a plateau in the clouds.
But the groups on the hillside are nothing compared to the crowds back on the ground on Fridays. About 5 pm people start coming from all over Yaoundé, most on foot, some by car, and they gather at this circle -- and exercise. Some sprint laps around the roundabout. Others set up, in groups or individually, in the medians of the rond point and start exercising. Groups doing pushups, sit-ups, jump-ups, all sorts of ups, healthy or not. Groups running to or from the circle, to join or celebrate the fray. Others stretch. Or jump rope. Or ride bicycles. Or roller blades (there are apparently three Cameroonians who own roller blades, and this is where you find them).
A couple of weeks ago I ventured down to the circle: it’s barely 3 km from our house. On the way there, I was challenged by a couple of kids who wouldn’t let me pass. Subtly (but definitively) I wore them down. After passing them, I descended a hill toward the traffic circle. Easily 300 people, mostly young, men as well as women, assembled, slowing auto traffic as they showed off their form and their forms. After nearly colliding with a herd circling the intersection, I reversed course and will remember to run counter-clockwise if I return.
It’s an encouraging scene. There are a lot of young people who would spent their Friday evenings with friends, exercising an honest sweat, instead of carousing or other such nonsense. And I’m especially encouraged by the number of women who exercise, and publicly. Green, the color of Cameroon’s football jersey, is the most prominent hue, but joy in fitness is the theme.
