To earn some money and get started in small business, often guys here in Yaounde will purchase a small supply of things like pocket kleenex, or candies to sell on the street.  As they earn money they can buy more stock to sell and earn more money and so on.  They might move up to selling sandals or pieces of cloth.  We’ve seen men carrying great loads of plastic buckets and tubs to sell as they walk up and down the road (not unlike the gentleman in the children’s book “Caps For Sale”). 

One of the things you might find someone selling along the road is frozen treats.  He’ll push a cart something like the one pictured, selling frozen bags of fruit juice (like popcicles without the stick).  I’ve never bought anything from them, so I’m not sure what all they sell, but today I think I saw one with ice cream. 

I don’t know what was inside the cart, but the only thing written on the outside was the word “Esquimaux.”  It’s long word I’d never seen before so I began to sound it out:  “es-” prounounced /es/; “-qui-” pronounced /key/ and “-maux” pronounced /moe/… put it all together and what do you have?  Eskimo!  Ah the French language uses letters liberally.  For instance, my name, Janet, is spelled Jeannette!  I like how it sounds (Zha-NET), but I can not get French speakers to cut back on the use of e’s, n’s, or t’s when they write my name.

We didn’t have time to find out what was actually in the cart, but I’m still wondering if he was selling Eskimo Pies!  Ah language learning can be a sweet experience.