La fête de la jeunesse

Every year on February 11th, students all over Cameroon hit the streets in their cleanest school uniform and nicely washed shoes to participate in the Youth Day parades.

Too small to have it's own parade, Sanguéré-Paul sent its students to parade in Garoua.  Here, students of all ages from schools in and around the city had their cleanest school uniforms and showed off their best marching skills.  

The parade began with the nursery schools, followed by primary schools and high schools.  At the tail end of the two hour parade, we got to see other learning activities that there are in Garoua: engineering, nursing, the Red Cross, and various technical schools.

 

Sanguéré-Paul Primary School

Some people take marching very seriously.

There's not really much more I can say about it, but I definitely learned a lot about the various kinds of activities people can engage in here in Cameroon.  After all of the formal educational groups, members of various sports clubs marched through the streets.  Not just soccer and basketball, but also taekwondo, judo, cycling, ping pong, and my personal favorite: the rollerblading club.  Who would've thought rollerblading would be a big hit in Cameroon?!

I was a little disappointed that there were no giant floats with people throwing candy, but aside from that, it was an interesting day!