Banyo.

What an interesting past couple days it’s been. On Wednesday, I naturally woke up around 6:30AM. Bob and I had breakfast at the Cameroonian Baptist Convention where we spent the night in Bamenda. We had bread with butter and jam, orange slices and scrambled eggs to eat and tea to drink. Very shortly after finishing breakfast we made our way to Banyo. We passed through the city of Bafoussam, the third largest city in Cameroon, so Bob could pick up a few things, mainly a tank of butane for cooking and a few groceries. We were on paved roads for about 4 hours and on dirt roads for about 7 hours. We passed through a few small villages with houses made mostly of concrete blocks and mud with tin metal roofs, some with grass roofs.

Along the way we talked mostly about the town of Banyo, people Bob has developed friendships with in the town and his family. Bob has a wife, Joan, two daughters Jessica and Bethany, two sons, Brian and Tim, one dog, Jaati and one cat, Tigger. Jessica lives in Holland and Brian is going to school in Texas. Also living here with the Lokkers are one of Tim’s friends from back home named John, and a temporary homeschooled teacher named Sherry. She’s working with Bethany, Tim and John in order to give Joan a nice break. Along the way we also talked a little about the politics of Cameroon because I was interested. Paul Biya has been the president of Cameroon since 1982. He has “won” every election (which occurs every seven years) although everyone knows it’s always rigged. While a lot of people are saying the opposition to Mr. Biya should have won the past election, most are just happy to be at peace and don’t want to create a huge fuss over the elections. It’s not worth the chaos. I was surprised to find out the Mr. Biya isn’t even in Cameroon most of the time. He spends the majority of his time in France vacationing. He’s here to make speeches or attend assemblies of Congress every now and then but that’s about it. Can you imagine if Obama just decided to take off and go golfing 90% of the year? Yikes!

It’s this area’s dry season of the year (late November to April). There is pretty much no rain during this time. As a result, there is A LOT of dust. Bob’s vehicle doesn’t have working A/C so we drove the whole way with the windows down. As a result, we got covered in dust to the point where some parts of my skin were an orangey-tan color. My suitcases and all our belongings were also covered. Every time a truck would pass by going the opposite direction we’d have to remember to roll the windows up otherwise the air would be unbreathable. About halfway through the trip I could barely breathe out of my nose. I find I have to clear my nose a few times a day otherwise it gets to be too much. So far I think I prefer the dry to extreme humidity, like in Houston or Douala. It’s a little more bearable besides the dust.

I’ve never really been one to stare up at the sky at night and look at the stars. However, since the sky is so clear and the surrounding area is pretty much pitch black at night, the stars look BEAUTIFUL! I swear they’re much bigger here than in the states. If only you could all witness it.

Along the way to Banyo we picked up some food to bring home (pineapple and carrots and such). We also picked up some fruits (bananas and oranges) and bread to snack on along the way. We got to Banyo at about 8PM, about an hour and a half after sunset. I met Bob’s family, took a nice warm shower in their bathroom and went back to my room a few hundred yards from Bob’s home. It is it’s own building, with a main room (my bedroom), an empty room, soon to be a kitchen, and a bathroom with a cold shower. I unpacked most of my stuff and went to bed around midnight but not before killing a cockroach that had come in. I stomped it with my shoe and left it to deal with later. The next day it was gone. I guess a rodent probably came along and took it away, or maybe it just wasn’t dead.

Bob and a few dozen other families live in a compound known as Wouram. It’s about 10 minutes outside of Banyo, which is actually much larger than I thought. When I originally said I’d be staying in Banyo, with about 400 people, really I guess what I was referring to was Wouram. It seems that Banyo has more like 10,000-20,000 people. Wouram seems to be mostly built up around a clinic here.

Thursday I woke up around 10:45 since Bob said I could sleep in so I didn’t set an alarm. I found Bob and had some bread with butter to eat for breakfast. I met a few of the people that live in this compound and they all seem very friendly and happy to have me around. For lunch, around 2PM, I had a tomato and cheese sandwich (I just closed my eyes and pretended it was a feast sandwich from Subway the way I always made them). Bob and I went over some of the projects we’re hoping to get accomplished, one of which includes hooking power up from the rest of the city to the houses in this area. The clinic in Wouram has power and a few other houses near it have power as well. Bob’s home and the other homes surrounding his run off of solar power during the day and batteries at night. During the day we’re able to use computers and such but at night we’re limited to running just a few overhead LED lights and fluorescent lights.

In addition to getting power from the town, it looks as though I might be able to get regular internet access. The doctor that lives in Wouram has internet at his house a few hundred yards from my house. He also has an antenna to broadcast wifi but it was struck by lightning and has become inoperable since. Bob has a wifi receiver hooked up at my house and if it’s possible to get the doctor’s antenna working again, I would be able to get internet. We shall see.

After going over the electricity and the first steps we need to take in hooking it up, we started to organize the workshop area. I hung some of my tools on the wall and we did a little bit to clean the area up. Around 7:15, we had dinner. We had spaghetti with tomato sauce, green beans and garlic bread. It was all very delicious. After dinner, Joan, Timothy, John, Bethany, Sherry and I played apples to apples which I haven’t played in a long time. They have a variety of board games here and I imagine that’s how I’ll probably spend a lot of the evenings here if anyone else is willing to play. After apples to apples I went back to my room, did some exercises (which I’m hoping to get in a good routine of doing), took the quickest shower I’ve ever taken, probably no more than a minute and a half and went to bed.

This morning I woke up at 8, ate some oatmeal and papaya for breakfast, plugged my computer into the wall and wrote the majority of this blog. It’s now 6:40 and time to eat dinner soon. Today, Bob, a guy named Dayyibu and I hooked up power to my room(because it is closest to where the electricity is coming from). I can now use my laptop in my room at any point without worrying about killing batteries for all of the houses. The next step will be to connect the rest of the houses to the same electricity line. However tomorrow I believe we’re planning to go on a hike up one of the nearby mountains. It’ll be Tim, John, a few of the local Wouram residents and I. I’m looking forward to it.

If any of this blog didn’t make sense, my apologies. I have to go rush to eat dinner. That’s all for now.