These are more pictures from the two week missionary kids schooling program I was a part of, called FES, in Bamenda. I received these pictures from the Conrods while I was out in the Baka land.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047204&id=1337370415&l=622b709460
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
In Banyo with not-so-cold cheese.
I’m back in Banyo now. I ended up making a small detour on my way back. Instead of going straight from Yaounde to Bafoussam and then to Banyo, I stopped in Bamenda for a night first. I wanted to find a fold-up road map of Cameroon since I was unable to find one in Yaounde. The Colemans, in Yaounde, had a map they bought at a place called Presbook in Bamenda. I went to Presbook but they didn’t have any maps. They told me to go down the street to the Macmillan bookstore. Luckily, they had a good map that I bought.
I also bought a few groceries in Bamenda, specifically cheese. I wanted to get the cheese as close to my point of taking off for Banyo as I could so it wouldn’t get too warm. I borrowed a small travel jug to keep cold things in and a flexible, blue freezer pack from the Colemans. I rented a room for the night at the Cameroon Baptist Convention rest house (where I stayed for FES for two weeks in February). That place is a lot quieter with no one around. I stuck the freezer pack in the freezer at the rest house for the night to get cold in hopes that my cheese would stay cold during the trip to Banyo.
I left Bamenda around noon on Friday. I took a 19 passenger bus (which looks like it should only fit 12 people) on the hour and a half trip to Bafoussam. Then I took a motorcycle taxi to get across town to another bus park to get on a bus to Banyo. I bought my ticket and was told the bus would probably leave in about an hour or two, as soon as it filled up. I waited for three hours for the bus to finally depart, all the while my bag was getting hot, with the cheese probably just barely at a refrigerator temperature.
We left Bafoussam around 5pm and made a few stops early on for people not travelling all the way through to Banyo. It seemed like throughout the whole trip we stopped every hour and a half to two hours. Each time we stopped it was a 15 or so minute delay. However, one time we stopped for 45 minutes. I could not understand why on earth we were stopped for so long. At 20 minutes I thought for sure we’d be leaving soon. The luggage rack had already been retied after taking down the bags for the person who just got off. We didn’t pick up anyone new so there was no point in staying any longer. But sure enough we were stopped for 45 minutes. I could see why public transport takes so much longer than car. We ended up getting into Banyo around 3:30am. Not too bad. Just ten and a half hours in a very cramped bus. Compare that to driving with Bob and next to no stops at a time of 8 hours.
Dayyibu had told me earlier to give him a call when I get into town so he can pick me up. I waited for a few minutes for him to show up, all the while I figured someone was going to untie the luggage rack and get our stuff down. I waited… and waited. I thought for sure somebody must just be using the bathroom or something. They’ll be getting the luggage down soon. Then the driver came out of the building at the bus park, opened the van door, put a pillow down on the bench seat and went to sleep!!
Dayyibu showed up and I asked him if it was possible to get the luggage down. Afterall, I really wanted to put my cheese in a refrigerator as soon as possible. Dayyibu spoke in Fulfulde to someone still awake and the man said to come back in the morning around 6 am and they would get it down. I couldn’t believe it! It made no sense to go back to Wouram, get a few hours of sleep, and then come back to get my luggage. Ugh.
Dayyibu and I left for Wouram and halfway there his motorcycle ran out of gas. Pitch black, no one in sight, out of gas. He knew of someone not too far away who might be willing to sell gas at this time. We walked down the road for a quarter mile or so, with him wheeling the motorcycle along. He found someone and we got enough gas to get all the way to Wouram. I got into my room and everything looked like the way I left it, just covered in a thin layer of dust. My bathroom was swarming with spiders and cob webs. Oh well. I did the best to clean it up a bit real quick, took a shower, and went to bed. Two hours later I woke up and we went to the bus park. Right at the moment we got there they were ready to let my bag down. I grabbed it and headed back to Wouram.
Since the Lokkers are away now, their refrigerator has been off. I wanted to put the cheese in the Smith’s refrigerator since it is definitely still on and cold but unfortunately the Smiths are away right now, traveling in Pakistan. The only person who had the key had already left to go farming for the day. Oh well. So I turned the Lokkers’ fridge on and put the cheese in. The cheese was somewhat warm when I took it out of the container it had been stored in and probably had been somewhat warm for quite a number of hours. But luckily, it had been unopened and not yet exposed to oxygen. I had a little bit of it last night and it tasted just fine to me. I slept for a bit of the day on Saturday since I had not slept much on the bus ride the night before. I went into town with Dayyibu when I woke up, got some soya to eat, picked up a Fulbe jumper suit and a shirt that I had a tailor make while I was away. Both look great and I’ll be sure to post pictures soon.
I also bought a few groceries in Bamenda, specifically cheese. I wanted to get the cheese as close to my point of taking off for Banyo as I could so it wouldn’t get too warm. I borrowed a small travel jug to keep cold things in and a flexible, blue freezer pack from the Colemans. I rented a room for the night at the Cameroon Baptist Convention rest house (where I stayed for FES for two weeks in February). That place is a lot quieter with no one around. I stuck the freezer pack in the freezer at the rest house for the night to get cold in hopes that my cheese would stay cold during the trip to Banyo.
I left Bamenda around noon on Friday. I took a 19 passenger bus (which looks like it should only fit 12 people) on the hour and a half trip to Bafoussam. Then I took a motorcycle taxi to get across town to another bus park to get on a bus to Banyo. I bought my ticket and was told the bus would probably leave in about an hour or two, as soon as it filled up. I waited for three hours for the bus to finally depart, all the while my bag was getting hot, with the cheese probably just barely at a refrigerator temperature.
We left Bafoussam around 5pm and made a few stops early on for people not travelling all the way through to Banyo. It seemed like throughout the whole trip we stopped every hour and a half to two hours. Each time we stopped it was a 15 or so minute delay. However, one time we stopped for 45 minutes. I could not understand why on earth we were stopped for so long. At 20 minutes I thought for sure we’d be leaving soon. The luggage rack had already been retied after taking down the bags for the person who just got off. We didn’t pick up anyone new so there was no point in staying any longer. But sure enough we were stopped for 45 minutes. I could see why public transport takes so much longer than car. We ended up getting into Banyo around 3:30am. Not too bad. Just ten and a half hours in a very cramped bus. Compare that to driving with Bob and next to no stops at a time of 8 hours.
Dayyibu had told me earlier to give him a call when I get into town so he can pick me up. I waited for a few minutes for him to show up, all the while I figured someone was going to untie the luggage rack and get our stuff down. I waited… and waited. I thought for sure somebody must just be using the bathroom or something. They’ll be getting the luggage down soon. Then the driver came out of the building at the bus park, opened the van door, put a pillow down on the bench seat and went to sleep!!
Dayyibu showed up and I asked him if it was possible to get the luggage down. Afterall, I really wanted to put my cheese in a refrigerator as soon as possible. Dayyibu spoke in Fulfulde to someone still awake and the man said to come back in the morning around 6 am and they would get it down. I couldn’t believe it! It made no sense to go back to Wouram, get a few hours of sleep, and then come back to get my luggage. Ugh.
Dayyibu and I left for Wouram and halfway there his motorcycle ran out of gas. Pitch black, no one in sight, out of gas. He knew of someone not too far away who might be willing to sell gas at this time. We walked down the road for a quarter mile or so, with him wheeling the motorcycle along. He found someone and we got enough gas to get all the way to Wouram. I got into my room and everything looked like the way I left it, just covered in a thin layer of dust. My bathroom was swarming with spiders and cob webs. Oh well. I did the best to clean it up a bit real quick, took a shower, and went to bed. Two hours later I woke up and we went to the bus park. Right at the moment we got there they were ready to let my bag down. I grabbed it and headed back to Wouram.
Since the Lokkers are away now, their refrigerator has been off. I wanted to put the cheese in the Smith’s refrigerator since it is definitely still on and cold but unfortunately the Smiths are away right now, traveling in Pakistan. The only person who had the key had already left to go farming for the day. Oh well. So I turned the Lokkers’ fridge on and put the cheese in. The cheese was somewhat warm when I took it out of the container it had been stored in and probably had been somewhat warm for quite a number of hours. But luckily, it had been unopened and not yet exposed to oxygen. I had a little bit of it last night and it tasted just fine to me. I slept for a bit of the day on Saturday since I had not slept much on the bus ride the night before. I went into town with Dayyibu when I woke up, got some soya to eat, picked up a Fulbe jumper suit and a shirt that I had a tailor make while I was away. Both look great and I’ll be sure to post pictures soon.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Back from the Baka land.
I’m back in Yaounde now. I left the Baka land yesterday around noon, taking public transport (a bus) by myself to get here. I was in the Baka land a little more than two weeks and got quite a bit done, although not as much as I would have liked. Progress tends to be slow in Cameroon it seems. I’m not sure if it’s the heat/humidity or just the way of life or not having every tool available to you from a local Home Depot to get the job done the fastest/easiest or just a combination of it all.
Jen’s house is pretty much mostly complete at this point. The veranda is completely screened in and has a door. She still needs Ethernet cable for the internet to be ran to her house, a few doors on the inside and she still needs a few more things moved from her old house to her new house but I think other than that it’s mostly complete.
I managed to get a nice cut on my left cheek and a black eye while working. I was assembling the door for the veranda and had the pieces of wood stuck in the frame to see if it would line up. Nothing was secured but friction was holding it all together long enough for me to check each corner out. Well, one of the supporting pieces of wood slid out and a relatively heavy redwood 2x4 fell from a height of about 7 feet onto my face as I was sitting down on the ground below it. I still have the black eye but the cut has healed pretty nicely.
I was able to go over engine fundamentals/mechanics with the Anderton/Conrod children. I think most of the older ones understood fairly well and the younger ones probably learned a thing or two but were mostly just interested for a few minutes at a time.
My heart really feels for the Baka people and especially the children. It pains me to think of their potential future. It seems the kids don’t have a lot of opportunities in life to go beyond just living where they are, to get an education, and to live in a city larger than just the tiny area they know. The Baka are considered to be fairly nomadic but when they travel, it seems they most stay within the forest area they know and hardly travel to towns/cities. The Baka are unfortunately looked down upon by some people of Cameroon. Even if they did have an education, people might still shun them for being Baka. Occasionally there are some that make it out of the area and might find a job in Yaounde and make a living there, but very few.
Most of the children don’t receive a formal education. All they know is what they experience from their parents and extended family/the people in their villages. A lot of the adults don’t tend to be very good examples. They don’t use their money wisely and definitely don’t save money. The concept of having savings is kind of foreign to most Cameroonians but it seems more so with the Baka. They’ve never known anything different so why change? Many of the adults are alcoholics and spend much of their money on that. The children usually have only one set of clothes that they wear 24/7. Very few of the Baka around here wash and almost no one has soap. They say they don’t have the money for it, but it’s not necessarily true, they just don’t wisely spend their money.
The children are very sweet, playful and happy. Often as I was working on Jen’s veranda, they would watch and help out when they could, handing me a saw when I reached for it holding a piece of wood in place when I needed an extra set of hands, etc. I really hope that with the missionary families there, the Baka children are inspired to live a more-I don’t want to say Western life-but a more civilized life. Bathe regularly, save money, don’t abuse alcohol, strive to educate yourself. These are all things that could happen if they were instilled in the children from an early age and I really hope it happens. Jen told me that it isn’t going to be very easy and they need to know the love of Jesus to make a life change and a commitment to improving their lifestyles. Hopefully they see what they could have and more of how life should be.
I’ll leave Yaounde tomorrow at some point, just staying here for two nights. I’m hoping to find a few groceries I can’t get in Banyo, a few Duracell batteries and take out some money from the bank. I’ll have to take public transport to Bafoussam first (about 5-6 hours) and then from there, catch another bus to Banyo (about 10 hours). Once in Banyo, depending on the time, I’ll either take a motorcycle taxi to Wouram where I live (only a five minute drive) or arrange for someone to get me.
Here are pictures from my trip to the Baka land. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046922&id=1337370415&l=53cb4a833d
Jen’s house is pretty much mostly complete at this point. The veranda is completely screened in and has a door. She still needs Ethernet cable for the internet to be ran to her house, a few doors on the inside and she still needs a few more things moved from her old house to her new house but I think other than that it’s mostly complete.
I managed to get a nice cut on my left cheek and a black eye while working. I was assembling the door for the veranda and had the pieces of wood stuck in the frame to see if it would line up. Nothing was secured but friction was holding it all together long enough for me to check each corner out. Well, one of the supporting pieces of wood slid out and a relatively heavy redwood 2x4 fell from a height of about 7 feet onto my face as I was sitting down on the ground below it. I still have the black eye but the cut has healed pretty nicely.
I was able to go over engine fundamentals/mechanics with the Anderton/Conrod children. I think most of the older ones understood fairly well and the younger ones probably learned a thing or two but were mostly just interested for a few minutes at a time.
My heart really feels for the Baka people and especially the children. It pains me to think of their potential future. It seems the kids don’t have a lot of opportunities in life to go beyond just living where they are, to get an education, and to live in a city larger than just the tiny area they know. The Baka are considered to be fairly nomadic but when they travel, it seems they most stay within the forest area they know and hardly travel to towns/cities. The Baka are unfortunately looked down upon by some people of Cameroon. Even if they did have an education, people might still shun them for being Baka. Occasionally there are some that make it out of the area and might find a job in Yaounde and make a living there, but very few.
Most of the children don’t receive a formal education. All they know is what they experience from their parents and extended family/the people in their villages. A lot of the adults don’t tend to be very good examples. They don’t use their money wisely and definitely don’t save money. The concept of having savings is kind of foreign to most Cameroonians but it seems more so with the Baka. They’ve never known anything different so why change? Many of the adults are alcoholics and spend much of their money on that. The children usually have only one set of clothes that they wear 24/7. Very few of the Baka around here wash and almost no one has soap. They say they don’t have the money for it, but it’s not necessarily true, they just don’t wisely spend their money.
The children are very sweet, playful and happy. Often as I was working on Jen’s veranda, they would watch and help out when they could, handing me a saw when I reached for it holding a piece of wood in place when I needed an extra set of hands, etc. I really hope that with the missionary families there, the Baka children are inspired to live a more-I don’t want to say Western life-but a more civilized life. Bathe regularly, save money, don’t abuse alcohol, strive to educate yourself. These are all things that could happen if they were instilled in the children from an early age and I really hope it happens. Jen told me that it isn’t going to be very easy and they need to know the love of Jesus to make a life change and a commitment to improving their lifestyles. Hopefully they see what they could have and more of how life should be.
I’ll leave Yaounde tomorrow at some point, just staying here for two nights. I’m hoping to find a few groceries I can’t get in Banyo, a few Duracell batteries and take out some money from the bank. I’ll have to take public transport to Bafoussam first (about 5-6 hours) and then from there, catch another bus to Banyo (about 10 hours). Once in Banyo, depending on the time, I’ll either take a motorcycle taxi to Wouram where I live (only a five minute drive) or arrange for someone to get me.
Here are pictures from my trip to the Baka land. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046922&id=1337370415&l=53cb4a833d
Friday, April 9, 2010
Keeping busy in the Baka land.
For the past few days, I’ve mostly been working on Jenn’s new home during the day. We put some wooden beams in place to frame a veranda in the front. The framing is not complete yet but hopefully will be soon and screens can be installed. More importantly, once the stucco was complete, we cleaned the excess, splattered concrete of off the walls and floors. The whole place is looking a lot cleaner now. The toilet and sink for the bathroom have been installed. Today I put in screens for the windows, installed door knobs and helped install some of the window shutters.
When I was in Kribi, I thought to myself, “I’ve never been bitten by as many bugs before.” I remember counting many mosquito bites on each arm and on my legs. Well, I’ve come to the rainforest and now I can say again, “I’ve never been bitten by so many bugs before.” Thank God my mom packed bite itch cream in my Christmas stocking just before I left. It has come in handy quite often during my stay here. I had a war with a wasp in Jenn’s new home while doing some cleaning. It wouldn’t leave me alone, and I whacked it with a broom I was using. Then it was angry. We fought back and forth. It would leave, and come back, and leave and come back. Finally I got some bug spray, shot it a few times and it wasn’t an issue after that.
There are also these really tiny flying insects known as moot-moots. They’re so small they look like pieces of dirt so I rarely even notice that they’re on me when they are. They leave small red dots where they bite that aren’t raised and don’t itch, at first. Jenn told me that when you first get here, and are bit by moot-moots, they don’t itch. But after you’ve been here for a few months, the bites itch a lot! I’ve also been bitten by many mosquitoes. I probably have about 20 or so bites on each arm and several on each leg. I really have to try hard to not scratch them and make the itch worse.
In addition to flying insects, there are many ants. Ingesting ants here and there is just a part of life. You’ll find them in your sugar, honey ¬cereal, all sorts of stuff. Just the other day, the Andertons were having bread with honey. The honey was speckled with dead tiny tiny ants. They’re not necessarily bad for you. It’s just something to get used to. I have not yet knowingly eaten anything with dead ants in it but I’m sure I’ve ingested more ants so far in this trip to the Baka land than I have in my whole life. Just one piece of bread with honey has about 20 ants alone. They’re miniscule and can squeeze into the air tight seal between a Tupperware bowl and lid.
Yesterday, Noah and Nelson Anderton, ages 13 and 9 I believe, led me into the forest on a hike to see “The Big Tree.” We left around five in the afternoon suited up in long sleeve shirts and pants. Noah was leading the way and we didn’t get more than 30 seconds away from the compound where they live to a point where Nelson said, “hey Noah, you missed the trail.” He pointed to a section of overgrown plants and trees. I laughed and thought he was joking. Noah responded by saying, “oh yeah. There it is.” He wasn’t joking. Our hike consisted of “paths” if that’s what you want to call them where you are constantly ducking under or climbing over vines, branches, fallen trees, and every plant at least partly in your way. For most of the hike I was walking with my hands in front of my face to push the leaves out of the way. There was a clear path sometimes more than others. Still, it was all very overgrown-certainly not like walking through Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey.
We passed through areas where loggers cut down a tree, cut a section out, and left the rest. They even had tons of cut wood just sitting there, waiting to rot. This “red wood” is extremely strong stuff. At one site, I estimated there to be at least $200 in already cut 2x4s and 4x4s just sitting on the ground. It’s amazing that they go through the effort to cut a whole tree down, only to cut into about a quarter of it, but I really have to wonder what the purpose is of taking some of the wood that was removed from the tree, cutting it into 2x4s and 4x4s, and then just leaving it there on the ground. Now, admittedly, this $200 in wood isn’t worth that much here. That’s just how much it would be worth sitting in the lumber section of Home Depot. But still, that’s a lot of precious, usable wood.
There was one massive tree that still had a large section of its trunk just sitting horizontally on the ground, rotting. Its center is pretty much completely rotted through. You can even actually crawl inside of it. Noah said his dad once counted the number of rings on the tree, got about ¾ on the way through and gave up. He counted 300 rings making the tree around 400 years old. America was still in colonial days then.
We finally arrived to the big tree. It’s about 300 feet tall, according to ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬a forestry expert who had come to the Baka land sometime recently. I have a picture looking up from the base of the tree but it doesn’t do the tree justice. I also have a picture of me standing in one of the trees many large roots but you can’t even see the whole base. It was too big for the picture. It was starting to get dark and we decided to head back for dinner. We got to a clearing with another tree that had been chopped down with tons of cut wood just laying around that Noah and Nelson had never seen before. We realized we were lost and pretty soon we got really lost. We wound up not on a path at all, completely hacking our way through trees and plants. By this time it was pitch black out.
We managed to find our way back to the tree with all of the wood cut down where we first realized we were lost. We tried to retrace our steps and take the path back into the rest of the woods to get back to “The Big Tree.” We made marks on the trees we passed with a machete so in case we got lost we could get back to the clearing with the chopped up tree. It’s a good thing we did because pretty soon our path was no longer a path. We went back to the tree and sat around for a few minutes trying to think of a strategy. Pretty soon we heard motorcycles off in the distance. The road must’ve been nearby. We found a path, probably the widest path we had been on all afternoon, that took us in the right direction. Pretty soon we encountered Baka people familiar with the forest that Noah and Nelson’s mom had sent out to find us. We made it back safely and all was well.
The Baka people are somewhat nomadic. They don’t often stay in one area for a long period of time. They’re scattered throughout the southern part of Cameroon and a good part of Gabon. There’s a wide estimate that there are between 5,000-60,000 Baka in Cameroon. Some say they do live way way out in the forest and some say no one lives out that far. It’s hard to tell where they might be since no roads go that far into the forest.
It’s apparent the Baka don’t hold onto possessions, and cherish them quite like Westerners do. It’s common for Cameroonians to share what they have with one another, specifically friends and family. Since many don’t have a whole lot, they have no problem lending things out to people in need. It’s a very communal sharing system. But the Baka are even more to the extreme it seems. When they have something, they treat it as though it could easily become lost or just downright gone. They have no way of locking things up to keep them safe from being stolen. Things break after repeated use and they just very quickly and easily accept that it’s no longer around.
When someone in the family dies, often they don’t really seem to grieve much. A young girl, about 12 years old died a little while ago. Her mother and father were not around and her aunt raised her her whole life. This niece was practically like her daughter in that sense. When she passed away, the aunt said very nonchalantly, “we knew she was going to die. It’s the path of everyone.” Joan Lokker told me about one time when she was talking to a Fulbe woman in the middle of cooking some food for supper. One of her children had recently died and Joan said she was sorry to hear that. The woman stopped a brief moment said, “eh, it’s God’s will” and kept on cooking and talking about whatever. Very nonchalant, very accepting. It’s just the way it is.
In the evenings I usually play a game with the Anderton boys and Conrod boys such as Risk or Monopoly. I also try to hop on the internet for an hour or so to catch up on the news. Tonight everyone here watched a movie called “The Gods Must be Crazy.” I’d never seen it before and I really enjoyed it. It has a lot to do with cultural differences between different people and takes place in Africa, specifically South Africa and Botswana.
I’ll be here for another week or so before heading back to Banyo. I’ll probably update at least once more before I go. Until next time…
When I was in Kribi, I thought to myself, “I’ve never been bitten by as many bugs before.” I remember counting many mosquito bites on each arm and on my legs. Well, I’ve come to the rainforest and now I can say again, “I’ve never been bitten by so many bugs before.” Thank God my mom packed bite itch cream in my Christmas stocking just before I left. It has come in handy quite often during my stay here. I had a war with a wasp in Jenn’s new home while doing some cleaning. It wouldn’t leave me alone, and I whacked it with a broom I was using. Then it was angry. We fought back and forth. It would leave, and come back, and leave and come back. Finally I got some bug spray, shot it a few times and it wasn’t an issue after that.
There are also these really tiny flying insects known as moot-moots. They’re so small they look like pieces of dirt so I rarely even notice that they’re on me when they are. They leave small red dots where they bite that aren’t raised and don’t itch, at first. Jenn told me that when you first get here, and are bit by moot-moots, they don’t itch. But after you’ve been here for a few months, the bites itch a lot! I’ve also been bitten by many mosquitoes. I probably have about 20 or so bites on each arm and several on each leg. I really have to try hard to not scratch them and make the itch worse.
In addition to flying insects, there are many ants. Ingesting ants here and there is just a part of life. You’ll find them in your sugar, honey ¬cereal, all sorts of stuff. Just the other day, the Andertons were having bread with honey. The honey was speckled with dead tiny tiny ants. They’re not necessarily bad for you. It’s just something to get used to. I have not yet knowingly eaten anything with dead ants in it but I’m sure I’ve ingested more ants so far in this trip to the Baka land than I have in my whole life. Just one piece of bread with honey has about 20 ants alone. They’re miniscule and can squeeze into the air tight seal between a Tupperware bowl and lid.
Yesterday, Noah and Nelson Anderton, ages 13 and 9 I believe, led me into the forest on a hike to see “The Big Tree.” We left around five in the afternoon suited up in long sleeve shirts and pants. Noah was leading the way and we didn’t get more than 30 seconds away from the compound where they live to a point where Nelson said, “hey Noah, you missed the trail.” He pointed to a section of overgrown plants and trees. I laughed and thought he was joking. Noah responded by saying, “oh yeah. There it is.” He wasn’t joking. Our hike consisted of “paths” if that’s what you want to call them where you are constantly ducking under or climbing over vines, branches, fallen trees, and every plant at least partly in your way. For most of the hike I was walking with my hands in front of my face to push the leaves out of the way. There was a clear path sometimes more than others. Still, it was all very overgrown-certainly not like walking through Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey.
We passed through areas where loggers cut down a tree, cut a section out, and left the rest. They even had tons of cut wood just sitting there, waiting to rot. This “red wood” is extremely strong stuff. At one site, I estimated there to be at least $200 in already cut 2x4s and 4x4s just sitting on the ground. It’s amazing that they go through the effort to cut a whole tree down, only to cut into about a quarter of it, but I really have to wonder what the purpose is of taking some of the wood that was removed from the tree, cutting it into 2x4s and 4x4s, and then just leaving it there on the ground. Now, admittedly, this $200 in wood isn’t worth that much here. That’s just how much it would be worth sitting in the lumber section of Home Depot. But still, that’s a lot of precious, usable wood.
There was one massive tree that still had a large section of its trunk just sitting horizontally on the ground, rotting. Its center is pretty much completely rotted through. You can even actually crawl inside of it. Noah said his dad once counted the number of rings on the tree, got about ¾ on the way through and gave up. He counted 300 rings making the tree around 400 years old. America was still in colonial days then.
We finally arrived to the big tree. It’s about 300 feet tall, according to ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬a forestry expert who had come to the Baka land sometime recently. I have a picture looking up from the base of the tree but it doesn’t do the tree justice. I also have a picture of me standing in one of the trees many large roots but you can’t even see the whole base. It was too big for the picture. It was starting to get dark and we decided to head back for dinner. We got to a clearing with another tree that had been chopped down with tons of cut wood just laying around that Noah and Nelson had never seen before. We realized we were lost and pretty soon we got really lost. We wound up not on a path at all, completely hacking our way through trees and plants. By this time it was pitch black out.
We managed to find our way back to the tree with all of the wood cut down where we first realized we were lost. We tried to retrace our steps and take the path back into the rest of the woods to get back to “The Big Tree.” We made marks on the trees we passed with a machete so in case we got lost we could get back to the clearing with the chopped up tree. It’s a good thing we did because pretty soon our path was no longer a path. We went back to the tree and sat around for a few minutes trying to think of a strategy. Pretty soon we heard motorcycles off in the distance. The road must’ve been nearby. We found a path, probably the widest path we had been on all afternoon, that took us in the right direction. Pretty soon we encountered Baka people familiar with the forest that Noah and Nelson’s mom had sent out to find us. We made it back safely and all was well.
The Baka people are somewhat nomadic. They don’t often stay in one area for a long period of time. They’re scattered throughout the southern part of Cameroon and a good part of Gabon. There’s a wide estimate that there are between 5,000-60,000 Baka in Cameroon. Some say they do live way way out in the forest and some say no one lives out that far. It’s hard to tell where they might be since no roads go that far into the forest.
It’s apparent the Baka don’t hold onto possessions, and cherish them quite like Westerners do. It’s common for Cameroonians to share what they have with one another, specifically friends and family. Since many don’t have a whole lot, they have no problem lending things out to people in need. It’s a very communal sharing system. But the Baka are even more to the extreme it seems. When they have something, they treat it as though it could easily become lost or just downright gone. They have no way of locking things up to keep them safe from being stolen. Things break after repeated use and they just very quickly and easily accept that it’s no longer around.
When someone in the family dies, often they don’t really seem to grieve much. A young girl, about 12 years old died a little while ago. Her mother and father were not around and her aunt raised her her whole life. This niece was practically like her daughter in that sense. When she passed away, the aunt said very nonchalantly, “we knew she was going to die. It’s the path of everyone.” Joan Lokker told me about one time when she was talking to a Fulbe woman in the middle of cooking some food for supper. One of her children had recently died and Joan said she was sorry to hear that. The woman stopped a brief moment said, “eh, it’s God’s will” and kept on cooking and talking about whatever. Very nonchalant, very accepting. It’s just the way it is.
In the evenings I usually play a game with the Anderton boys and Conrod boys such as Risk or Monopoly. I also try to hop on the internet for an hour or so to catch up on the news. Tonight everyone here watched a movie called “The Gods Must be Crazy.” I’d never seen it before and I really enjoyed it. It has a lot to do with cultural differences between different people and takes place in Africa, specifically South Africa and Botswana.
I’ll be here for another week or so before heading back to Banyo. I’ll probably update at least once more before I go. Until next time…
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Baka land.
I’m in the Baka land, just outside of the small town, Dimako. On Thursday, I took a four and a half hour bus ride with Zac Coleman and his girlfriend, Miriam to get here. It cost a little over eight dollars and wasn’t too bad. It was a big bus, like a coach bus. There was no air conditioning but it wasn’t hot unless we had to stop to drop people off or pick more people up. Once in Dimako, it was a ten minute motorcycle taxi ride to where the Conrods, Andertons and Jennifer Jesse live.
They live in the middle of the rain forest off a dirt path which is off of the main road going from Yaounde to Bertoua. The dry season here lasts for four months while the wet season takes up eight months. During the wet season, it rains pretty much every day. It isn’t a heavy downpour every day, but it often can be. The Conrods, Andertons and Jennifer Jesse each have their own homes, within 100 feet of each other. The schoolroom for the Andertons is also very close by, only 50 feet or so from the Conrods. I’m currently staying in the addition of the Conrod’s home. It’s a separate section, attached to their house and has the washing machine and a storage room attached as well. In my room are a twin bed, double bed, and bathroom with shower.
The main mission here with the Baka is building relationships, doing construction projects, providing medicinal treatment, and church planting. The Baka people aren’t Muslim, like many people in Cameroon. It seems the Baka loosely practice a tribal religion just within the Baka group. Currently there isn’t a Christian church building where people meet for worship but Nathan Conrod does stories with the Baka twice a week. Once a week the Baka come to the part of the forest where the missionaries are, and once a week Nathan goes to where the Baka are. It’s only about a five minute walk. The Bible has not yet been translated into the Baka language but large sections of it, those stories that Nathan shares, have been. Nathan said he is hoping to work on having the whole Bible translated in a few years.
The electricity around here is all solar/battery powered. The lights all run off of the 12 volt car batteries they have in each house. Actually, they’re more like giant diesel truck batteries. There are inverters in each house also connected to the 12 volt batteries to supply electricity for the 110 volt outlets to plug appliances into. The water pump to provide running water to all of the homes is also 12 volt battery powered. The refrigerators here are called absorption refrigerators. They’re kerosene/butane powered and don’t require any electricity or compressors to work. All they need is fuel and gravity.
There is internet here at the houses. It gets turned on twice a day; once in the morning for an hour and once in the evening for an hour. The internet comes into the Anderton’s home and from there goes to the Conrod’s home and Jennifer Jesse’s home through Ethernet cables under the ground. The Andertons use an empty piece of plastic conduit or hose to make a horn sound, almost like a native tribal hunting call, to signal to the Conrods and Jenn that the internet is turned on. Two blows of the horn means the internet is on, one blow means it’s five minutes until the internet will be shut off.
My shower consists of a water tap that is near the ground, and a bucket with a valve on the bottom. I fill the bucket with the water from the tap, and then hang it up on a hook over the shower stall. I can then turn the valve on the bottom of the bucket open to get water to wash with. I think the reason why the shower water tap is near the ground and not high up is because of low water pressure due to the solar powered water pump. The toilet takes several minutes to fill its tank after each flush.
On Friday, Miriam, Zac and I helped Jenn with the construction of her new home. It’s currently mostly built, and some local Baka men are stuccoing the outside and inside brick walls with concrete. Miriam Zac and I helped by trimming some plywood walls that weren’t fitting correctly, stapled screens for vents in place, organized some tools and removed the doors and window shutters so the men could stucco without getting concrete all over the doors/shutters. Once the house is complete, where Jenn is currently staying will become a guesthouse or a house for another missionary who will be coming back, named Heidi.
After lunch on Friday, a bunch of the kids, Zac, Miriam and I went on a walk in the woods to see some huge trees. This area is a major forestry area for wood. Unfortunately, about 80% of the trees that get chopped down are wasted. The foresters take a small, big section of the tree that can be used for making long sections of 2x4s, and leave the rest, the smaller sections, to rot. What a waste! Some people do come along and cash in on the hard work of taking down a tree by chopping up left over wood for firewood. Still, 80% does go to waste.
Zac and Miriam left today to go back to Yaounde. They’ve been on spring break and school starts back up on Tuesday. I’ll be here for another week and a half to two weeks. I’m hoping to continue to help out with the construction project in any way that I can. When I leave, I’ll travel back to Yaounde for a day or two, and then back to Banyo. Hopefully I can put some pictures up from this trip to the Baka land while I’m in Yaounde.
They live in the middle of the rain forest off a dirt path which is off of the main road going from Yaounde to Bertoua. The dry season here lasts for four months while the wet season takes up eight months. During the wet season, it rains pretty much every day. It isn’t a heavy downpour every day, but it often can be. The Conrods, Andertons and Jennifer Jesse each have their own homes, within 100 feet of each other. The schoolroom for the Andertons is also very close by, only 50 feet or so from the Conrods. I’m currently staying in the addition of the Conrod’s home. It’s a separate section, attached to their house and has the washing machine and a storage room attached as well. In my room are a twin bed, double bed, and bathroom with shower.
The main mission here with the Baka is building relationships, doing construction projects, providing medicinal treatment, and church planting. The Baka people aren’t Muslim, like many people in Cameroon. It seems the Baka loosely practice a tribal religion just within the Baka group. Currently there isn’t a Christian church building where people meet for worship but Nathan Conrod does stories with the Baka twice a week. Once a week the Baka come to the part of the forest where the missionaries are, and once a week Nathan goes to where the Baka are. It’s only about a five minute walk. The Bible has not yet been translated into the Baka language but large sections of it, those stories that Nathan shares, have been. Nathan said he is hoping to work on having the whole Bible translated in a few years.
The electricity around here is all solar/battery powered. The lights all run off of the 12 volt car batteries they have in each house. Actually, they’re more like giant diesel truck batteries. There are inverters in each house also connected to the 12 volt batteries to supply electricity for the 110 volt outlets to plug appliances into. The water pump to provide running water to all of the homes is also 12 volt battery powered. The refrigerators here are called absorption refrigerators. They’re kerosene/butane powered and don’t require any electricity or compressors to work. All they need is fuel and gravity.
There is internet here at the houses. It gets turned on twice a day; once in the morning for an hour and once in the evening for an hour. The internet comes into the Anderton’s home and from there goes to the Conrod’s home and Jennifer Jesse’s home through Ethernet cables under the ground. The Andertons use an empty piece of plastic conduit or hose to make a horn sound, almost like a native tribal hunting call, to signal to the Conrods and Jenn that the internet is turned on. Two blows of the horn means the internet is on, one blow means it’s five minutes until the internet will be shut off.
My shower consists of a water tap that is near the ground, and a bucket with a valve on the bottom. I fill the bucket with the water from the tap, and then hang it up on a hook over the shower stall. I can then turn the valve on the bottom of the bucket open to get water to wash with. I think the reason why the shower water tap is near the ground and not high up is because of low water pressure due to the solar powered water pump. The toilet takes several minutes to fill its tank after each flush.
On Friday, Miriam, Zac and I helped Jenn with the construction of her new home. It’s currently mostly built, and some local Baka men are stuccoing the outside and inside brick walls with concrete. Miriam Zac and I helped by trimming some plywood walls that weren’t fitting correctly, stapled screens for vents in place, organized some tools and removed the doors and window shutters so the men could stucco without getting concrete all over the doors/shutters. Once the house is complete, where Jenn is currently staying will become a guesthouse or a house for another missionary who will be coming back, named Heidi.
After lunch on Friday, a bunch of the kids, Zac, Miriam and I went on a walk in the woods to see some huge trees. This area is a major forestry area for wood. Unfortunately, about 80% of the trees that get chopped down are wasted. The foresters take a small, big section of the tree that can be used for making long sections of 2x4s, and leave the rest, the smaller sections, to rot. What a waste! Some people do come along and cash in on the hard work of taking down a tree by chopping up left over wood for firewood. Still, 80% does go to waste.
Zac and Miriam left today to go back to Yaounde. They’ve been on spring break and school starts back up on Tuesday. I’ll be here for another week and a half to two weeks. I’m hoping to continue to help out with the construction project in any way that I can. When I leave, I’ll travel back to Yaounde for a day or two, and then back to Banyo. Hopefully I can put some pictures up from this trip to the Baka land while I’m in Yaounde.
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