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.