In Banyo for a week, witnessed a public school, heading to the Far North

I’ve been in Banyo for a little over a week. Things are going fairly well. Dayyibu, Abdu and I have been watching movies almost every night. I did not realize you couldn’t buy peanut butter in Banyo. Instead you have to make it. Abdu and I bought peanuts in town, roasted them, shelled them, and ground them in a grinder that the Lokkers have. It tasted good but came out clumpy. I watched a TV show I have on my external hard drive called “How It’s Made” from the Discovery Channel. I found the episode on how to make peanut butter and found out you just need to add oil. Voila. We have peanut butter.

I copied a computer program from the Andertons in the Baka land called Typing Instructor Deluxe. I put the install files on my flash drive and installed it on the computer in the room next to the workshop here in Wouram. Abdu, Dayyibu, Sulemanu and Yusufa have enjoyed using it to practice their typing skills. I’m hoping they’ll continue to use it after I’m gone and master the art. We’re hoping to keep the number of users small, to just those mentioned. If everyone from Wouram wants to start using the computer, pretty soon it’ll start having problems. There was a computer in Wouram that was open to the public for use and it is now very broken. The mouse and keyboard don’t work and Windows is now running very slowly. We’d like to keep this computer running smoothly.

Last week Anna, a Peace Corps volunteer here in Banyo, told me that the Lokkers have a few packages sitting at the post office. You can’t leave packages there for too long otherwise you won’t be able to get them at all. They’ll just disappear. I went ahead and picked them up and they ended up actually being for Chad, another missionary here who is currently back in the States. Unlike in the U.S. where the post office brings you your packages free of charge when dropped off, here in Cameroon you have to pick them up yourself and pay money to receive it. It’s not covered in the expense of sending it.

Last week, for a few mornings I led a small Bible devotion with Sulemanu, Dayyibu and a friend named Ismaila. Mosa and Abdu were also there on a few days. I did my best to find verses fitting to a major theme. The first being patience, then I did suffering, then I covered loving one another and having compassion. I think it was helpful although probably not nearly as insightful as when Bob leads the devotions here. Oh well. I tried.

Today, I had the opportunity to go to a high school in Banyo. There are three high schools here, two are francophone and the one I went to was bilingual. Classes are over for the year and today was the first day of finals. I would’ve liked to see a class being taught to get a better feel for it but I didn’t think of the idea of going to a school until late last week. I first suggested the thought to Abdu and he said it would probably be possible but it would be easier to organize my visit by going through Anna. Her boyfriend, Sam is a teacher at the bilingual school. By the time I saw them on last Friday, it was already too late to see any classes. Oh well. It was still a good experience.

The bilingual school has about 1,300 students spread between seven different grades. The secondary schools here are essentially a middle school and high school combined. For young kids, there is a nursery/kindergarten referred to as l’ecole de maternait (translation: School of Maternity). Then there is the primary school (elementary school). Then the secondary school, also known as a lycee (in French) and can also be referred to as college. After that would be university. Although not too many people make it to university. All in all it seems like less than 1% of students graduate from high school. Some students are smart and motivated enough to do so but many just lose focus halfway through highschool. The number of what would be freshman in high school is probably somewhere around 100 in that school of 1,300. By the time you reach senior year, the number is 8.

Adamawa Province, where we are, has the worst rate of education out of all ten provinces. The East, where I was with the Baka, has a pretty low rate of education but Adamawa has the worst. I asked Anna what she thought was a rough estimate of the number of kids of school age enrolled in school was and she guessed around 50%. School is not mandatory. It also does not help that parents have to pay out of their own pocket to send their children to school. The government does pay money to the schools to be in operation, but it is not a free public service paid for by taxes like in the U.S. Anna said that by about halfway through high school, tuition is 25,000 francs ($55) per semester and that cost goes up with each grade. Now $55 may not seem like a lot but in a nation where very few people actually save money and most live from the income they get day to day, week to week, $55 is a decent amount of money some do not have.

The school itself seems to be pretty well maintained and clean. There is no electricity but plenty of sunlight through the windows. There seemed to be about eight rooms in one building, four in another, four in another, plus an administration building. The buildings are covered by tin roofs which is not really so much a problem this time of the year, since it doesn’t seem to rain much during the morning/early afternoon. But in August, when they start school again, and it is raining during the day during the heavy wet season, I imagine it makes it pretty hard to hear the teacher.

The rooms are not connected by hallways but rather are separated by walls and have one doorway in each. There is a sidewalk outside each room with a roof overhang to walk between rooms in each building. That’s fairly common in houses here in Cameroon it seems. Most houses that have multiple rooms have a separate entrance to the outside for each room and mud/brick walls in between. It felt fairly cool inside the rooms but it could just be because I was there from about 8-9:30 in the morning. I imagine by noon it’s probably pretty hot. Kids start class at 7:30, have a 40-minute break at 10:30 and then usually go until about 2:30 although it all depends on the teachers. Sometimes they get out much earlier. Some days Abdu would be in the Wouram compound around one meaning he was let out of school probably by noon.

When I first got to the school today, I went to Sam’s room. He was waiting to receive the tests from the administrators so he could hand them out. There were about 75 kids in a room about 30 feet by 20 feet. There were three students to a desk. Their test was in Chemistry. I took a look at it and I feel like I remember a good amount of the Chemistry I learned in high school and college. The test lasted about 40 minutes, after which, the students congregate outside to wait for the next round of tests to begin. Anna said that’s kind of what it’s like a lot of the day. While the administration and teachers prepare for the next portion of the day, students are outside waiting around. It makes sense now why I see so many students outside when I drive by the schools. I just always thought there was some sort of rotating recess period or something.

Tomorrow, Sulemanu and I will leave for the far north. We will head to Malarba and spend a night there first, where we spent a night with refugees from the C.A.R. in the beginning of March. We’ll take a bus from Banyo to Tibati. Then another bus to Malarba. It’ll probably take about eight or so hours to get there. The next day we’ll either take a bus or a train (which would be nice if we could do since it’ll probably be much smoother than on the dirt roads and I haven’t seen a train here yet) to Ngoundere, the capital of Adamawa. It’s a fairly big city from what I hear, about the size of Bafoussam or Bamenda. There I can withdraw money from the bank which at this point is crucial. It’ll take about 10 hours to get there from Malarba. Then we’ll head to Maroua, which will probably take about 6 hours or so to get to. Keep in mind, Cameroon is the size of California and with all of this travelling we’re about to do in the next day, we’re only covering a small portion of the country. Dirt roads really slow progress.

We’ll spend a night in Maroua and from there will either go to Rhumsiki, a tourist attraction for its scenery, or possibly Waza National Park. It’s a wild game park with lions, giraffes, hippos, etc. I’ve heard it’s kind of a hit and miss and it’s also fairly expensive. You have to rent a car and a tour guide and go searching for hours to see animals. Most people at least see something but everyone I’ve talked to say it was many hours of driving and not a whole lot of success. Rhumsiki on the other hand is beautiful with lots to see. We’ll see what ends up happening. I may not have internet access for a while, fyi.

Until next time…