These are pictures from the trip I took to the Far North region with Sulemanu.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049256&id=1337370415&l=a77a0626fa
And these are a few pictures Sulemanu took with his camera that I made a copy of. They're from no particular time and are kind of spread out in their location/time.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049258&id=1337370415&l=e79074afce
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Going home.
I made it back safely to the United States with only a few minor road bumps along the way, Cameroon-side. I left Banyo on Thursday night, May 13th, around 8pm to take the night bus to Bafoussam. Just about everyone I had become friends with wished me farewell at the bus park and I was on my way, alone. The bus wasn’t more than an hour into the 10 hour+ journey to Bafoussam before we got a flat tire. No big deal. It only delayed us by about 15 minutes to change it, and then when we got into the next biggest town, Mayo Darle, we stopped at the bus park there for an hour for someone to patch the tire.
Since it’s the start of the wet season, it had been raining on and off and some sections of the road were pretty bad. We got to one point where another bus going the opposite direction had gotten stuck. Many times on these dirt roads, if the road is bad enough, people start driving around the bad section onto the grass nearby. After a while, once many drivers have used it, there is basically a new side-road, parallel to the existing one. Our bus driver decided to take that side road although it wasn’t looking much better.
The bus driver and his helpers made everyone get out in order to lessen the weight of the vehicle so it would be less likely to sink into the mud. All of the passengers had to walk along the muddy main road to the point where the side road meets up with the main road again. It wasn’t far, probably only a quarter mile. But then we waited and waited, and eventually we could hear the bus coming, its tires just barely making it through the mud until all we could hear were tires slipping in place, going nowhere.
We all walked over to the side road where the bus was–sitting perpendicular to the direction of the side road, stuck in mud with its rear tires in ruts several inches below ground. The bus workers were using a rope to help pull it out while the driver tried driving it out. Then eventually all of the male passengers gathered together, myself included, to push the bus out. No such luck. We then rocked it back and forth a bit until eventually it got out of the ruts and could go with a nice layer of rubber left on the mud in the ruts. We all hopped in and took off; many of us with our feet covered in mud.
As I was nodding off at around four in the morning, I could feel the bus driver was going pretty fast as we hit a real bumpy patch. He could barely slow down since he was going so fast and the whole bus rattled something fierce until “PSSSSHHHH” another flat tire. Luckily we had had that other tire repaired so I figured we should be good to get going again in another twenty minutes. An hour passes by before I finally get an answer from someone who talked to the bus driver (who was M.I.A) as to why we weren’t going anywhere. Apparently part of the steering linkage had broken.
I took a look at it and it looked as though just the rubber boot (seal) surrounding a ball joint had ruptured. Now that’s not good, especially in dirty conditions, but it certainly doesn’t prevent you from driving. I certainly don’t think any Cameroonian cares about something like that being ruptured considering they often run their machines ragged until they completely fall apart. But they said it was no good and we’d have to wait for another bus to come from Bafoussam to pick us up. A couple of cars passed by as the sun was just starting to dawn and a few passengers were able to negotiate their way into getting to Bafoussam. I sat in the bus and nodded off for a bit. At around 7 am I asked someone how long it would be before the replacement bus got to us. They told me noon. If the bus got to us at noon, and we still had another four hours to go, plus I’d probably have to wait a few hours to get a bus to Douala from Bafoussam if even possible, then take that five hour bus ride from Bafoussam to Douala, that doesn’t put me in Douala until around midnight. There was no way I wanted to wait that long. I had to find a way to Bafoussam.
I flagged a car taxi down as it passed in order to get a ride. I wasn’t sure if the driver would take me with my two large suitcases but for a pretty steep price as far as taxis go (5,000 francs, $10), he could take me to Foumban (a fairly large town before Bafoussam) and I could get to Douala from there. He already had two passengers and we drove out to a real far out place to drop them off. It was a little weird being so far away from the main road, with not a person in sight for miles with a man I did not know at all with all of my personal belongings. Luckily nothing bad happened.
We drove around for a bit and he ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere. We were able to coast long enough, having to constantly restart the engine trying to squeeze every drop out of the gas tank in order to get to a place that could sell some gas. Before he bought gas, I could’ve sworn I saw him drink some gasoline out of a water bottle. When I asked him about it, he said no, he only used it to prime the carburetor when he got out and opened the hood shortly afterwards. Shortly is a relative term. I really think he drank some gasoline. He didn’t seem too with it if you know what I mean. Anyway, we stopped at his house along the way so he could drop off some wood he bought shortly after picking me up. I met his wife and several children before we headed to the bus park.
We got to Foumban and he dropped me off at a bus park and I was able to quickly take a bus straight to Douala. It made numerous stops along the way but only took about six hours to get there. We got into Douala around five and I took a taxi to get to the Baptist Resthouse. I told the driver what it was called and the neighborhood it was in. He seemed pretty confident he knew where I was going. After a few minutes of driving around aimlessly in large circles around the neighborhood, I could tell he had no idea where I wanted to go. He was driving in the neighborhood I think hoping I would spot it. I had no idea what it looked like anymore. It had been four months since I had been to this rest house and I was only there for one night. I even told him it was near a Toyota dealership since that’s what I was told. He still had no idea where to go. I couldn’t believe it. You’d think a taxi driver would know where a place is, especially something like the only Toyota dealership in a small neighborhood in Douala, but no, he didn’t know. I had to make several phone calls and even ask some people on the street. Eventually we found the place (across the street from the Toyota dealership). I didn’t get settled in until around seven. After almost 24 hours of being en route I was exhausted.
That night, I met a man named Thierry who helped the taxi driver and I find the rest house. He worked for the Baptist Mission in Cameroon and knew where the rest house was. He hopped in the taxi and as we were talking, I mentioned that I wouldn’t be leaving until the following evening. He wanted to hang out and I knew I would have nothing to do on Saturday before I left so I agreed. He met me early in the morning Saturday and we went out. He took me to his mother’s house so I could meet her. She fed us spaghetti and talked a little bit. We then went to the bank which I needed to do in order to withdrawal some cash for fees at the airport. We also went to a grocery store so I could get a few food items to take back home.
We went back to the rest house and hung out for a few hours playing cards and going on the internet. I left for the airport around five in the afternoon. Thierry helped me by staying at the airport for a bit to make sure everything was alright. When we arrived, I was greeted by baggage handlers wearing green outfits. They looked pretty legitimate. They weighed my bags with a hand-held scale that had a hook on one end. You hook it into the suitcase handle and pull up until the suitcase is lifted off the ground and then read the analog dial. Both of my bags were overweight and I had a feeling that might be the case. I had made sure to withdraw enough at the bank to cover that if they were, afterall, Cameroon is a pretty much cash only environment. The airport might’ve taken cards but I didn’t want to chance it. They did have an ATM there, though.
The baggage handlers told me it was 180,000 francs ($360) for two overweight bags. I knew that wasn’t the case. Thierry and I argued with them for probably twenty minutes before I finally got so fed up I demanded they show me where the Brussels Airlines (my airline) office was. I just needed to speak to someone there and they would clear it all up. I checked their website while I was at the rest house earlier that day to make sure what their fees were. It’s 50 euros per overweight bag. Two bags translates to 65,600 francs. Not 180,000. I found the Brussels Airlines counter, in a different section of the airport and the men there told me I was correct. They said, “don’t listen to the guys outside, they don’t even work here.” I couldn’t believe it. They were just people trying to make a buck by weighing people bags for them, and then more than just a buck by scamming them in overage fees. Ridiculous. I was so outraged.
I handed my bags over to the Brussels Airlines people, checked in, said goodbye to Thierry and proceeded towards the gate. I paid my 10,000 franc ($20) airport tax and went through security which was a breeze. Since I arrived so early (my flight didn’t leave until 11:40, this all happened around 7:15), there was no one in the security line. I was the first person at my gate and waited around a bit. The gate is an air-conditioned room while the hallway is not. About an hour before boarding the plane, they made everyone who was in the gate exit into the hallway and re-enter. It was an extra security measure just to make sure everyone in there had their passports and tickets. They got to me and told me I needed to go down to customs. There was a problem identifying an object in my checked luggage. I left the secured part of the terminal and went to customs.
I walked into this small room with two people working. There was a guy, a girl, and a TV monitor with checked luggage going through the scanner just outside the room. The girl was the one talking to me and told me to open my suitcase. As I was doing so, I looked up at the man in the room who happened to be sleeping. His eyes were closed the majority of the time. The girl was too busy preoccupied with me to watch the scanner monitor. As a result, bags were just going right on by, one after another on the screen, completely unchecked. I chuckled a bit to myself, hoping no terrorists were on my plane.
I pulled out a few items from my suitcase and we determined it was just a few straw hot pads/coasters for a table that were causing the problem. They told me to close my suitcase back up and then they told me they wanted 10,000 francs ($20) for it. I asked why and they said for customs. There was no legitimate reason for them to be demanding money but they wanted it. If this were a gendarme (national police) at the side of the road demanding a ridiculous bribe, you can always stall until he gives up and lets you through but these were airport workers. I didn’t want to be on their bad side because they could’ve very well just not put my bags on the plane as soon as I left customs. I didn’t want the hassle, even though it already was a hassle and they were completely in the wrong.
I pulled out my wallet and showed them all I had was 4,000 francs. They told me it’s not enough and that they needed 10,000. I said, “what do you want me to do? It’s all I have.” So, they just told me to give them everything. I left customs and walked on that plane without any money on me. Luckily I didn’t need it. I only had a two hour layover in Brussels and didn’t need to buy any food while there. I was fed two breakfasts that Sunday morning, once towards the end of the eight and a half hour Brussels Airlines flight from Douala to Brussels and then again on the six and a half hour Continental flight from Brussels to Newark.
Once we reached cruising altitude on the flight from Douala to Brussels, an announcement came on the speakers saying they needed to spray disinfectant to sanitize the cabin. That had never happened to me before on a flight and immediately my mind flashed back to my days of visiting my family in Houston, TX during the summer. At around two in the morning, a bug truck would come by to release chemicals into the atmosphere to kill off all sorts of little critters in bug infested Houston. I remember one time my Aunt Caroline and I got back to her house from somewhere real late at night. As soon as we got out of the car, the bug truck was coming up the street. I remember my Aunt Caroline yelling, “quick! Hurry up! Get inside! The bug truck is coming!” You definitely did not want to be outside at that moment.
I looked back in the airplane and two flight attendants, one in each aisle, starting from the back and walking towards the front had a can of spray held above their heads and slightly back. They walked up the aisle quickly while releasing a nice little foggy spray to fill the cabin. Ahhh! Nowhere to run to. It actually smelled not so bad. My flights were uneventful with a couple of movies/TV shows to watch in each. I arrived in Newark and had no problems with customs there. I was greeted by my mom outside the baggage claim/customs area and was on my way home.
All in all it was a wonderful trip and a great opportunity. I feel I learned so much about a culture vastly different from American life. It really gave me a sense of what like could be like for anyone and how much opportunity we do have in America. We shouldn’t take anything for granted and be extremely joyful in what we do have. I’ll write again fairly soon for a better wrap up/reflection.
Since it’s the start of the wet season, it had been raining on and off and some sections of the road were pretty bad. We got to one point where another bus going the opposite direction had gotten stuck. Many times on these dirt roads, if the road is bad enough, people start driving around the bad section onto the grass nearby. After a while, once many drivers have used it, there is basically a new side-road, parallel to the existing one. Our bus driver decided to take that side road although it wasn’t looking much better.
The bus driver and his helpers made everyone get out in order to lessen the weight of the vehicle so it would be less likely to sink into the mud. All of the passengers had to walk along the muddy main road to the point where the side road meets up with the main road again. It wasn’t far, probably only a quarter mile. But then we waited and waited, and eventually we could hear the bus coming, its tires just barely making it through the mud until all we could hear were tires slipping in place, going nowhere.
We all walked over to the side road where the bus was–sitting perpendicular to the direction of the side road, stuck in mud with its rear tires in ruts several inches below ground. The bus workers were using a rope to help pull it out while the driver tried driving it out. Then eventually all of the male passengers gathered together, myself included, to push the bus out. No such luck. We then rocked it back and forth a bit until eventually it got out of the ruts and could go with a nice layer of rubber left on the mud in the ruts. We all hopped in and took off; many of us with our feet covered in mud.
As I was nodding off at around four in the morning, I could feel the bus driver was going pretty fast as we hit a real bumpy patch. He could barely slow down since he was going so fast and the whole bus rattled something fierce until “PSSSSHHHH” another flat tire. Luckily we had had that other tire repaired so I figured we should be good to get going again in another twenty minutes. An hour passes by before I finally get an answer from someone who talked to the bus driver (who was M.I.A) as to why we weren’t going anywhere. Apparently part of the steering linkage had broken.
I took a look at it and it looked as though just the rubber boot (seal) surrounding a ball joint had ruptured. Now that’s not good, especially in dirty conditions, but it certainly doesn’t prevent you from driving. I certainly don’t think any Cameroonian cares about something like that being ruptured considering they often run their machines ragged until they completely fall apart. But they said it was no good and we’d have to wait for another bus to come from Bafoussam to pick us up. A couple of cars passed by as the sun was just starting to dawn and a few passengers were able to negotiate their way into getting to Bafoussam. I sat in the bus and nodded off for a bit. At around 7 am I asked someone how long it would be before the replacement bus got to us. They told me noon. If the bus got to us at noon, and we still had another four hours to go, plus I’d probably have to wait a few hours to get a bus to Douala from Bafoussam if even possible, then take that five hour bus ride from Bafoussam to Douala, that doesn’t put me in Douala until around midnight. There was no way I wanted to wait that long. I had to find a way to Bafoussam.
I flagged a car taxi down as it passed in order to get a ride. I wasn’t sure if the driver would take me with my two large suitcases but for a pretty steep price as far as taxis go (5,000 francs, $10), he could take me to Foumban (a fairly large town before Bafoussam) and I could get to Douala from there. He already had two passengers and we drove out to a real far out place to drop them off. It was a little weird being so far away from the main road, with not a person in sight for miles with a man I did not know at all with all of my personal belongings. Luckily nothing bad happened.
We drove around for a bit and he ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere. We were able to coast long enough, having to constantly restart the engine trying to squeeze every drop out of the gas tank in order to get to a place that could sell some gas. Before he bought gas, I could’ve sworn I saw him drink some gasoline out of a water bottle. When I asked him about it, he said no, he only used it to prime the carburetor when he got out and opened the hood shortly afterwards. Shortly is a relative term. I really think he drank some gasoline. He didn’t seem too with it if you know what I mean. Anyway, we stopped at his house along the way so he could drop off some wood he bought shortly after picking me up. I met his wife and several children before we headed to the bus park.
We got to Foumban and he dropped me off at a bus park and I was able to quickly take a bus straight to Douala. It made numerous stops along the way but only took about six hours to get there. We got into Douala around five and I took a taxi to get to the Baptist Resthouse. I told the driver what it was called and the neighborhood it was in. He seemed pretty confident he knew where I was going. After a few minutes of driving around aimlessly in large circles around the neighborhood, I could tell he had no idea where I wanted to go. He was driving in the neighborhood I think hoping I would spot it. I had no idea what it looked like anymore. It had been four months since I had been to this rest house and I was only there for one night. I even told him it was near a Toyota dealership since that’s what I was told. He still had no idea where to go. I couldn’t believe it. You’d think a taxi driver would know where a place is, especially something like the only Toyota dealership in a small neighborhood in Douala, but no, he didn’t know. I had to make several phone calls and even ask some people on the street. Eventually we found the place (across the street from the Toyota dealership). I didn’t get settled in until around seven. After almost 24 hours of being en route I was exhausted.
That night, I met a man named Thierry who helped the taxi driver and I find the rest house. He worked for the Baptist Mission in Cameroon and knew where the rest house was. He hopped in the taxi and as we were talking, I mentioned that I wouldn’t be leaving until the following evening. He wanted to hang out and I knew I would have nothing to do on Saturday before I left so I agreed. He met me early in the morning Saturday and we went out. He took me to his mother’s house so I could meet her. She fed us spaghetti and talked a little bit. We then went to the bank which I needed to do in order to withdrawal some cash for fees at the airport. We also went to a grocery store so I could get a few food items to take back home.
We went back to the rest house and hung out for a few hours playing cards and going on the internet. I left for the airport around five in the afternoon. Thierry helped me by staying at the airport for a bit to make sure everything was alright. When we arrived, I was greeted by baggage handlers wearing green outfits. They looked pretty legitimate. They weighed my bags with a hand-held scale that had a hook on one end. You hook it into the suitcase handle and pull up until the suitcase is lifted off the ground and then read the analog dial. Both of my bags were overweight and I had a feeling that might be the case. I had made sure to withdraw enough at the bank to cover that if they were, afterall, Cameroon is a pretty much cash only environment. The airport might’ve taken cards but I didn’t want to chance it. They did have an ATM there, though.
The baggage handlers told me it was 180,000 francs ($360) for two overweight bags. I knew that wasn’t the case. Thierry and I argued with them for probably twenty minutes before I finally got so fed up I demanded they show me where the Brussels Airlines (my airline) office was. I just needed to speak to someone there and they would clear it all up. I checked their website while I was at the rest house earlier that day to make sure what their fees were. It’s 50 euros per overweight bag. Two bags translates to 65,600 francs. Not 180,000. I found the Brussels Airlines counter, in a different section of the airport and the men there told me I was correct. They said, “don’t listen to the guys outside, they don’t even work here.” I couldn’t believe it. They were just people trying to make a buck by weighing people bags for them, and then more than just a buck by scamming them in overage fees. Ridiculous. I was so outraged.
I handed my bags over to the Brussels Airlines people, checked in, said goodbye to Thierry and proceeded towards the gate. I paid my 10,000 franc ($20) airport tax and went through security which was a breeze. Since I arrived so early (my flight didn’t leave until 11:40, this all happened around 7:15), there was no one in the security line. I was the first person at my gate and waited around a bit. The gate is an air-conditioned room while the hallway is not. About an hour before boarding the plane, they made everyone who was in the gate exit into the hallway and re-enter. It was an extra security measure just to make sure everyone in there had their passports and tickets. They got to me and told me I needed to go down to customs. There was a problem identifying an object in my checked luggage. I left the secured part of the terminal and went to customs.
I walked into this small room with two people working. There was a guy, a girl, and a TV monitor with checked luggage going through the scanner just outside the room. The girl was the one talking to me and told me to open my suitcase. As I was doing so, I looked up at the man in the room who happened to be sleeping. His eyes were closed the majority of the time. The girl was too busy preoccupied with me to watch the scanner monitor. As a result, bags were just going right on by, one after another on the screen, completely unchecked. I chuckled a bit to myself, hoping no terrorists were on my plane.
I pulled out a few items from my suitcase and we determined it was just a few straw hot pads/coasters for a table that were causing the problem. They told me to close my suitcase back up and then they told me they wanted 10,000 francs ($20) for it. I asked why and they said for customs. There was no legitimate reason for them to be demanding money but they wanted it. If this were a gendarme (national police) at the side of the road demanding a ridiculous bribe, you can always stall until he gives up and lets you through but these were airport workers. I didn’t want to be on their bad side because they could’ve very well just not put my bags on the plane as soon as I left customs. I didn’t want the hassle, even though it already was a hassle and they were completely in the wrong.
I pulled out my wallet and showed them all I had was 4,000 francs. They told me it’s not enough and that they needed 10,000. I said, “what do you want me to do? It’s all I have.” So, they just told me to give them everything. I left customs and walked on that plane without any money on me. Luckily I didn’t need it. I only had a two hour layover in Brussels and didn’t need to buy any food while there. I was fed two breakfasts that Sunday morning, once towards the end of the eight and a half hour Brussels Airlines flight from Douala to Brussels and then again on the six and a half hour Continental flight from Brussels to Newark.
Once we reached cruising altitude on the flight from Douala to Brussels, an announcement came on the speakers saying they needed to spray disinfectant to sanitize the cabin. That had never happened to me before on a flight and immediately my mind flashed back to my days of visiting my family in Houston, TX during the summer. At around two in the morning, a bug truck would come by to release chemicals into the atmosphere to kill off all sorts of little critters in bug infested Houston. I remember one time my Aunt Caroline and I got back to her house from somewhere real late at night. As soon as we got out of the car, the bug truck was coming up the street. I remember my Aunt Caroline yelling, “quick! Hurry up! Get inside! The bug truck is coming!” You definitely did not want to be outside at that moment.
I looked back in the airplane and two flight attendants, one in each aisle, starting from the back and walking towards the front had a can of spray held above their heads and slightly back. They walked up the aisle quickly while releasing a nice little foggy spray to fill the cabin. Ahhh! Nowhere to run to. It actually smelled not so bad. My flights were uneventful with a couple of movies/TV shows to watch in each. I arrived in Newark and had no problems with customs there. I was greeted by my mom outside the baggage claim/customs area and was on my way home.
All in all it was a wonderful trip and a great opportunity. I feel I learned so much about a culture vastly different from American life. It really gave me a sense of what like could be like for anyone and how much opportunity we do have in America. We shouldn’t take anything for granted and be extremely joyful in what we do have. I’ll write again fairly soon for a better wrap up/reflection.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
More photos.
These are photos from my time back in Banyo after coming back from the Baka land. I'll upload photos from the Far North soon.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048677&id=1337370415&l=736acc0285
I'm in Douala now and about to leave the Baptist Resthouse here to head to the airport! :-)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048677&id=1337370415&l=736acc0285
I'm in Douala now and about to leave the Baptist Resthouse here to head to the airport! :-)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Back from the Far North
Last Friday, Jean-Luc, who arranged our trip to Rhumsiki, showed up to the Baptist Rest house in Maroua where we stayed just a little before 7:30am with the driver whose name I can’t remember. Sulemanu and I weren’t quite ready to go and the driver actually needed to get gas. I paid him 35,000 francs of the 50,000 total so he could get gas to prepare for the journey. The driver, Sulemanu and I left around 8am for the two hour drive to Rhumsiki. When we got there, we were met by teenage looking boys ready to give a tour. The driver picked one named Jean-Pierre.
Jean Pierre led Sulemanu and I around the town of Rhumsiki while the driver waited around at a hotel. In the far north, the land is pretty flat overall but Rhumsiki has tons of tall rocks shooting out of the ground. It almost reminds me of the cliffs in Arizona, California, Nevada, etc. that just shoot up out of nowhere. There are plenty of smaller rocks in the town and many of the people of Rhumsiki, known as the Kapsiki people, use these rocks to build walls between farms and house properties.
Rhumsiki is named after one particular big rock jetting out of the ground called Rhum, pronounced “room”. The siki part was named after a hunter, Siki, who had lived up on the rock around hundreds of years ago. In Rhumsiki, there are many pottery makers, basket weavers, cloth weavers, etc. Seeing them, the Kapsiki, and where they live is part of the charm of going on the tour, besides seeing the beautiful landscape. I bought a few small pieces of pottery that were made from soil and oil as well as a few other souvenirs. The soil/oil pottery is formed, baked in the sun, then polished to a shiny black finish. I was able to try some homemade wine on the tour too. They mix ground up corn with water, let it ferment for two days, and heat it in a pot over a fire when serving. It tasted like wine but was a bit thick and a tiny bit gritty. Sulemanu, who used to be a devout Muslim, and has never had alcohol before, did not like it at all. His face wrinkled at the taste of it.
On the tour, we also met a traditional medicine man. For a price, I would be able to ask him a question about my future. Both Sulemanu and I knew, of course, whatever his prediction is, it isn’t necessarily true but we were curious what the ritual looked like. I couldn’t think of a question right away so Sulemanu, who was speaking both Fulfulde and French to Jeanne-Pierre, who in turn was speaking Kapsiki to the medicine man, said I could ask him anything, like about marriage for example. So I thought to ask if I had already met the woman I will marry. Sulemanu told me it would probably cost the full price, 1,000 francs ($2). I didn’t really want to pay $2, which may not seem like much but you can get lots of things in Cameroon for less than 1,000 francs. It seemed a bit steep to me.
So I thought of a different question: would my flight from Douala to Brussels be affected by the volcano in Iceland? Apparently that would also be 1,000 francs! So I gave in and stuck with the first question. The medicine man said he’d answer both anyway though. He took a big bowl filled with sand and poured some water in it. He then shoved shells and sticks into the sand. One stick represented me, another represented Cameroon, another represented Africa, and another represented Europe. He then took a live crab out of a vase, spat on it, blew on it, and put it up to his ear. He then spoke to it very rapidly, almost in a chastising way, spat on it again, and then put it down in the sand. He then covered that bowl with another bowl, inverted upside-down.
We waited a few minutes for the crab to do its thing. When the medicine man lifted the cover off, he analyzed where the crab was and where it had been in the bowl. He told me that my flight would not be affected and I will be able to travel fine. He also said it will be long time before I am married. It’s not time yet. I guess the question got a bit lost in translation but oh well, close enough. He also said when I am married, it will be a happy marriage, free from problems and divorce. We’ll see if the medicine man is correct both in the near future and in the rest of my life.
Of course I don’t believe what the man said has any sort of realistic truth to it, but it was interesting to see him conduct his connection with the spiritual world and also it was nice to help an older gentleman out financially. I have a video of the whole ritual I’m hoping to post online sometime when I get back to America. He closed the ceremony with a benediction by sprinkling water on Jean-Pierre’s feet, then my feet, and then Sulemanu’s feet as we exited his place.
All in all we were in Rhumsiki for a little over two hours. It was a bit expensive to get there (45,000 francs for the car, 5,000 for the tour, and a thousand here and there for pottery, the medicine man, etc.) but it was worth the trip. Sulemanu told me that the far north tends to have darker colored people and it’s definitely true. In Banyo, the Fulfulde people tend to have more of a lighter shade of black but people in the far north are definitely much much darker.
We left Maroua the next day, Saturday, and spent a night in Ngoudere at the same place we stayed on the way up. Again, the bathroom with no light, no toilet paper, etc. but the faucet seemed to work better this time (see previous blog). I thought about how the faucet probably works inside, what’s causing it to not work until full blast, and realized all I have to do is just turn it on a little bit and then smack it really hard.
We found out this time though, that our room key happened to be the same key for all of the rooms. When we arrived, there was no one to greet us and give us a key. We made a phone call to the person in charge who at the moment was out. We noticed a set of two keys on the table when you first walk in, one for the main entrance door, and one for the room. The woman on the phone told us that was our key and I noticed it had a three on it, which was our room number just a couple days prior. She confirmed that we were in the same room as before. Then, later on that day, there was a man in the hall wondering what happened to the key on the table… it was HIS key for getting into HIS room. So we tried it and sure enough, it worked for his room. Then another person also wanted the key for their room, the SAME key. What a jip! We made sure to keep our valuables with us when we left that evening for dinner, just in case. No security there!
We left Ngoudere on Sunday morning around 7 am. We took a kind of bus I had never been in before. It’s made by Renault, is very jacked up, with big tires and a very very very cramped passenger space. All 25 passengers are crammed in the back of this bus with hardly any leg room. The driver, and his two helpers sit in a separate, closed off section of the bus, almost like a prisoner transport bus with a steel wall/wire barrier. You enter the bus from the one back door, which requires nobody to be sitting in the center aisle, which also has seats that fold up so people can get through, and then people can sit when no one is moving in/out. Most buses here, besides really really big ones, have folding seats in the aisle in order to cram more people in.
Sulemanu and I were able to get seats in the front row which he said had the most room. But throughout a decent chunk of the trip the guy’s knees behind me were digging into my back and side. There was so little leg room I had to either sit with my butt only half on the seat and my knees pointed down, sit all the way back with my knees bent upwards, or have them angled to one side. If at any point they touched the metal wall in front of me in between me and the driver, I could feel the burn from the heat of the engine right behind that wall. The ride was very bumpy and very uncomfortable. For once I was very very thankful I was not an inch taller than I am right now (just under 5’9”). I can’t imagine how anyone any taller could manage in that bus.
We were on the bus for six hours before we really stopped for a while in Tibati. I was so happy to be out of that bus and wasn’t sure how I was going to make the rest. The bus is a slower kind of bus than the ones I’ve taken before, and the trip from Ngoudere to Banyo is about 11-12 hours in it. We left Tibati at 2pm and drove for about two hours. As I was nodding off to sleep despite the massive bumps in the road, a load screeching noise came from the engine.
We pulled over and they stopped the engine. I thought to myself it must just be a bad belt. Hopefully it’ll be okay. Well 20 minutes passed and I realized it was more serious than just a bad belt. I figured it was probably a seized pulley, which made sense for the screeching noise. Also, there was definitely a coolant leak since the driver kept adding water to the radiator every few hours. However, he wasn’t using a coolant mixture, he was using straight water. Not only does that not protect against the water from boiling, but straight water does not have any rust-inhibitors. I imagine that the seal in the water pump could have gone bad, (explaining the coolant leak) and the water rushing passed the seal, caused the water pump bearing to rust and go bad (causing the seizing of a pulley and the screeching noise).
I asked the driver as best I could think of if it was the water pump. Est-ce que c’est la pump de l’eau? I believe he said he didn’t think so but I couldn’t catch everything he said in French. There were definitely several maybes in his explanation of what it could be as he was talking to me, putting the valve cover back on that he had just taken off. Maybe it could be this, maybe that, maybe this, maybe that. It was then I realized we weren’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
They hadn’t touched the water pump, or even the belt for that matter, which didn’t make much sense since I can’t think of anything else that would cause the screeching we just heard besides a belt problem. They drained the oil, took the oil pan off and was looking around underneath the engine. Sulemanu and I walked up the road a little bit to a nearby village to see what else is around. There were only a few homes, no stores and no electricity. We bought some fruit from a boy selling bananas and mangoes, hung around for a little bit and then walked back the bus where everyone else was still waiting at the side of the road. Then, dark clouds started to form in the sky. It was about 6:30pm at this point and we had been stopped for over two hours.
Sulemanu and I headed back to the village where we just were and it started to pour. We found shelter in someone’s home and everyone there pretty much accepted the fate that this is where we would all be for the night. So we made pillows out of our bags and laid down on the ground to see if perhaps we could get some sleep. Well, Sulemanu didn’t want to sleep there. He didn’t want to deal with any snakes, rats, etc. while sleeping on the floor. So, when the rain cleared up a bit we walked back to the road and hitched a ride with two truck drivers on their way from Maroua to Banyo to deliver goods. This was around 8:45 and we made a very cramped, mud-ridden hour and a half drive to Mbamti, the next biggest town on the way to Banyo. There, we could hopefully find an Auberge (hotel) to spend the night.
Along the way, on the very bad, very soggy muddy roads we came across a truck that was almost perpendicular to the road because it had slid around so much. There was a multitude of guys trying to push it out of the mud and we waited around for 20 minutes for the road to be clear to pass. We got into Mbamti around 10:15 and all the rooms had been occupied by truck drivers spending the night because of the bad roads. Luckily, Sulemanu found a room in a random person’s home who happened to have a family member that was away that night. We shared a double bed in this random place in who knows what kind of sanitary condition but at least it was better than the floor of the other place.
I then woke up the next morning at 6am because Sulemanu said he found us a car taxi that would take us to Banyo. I got ready, went to the bathroom (a very small hole in the ground outside surrounded by a woven, straw fence), and washed my hands and face using water that had been collected in buckets from the rain the night before. We then waited, and waited. The taxi driver said he only needed two more passengers so the car could be full (even though as it was we already exceeded the number of available seats in the car). We waited over two hours, until 8:30 when we finally took off: eight adults in a five seater who knows what brand car. We got into Banyo at 9:40 and I had never been more happy to be back in Banyo. It felt so wonderful to take a shower again and relax.
I’ve been finishing up some final things here in Banyo. This morning, Dayyibu, Abdu and I hiked up Mt. Banyo, where we had hiked the first week I was in Cameroon. It was a little over two hours up and a little under two hours down. Quite tiring! Tomorrow night I’ll leave and take a night bus to Bafoussam. Friday morning I’ll take a bus from Bafoussam to Douala, spend a night at the Baptist Rest house there, and then I leave Saturday night to head for Brussels and then Newark. I may not update again until I get back in the States.
Jean Pierre led Sulemanu and I around the town of Rhumsiki while the driver waited around at a hotel. In the far north, the land is pretty flat overall but Rhumsiki has tons of tall rocks shooting out of the ground. It almost reminds me of the cliffs in Arizona, California, Nevada, etc. that just shoot up out of nowhere. There are plenty of smaller rocks in the town and many of the people of Rhumsiki, known as the Kapsiki people, use these rocks to build walls between farms and house properties.
Rhumsiki is named after one particular big rock jetting out of the ground called Rhum, pronounced “room”. The siki part was named after a hunter, Siki, who had lived up on the rock around hundreds of years ago. In Rhumsiki, there are many pottery makers, basket weavers, cloth weavers, etc. Seeing them, the Kapsiki, and where they live is part of the charm of going on the tour, besides seeing the beautiful landscape. I bought a few small pieces of pottery that were made from soil and oil as well as a few other souvenirs. The soil/oil pottery is formed, baked in the sun, then polished to a shiny black finish. I was able to try some homemade wine on the tour too. They mix ground up corn with water, let it ferment for two days, and heat it in a pot over a fire when serving. It tasted like wine but was a bit thick and a tiny bit gritty. Sulemanu, who used to be a devout Muslim, and has never had alcohol before, did not like it at all. His face wrinkled at the taste of it.
On the tour, we also met a traditional medicine man. For a price, I would be able to ask him a question about my future. Both Sulemanu and I knew, of course, whatever his prediction is, it isn’t necessarily true but we were curious what the ritual looked like. I couldn’t think of a question right away so Sulemanu, who was speaking both Fulfulde and French to Jeanne-Pierre, who in turn was speaking Kapsiki to the medicine man, said I could ask him anything, like about marriage for example. So I thought to ask if I had already met the woman I will marry. Sulemanu told me it would probably cost the full price, 1,000 francs ($2). I didn’t really want to pay $2, which may not seem like much but you can get lots of things in Cameroon for less than 1,000 francs. It seemed a bit steep to me.
So I thought of a different question: would my flight from Douala to Brussels be affected by the volcano in Iceland? Apparently that would also be 1,000 francs! So I gave in and stuck with the first question. The medicine man said he’d answer both anyway though. He took a big bowl filled with sand and poured some water in it. He then shoved shells and sticks into the sand. One stick represented me, another represented Cameroon, another represented Africa, and another represented Europe. He then took a live crab out of a vase, spat on it, blew on it, and put it up to his ear. He then spoke to it very rapidly, almost in a chastising way, spat on it again, and then put it down in the sand. He then covered that bowl with another bowl, inverted upside-down.
We waited a few minutes for the crab to do its thing. When the medicine man lifted the cover off, he analyzed where the crab was and where it had been in the bowl. He told me that my flight would not be affected and I will be able to travel fine. He also said it will be long time before I am married. It’s not time yet. I guess the question got a bit lost in translation but oh well, close enough. He also said when I am married, it will be a happy marriage, free from problems and divorce. We’ll see if the medicine man is correct both in the near future and in the rest of my life.
Of course I don’t believe what the man said has any sort of realistic truth to it, but it was interesting to see him conduct his connection with the spiritual world and also it was nice to help an older gentleman out financially. I have a video of the whole ritual I’m hoping to post online sometime when I get back to America. He closed the ceremony with a benediction by sprinkling water on Jean-Pierre’s feet, then my feet, and then Sulemanu’s feet as we exited his place.
All in all we were in Rhumsiki for a little over two hours. It was a bit expensive to get there (45,000 francs for the car, 5,000 for the tour, and a thousand here and there for pottery, the medicine man, etc.) but it was worth the trip. Sulemanu told me that the far north tends to have darker colored people and it’s definitely true. In Banyo, the Fulfulde people tend to have more of a lighter shade of black but people in the far north are definitely much much darker.
We left Maroua the next day, Saturday, and spent a night in Ngoudere at the same place we stayed on the way up. Again, the bathroom with no light, no toilet paper, etc. but the faucet seemed to work better this time (see previous blog). I thought about how the faucet probably works inside, what’s causing it to not work until full blast, and realized all I have to do is just turn it on a little bit and then smack it really hard.
We found out this time though, that our room key happened to be the same key for all of the rooms. When we arrived, there was no one to greet us and give us a key. We made a phone call to the person in charge who at the moment was out. We noticed a set of two keys on the table when you first walk in, one for the main entrance door, and one for the room. The woman on the phone told us that was our key and I noticed it had a three on it, which was our room number just a couple days prior. She confirmed that we were in the same room as before. Then, later on that day, there was a man in the hall wondering what happened to the key on the table… it was HIS key for getting into HIS room. So we tried it and sure enough, it worked for his room. Then another person also wanted the key for their room, the SAME key. What a jip! We made sure to keep our valuables with us when we left that evening for dinner, just in case. No security there!
We left Ngoudere on Sunday morning around 7 am. We took a kind of bus I had never been in before. It’s made by Renault, is very jacked up, with big tires and a very very very cramped passenger space. All 25 passengers are crammed in the back of this bus with hardly any leg room. The driver, and his two helpers sit in a separate, closed off section of the bus, almost like a prisoner transport bus with a steel wall/wire barrier. You enter the bus from the one back door, which requires nobody to be sitting in the center aisle, which also has seats that fold up so people can get through, and then people can sit when no one is moving in/out. Most buses here, besides really really big ones, have folding seats in the aisle in order to cram more people in.
Sulemanu and I were able to get seats in the front row which he said had the most room. But throughout a decent chunk of the trip the guy’s knees behind me were digging into my back and side. There was so little leg room I had to either sit with my butt only half on the seat and my knees pointed down, sit all the way back with my knees bent upwards, or have them angled to one side. If at any point they touched the metal wall in front of me in between me and the driver, I could feel the burn from the heat of the engine right behind that wall. The ride was very bumpy and very uncomfortable. For once I was very very thankful I was not an inch taller than I am right now (just under 5’9”). I can’t imagine how anyone any taller could manage in that bus.
We were on the bus for six hours before we really stopped for a while in Tibati. I was so happy to be out of that bus and wasn’t sure how I was going to make the rest. The bus is a slower kind of bus than the ones I’ve taken before, and the trip from Ngoudere to Banyo is about 11-12 hours in it. We left Tibati at 2pm and drove for about two hours. As I was nodding off to sleep despite the massive bumps in the road, a load screeching noise came from the engine.
We pulled over and they stopped the engine. I thought to myself it must just be a bad belt. Hopefully it’ll be okay. Well 20 minutes passed and I realized it was more serious than just a bad belt. I figured it was probably a seized pulley, which made sense for the screeching noise. Also, there was definitely a coolant leak since the driver kept adding water to the radiator every few hours. However, he wasn’t using a coolant mixture, he was using straight water. Not only does that not protect against the water from boiling, but straight water does not have any rust-inhibitors. I imagine that the seal in the water pump could have gone bad, (explaining the coolant leak) and the water rushing passed the seal, caused the water pump bearing to rust and go bad (causing the seizing of a pulley and the screeching noise).
I asked the driver as best I could think of if it was the water pump. Est-ce que c’est la pump de l’eau? I believe he said he didn’t think so but I couldn’t catch everything he said in French. There were definitely several maybes in his explanation of what it could be as he was talking to me, putting the valve cover back on that he had just taken off. Maybe it could be this, maybe that, maybe this, maybe that. It was then I realized we weren’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
They hadn’t touched the water pump, or even the belt for that matter, which didn’t make much sense since I can’t think of anything else that would cause the screeching we just heard besides a belt problem. They drained the oil, took the oil pan off and was looking around underneath the engine. Sulemanu and I walked up the road a little bit to a nearby village to see what else is around. There were only a few homes, no stores and no electricity. We bought some fruit from a boy selling bananas and mangoes, hung around for a little bit and then walked back the bus where everyone else was still waiting at the side of the road. Then, dark clouds started to form in the sky. It was about 6:30pm at this point and we had been stopped for over two hours.
Sulemanu and I headed back to the village where we just were and it started to pour. We found shelter in someone’s home and everyone there pretty much accepted the fate that this is where we would all be for the night. So we made pillows out of our bags and laid down on the ground to see if perhaps we could get some sleep. Well, Sulemanu didn’t want to sleep there. He didn’t want to deal with any snakes, rats, etc. while sleeping on the floor. So, when the rain cleared up a bit we walked back to the road and hitched a ride with two truck drivers on their way from Maroua to Banyo to deliver goods. This was around 8:45 and we made a very cramped, mud-ridden hour and a half drive to Mbamti, the next biggest town on the way to Banyo. There, we could hopefully find an Auberge (hotel) to spend the night.
Along the way, on the very bad, very soggy muddy roads we came across a truck that was almost perpendicular to the road because it had slid around so much. There was a multitude of guys trying to push it out of the mud and we waited around for 20 minutes for the road to be clear to pass. We got into Mbamti around 10:15 and all the rooms had been occupied by truck drivers spending the night because of the bad roads. Luckily, Sulemanu found a room in a random person’s home who happened to have a family member that was away that night. We shared a double bed in this random place in who knows what kind of sanitary condition but at least it was better than the floor of the other place.
I then woke up the next morning at 6am because Sulemanu said he found us a car taxi that would take us to Banyo. I got ready, went to the bathroom (a very small hole in the ground outside surrounded by a woven, straw fence), and washed my hands and face using water that had been collected in buckets from the rain the night before. We then waited, and waited. The taxi driver said he only needed two more passengers so the car could be full (even though as it was we already exceeded the number of available seats in the car). We waited over two hours, until 8:30 when we finally took off: eight adults in a five seater who knows what brand car. We got into Banyo at 9:40 and I had never been more happy to be back in Banyo. It felt so wonderful to take a shower again and relax.
I’ve been finishing up some final things here in Banyo. This morning, Dayyibu, Abdu and I hiked up Mt. Banyo, where we had hiked the first week I was in Cameroon. It was a little over two hours up and a little under two hours down. Quite tiring! Tomorrow night I’ll leave and take a night bus to Bafoussam. Friday morning I’ll take a bus from Bafoussam to Douala, spend a night at the Baptist Rest house there, and then I leave Saturday night to head for Brussels and then Newark. I may not update again until I get back in the States.
Friday, May 7, 2010
In Maroua now, the biggest city in the Far North.
This entry was written on Thursday, May 6th. I tried to access the internet that night but was unsuccessful which is why it’s not getting posted until Friday.
Dayyibu and I left Wouram around 5:50am, Tuesday, to go into town where the bus park is. He had already taken Sulemanu there. We waited around for a bit for the bus to load up. We departed at 7am and arrived in Tibati around noon. It was a pretty bumpy ride. Sulemanu told me the road from Banyo to Tibati is one of the worst in Cameroon.
I had a window seat in the second row which I thought would be quite alright except that there was a piece of square tubular steel welded in place for support a couple inches from my head. Anytime we’d hit a large enough bump my head would go bouncing right into it. When I was awake I was able to keep from hitting it for the most part. However, it was very early in the morning for me, I was dozing off quite a bit, and I hit it quite frequently. By the time we reach Tibati my left temple was hurting pretty badly and I had a bump on my scalp for quite a few hours.
From Tibati we had to take another bus to Malarba, our first stop along the trip. We ate some soya (steak) at the bus park, bought some lollipops for the kids in Malarba, and waited for the bus to leave. I even dozed off for a little bit. We were told the bus would leave in about 30 minutes to an hour. It left after two hours.
We arrived in Malarba around three in the afternoon and the people there were very happy to see us. We passed out lollipops to the children, took a look at the community center they are building, and ate some dinner. We had foufou (corn flour and water) and fish. Afterwards there was singing and dancing in the community bukaru. Sulemanu distributed some money which was raised for the refugees in Malarba so they could buy food, clothing, and finish the community center which still had some construction that needed to be done.
We left the compound where we stayed in Malarba around 6:30 and got into “the junction” of Malarba to get a bus to Ngoundere. We waited around for a little over an hour before Sulemanu gave up and tried to find a car taxi to take us to Ngoundere. It was a little more expensive that way, a bit more cramped (seven adults in a five seater Toyota Carina, about the size of a Camry) but a lot quicker. We were on the road by 8:30am and got to Ngoudere at noon. What would have been a four and a half hour ride by bus, plus waiting for the bus to show up, took only three and a half hours.
Once we arrived, we quickly made the decision whether to try to make it to Maroua in one day or to leave that portion of the trip until Thursday. Since it would’ve added 8 hours to our day, we decided to just spend the day in Ngoudere. We found a room at a Lutheran Church Resting House. The room is nice with a single bed and a set of bunk beds. There is a communal bathroom with a shower down the hall. It has no lighting, no shower curtain, no hot water, no soap, nothing to dry your hands with, no toilet paper, no toilet seat, and a sink faucet that doesn’t turn on until you have the handle opened counter-clockwise all of the way and then the water SHOOTS OUT like an EXPLOSION and then you have to turn the handle back, clockwise to slow down the water flow but other than that the bathroom is fine. Whew! Run-on sentence…
In the evening, after we settled in and took showers, we went to the bus station for Maroua to reserve our seats for the first bus out on Thursday morning. We also went to an Internet café and walked around a bit. I did a tiny bit of grocery shopping and even got to see a train station. The train in Cameroon goes from Douala, through Yaounde, through Bertoua and ends in Ngoudere, stopping at small towns along the way. There are freight trains carrying oil and passenger trains too. The passenger cars looked to be from the 80s but maintained well enough. There is a first class and coach section labeled 1 and 2, respectively. In first class you can even get beds. Sulemanu said he does not like taking the train because it often runs at night and there are crazy people that ride it.
We ate some dinner, went back to our room and slept for the evening. We woke up around 4:30 Thursday morning to get to the bus park in time for the first bus out to Maroua. We were told it would leave right at 5:30am. At 6:10am we left the bus park and made the 8 hour trip to Maroua hardly stopping throughout the journey. It seems many of the other bus rides I’ve had in Cameroon seem to stop at every little town to drop passengers off or just buy stuff.
We got to Maroua around 2pm. The area before Maroua is very flat and very dry. I haven’t taken any pictures of Banyo since I got back from the Baka land, but Banyo is now very green now that it’s rained a bit. The far north however, is still looking very dry. I’ve been told the rainy season starts earlier in the south and happens later and later the farther north you get. It rained a tiny bit on the way up but not very much. We passed a few rivers that were almost completely dried up with children playing in the center of the sand at the bottom. Banyo and much of Cameroon seems to have a lot of dirt/mud/dust on the ground whereas the far north has a lot of sand.
When we arrived in Maroua, we took a motorcycle taxi to the Baptist Mission Resthouse. Here, I met Christelle Pusch, who was referenced to me by a few missionaries in the north. She’s in charge here at the resthouse and was able to arrange for someone named Jean-Luc to come talk to Sulemanu and me about heading to either Waza (animal game park) or Rhoumsiki (natural, beautiful scenery). Waza was still a possibility if it could be done for very cheap but the Jean-Luc said that without other people going, to take just Sulemanu and I to Waza would be well over 50,000 francs ($100) which I don’t have the money for.
Jean-Luc said that now is not the best time of the year to go to Waza anyway since the wet season hasn’t really started in the far north and there isn’t enough vegetation for the animals to want to migrate to Waza just yet. He said it’d be possible to drive all the way there using up all of the expenses and not even see any animals. I’ve heard a mix of opinions with some saying you might see some and some saying you might not see any. It’s not worth the risk and besides, it’s too much money anyway. So tomorrow Jean-Luc will pick Sulemanu and I up and we will head to Rhoumsiki.
It’s pretty hot in the far north with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees F. We were told it’s cooler today since it just rained a little bit yesterday so I imagine tomorrow will be around 105. Whew! Maroua is a very nice city. It’s pretty clean compared to Banyo, Yaounde and Douala. There are wide streets with wide sidewalks for people to actually walk on. That’s something I haven’t really seen much in Cameroon. It’s a fairly big town, maybe around the size of Bamenda. Population? I have no idea. It really depends on who you ask. Haha I don’t believe there are many government censuses in Cameroon.
One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every motorcycle taxi seems to have a two-stroke engine and either be a Suzuki or Qinqdi brand. They’re 90 cc and pretty small. They almost look like a French-made 2-stroke moped but they do have an electric start so I guess they’re considered motorcycles. Anyway, since they’re two-strokes, smoke fills the air of the streets as they whiz by. In comparison, for the most part in Banyo, the motorcycles are four-stroke and don’t smoke as much.
I’ll update sometime again in the next few days with the rest of our journey to the far north. Bye for now!
Dayyibu and I left Wouram around 5:50am, Tuesday, to go into town where the bus park is. He had already taken Sulemanu there. We waited around for a bit for the bus to load up. We departed at 7am and arrived in Tibati around noon. It was a pretty bumpy ride. Sulemanu told me the road from Banyo to Tibati is one of the worst in Cameroon.
I had a window seat in the second row which I thought would be quite alright except that there was a piece of square tubular steel welded in place for support a couple inches from my head. Anytime we’d hit a large enough bump my head would go bouncing right into it. When I was awake I was able to keep from hitting it for the most part. However, it was very early in the morning for me, I was dozing off quite a bit, and I hit it quite frequently. By the time we reach Tibati my left temple was hurting pretty badly and I had a bump on my scalp for quite a few hours.
From Tibati we had to take another bus to Malarba, our first stop along the trip. We ate some soya (steak) at the bus park, bought some lollipops for the kids in Malarba, and waited for the bus to leave. I even dozed off for a little bit. We were told the bus would leave in about 30 minutes to an hour. It left after two hours.
We arrived in Malarba around three in the afternoon and the people there were very happy to see us. We passed out lollipops to the children, took a look at the community center they are building, and ate some dinner. We had foufou (corn flour and water) and fish. Afterwards there was singing and dancing in the community bukaru. Sulemanu distributed some money which was raised for the refugees in Malarba so they could buy food, clothing, and finish the community center which still had some construction that needed to be done.
We left the compound where we stayed in Malarba around 6:30 and got into “the junction” of Malarba to get a bus to Ngoundere. We waited around for a little over an hour before Sulemanu gave up and tried to find a car taxi to take us to Ngoundere. It was a little more expensive that way, a bit more cramped (seven adults in a five seater Toyota Carina, about the size of a Camry) but a lot quicker. We were on the road by 8:30am and got to Ngoudere at noon. What would have been a four and a half hour ride by bus, plus waiting for the bus to show up, took only three and a half hours.
Once we arrived, we quickly made the decision whether to try to make it to Maroua in one day or to leave that portion of the trip until Thursday. Since it would’ve added 8 hours to our day, we decided to just spend the day in Ngoudere. We found a room at a Lutheran Church Resting House. The room is nice with a single bed and a set of bunk beds. There is a communal bathroom with a shower down the hall. It has no lighting, no shower curtain, no hot water, no soap, nothing to dry your hands with, no toilet paper, no toilet seat, and a sink faucet that doesn’t turn on until you have the handle opened counter-clockwise all of the way and then the water SHOOTS OUT like an EXPLOSION and then you have to turn the handle back, clockwise to slow down the water flow but other than that the bathroom is fine. Whew! Run-on sentence…
In the evening, after we settled in and took showers, we went to the bus station for Maroua to reserve our seats for the first bus out on Thursday morning. We also went to an Internet café and walked around a bit. I did a tiny bit of grocery shopping and even got to see a train station. The train in Cameroon goes from Douala, through Yaounde, through Bertoua and ends in Ngoudere, stopping at small towns along the way. There are freight trains carrying oil and passenger trains too. The passenger cars looked to be from the 80s but maintained well enough. There is a first class and coach section labeled 1 and 2, respectively. In first class you can even get beds. Sulemanu said he does not like taking the train because it often runs at night and there are crazy people that ride it.
We ate some dinner, went back to our room and slept for the evening. We woke up around 4:30 Thursday morning to get to the bus park in time for the first bus out to Maroua. We were told it would leave right at 5:30am. At 6:10am we left the bus park and made the 8 hour trip to Maroua hardly stopping throughout the journey. It seems many of the other bus rides I’ve had in Cameroon seem to stop at every little town to drop passengers off or just buy stuff.
We got to Maroua around 2pm. The area before Maroua is very flat and very dry. I haven’t taken any pictures of Banyo since I got back from the Baka land, but Banyo is now very green now that it’s rained a bit. The far north however, is still looking very dry. I’ve been told the rainy season starts earlier in the south and happens later and later the farther north you get. It rained a tiny bit on the way up but not very much. We passed a few rivers that were almost completely dried up with children playing in the center of the sand at the bottom. Banyo and much of Cameroon seems to have a lot of dirt/mud/dust on the ground whereas the far north has a lot of sand.
When we arrived in Maroua, we took a motorcycle taxi to the Baptist Mission Resthouse. Here, I met Christelle Pusch, who was referenced to me by a few missionaries in the north. She’s in charge here at the resthouse and was able to arrange for someone named Jean-Luc to come talk to Sulemanu and me about heading to either Waza (animal game park) or Rhoumsiki (natural, beautiful scenery). Waza was still a possibility if it could be done for very cheap but the Jean-Luc said that without other people going, to take just Sulemanu and I to Waza would be well over 50,000 francs ($100) which I don’t have the money for.
Jean-Luc said that now is not the best time of the year to go to Waza anyway since the wet season hasn’t really started in the far north and there isn’t enough vegetation for the animals to want to migrate to Waza just yet. He said it’d be possible to drive all the way there using up all of the expenses and not even see any animals. I’ve heard a mix of opinions with some saying you might see some and some saying you might not see any. It’s not worth the risk and besides, it’s too much money anyway. So tomorrow Jean-Luc will pick Sulemanu and I up and we will head to Rhoumsiki.
It’s pretty hot in the far north with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees F. We were told it’s cooler today since it just rained a little bit yesterday so I imagine tomorrow will be around 105. Whew! Maroua is a very nice city. It’s pretty clean compared to Banyo, Yaounde and Douala. There are wide streets with wide sidewalks for people to actually walk on. That’s something I haven’t really seen much in Cameroon. It’s a fairly big town, maybe around the size of Bamenda. Population? I have no idea. It really depends on who you ask. Haha I don’t believe there are many government censuses in Cameroon.
One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every motorcycle taxi seems to have a two-stroke engine and either be a Suzuki or Qinqdi brand. They’re 90 cc and pretty small. They almost look like a French-made 2-stroke moped but they do have an electric start so I guess they’re considered motorcycles. Anyway, since they’re two-strokes, smoke fills the air of the streets as they whiz by. In comparison, for the most part in Banyo, the motorcycles are four-stroke and don’t smoke as much.
I’ll update sometime again in the next few days with the rest of our journey to the far north. Bye for now!
Monday, May 3, 2010
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…
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…
Thursday, April 29, 2010
More FES Pictures
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
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047204&id=1337370415&l=622b709460
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