First Impressions

6. August
After various hugs, a crying mum, Mohammed reciting dad, laughing friends and many “goodbyes” I went through the last controls to start my journey to Cameroon at last.
So all three of us( Ruth , Max and me) boarded on the plane to Paris, our stop between Europe and Africa.
Arriving in the boarding area with a bit of an upset stomach as we had taken malaria prophylaxis we waited for our final flight to Douala / Cameroon.
As our flight was delayed for 50 minutes a Cameroonian man started arguing with Air France stewards, since according to a francophone Cameroonian the Air France flights going to Africa always have either a problem or a delay.
The flight itself was a bit tiring yet the plane was well equipped so I filled my time watching a movie or playing “Who wants to become a millionaire”?
The very fascinating event was flying over the Sahara; this huge desert left an impression of freedom and again let me see the other, nearly lifeless side of nature.
After 6 hours flight we got to our destination, Douala a for African circumstances huge city with 1 million inhabitants lying in the very tropical area of Central Africa.
I was quite surprised at the amount of lighted houses, I mean it didn’t look European at all, but there were lights!
Leaving the plane I felt what tropical climate really means: humid, 28 degrees Celsius, 98 percent air humidity and this at nine a clock in the evening , after a few minutes my clothes were damp , yet reflecting I must say it was okay and I was wearing a jumper as I did not want to walk around with a neck holder top.
After passport and yellow fever vaccination control we went to get our beloved luggage and here our first adventurous experiences started.
Having received our luggage we looked for a luggage van .A well dressed smiling man offered his help which had the result of him pushing our luggage somewhere and we a bit confused running after him and our luggage of course.( my total luggage is 20 kilos lighter than Maxis :-P)
In the end we got out of the luggage area and we went in front of the train station size airport to look for Bernard our contact person in Kumbo. Yet we could not see anyone holding up a sign or waiting for three foreign volunteers.
By now we were surrounded by a crowd of young Cameroonian men asking us if we needed a taxi or help. After a while they really got on our nerves as two of them kept asking for money, Maxi finally gave them three euro what did not please them, yet the two of them left us then.
After a while we got nervous, as Bernard was still not to be seen, so with help of the crowd around us we went through all the contact numbers given to us and not one of them seemed to exist. N´existe pas they kept telling us as Douala belongs to the francophone part of Cameroon.
We tried to phone the numbers numerous times until we lost all hope of being fetched this evening.
I really felt a bit lost.
Douala is not a safe city to go out at daylight and night especially as a white person. So we did not know where to stay as the airport would close some time at night.
The men who we were now sitting at a table with us told us to get a taxi and sleep in a hotel; if we wanted they would stay there too.
It is maybe hard for you to understand that we really saw this hotel as last option.
If this happened to a French person in England, the person would go to a hotel or hostel right away.
But we are not in Europe. It is night; we do not know Douala at all. We are white and of course will be seen as target object for thieves.
5 hours after our arrival we then decided to go to a hotel with the guys. Just as we went through the airport entrance into the humid climate we saw an African priest and a woman who came up to us and asked if we needed help.
So we explained them our situation, told them that we are volunteers going to the diocese of Kumbo and that we were now going to a hotel.
The woman immediately said. Come to me! Sleep at my house! Douala is dangerous! She was obviously very worried about us and as she seemed to be more trustworthy than the men we did not go to a hotel.
She was waiting for a couple from Spain , who were going to do voluntary work in Douala for three weeks ,o we waited with her in the main entrance hall at the “bar area” .
One of the first things she said to us:” I was afraid of you getting pumped up with drugs and then being robbed as this often happens. And that’s why I offered my help. It´s a privilege for me to help people, maybe my family or I will need help at some time too.”
The woman ( I forgo her name as I have to remember so much names at the moment)was interesting to talk to, so we were talking and laughing for a long time as the flight of course ( air France) was delayed .
At one point of our conversation we came up with the topic colonisation.
Cameroon is divided up into an Anglophone and francophone part and used to be a German colony.
She actually to my surprise praised the Germans for the bridges and the railway they built.
Back to francophone and anglophone. According to her the Francophone Cameroon looks down on the minor Anglophone part of Cameroon and does not take pride of it´s own country but of France.
Of course this is the opinion of this woman I met. You cannot generalise this, but you do see the Anglophone area being less supported by the state/ government to mention an example.

At about two a clock we left the airport and drove via private cars over rough streets, passing huts and exotic plants as far as my eyes could see in the dark.
As we got to her house I was totally stunned.
Comparing to a standard house in Germany this was a palace. She had huge rooms with massive windows and a garden looking as if ten gardeners were looking after it.
All three of us slept in one bed, but before her cooks made us a variety of Cameroonian dishes (beans, chicken, potatoes, rice)and this at three a clock in the morning.
I woke up when I heard the rain falling and with rain I really mean buckets of rain falling down on the ground and noticing that I had been bitten by a mosquito.
But as I heard that Bernard had arrived as they were able to contact him I was so over the moon and her family, the Spanish, the priest, we three, Bernard and his driver all ate breakfast together.
The reason for him not being there to pick us up at the airport was that they had a breakdown with their car he told us.
At midday after getting another tire (for the case of having another accident) we left Douala.
Douala was full of people with umbrellas walking on the street, sitting next to the street, cooking, eating and you really noticed the huge gap between rich and poor.
Also to mention is for my surprise the huge number of albinos in Douala or Cameroon, which I hope speaks for that they are not killed and tortured here.

Our drive from Douala to Kumbo was very spectacular.
We passed mountains covered in beautiful rainforest, papaya plantations, women and children carrying food and material on their heads, small children at the age of four carrying their sisters and brothers around, small huts made out of wood or clay, goats and chicken, cows with huge horns, people selling manioc ( a root often cooked and wrapped up in palm leaves),rice fields and waterfalls…
As we reached the North Western part of Cameroon after staying over a night in Bamenda as it is too dangerous to travel at night I really understood why they had a breakdown.
In general Cameroonians drive without any rule. The only rule might be not to crash.
And as the North Western Province with the so called ring road has no tarred roads but more or less consist out of red soil with bumps and holes and in the rainy season ( which we are in ) flooded parts you really have to be able to drive.
Around the ring road you find the Cameroon grasslands, a mountain area with a quite cool climate, which are known for their chefferies, old traditions and customs of the Bamilike.
- And here in the middle of the grasslands we finally arrived in my home for one year…