August 21th 2010-
The last days have not had a lot of rain which enabled us to start having our own African garden. Ta Ta Edwin the probably most hard working and self content man I have met offered us his help. Sometimes it is quite hard to understand him as he often uses Lamnso or Pidgin phrases but we are getting better in hearing.
So we first weeded a part of our garden (we have as most Cameroonians here a lot of cornfields mixed with yama yama - similar to spinach- connected to our house) which took us a few hours but we were surprised at the result: The soil was still so loose and fertile so we really enjoyed preparing the garden ( about 8 times 4 metres)for planting manioc, cabbage and spices. To mention here is that Tata has knocked at our door every morning since ( at seven a clock…) to explain things he wants to do with the garden. The strength Tata has is unbelievable, he digs up the garden so fast and with such technique –I really admire him for this and he always starts laughing about things we say or do and his laughter is so incredible –it reminds me a bit of the laughter of the wise baboon in The Lion King.
He also invited us to his family and village which will take us an hour per foot , there he wants us to join his church and community for one hour ( every Cameroonian I have met so far is very religious, if Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Muslim ( they all are mixed with African traditional religion which is very present here)and then he wants us to play with his seven kids and probably we will get fufu and yama yama as a meal, fufu is a sticky lump made out of corn, yama yama is similar to spinach and of course made with palm oil as nearly everything here. By the way you eat fufu with your right hand which is washed before and after eating in a bucket with leak warm water- eating with your left hand is similar to India seen as dirty.
Talking about food I have to mention what happened to me yesterday (22.August) .We were invited to have dinner at our coordinators house. We had potatoes with cabbage and carrots and fish for the non veggies and green pepper sauce. I really enjoyed the pepper sauce yet I totally forgot that pepper sauce is served with a pepper and this walnut seized pepper was between my vegetables ( which I did not notice). So I ate and ate and suddenly I felt something very spicy in my mouth, this spicy feeling ended in a fire in my mouth and throat, I was crying and sweating, my face was bright red and my heart beating as fast as having run for three hours- and the worst - it took one hour until it stopped… well I won´t eat this a second time ( you are not supposed to eat them as they are soo hot , hotter than any Indonesian dish)
Bernard ( the name of my Cameroonian coordinator) has 4 children. They are so funny , especially Stephanie who is 4 years old , she is very heady and always tries to get what she wants by acting in such witty and incredible ways.
Then the oldest girl (I have forgotten her lamnso name but the translation “who loves you”) has only been living with Bernard for seven months as she is adopted. She is very bright and would love to go to highschool, but out of different reasons she will not be able to attend school until next year or the year after, so this is the reason we are going to teach her and a few other kids a few afternoons a week to enhance their reading and writing skills and preparing them for school.
Here I come up with one of the biggest problems in Cameroon. Education.
Comparing to other African countries education has improved here, yet many children do not attend school because of school fees ( yet as I was told many parents could afford those if priorities would be set right and money was not spend to much on drinking) and then of course even though they get high school degree they are not able to go to university because of their money situation and since there is a lack of places – and all the children and youth I met until now really want to learn ,they envy our opportunities and work so hard .
For example Alex, who I taught how to juggle .He would love to learn German and to study Economics at University in Yaoundé, but he just does not know if he will have enough money until October, when university starts.
I am so sad at the fact that young people who are so eager to learn just do not get the opportunity and we Europeans often do not use our opportunity of educating ourselves ( I mean not only in school terms). Here in the so called democratic state, the pupils are not able to say their opinion especially concerning politics.
As I am living in the Anglophone part of Cameroon you experience the injustice of Paul Biya the president since 1982!! Ministers and Presidents prefer buying big houses in France and investing in themselves and supporting the French patriotism and for example leave the Anglophone part without good streets. So here in the Anglophone provinces you find the strongest opposition, which shows up in Paul Biyas soldiers who you sometimes see walking a long with machine guns. A guy I met at the internet café ( young boy and very sad story) said he would rather have a divided Cameroon and he does not like living in such a undemocratic state, yet if he wants to live without any harm done to him he is not able to criticise Paul Biya in the open. I am interesting in the new elections which occur to happen in January , I hope for the best but I also hope that their will not be use of force and no casualties especially here around this area as there is a very strong opposition.
Talking about force , criminality is seldom here and the people show a lot of respect towards each other. Even the different tribes who in history had bloody fights and the different religios groups here live in peace and strong communities. Communities I think are very important here and as I am myself living together in a community I will tell you more about the structure and life in it…
A berne kbwuishe ( see you soon)
Bri
Dienstag, 24. August 2010
Dienstag, 17. August 2010
The Mbveh
Mbveh ( not Mwe sorry)
If you want to get food fresh on the market or want to stroll through small wooden stalls full of African cloth, natural medicine, second hand clothes from Europe, get your hair braided or want to get closer to the locals, the market Mbveh is the best place to go.
You just tell the bush taxi driver in making a zzzzzs sound and the hand signal “ come “ the other way around that you want to go to Mbveh. “I go Mbveh” if you prefer to talk Pidgin.
The Mbveh is the central place of Kumbo where all the different people sell their goods ;especially now in the rainy season it is a real adventure to go through the market stalls, as the lines through the stalls are barely covered and so the path is very muddy. The paths are only about 1 metre wide so you always have to be careful not bumping into someone while looking on the ground for puddles.
Going through the lines nearly everyone greets the “ white man” as they call you and wants you to buy something (you should not do that of course).This has been a good opportunity to get to know people and a bit of Lamnso ( the language of the locals).
The good thing for us is that the volunteers of last year are still here and can explain where you can buy things and how expensive they are as often people want you to pay more as a foreigner as you normally do not know the prices.
Through Ann Christin and Maria ( the former volunteers)we have got to know a good tailor, who is going to sow us real African dresses for about 3000 franc which is about 5 euro. My skirt and top will be in greenish blue colours with African patterns on it.
The prices for food are very cheap for an European : 5 tomatoes are about 10 cents , 1.5 litre palm wine for 100 franc. Palm wine is very delicious and produced from the raffia palm, we had the sweet one today with some locals.
Then the food market: you will find stalls with various fruits, vegetables and corn.
Often you will see pineapples, bananas, peanuts , manioc, Irish potatoes, rice, garry, dried fish, tomatoes, alive chicken in baskets…
And of course you will find a butcher there: slaughtered goats, a head of a cow, intestines , feet of goats… the smell can be quite strong especially when the meat lies there for hours on end. Meat in general is not eaten that often as it is very expensive., which I am quite happy of.
Yet at least you now what you buy and nothing is wasted.
The food market took us nearly half an hour the first day as all the women started talking in lamnso or better trying to teach us lamnso on the market, welcomed us friendly and asked us questions. One woman seemed so old and weak and yet still she came up and shook our hands while carrying bananas on her head.
Carrying food or even tables on heads is a very typical thing here in Cameroon especially for women and children. They do it with such elegance and pride you really have to look up to.
Often you see children selling small things like poff poff ( very nice similar to Kreppel) which they carry in buckets and baskets on their head.
As the Nso calendar has 8 days every eight days their will be a huge market day where you can find nearly everything as for example Nollywood films…
The Nso people are the people around Kumbo, the Bamilike I talked of first around Bamenda.
The Nso are very rich in tradition and culture and their society is build up in chefferies with the highest leader called the fon.
The fon lives in a huge palace with beautiful grassland sculptures and pillars. Ethnologists believe that the fons palace is one of the most interesting architectural and cultural building and concept in the whole of Africa.
On Monday we took a trip around Kumbo and its nearby villages with Obama ( his real name is Emanuelle),a guy we are quite friendly with and he explained us a lot about the hierarchy in the Fon palace and the different traditions they keep while drinking a Malta trench and export ( Cameroonian beer 0.65 litre a bottle) in a small local restaurant.
But I think I will write about the Nso people and the fon palace another day as it is to much you can write about and at the moment I only know a bit of their tradition so I do not want to give you wrong information.
As we are going to start gardening with the help of a gardener we got to know (he comes to our door every morning at seven as well as Abdel Alex who I am teaching how to juggle ) I want to go to Mbveh to get some things and to Horizon, an internet café, to post this.
By the way I always get up so early here and you really start getting tired at 6 pm …
A berne ( Lamnso)
Bri
Donnerstag, 12. August 2010
Kumbo
After various bumps and roads as slippery as soap we finally arrived in Kumbo ; a town with roughly 60. 000 inhabitants stretching over the grassland mountain rage including many villages.
The first people I saw here where all dressed in traditional African dresses which I have totally fell in love with as they are so colourful. They all were on their way back from church as the people in Cameroon especially in the grassland are very religious.
Here in Kumbo you mainly find Christians and Moslems blending those religions with their animistic traditional African religion.
The people here all greeted us which is normally done with a handshake and questions and sentences like: “You are welcome.” “How are you?” “How did you sleep? “ and not to forget is the normally huge smile and friendly laughter they will confront you with.
At the moment we are staying at the bishop’s hill, which is the resident of the priests of Kumbo. I do not understand why the clerics of Kumbo allow themselves to have a better life as the other people, but of course this is typical for people who do have more money and power. Yet they are also very welcoming and friendly and let us take part at their meals.
We are soon moving into our own house with garden, where we want to plant our own traditional African food to live sustainable and environmental friendly.
The problem here is that there are no bins, so the rubbish is dumped or better burned.
The best solution of course is not to have any waste, so we will try to limit it through harvesting or buying our food on the traditional grassland market in the centre of the town, the Mwe ( a Lamnso name).
The first people I saw here where all dressed in traditional African dresses which I have totally fell in love with as they are so colourful. They all were on their way back from church as the people in Cameroon especially in the grassland are very religious.
Here in Kumbo you mainly find Christians and Moslems blending those religions with their animistic traditional African religion.
The people here all greeted us which is normally done with a handshake and questions and sentences like: “You are welcome.” “How are you?” “How did you sleep? “ and not to forget is the normally huge smile and friendly laughter they will confront you with.
At the moment we are staying at the bishop’s hill, which is the resident of the priests of Kumbo. I do not understand why the clerics of Kumbo allow themselves to have a better life as the other people, but of course this is typical for people who do have more money and power. Yet they are also very welcoming and friendly and let us take part at their meals.
We are soon moving into our own house with garden, where we want to plant our own traditional African food to live sustainable and environmental friendly.
The problem here is that there are no bins, so the rubbish is dumped or better burned.
The best solution of course is not to have any waste, so we will try to limit it through harvesting or buying our food on the traditional grassland market in the centre of the town, the Mwe ( a Lamnso name).
Mittwoch, 11. August 2010
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…
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…
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