There and Back Again

My stay in Cameroon has come to an end, and this post combines some information about health and sanitation here and a bit about my volunteer work. I will definitely miss the people here, but some aspects of Douala ne vont pas me manquer!

Douala cannot be said to be a beautiful or healthy city. As I have said before, getting around is a risky business because of the traffic and frequent accidents, but also because being in the midst of traffic means breathing in the exhaust of some seriously polluting vehicles. My colleagues working on air quality in Canada would be horrified at the number of ‘black smokers’ belching out foul emissions. In addition, there is garbage everywhere. Thankfully it is collected fairly regularly, but it doesn’t make for a very visually appealing environment.

The power outages are accompanied by frequent cuts to water service as well. At the orphanage where I am living there is no running water except for very rare and brief periods, usually in the middle of the night. All of the children that are able to carry even a small container of water take daily trips to ‘the forage’, a public tap about a block and a half away. The adult women carry amazingly large containers of water at one go. The bucket I am able to carry on my head is not so impressive. The toilet is flushed with a bucket and showers consist of pouring cups of water over yourself. I have become quite adept at cleaning myself with a minimum of water but the toilet is difficult to flush without using at least half a bucket of water.

While the orphanage has a fridge and freezer, not everyone has these appliances and of course there are the frequent power outages. I was amused at the label on the mayonnaise jar which advises to keep cool if possible. This is could be general advice for food and people alike.

So far I have been very lucky and have just had a cold. I have managed to avoid the nasty bouts of diarrhea experienced by some of the other volunteers. Abby, the volunteer from Alabama spent two nights in a clinic after experiencing severe dehydration and essentially kidney failure after climbing Mount Cameroon. Ideas about health causes and effects are a bit different here. When I told someone I had a sore throat they said it must be something that I ate. Abby was told to eat oranges and get some exercise to get over her kidney failure. People tend to avoid hospitals until things are very dire.

I have been accused by some of my readers of spending all my time visiting the beaches of Cameroon and not doing any actual volunteering. I assure you that Abby and I worked very hard at Youth Business Cameroon. The small office pictured below is where I spent my days. It was luxuriously air-conditioned though the very small space was sometimes occupied by up to eight people, which made for some cozy seating arrangements. Abby and I wrote some grant proposals for the organization and I created a new bilingual website which can be found at www.youthbusinesscameroon.org.

The picture of Cameroon's countryside is the picture I will keep in my mind when thinking of this country. I leave tomorrow for a brief stopover in Nairobi before starting my safari in Tanzania. I’ll keep you posted as internet access allows!

Liz

There are various modes of transport in Douala, all with their pros and cons, but on balance - more cons.

Taxi – In Douala there is a sort of public transit system based on shared taxis. A taxi will slow down or honk while passing people standing at the side of the street and based on the destination and price you call out, will decide whether to pick you up or not. Five people cram in with the worst situation being sharing the passenger seat with a large sweaty stranger. It is a fairly intimate arrangement and it is customary and polite to say hello to your fellow passengers. The cabs are mostly dilapidated old Toyotas with lots of dents and dings from the frequent fender benders that occur in the crazy traffic. Cab rides within the same neighbourhood are 100 CFA or about 20 cents, with longer rides being double or triple depending on distance and time of day. If for reasons of safety or comfort you want a cab to yourself you can pay 2000 francs or about $4 and the taximan will take you to your door.

The highest number of people I have personally experienced was either 7 or 8 passengers plus the driver in a 5 passenger vehicle. I am not sure of the total because I was sitting in the front and could not turn my head. The driver was reaching between the legs of the woman to my left to shift gears.

Moto - Motos are slightly more comfortable in my opinion and much faster as they weave through traffic when there are embouteillages (traffic jams). They are just a bit more expensive than taxis if you haggle a little but one also has to calculate the risk involved. Motos will get creative and take to the sidewalk, boulevard or lane of oncoming traffic to make progress. Motos are used to transport a wide variety of loads such as a family of five, fifteen foot long lumber or a full sized couch. And I don’t mean the ‘tractor’ motos pictured below, but a regular motorcycle.

Bus - Buses between local towns are reasonably comfortable and $3-7, though the last one I was in had no air conditioning and only two small operable windows in the roof. When we were stuck in traffic for an hour it turned into a sauna on wheels. Everyone was in surprisingly good spirits despite the extreme sweatiness of the situation.

Vehicles here inevitably tombent en panne (break down) but people are very resourceful. When the moto I was on in the middle of a huge palm plantation broke down the driver removed the spark plug, adjusted the gap by banging it with a wrench and we continued … though we repeated this process several times. A shared van was a less successful repair though the vehicle in question was in sadder shape with the gas tank having been replaced by a jug under the hood, and a fuel hose wrapped in old inner tubes to stop the leaks.

Some days the traffic seems a bit like a dance the way the vehicles weave in and out, but other days it just seems like a terrible noisy congested mess. I think I must be getting used to it because yesterday I ate my lunch while travelling by moto.

For all who are travelling by any mode of transport - be safe and bon voyage!

First, I need to respond to questions about whether I do any actual volunteering or just take trips out of town … yes, I am working for an organization called Youth Business Cameroon that promotes and supports youth entrepreneurship. I would direct you to their website, but I am currently creating a new site for the organization, and it is not yet live.

That said, this is a post about food. I have been eating well despite the difficulties of being a vegetarian in Cameroon. At least they are familiar with the concept here. I am very fortunate that two of the other Humanity Exchange volunteers in Douala are also vegetarian so I’m not the only one! We are quite lucky at the orphanage because Maman Simone is a very good cook. The children usually eat only once per day, and I’m not sure how they manage but it seems to be the norm here. The volunteers are provided two meals per day – breakfast and supper. The other vegetarian who lives at the orphanage (Sonja) and I both eat fish to make it easier for our family. I have eaten more fish in the last six weeks than in my entire life previous to this trip. A common way to prepare fish here is poisson braisé – grilled whole. I have become quite adept at eating the whole fish without choking on any of the bones but have not (and will not) eat the head.

Other typical Cameroonian dishes I have eaten are ndole, which is a stew of African spinach, ground peanuts, onions and dried fish; batons de manioc and the smaller version called miondo; plantain prepared various ways but especially fried; and macabo, which is a tuber that is grated and then steamed in banana leaves. Escargot on skewers (very chewy), brochettes (meat skewers), and poisson braisé are commonly sold in bars.

The diet is pretty heavy on palm oil. Beignets (doughnuts) are a common street food, either sweetened, eaten with spicy baked beans, or, my favourite - made with banana in the batter. In summary, if the motos don’t kill you the saturated fat will eventually do the job.

Beer is sold in enormous bottles for about $1.50. There are several big breweries here. You can buy small plastic sachets of cheap whisky at the side of the road for about 30 cents but in nightclubs imported whisky is purchased by the bottle for around $70 per bottle.

I just paid a guy in the street 10 cents to weigh myself using the bathroom-type scale he was carrying. Who knew that such a service existed? It seems I have lost a couple of pounds but alas, I attribute this to the constant profuse sweating.

Here are some photos of the food here. Bon appétit!

I have two adventures to report on since my last post. I had the opportunity to travel outside of Douala the last two weekends, and it has done me good to get out of the dirty, noisy city. It is hard to come back to the city after a weekend in the beautiful parts of Cameroon.

Kribi

Last weekend I went to Kribi with the other volunteers and Marc, the fiancé of Maman’s sister. The trip there went splendidly. Kribi is beautiful, the beaches are clean, and we stayed at a really great place with individual cabins and a pool. Check it out at http://www.kribiholidays.com/2.html. The water was remarkably warm and we had a great time playing in the waves. The downside was that on our return to Douala the bus blew a tire and had some other mechanical problems so we had to wait all after noon for the next bus. I forgot my camera on the bus when we finally decided that it wasn’t going to get fixed, and when I looked for it some 20 minutes later, it was gone. So I’ve purchased another camera that isn’t nearly as good and someone in Cameroon has a pretty kickass waterproof camera. Luckily I had handed my memory card over to Marc before this happened, and didn’t lose my photos.

The West

Because the organization with which I am volunteering does not have an office of its own at the moment, Abby from Alabama and I are working out of the offices of a solar energy company. Daniel, the head of the company, invited us to visit the western part of the country to see the countryside, visit some of their projects, and see his village. Western Cameroon has plantations of palm, bananas and pineapples, and is also the swanky part of the country. The richest Cameroonians build huge mansions on the hillsides in this region of refreshingly cool climate (by Cameroonian standards) and beautiful views. It’s a bit like cottage country because business men spend the weekend there to escape from Douala.

On the way out west we suffered a bit of a delay with a blown radiator. This necessitated a change of plans since we weren’t going to make it to Daniel’s village by nightfall and travelling in the dark is dangerous because of the condition of the roads and crazy drivers. So we spent the night in Dschang at Daniel’s brother’s parents-in-law and the next morning visited an artisanal workshop/market and the cultural museum there. We continued on to Baffousam and Bana with various stops. We visited two waterfalls, the site of a women’s school that is being constructed by an American woman, and met a guy from Italy who is leading a project to install solar panels to provide electricity and water pumps to some schools and hospitals in the region.

Learning about the solar energy projects was fascinating, the countryside was incredibly beautiful, and the roadside fruit was truly amazing. I will definitely be making plans to get out of Douala again soon!

Liz

Hello all and apologies for the tardiness of this post! The subject of this post is communication in Cameroon, by way of explanation/excuse. Though the other volunteers and I have spent a considerable sum on a wireless router and internet credits, the service is slow and expensive. Some days it seems like a true victory if I can download a word document.

One problem is that CamTel, the national communications company has a monopoly in terms of fiber optics. It is quite unfortunate since better internet service would surely facilitate development in numerous areas of the economy. At Youth Business Cameroon we have discussed the potential opportunities for local artisans to sell their products abroad using internet services like Etsy. Apart from the internet service, another difficulty is that the postal service is also terribly slow, and apparently packages are sometimes opened or stolen. Mail between Cameroon and North America can take months.

Mobile calls are frequently dropped and credits for air time are expensive as well. Mobile conversations have the added challenges caused by traffic noise and my French difficulties. There are frequent misunderstandings.

Here are some photos of those artisanal products I mentioned. A local designer of clothing and accessories made from natural materials put on a fashion show for us. She gave us the fantastic hats made of leaves.

J'espére que mon prochaine post sera à bonne heure! Je vais aller à Kribi ce weekend avec les autres volontaires et le beau-fils de Maman. J'attends avec impatience de respirer l'air frais.

A la prochaine,
Liz