INTERTRIBAL WARS



drum lessons



Beloved Colleague Amy

 




Hiking Buddies




Contentment




View from my back porch




Rainy Season at my house




Dance classes at Kaye's








Setting of prior war



INTERTRIBAL CONFLICTS

The Northwest Region of Cameroon has a long and tragic history of intertribal wars, most often happening between neighboring villages.  I have seen the results both 15 years post-conflict and 1 month post-conflict in several villages.  Most recently, I visited a village that had 400 of its houses burned down only 2 months previously. A few neighboring villages, spurred on by their Fon/chief, spent two days burning houses and stealing animals and goods from an entire village.  The villagers had little to no warning and fled to their Fon’s palace with only the clothes on their backs.  They now sit with only the remaining mud-brick walls and some aluminum roofing recently provided by an NGO.  Their stored foods are gone, their animals are gone, and their children now have no money for school.  Their crops are still there, but it will take months before they can harvest them and probably one year before they can start to save money again.  Meanwhile they have to replace everything they lost – furniture, clothes, livestock- which may have taken them a lifetime to gather.  I am now giving psychological support to some villagers who suffered this exact situation 15 years prior.  All of them lost everything they owned, and several lost family members to the battle – sometimes with guns, sometimes machetes. Some still bare the scars from their injuries in the war. All of these counseling group members continue to suffer emotionally from these losses, never recovering the relative wealth that they had, or the sense of purpose and worthiness.  It has devastated the entire community and continuing generations- something that these elders feel guilt and hopelessness about.

Why does this happen?  Cameroon has over 280 ethno-linguistic groups.  Amazingly, you can travel from one neighboring village to the next and often find different dialects. Strangers in taxis who find that they recognize each others names and dialects feel immediate connections.  The tribal identities remain very strong. There is a long history of different tribal groups exiting one territory and situating themselves in another territory – possibly making their neighbors unhappy, or never really being considered legitimate;  Thus the seeds of land-grabbing and conflict.  The NW Region is one of two regions that was run by Great Britain prior to independence.  The other regions were under French rule.  The French disempowered the traditional Fon system, encouraging and promoting elections of local mayors.  The British supported the Fon system of governance (one which is inherited) thus leaving every tribe and village with its own head.  Some territories are wealthier than others, some Fons are greedier and more aggressive than others.  Some Fons will inflame and support their villagers to attack their neighbors, to grab the land and expand their territory.  As in the recent attack, the aggressing village had already expanded its territory through war a couple of generations ago and it seems that they were hoping to accomplish this again.  What seems to be different during this current time period, is that the rule of law is doing more to protect the people and their properties.  Some 40 people from the aggressing village have been put in prison, and there is legal action being taken to return people’s stolen property. Unfortunately though, these wars are far too common and in my one year here, I have heard of several new conflicts in this part of Cameroon.

RANDOM MUSINGS

A poor country means poor infrastructure in the form of public services.  One aspect of this that I feel every day is pedestrian safety….NOT.  There are no sidewalks in most of Cameroon and staying safe while walking means dodging motorcycles and cars every minute.  Pedestrians are lowest in the hierarchy of street-power, with no rights or consideration given to those on foot.  On a five minute walk to work I usually have to jump out of the way of cars and motorbikes at least every 30 seconds as they pull up in front of me or skim by me while we all attempt to dodge the pot holes and mud puddles.

Speaking of mud puddles, we are in the intense phase of the rainy season which means heavy rains every day.  Today it has been raining for 18 hours straight. The dirt road outside my house becomes a mucky, sucky, slippery walk out to the main road.  Often the roads between villages and towns become impassable and it is not uncommon for trucks to be lined up along the roads, digging out or waiting for assistance after becoming stuck.  In a recent 4 hour trip, we went over a patch of road that looked like a mud mogul field.  Dealing with the heavy rains is a way of life here, and people do their best to proceed with business as usual.  Or, they are especially tolerant of delays and cancellations due to weather.  In the dry season, clothes dry on the line in a few hours.  In the wet season it can take days.  In the dry season, a jacket is never needed.  In the wet season, sweats and slippers are welcome items.

There is a dancing teacher here who has a class full of ex-pats and Cameroonians.  He also comes to my home and humors me and my friends as we attempt to learn salsa, samba, rock and roll, and a few African dances (Makossa and Bottle Dance).  It is all great fun, combining exercise and laughter.  I also purchased a beautiful African drum and receive drumming lessons whenever I can.  There are some gifted artists and musicians in the area who struggle to find ways to share their talents.

Cammie the kitten is now Cammie the mother of four beautiful babies.  She is a fabulous mother, and the kittens are fat and happy.  They are all promised to loving homes. ( I had prospective owners pass through a series of questions.)  Everyone had to promise that they would FEED the cats, hold them and treat them like a family member.  In Lesotho I had to worry that they might end-up as hats or stew meat.

It is summer school break time so the streets are filled with children who are trying to help their families earn an extra penny or two.  Some kids sit at little booths trying to sell phone time, along side hundreds of other vendors doing exactly the same thing.  Other kids are scurrying around with bags and plates on their heads, carrying bananas, candy, t-shirts, shoes, eggs  - just about anything that can be transported and sold.  Then there are the kids that are doing hard labor- hauling wood and building materials, chopping wood, washing clothes in the streams.  And the ones I don’t see are the thousands and thousands of children who are helping their parents work the land, weeding and harvesting crops.  It isn’t an easy life for children here.





Village Life





Village Water Tap



Big Boys