FACES OF CAMEROON

MY CAMEROON

These are some of the people and places that are a part of my daily world in Bamenda.  Some days enjoyable, some days annoying, but it is all a part of the web in which I have become one of the strands.



My local "supermarket"



My Favorite Shopkeeper



Dinner Preparation



Crazy Bamenda Transport



BEAUTIFUL OKU

Oku, a mountain town, carries an air of mystery about it.  It is famous for its witchcraft, its lake, and its wood carvings.  It is set high in the mountains, over a couple of mountain passes, and surrounded by waterfalls.  It is a gorgeous drive, and the five of us, in our hired car, were blessed with gorgeous weather and beautiful views throughout the day.  We had a quick handshake with the Fon, a peek at the Fon’s palace,  a thorough tour of the wood carving artisans of the area, and a hike to the mystical lake.

KRIBI HOLIDAY



Lobe Falls





Kribi port







Kribi is a beautiful beach town in the South Region of Cameroon, a few hours from Equatorial Guinea.  It has miles and miles of fine white sand beaches lined by palm trees and roaring ocean waves.  Along the beaches are small shacks with eager chefs, ready to treat you to freshly grilled shrimp or fish.  The town itself is the second largest port after Douala, hosting boats large and small for all types of fishing adventures.  The fish market is filled with vendors, displaying a dozen different types of fish which you may select for a quick and easy meal while watching the boats and pirogues come and go.



River Life



 The name Kribi is derived from the word “kiridi”, which translates as “small men”, referring to the “Pygmies” who were the original inhabitants of this region. Traditionally these people have lived as hunters and gatherers in the forest exchanging their resources for cultivated foods.  The Pygmies do not view themselves as one culture and come from a variety of ethno-linguistic groups, the largest one being the Baka. Most Pygmies continue to live a partially nomadic life, while having been pushed into a more sedentary lifestyle through logging companies and deforestation. They typically follow their traditional religions which include a forest spirit and hold celebrations marking rites of passage. Many tourists come here to launch upriver by dug-out canoes (pirogues), deep into the forest jungle.  Within a day one can come upon Pygmy villages and spend the night.  I opted for a 2 hour upriver trip, to experience the deep vibrant green, the jungle sounds, and a glance or two at the tree-swinging monkeys.

On the edge of the town, where I stayed, are the beautiful Lobe Waterfalls, one of the few falls that plunge directly into the ocean.   It is a lovely sight and there are little artisan shops and restaurants around, ala palm frond architecture, offering more tastes of the local culture.  Swimming around there is very inviting but the tide makes a dramatic difference in the safety factor.  The drop-offs can be sudden and dramatic.  Unfortunately while I was there, a drowning occurred as a non-swimmer found himself over his head.  Children scatter along the beach at low tide, hunting crabs, and fisherman are in their boats morning and evening to bring in the catch of the day.  They do work hard, but it also seems that this lifestyle ensures that one will never go hungry.

It is a great place to get-away from it all, enjoy the finest of white sand beaches, go to sleep and awake with the sounds of the thundering waves, and eat lots and lots of wonderful fish.







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

LIFE IN THE NORTHWEST

BABUNGO

Babungo is a community about 2 hours from Bamenda, complete with Fon (chief), palace and marvelous traditional festivals.  It also has a unique mental health facility combining traditional and western medecines.  The traditional healer who founded this center has since passed on, but it is now being run by two of his children.  It is an inpatient facility housing psychiatric patients and their care-givers.  Each person has their own room with two beds and receives both Western psychiatric medications and herbal medecines developed over centuries by the traditional healers.  They also receive occupational therapies, exercise regimens and opportunities for socialization.  They are fortunate to have won the heart and soul of a VSO volunteer who has been coming there intermittently for the past 7 years providing her psychiatric nursing skills and also has done fund-raising to build the infrastructure of the facility.  It is set in a beautiful rural area with ample space, so the inpatients are allowed the freedom to walk around the grounds, take in the fresh air, and benefit from the peaceful environment. Because it is such a unique and positive example of the blend of traditional and western, one of the two psychiatrists in Cameroon has also taken this facility under his tutelage and comes there on a monthly basis to consult with the staff.  I was very encouraged to see that such a humane and healing environment can exist for the mentally ill in Cameroon.

The March Babungo festival was for the celebration of the return of one of the palace statues that had been away from its home for some time.  It was a gorgeous occasion, complete with drummers, dancers (young and old), snake charmers, and dignitaries. The health center even took the opportunity to do a little advertising of themselves. (See Photos.)

WITCHCRAFT

Having had the opportunity to spend more time in the culture, the stories and beliefs in witchcraft begin to be revealed.   It seems to be deeply embedded in all layers of the culture regardless of education, religious beliefs, or profession.  It is even included in the laws which say that a person CAN be charged with witchcraft – the main problem being the proving of it.  It covers many ills to include illness, infertility, poor harvest, poor school performance, nightmares and insanity.  There is a story of some family members joining together to kill their father as they believed he was casting spells and killing off some of the family members.  Jealousy and greed are said to be motivators behind many harmful and deadly actions on family and neighbors.  The inheritance laws, unfortunately, contribute to some of these sad stories.  Most often the women have no right to inherit the husband’s property, so there are numerous stories of elder brothers trying to kill-off their brothers so they can inherit their brother’s land.  One friend told me that his father died of poisoning and he believes it was done by one of his uncles.  Naturally he is literally scared to death even though his family has been left with nothing.  Different villages have different inheritance laws.  One unique village tradition leaves the properties to the oldest son of the surviving sister (the deceased’s nephew).  One young father from that village told me that he didn’t want to live there as he didn’t want his worldly goods going to a nephew, but to his newly born son.

In the Northwest Region where I am living, property lines continue to be a big source of conflict.  Most of the intertribal conflict between villages is about land-grabbing with neighbors from another tribe coming into the neighboring property, burning the crops, stealing the livestock, destroying the homes, and sometimes injuring or killing the residents.  Because these property lines have never been officially delineated or agreed upon, it can become a hot-spot of contention resulting in death and destruction. There are councils and legal channels to try to mediate these problems, but sometimes the people simply take action into their own hands.

BAMENDA CATTLE MARKET

On the lighter side, every Thursday in the hills above Bamenda the cow market is held.  Herders from villages as far as a 2 day walk come with their cattle in the hopes of both buying and selling.  There are hundreds of cows, and dozens of buyers, sellers and middlemen all using their sharp eyes to find the right cows - usually for meat or breeding. 

For those with a vegetarian palate, the fresh fruits are in abundance and marvelous.  Everyday I enter a world filled with mangoes, avocadoes, pineapples, watermelon, papaya, and oranges.  The only thing not grown here, I am told, are the apples which are expensive.  My night guard has transformed my backyard into a garden, growing tomatoes, peppers, beans, carrots, corn, basil, parsley…and other things I am not sure about.  The rains are here, the countryside is a carpet of deep green, and it is beautiful.