Scenes from Cameroon

Overlooking Bambili, during our hike to the bat cave!

How do they carry so much on their heads? A skill, I just can't master.

Cameroonian Traffic Jam

Buddies

Drying maize

In the market

Always babies on my back.

Serious business folks, serious business.

Dance of the Elephants

Just some of the North West Region's VSO Volunteers, at our Forum Meeting, that's Bamenda behind us!

Waterfalls, Bambili

Please, someone tell me I'm not really seeing this?

If only there were toilets in Cameroon??? Sigh.

Stuck in the mud, again!

Mosque in Kumbo

Rain in Bamenda's Market

The colours of Africa...

Njama njama anyone?

My neighbours... family meeting, 6AM

It's a rainbow...

BBBBBBBEANS

Teeny tiny Cameroonian feet

Rice Fields

A typical day in the life of Sherry in Cameroon...

5:00 AM: I awake, to the sound of my neighbour’s radio, blasting it’s usually tune from across the street. Every day... the same tune. I rummage around for my ear plugs, shove them back in my ears and drift in and out of sleep for the next hour or so... fighting the comfort of my bed and the sounds of roosters and pigs and life and activity outside.

6:00 AM: I get up, finally. I chug some water and go for jog, dodging mud puddles and rocks, and greeting all the neighbours with a “goodmorning”. People shout: “Whiteman, you go for make sports?” And, sometimes, the children try to run along, giggling, behind me.

I get back home and attend my very own private yoga class (my yoga dvd) in my very own private yoga studio (my spare room, with a straw mat and towel on the floor, very luxurious yoga stretching and meditation). Then, as if I haven’t woken myself up enough... I enjoy a refreshing, freezing cold shower and prepare for the day. I usually pack some fruits and porridge for breakfast and munch on my home-made chapathis with fake nutella on top, Cameroonian styles.

I say “see ya later’ to all my neighbours, who are already outside and have been chopping wood and washing dishes and working for two hours already... and walk down to Mile II Junction and bargain with the usual moto guys. I hop on a motorbike for the bumpy ride through the bustling morning traffic to work... zooming past all those yellow taxis stuck in a pile up!

8:30 AM: I’ve arrived at work, NWADO – the North West Association of Development Organizations, and throughout the day, I will chit chat with my colleagues, review proposals, debate gender issues, plan activities, meet with member organizations, talk with VSO volunteers, edit documents, review our strategic plan, or facilitate workshops or meetings, you know... work stuff. I’ll just leave it like that.

12:30 PM: I’m hungry. So, I’ll usually slip out across the street to “Central Restaurant”, where I’m greeted with “Sister, sister, long time.” (Even though I’m there all the time!) It’s where one can find the best food in Bamenda, (even vegetarian-friendly options) and I’ll have an omelette or salad or beans and rice or njama njama or maybe ndole for lunch... with nice, fresh fruit juice too, usually pineapple or papaya and if mango’s are in season, that’s my favourite.

4:30 PM: By now, I’m heading out of the office and perhaps I’ll wander down the big hill into town to do a few errands in the shops or head to the hectic food market and buy some nice fresh veggies and green chillies and garlic to cook something scrumptious for dinner. The vendors say: “Sister, sister, nice carrots today”. I’ll put them all in my back pack and hop on another motorbike to get home. Many people will request that I “Dash” them my helmet or “whiteman, you buy, you buy!”, but I just keep mov’n. It’s usually a tough bargain to get the right price on a motorbike home, but I stand my ground... convincing them that “I no be stranger for town, I pay 250 francs every day.” I walk home from the junction, on the opposite side of the street from the bars, that are now filling up with men having their after-work beers. Later on, perhaps I’ll go for a walk, observe a football game taking place, visit my neighbours and watch Spanish soap operas, play peek-a-boo with the local children, or even visit the call box. If it’s Friday, then, I’ll head to the International Hotel for beers and talk over the week’s events (or lack there of... hehe), with my VSO volunteer colleagues (there’s almost 30 of us in the North West Region now!).

6:00PM: I’m cooking dinner and thoroughly clean-up the kitchen, in an attempt to reduce the interest of mice and cockroaches... ewwwww. I sit down with a glass of wine and eat my usually Indian-veggie cuisine, while watching a movie or reading a book. Sometimes, (a lot lately) under candle light, cause the electricity is OUT.

9:00 PM: I read in bed and contemplate the day’s adventures, put those ear plugs back in and to the sound of the thump thump of my neighbours’ music, crying babies, a mice stampede overhead, and shouting on the street, I eventually drift off to sleep, ready to do it all over again the next day.

5:00 AM: ...

Patience Express... to the extreme!

Muddy adventures... ready to push?

So, last weekend, a bunch of us vso volunteers headed up to the village of Kumbo. Unfortunately, the rain and mud, kinda put a downer on the whole “travel” experience. I think the photos tell the story.

The way there wasn’t soooo bad. We were packed into a mini-bus as per usual, nice and squishy, no one really all that comfortable. We slowly made our way through the bumps and the mud and due to another collapsed bridge, we had to take a detour, through some rough and muddy territory. Got out to push the bus through the mud a few times, but eventually made it to Kumbo. Whew.

The return trip however, was slightly different, you see... that detour got rained on for three whole days and became mud soup, so all buses had to go to the bridge. Let me first say that the bus itself should not have been on the road. We had to change tires, and I was on the sliding door seat and the door did not stay shut... I had to keep slamming it shut every ten minutes! I thought I was going to fall out of a moving bus (into the mud!). Nothing in that bus looked healthy I really thought it would just crumble to pieces at any moment. But anyway, amazingly, it got us to the bridge, where we had to unload, cross over on foot, and climb into another bus.

Except, there was no other bus! Only cars! They said: we’ll just put seven people in each car. (Apparently children, like real ten-year-old children, do not count as people!!!!) After waiting a couple hours to get organized, we were shown to our car. And so, can you believe, five vso volunteers, two Cameroonian women with their three children and all their worldly possessions (yes, that’s right folks, these people were moving and had a bed, kitchen, luggage, everything they owned with them), and then the driver of course, all fit into a two-door little Toyota for the two-hour drive to Bamenda???? Yup, you see, two of my vso colleagues in the back with the two ladies and their three children, another two in the passenger seat in the front... but wait a minute, where will I sit? With the driver? Yup! Unless I wanted to be strapped to the back or the roof with all the luggage and bed frame and dishes, I sat with the driver... who was driving a stick shift!!!! On the plus side, I think I was the most comfortable passenger!

Don’t think I’ll be travelling again anytime soon.

Before

After

Our luxury-mobile to Bamenda