Cameroon car-azy

I’ve noticed that among Peace Corps and VSO blogs there has been a definite outbreak of losing it.  Here is a selection for your interest.

From Wendy:

..saw a guy that is usually really nice and cool. The first thing he asked me was also, “what do you have for me?” Now, still kind of annoyed from the guy in passing just before, I decided to talk this one out.

Starting out, I was just giving him a hard time about asking me for things, but then before you know it, I found myself in this conversation where this guy along with one other are telling me how I need to find a husband here and that women are meant to prepare food. I was all the rage and thought, “this conversation cannot actually be happening.” oh wait, it absolutely is.

I rebutted back that women do so much but are not being respected here. I work here for free and people don’t respect me, calling me names and asking me for things. The guys just kept going on about how men provide and that I need to find a good husband here. So I said, “it’s 10am, what are you doing here not working?”

Then I started asking what it is that men actually provide, and I am not joking, this is what he said, “we make babies”. SERIOUSLY? It was absolutely the most absurd conversation I’ve ever had. They make babies? The last time I check, all that is required of men in the “baby-making process” is have sex, which as far as I know, isn’t hard work for them.

And this from Emma in the Far North from a longer post entitled Bake a Cameroonian event in 20 easy steps:

8. At midday on the day of the event, receive notice from the sous-préfet that the event cannot possibly take place as high school students (most of whom are over twenty, despite what their ID cards say) should not be allowed out after 6pm, when your event is scheduled to commence.

9. Organise the event for a different day/time, return to the sous-préfet and receive a lecture on how better to do your job. Resist the urge to smack the sneering, whiny, backstabbing, hypocritical little bureaucrat in his sneering, ugly little face by staring fixedly at the photo of Paul Biya (taken at least twenty-five years ago) framed on the wall beside him.

And this from a Peace Corp volunteer on the debauchery of Youth Day:

Tonight I wonder down the row of “bars” between the meat stand where I usually buy from and the motto stand. The street is loud tonight, choked with all the kids I had seen marching in the parade this morning spilling and stumbling out of the bars clutching whisky sachets or beers that cost a day’s salary.

I usually don’t get bothered too much anymore now that more people know me (or at least ‘of’ me) but tonight I get plenty of drunken ‘oooh le blanc!” and “ooooooo bwhee!” and so fourth. Getting to the motto taxi stand I search first for a Muslim driver, then failing that I spot a driver that isn’t laughing and surrounded by friends, one sitting by himself looking lonely.

I figure that if I had to make a guess he would be the one least likely to be drunk and thus the best ride home for me. Of course as I get closer I see a half empty whisky sachets dangling out the corner of his mouth, just as he sees me and starts beseeching me to buy him another because, after all, its youth day and he’s a youth (he does look about 15)!

I figure this might be one of the only places you’ll hear people asking you to buy them alcohol to celebrate them being a kid.

Moving on the to next guy, he wants to charge me 50% more for the motto ride because it had just rained today and the road to my house always turns into a big mud whole, especially now that they had just “leveled” it.

Finally the third guy agrees to take me for the proper price (20c) so I hop on and hang on as the noise, the bustle, the deranging of downtown Batouri thankfully drops away behind me to be replaced by the peaceful croaking of frogs and chirping of insects in the swamp near my neighborhood. On the way back we pass for the “police car” of our district. I noticed that he must be sober tonight as he wasn’t driving around with his lights flashing.

The Pope arrives and it starts.

You know I really thought there might be something positive come out of the Pope’s visit to Cameroon – however already, all is lost:

Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.

“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

And with that simple statement – thousands more will die.  People will lose family members.  Millions of pounds of NGO money is wasted and years of hard work by Cameroonians and visitors alike is wasted.

I am so angry but cannot find anything to write that is not stating the obvious.  I hope these misguided words are seen for what they are and serve only to showcase the ignorance of the Vatican and further lessen the power they hold over people.

In awe of going home

I’ve booked my flight home for an Easter break in the UK.

I’ll be touching down in Newcastle airport on Good Friday morning.

And I can’t get out of my head the wonder at what is waiting for me beyond that long bus trip to Douala.

Airline food may be an international joke but that’s the first source of awe. I wonder what it will be. I wonder what the in-flight movie is. Cold drinks bought to my seat. *My* seat, not shared.

And then two or three hours stopover in Charles de Gaulle airport. I could drink coffee. A latte perhaps. There’ll no doubt be English language magazines too and international food franchises.

And then to Newcastle, my parents waiting, with their car. Imagine. A care without a smashed windscreen – driving on smooth roads with traffic lights and roundabouts and manicured grassy kerbs.

And then to their home. With soft furnishing and without dust.

And then it’s a blur. Supermarkets I can already barely comprehend. The size. The choice. The ability to buy a week’s worth of groceries in one visit and not having to worry about how to transport them or keep them fresh.

Foodwise, there’s a part of me that is still yearning for sausage but that’s my head talking. My belly is beyond it – truth is I’ve lost my appetite for food in general. Food here has been a chore and 30 pounds lost in six months tells its own story.

I can’t imagine eating the large platefuls that I used to eat. But I just want to taste this stuff again. I want to build up an appetite. I want to savour food once more.

Mostly I am in awe of the infrastructure. Amazed by the fact that the tap will always turn on and even warm water is readily available.

The lights won’t go off. The fridge won’t break down. The TV will have a clear picture.

Between a borrowed car and public transport I can go anywhere in comfort in a short space of time. I can visit places without exhaustive planning and copious amounts of patience.

Trying to imagine it all this morning, I broke into a wide grin.

And it occurred to me that even if I take nothing else from this year in Cameroon I know now to be thankful. I know not to take these luxuries for granted.

The awe is genuine and I never want to lose it.

Travel writing is easy

Because I track so many volunteer blogs in Cameroon it is easy to spot the patterns.

The most frequent one is simply the long pause.

And then the following staple post:

Sorry, I haven’t blogged in so long – I guess I just found it hard to find something to write about. My life might still seem incredible to someone just arriving here but it’s already become routine to me.

It’s true – after you’ve been here a while you have to step outside yourself just to realise how bizarre you life has become.

But I think there is another reason why people run out of words.

A lot of it is down to what I have started to call the cliché and the anti cliché.

The cliché is that Africa is poor, hungry and miserable – the anti cliché is that people here have very little but are happy and that they want for nothing and it’s those rich nations that have it wrong.

It’s actually that anti cliché that’s most widespread especially amongst short termers and new arrivals.

But, in time, you realise that neither view point is right and, as ever, nothing is as simple as it seems.  Of course the longer you stay anywhere the more you understand.

However the more you learn the more you realise how little you know.

And after a while you have a part of you invested in that country. You realise the”poor but happy” line is naive and insensitive and yet you don’t want to be overly critical of the country that is so generously hosting you.

Because in a little over six months here I haven’t met a person I didn’t like. I’ve been treated with remarkable kindness and a great deal of warmth.

And it’s hard to betray that with critical words.

That’s where the title to this blog post comes in. Travel writing, in comparison, must be easy. How straight forward it must be to roll into town and to describe all you see. A little research may add some context to your words but they needn’t be clouded by potentially contradictory words from different groups of local people.

There’s no one to upset and no one to betray.

But for the long termer, now too aware to use either the cliché or the anti cliché, it becomes harder. Knowing more than most – but not nearly enough – makes it so much more difficult to write about a place.

Even simply saying what you see without commentary can soon become repetitive.

I think we can help, can’t we?

The page you see cut and pasted above has stuck with me all day.

I first clicked on the link when @Rachie posted it on Twitter earlier with a plea for help.

I think what first moved me is the message that appears to have been written by Clive himself. But most of all it’s the “Red Devils” (spelt out in red) and those exclamation marks.

What an incredible adventure to be embarking on.  Putting aside, just for a second, the piece of equipment that he’s raising money for – his sky-diving day will stay with him forever.

But what of that equipment – £1,400 to help him walk.  Funding it in this manner would make his Red Devils day the start of something, rather than just a fabulous memory and a few minutes of unforgettable freedom.

We can help him here – can’t we?

And I know, my timing sucks – Red Nose Day on the horizon back in the UK – but it’s all to the same ends isn’t it?

Like I said – that page and its message has stuck with me all day.  Put it down to classic case of isolated volunter over-emotiveness but, well, you know.

As ever I’ll ask people to retweet it, blog it, link it etc.  But don’t *just* do that – make a small donation too if you can.  It takes two minutes. Thanks.