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Days 6-8
January 6
We traveled an hour and a half to the hilltop village of Bafou. It is a much more pleasant climate in the Western Highland province than in the more southern provinces of Cameroon.
We arrived first at Martha Nandog’s home where I sat on a bench outside and spoke with her through an interpreter named Ali. She told me that she was a nurse working in the city and living with her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family.
“We came back to the village and we were empty handed because he was a diabetic,” Martha said. “Here, to manage a diabetic patient you need a lot of money. He died in 1995, leaving no food, no money and the children dropped out of school.”
Martha found herself living a “life of borrowing,” by having to constantly ask neighbors and family for food and money. During this time, one of her children was in the hospital for two years and went through eight operations. To pay for the operations she had to lease out the land they owned.
“When I came back from the hospital, I can only thank god that Heifer came to our community,” she said. “I was one of the first people to be assisted here.”
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Day 4
February 4
In the village of Namba, near the town of Manjo, is where we visit the Association des Jeunes de Namba, or AJEN Group. Namba is in a French-speaking province, so an interpreter, Rochelle, has come along with Humphrey, Hilda and I. This stop is a little less than half way to Bamenda, where Heifer Cameroon’s headquarters is located. After we visit the group, Hilda and Rochelle will return to the Douala offices where they are hosting the Heifer Senegal group this week. Humphrey and I will continue on to the Western Highlands, where I’ll spend the next couple of days visiting projects. I am told the people from the Western Highlands are the most industrious and hard working in all of Cameroon.
The first person I visit in Namba is Walter Atoh, treasurer of the group. He has a simple wooden frame house with tin roof and dirt floors. Inside the main room of the house is a long bench, a couple of chairs, and at the back of the room is his new motorcycle and his beat-up old motorcycle.
I talk first with Emmanuel Youyep Yonko, president of the group, who stops in while we are sitting down to talk to Walter. Emmanuel tells me before getting involved with Heifer, the members of the group were doing the most rudimentary farming with only a few pigs.
Heifer’s training on the very basics of how to properly feed and care for the pigs has had a transformational effect on the pig farmer’s who have adopted the practices. The farmers in Namba used to feed the pigs only cassava yams and some grass instead of the mixture of feed they now process on their own. The group used its profits, along with a government grant, to purchase a grinding mill, which is utilized to create a surplus of feed for group members at all times and also sell to the local community for affordable prices.
From Heifer, the group members also learned to use elevated pigsties, which are better for maintaining the health of the pigs and also lessens the impact on the quality of the community’s environment.
“Before Heifer came, each of us had only one or two pigs. Now days some have up 30 pigs, 40 pigs,” Emmanuel said. “The pigs of six months old today are bigger than the pigs of two years old then. The difference is real and it’s tangible.”
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Here is what I look like in front of the Heifer Cameroon offices in Douala.
Day 3
February 3
I have now been here a little more than 50 hours and I am almost at a loss for words when trying to describe my experience so far. Today was a wonderful day spent exploring the botanical gardens near the ocean, swimming in the ocean, and relaxing on a rust-colored beach. Humphrey grew up in Limbe and said he after school he and his friends would go to the botanical garden and eat the fruit. The best part of the gardens was a natural amphitheater that is somehow hidden up a path in the middle of the gardens. When we walked up to it, two men we’re sitting in a wooden structure at the far end singing hymns.
Later, on the way back from the beach, we stop and buy some freshly cut sugar cane from the side of the road. Unpeeled, its tough to eat, at least for me. Hilda told me how little children will slip into someone’s patch of sugar cane and tie a string around several stalks of sugar cane. Then they’ll sneak back out and take off running while pulling hard on the string, bringing fresh sugar cane with it. That little story sticks with me all day.
The Limbe river borders one side of the botanical garden.
The natural ampitheater was used for wrestling and plays, and later for religious ceremonies
I wanted to go in the church and take a whole card of photos,
but instead I settled for just one outside the door.
(Later that day)
I just finished a late dinner of grilled fish and chips at the Royal Palace Hotel’s restaurant. After we arrived back in Douala, I got high hopes that the Super Bowl will be broadcast on one of the 30 or so channels that show sports (soccer). I took an early evening nap so I’ll be good to go if the post-midnight broadcast happens.
(Writer’s note: Just after midnight I find a French telecast of the game that’s amusing and impassioned.)
Patriots just went for it on 4th and 13 just outside the red zone in the third quarter, leading 7-3. Could be the turning point. It’s almost 3 a.m. here in Cameroon and I am having a one-man Super Bowl party.
Tom Brady just got waylaid in the end zone and the French announcer exclaimed: “Ooohhh la la la la la!”
Priceless.
Tomorrow we travel six hours to the Western Highlands province to Heifer Cameroon’s headquarters in Bamenda. On the way we will stop in Manjo to visit a group.
–Jeremy Glover
Cameroon: Days 1-2
January 31 or February 1
Currently, I am just off the eastern seaboard, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, unsure of the exact date and time after a brief nap. I’m guessing the date is the still the former, as the eight-hour flight departed just a few hours ago.
So this is it: A trip into the unknown. This is the very thing that so piqued my interest last spring when I applied for this job. I am to spend the next seven days in Cameroon with my tape recorder, digital camera, video camera, journal and notebook, where I’ll be collecting stories, thoughts and impressions for my employer, Heifer Foundation.I couldn’t be more pleased. But what awaits? That’s always the best story of all.
Exposure to a people and a way of life that is completely removed from all I’ve known. I’ve been told I won’t come back the same, and I believe it. I feel a little like I did as an impressionable 20-year-old spending the summer studying in Europe. Life is certainly for the living.
After 22 hours of traveling, I arrived in a foggy state of mind. Upon landing, I was immediately struck by how Douala International Airport looked like a bombed-out war relic that has since been reclaimed and was barely functioning. It had a stained, dingy appearance, with no air conditioning on the inside and a long stretch of pointless walkways leading to a police and customs, which was the calm before the madness, at least in my jet-lagged state. Dripping with sweat, I staggered about reading unfamiliar names off of signs people were holding. The baggage claim was a barrage of people with signs and aggressive drivers who would almost force you to ride with them to the city. I fended off one before forcing my way outside to find the friendliest people I had seen thus far waiting for me behind a barricade, which may or may not have been put up to keep back the raucous parade of youth who were banging drums and bells and waving signs that said “Welcome Prince!” – a Cameroonian pop star who was on the same plane as me. The carnival atmosphere was a surreal first impression to say the least. But my welcoming party of Dr. Humphrey Taboh, assistant director of Heifer Cameroon; Hilda Mbungai, zonal manager for the Humid Rainforest Program Zone; and Dominic, our driver, was warm and pleasant and they had a large bottle of cold water for me.
Today was supposed to be the start of my daily journal from Cameroon (not in real time as we initially planned, as the amount of time I spent in the field made that impossible). Over this past weekend, I received an e-mail message that stated: “There was a serious strike in Cameroon, which grounded all businesses and a lot of destruction (human and material) and our offices were temporarily closed down.”
As with many African nations, democracy and democratic reforms are tenuous at best in Cameroon. Many of the Cameroonians I spoke with while I was there felt the current government took illegal measures to maintain its hold on power.
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