Week 3: In which I travel to the North and contract the flying green death

Week 3

Catching some shade at the train station

Friday was spent in transit to the north, through Bafousam, one of the largest cities in Cameroon and future work site of ground coordinator Nathan Spence, to Yaounde, the national capital. From Yaounde it was naught but a twelve hour train ride through the night to N’goundal. N’goundal is the small village where Sara, the previous BG ground coordinator worked with one her students to build a bilingual nursery school. We arrived, crashed for a few hours and headed to the school for the reception ceremony. The mayor and prefect and chief were all there with a number of other notables. Several speeches and a number of adorable performances by the ~5 year old students found us feasting and schmoozing comme standard operating procedure.

The new school and opening ceremony with local notables

The students themselves

After all the ceremony I wound up cruising the main drag in N’goundal where I managed to capture myself one of those genuine Cameroonian experiences that can be hard to find as a tourists. Sitting at a bar I was invited to join a few locals who promptly bought me a drink as their guest. So of course I bought a round for everyone, and soon we found ourselves debating the merits of globalization and foreign development in broken French.

It is through this conversation in combination with a couple other remarks garnered throughout my stay that I’m coming to appreciate the Cameroonian sense of a market economy. In what is perhaps a more socialist bent the Cameroonian concept of price is somewhat removed from our American dogma of supply and demand, rather reflecting a combination of intrinsic product value and that which an individual can afford. While foreigners are subjected to this idea on a regular basis in the shops, this was the first time I had the concept articulated to me by a Cameroonian. Though on paper the concept of paying in part according to one's means seems fair and even charitable, I find myself amused with the extent to which I instinctively rebel against this rather un-American concept, adamantly persisting in the belief that there is only one “true” price for a given product, and damn it all if I’m going to pay more than that.

N’goundal is a bit of a one horse town, but Sunday we took off for N’goundere, the seat of the Adamoua province. Sara has been teaching a women’s entrepreneurial class from which she selects worthy initiatives for funding through Breaking Ground. Throughout our stay we met her success stories, including a chicken farmer, a fish seller, a seamstress, a fried pastry vendor, a homemade juice vendor and a part-time farmer.

My idyllic stay in N’gaoundere was interrupted by a 36 hour stint at death's door, courtesy of a vicious bacterial infestation, but aside from incessant reruns of my life flashing before my eyes and a desperate viewing of a bootleg copy of I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, there wasn’t too much of note going down. Tuesday saw me revisiting the land of the living to the extent that I went fabric shopping with the Clarkes and ordered myself some killer Muslim-style outfits.

Me sporting one of my new bubu

Wednesday we picked up our outfits and checked out some local craftsman before undertaking the 24 hour journey to Limbe. In Limbe we spent three wonderful nights, visiting an animal sanctuary, lounging on the beach and visiting with the Ab’eles before bidding adieu to Mama and Papa Clarke.

Sweet stache on this guy

The Abelles and limbe part II