Spills and Skills

I’ve been very busy lately preparing a course I’m delivering on the managing of change. The usual stuff: PowerPoint presentation, flipcharts and handouts. I’ve tried to allow space for participants to interpret my pearls of wisdom in their own context.

You’ll remember that I’ve mentioned the issue of waste disposal before. The local council has reacted to criticism of its waste disposal policy by putting up signs on either side of the stream into which market traders routinely push all their unwanted material (maize husks, plantain peel, and rotten oranges. In the photo you can see the consequence of the brand new signs. In my presence people carry on using the stream for disposing of their rubbish.

I’ve met some impressive people since I’ve been in Cameroon. The long-term volunteers show a quiet determination to make things happen. I am particularly impressed by the commitment of the VSO volunteers located far from Bamenda. In the past week I’ve also met Penny Fraser, Director of the United Africa Association, with a strong interest in conservation work, and a clear lover of Cameroon and its people.

I remain amazed at skills demonstrated by local craftsmen. Here I don’t mean the manufacturers of wooden masks for tourists, but local furniture producers, who work in the open air, turning out wooden and even cane furniture. The photo shows the cane worker.

The first picture shows a craftsman - wearing a top with a Dutch company name - and the second shows his raw material. The third shows a rubbish sign, with rubbish on it!

Mankon and Mount Carmel

I've had my hair cut at a ‘Barbing Salon’ – I suppose that barbing is what a barber does.

I’m determined to see a little of the country while I am here. Yesterday I travelled out to the palace at Mankon. A sort of nation-state, Mankon has a clearly defined territory, a population (of various origins) organized into clans and political lineages, perfectly defined institutions and once had a military force directed by a sacred sovereign, the fon (chief, king).

I and a Dutch lady were shown around by Vincent, a son of the Fon. Vincent is a teacher of French, but also acts as curator of the museum. The museum was built and arranged by an Italian organisation, but no one is updating it now, or working on preserving exhibits. It’s that issue of sustainability again.

Back to Mount Carmel Baptist Church again today. I got a really warm welcome - as if I'm a regular! Again, the singing was absolutely delightful. The church is in the shadow of a mosque which is beginning to dominate Old Town.

The images here are, from the top:

1. Mosque going up above the Old Town, Bamenda

2. Barbing salon

3. Mankon

4. Wearing an ingenious contraption to keep the sun off while leaving the hands free

The Word in Pidgin

Pidgin English is no longer a makeshift language it once was, and has grown to maturity, as a language can, and satisfies the complex linguistic needs of the many people here who need a common tongue. To my surprise I came across the New Testament in Cameroonian pidgin this morning. It is entitled: Gud Nyus Fo ol Pipul (I think you’ll be able to work this out!), and this edition was published in Yaounde, in 2005.

Whilst there is a clear resemblance to English, the structure of the language is definitely African. The first verse of St John’s Gospel reads:

“Fo fest fest tam, yi weh na de Tok e bin dei: de Tok e bin bi witi God, an de Tok e bin bi na God.”

It’s clear that Tok comes from the English talk and that fest is first and tam is from time, but the structure is un-English. I'm starting to understand it, but it's not easy.

The pictures here are of:

1. The New Testament in pidgin. The banana is of no significance!

2. and 3. Roadsigns!

Visit to Babessi

Yesterday (Wednesday) I went with my trusty girl Friday (Desiree) on a long trip to the council in Babessi, some 75 kilometres away. The road was a difficult one. It took three taxis and 3½ hours to get there from Bamenda. I’ve written before about the unique public transport system here. Two of the three taxis had broken windscreens and needed to be bump-started. The Cameroonians take all of this in their stride. Indeed, it could be argued that taxis of this type offer a solution to complex journeys at limited cost. The last part of the journey is on bumpy, unasphalted road, and the car windows have to be kept shut because of the choking red dust.

The Mayor of Babessi wants me to find some second-hand road-making equipment. They need a grader and a front loader. They’re willing to pay shipping costs and could collect from the port of Douala. Ideas, anyone?

I’ve tried to avoid too much detail about what I’m doing here, because I know that some people’s eyes glaze over when I talk about SWOT analysis or STEP. I know, I know, but these are useful tools in analysing where an organisation stands. This journey was the last of my information gathering visits linked to the management of change. I’m now trying to put together a report which will inform (I know, jargon again) the training course due to take place on 3rd February.

The journey was through some beautiful mountainous countryside. It’s volcanic rock, I think, although Graham Potts may know better. There are resemblances here to Snowdonia. There is almost no tourist industry here. I’m sure people would pay to visit these beautiful mountains to look at the wildlife – I saw some large birds of prey yesterday.

The pictures here are of the countryside between Ndop and Babessi.

Cooking and cooking the books

The cuisine of Cameroon is one of the most varied in Africa due to its location on the crossroads between the north, west, and centre of the continent; added to this is the profound influence of French food, a legacy of the colonial era. The national dish of Cameroon is ndolé, a stew consisting of bitter leaves, nuts and fish or goat meat. I’ve eaten it in Bamenda and Douala, and its consistency and content seems to vary.

Staple foods here include cassava, yam, rice, plantain, potato, maize, beans, and millet. The French introduced French bread which is seen less in this Anglophone area than in the francophone parts.

The soil of most of the country is very fertile and a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, both domestic and imported species, are grown. Common vegetables include tomatoes, bitterleaf (aptly named) and cassava leaves. Today (Wednesday) I saw some rice fields and a tea plantation on the road to Befussi.

It is no secret that there is corruption in Cameroon. Someone here called it “a monstrous slimy hydra” – what a good phrase! Only yesterday I was given a specific example of the misappropriation of funds – an example which it would be unwise to detail here. These comments should not lead to the conclusion that everyone is doing it. The question "Why can’t the Cameroonian people do anything about it?" contains the answer to the puzzle: because there is no such thing as "the Cameroonian people", only a wide array of disparate peoples who happen to live within common borders. Civil society is very weak here. All those pressure groups (like PTAs, single-issue campaign groups, trades unions ,which keep an eye on government activity) are weak here.

We've had some heavy tropical rain - warm rain - which has kept down some of the dust.

Signs and wonders

I sat with a group of Cameroonians yesterday to watch the inauguration of President Obama. There is tremendous enthusiasm for the man here and hope for the future. I hope that they are not disappointed.

It seems to me that Africa gets a lot of Europe’s rubbish. Most of the taxis I have ridden in so far have been imported from Europe, mostly from Germany and Holland, when they are no longer good enough for use on the roads of those countries. Cars which can no longer be used on the roads of Europe because they do not meet environmental demands are clearly good enough for Africa.

I looked at a stall of electrical products today. These too are all old fridges and other electrical goods which have been shipped over by the container load. One has to wonder how environmentally friendly these fridges are, and whether the electric kettles are safe to use.
Another aspect of this concerns men’s clothing. You see lots of younger men here wearing t-shirts bearing logos and wording which do not relate to this part of the world. Many have texts on them in German or Dutch advertising schools or garages in small towns. I even saw the name of the electrical company Philips printed with the first “i” missing!

I have also been looking a lot lately at the signs by the roadside. They reveal a different sort of English from that spoken in the U.K. The two signs here are on the road which I walk down every day from my workplace into the town centre. The third shows a mechanic's shop near Douala. Note the spelling.

A quick word of thanks to those who have sent emails and made comments. Thank you! Dioch! Dankon!

Signs and wonders

I sat with a group of Cameroonians yesterday to watch the inauguration of President Obama. There is tremendous enthusiasm for the man here and hope for the future. I hope that they are not disappointed.

It seems to me that Africa gets a lot of Europe’s rubbish. Most of the taxis I have ridden in so far have been imported from Europe, mostly from Germany and Holland, when they are no longer good enough for use on the roads of those countries. Cars which can no longer be used on the roads of Europe because they do not meet environmental demands are clearly good enough for Africa.

I looked at a stall of electrical products today. These too are all old fridges and other electrical goods which have been shipped over by the container load. One has to wonder how environmentally friendly these fridges are, and whether the electric kettles are safe to use.
Another aspect of this concerns men’s clothing. You see lots of younger men here wearing t-shirts bearing logos and wording which do not relate to this part of the world. Many have texts on them in German or Dutch advertising schools or garages in small towns. I even saw the name of the electrical company Philips printed with the first “i” missing!

I have also been looking a lot lately at the signs by the roadside. They reveal a different sort of English from that spoken in the U.K.

Visit to Douala by the sea

Over the weekend I went to stay with Victor Nto Nto and his wife Ndome Julette Ebongue in the port city of Douala. It was a long journey, with Vatican Express, a curiously misnamed company in more than one way. The route is through beautiful country, the road being fine in some places and very poor in others.

Victor and Julette live in very modest circumstances, but they shared with me what little they have. It was a privilege to share their lives, albeit briefly. They have very few possessions, no computer, no car, no hot water for washing themselves and no luxuries except a black-and-white television. Victor earns the tiny salary of a schoolteacher, and Julette is unemployed, in a society where there is no social security system. Ah, the next time I hear teachers in Wales complain about anything, I’ll get very cross. I made a brief visit to the school where Victor teaches. The classrooms have no windows and a bare uneven clay floor. The pupils sit on long wooden benches. The only audio-visual method is chalk and talk.

I was able to hear some fine live music in Douala. I’m collecting languages like mad, and at one cabaret the songs were sung in Douala and Erewondo.

Worrying that I might fall prey to sundry ne’er-do-wells, Victor put me in the care of a soldier riding shotgun on the return journey, in the way that you might put a small child in the care of a guard on a train. This soldier took his duties very seriously shadowing me and enquiring how I was from time to time. He felt his country’s reputation was at stake. This big man even bought me a beer. On this very long weary 7½ hour trip from Duala to Bamenda, at a refuelling stop, I ate grilled goat’s meat, served in a piece of old newspaper. Very tasty, until I went round to the back of the stall, where the goat’s head and feet were laid. The head seemed to reproach me.

Today I went to meet the mayor of the nearby town of Santa. That reminds me of some other strange place names. On the road between Yaoundé and Bamenda is a village called Tonga. There’s also a place called Bali. And don’t mention Menchum.

The pictures here (from the top) are of:

1. My bodyguard on the bus. You wouldn't argue with him!

2. Victor's sister washing clothes in cold water in their courtyard. Her smile says it all.

3. View of Victor's school and a classroom

4. Lizard in Douala

5. Boatmen ferrying dredged sand on the river at Douala

On the road

My thoughts today have turned to the sustainability of sustainable development. I recently visited a lively development organisation in Bamenda. They had provided a lot of services to their members, including the services of a fieldworker. They published three glossy magazines in 2007, funded and bearing the logo of a funder, but none at all in 2008, when that funding ceased. In other words, activity funded by development money cannot always be maintained when the funding source is no longer there.

Today (Thursday) I went to visit a local organisation in Belo, a small market town some distance (about 30 miles) from Bamenda. This organisation trains and supports beekeepers, among other things, and the area is renowned for producing the best honey in Cameroon. The landscape around Belo reminded me of north Wales, except for the tall papaya trees!

On the way there we (Desiree and I) took a local taxi to a field on the edge of Bamenda which served as a sort of bus station for taxis. Then a crowded taxi (with eight people on board)drove along the winding highway to Belo. On the way back I think we made a world record, I think: ten people aboard a family-sized car. There were four adults in the back (me and three Cameroonian ladies), one small child and a baby, then three men sat squashed in the front passenger seat with the driver. The boot was full to bursting with farm produce including a real-life squawking chicken-in-the-basket!

The pictures above show, from top to bottom:

• A market stall in Belo
• The importance of the little town in the hills - note the satellite dish
• The Obama snackbar in Bamenda, renamed recently for some reason
• HQ of development bodies in the town

On the road

My thoughts today have turned to the sustainability of sustainable development. I recently visited a lively development organisation in Bamenda. They had provided a lot of services to their members, including the services of a fieldworker. They published three glossy magazines in 2007, funded and bearing the logo of a funder, but none at all in 2008, when that funding ceased. In other words, activity funded by development money cannot always be maintained when the funding source is no longer there.

Today (Thursday) I went to visit a local organisation in Belo, a small market town some distance (about 30 miles) from Bamenda. This organisation trains and supports beekeepers, among other things, and the area is renowned for producing the best honey in Cameroon. The landscape around Belo reminded me of north Wales, except for the tall papaya trees!

On the way there we (Desiree and I) took a local taxi to a field on the edge of Bamenda which served as a sort of bus station for taxis. Then a crowded taxi (with eight people on board)drove along the winding highway to Belo. On the way back I think we made a world record, I think: ten people aboard a family-sized car. There were four adults in the back (me and three Cameroonian ladies), one small child and a baby, then three men sat squashed in the front passenger seat with the driver. The boot was full to bursting with farm produce including a real-life squawking chicken-in-the-basket!

Pictures again

All sorts of things

People here certainly work hard, from early morning until nightfall and beyond. Mary, the very competent gardener here at the Baptist Centre uses her evening to sew, by hand beautiful tradional wear, and she has kindly let me wear one.

A new chief in Bamenda!

I’ve come across another language, and bought a diary in it. It’s called Moghamo (or Muywi, Iyirikum, Widekum, Batibo). A number of the languages here have more than one name, to complicate things for anyone interested.

Just a little more about pidgin: When I was asked what I will write as “How for skin?” I thought they were asking about my mosquito bites (increasing in number thank you!). In fact “How for skin” (no jokes, Dafydd Mazda or Lloyd!) means “How are you?” The correct answer, by the way is “Skin de fine”.

The mosquitoes have sent around the drum message that tasty white meat is available, so my skin's far from fine. I’ve been bitten quite a few times – I won’t say where! It might help if I close the windows at night.

This morning I visited three development organisations all around Bamenda. They all have flat structures, and work hard at encouraging local organisations to work in partnership for the common good. The issue of good governance has arisen again. This society has some internal splits, such as tribal loyalties to overcome.

Pictures, and more pictures

It has occurred to me that my regular readers won't want to read about strategies and plans, and overcoming resistance to change, so I thought I would send a few pictures instead. From top to bottom you can see:

• The son of the Fon of Bafut with a stone used in tribal ceremonies, but I think it's a recycled megalith
• Me outside a ceremonial building at the Fon's palace
• Smoke from rubbish fires rising above Bamenda
• Desiree outside the headquarters of development body NWADO. Desiree has accompanied me on my visits. She laughs and thinks I'm joking when I say that Desiree is a type of potato in Britain
• Dancing and singing in the Baptist church, with naive image behind

Church and other topics

You wake up some mornings here to the smell of smoke from burning rubbish. Sadly the waste disposal system is not advanced here. Rubbish often lies where it is dropped, before being gathered into piles and burned. On the other hand, the Cameroonians are good at some practical recycling. Plastic bottles and containers which have served to carry palm oil for example are used to carry water. Tyres serve a number of purposes , e.g. as the bottom part of sandals.
I still can’t get used to bartering or haggling over the price of everything, and I’m actively looking for items with prices on them.

There’s a strong woodworking tradition here. I’ve bought a piece of craftwork made from a hard red wood. The carver has produced a chain out of one piece of wood. It's strange to see coffins being manufactured uin the open air!

This morning I went with Rose to Mount Carmel Baptist Church in the Old Town. It was quite an experience. The service lasted from 8.3o a.m. to 11.30 a.m. The service didn’t have a clear beginning, and people kept arriving until the place was completely full - not a single seat left. Outside the Sunday school children met in two groups (one is shown here), while the adults had their Sunday school inside the church. Mount Carmel Baptist Church sits under the shadow of a huge mosque under construction. It is a one-story building with some naive art on the front wall.

The service was a seamless and joyous mix of prayers, hymns with a leader introducing the words and tune, then the congregation joining in. The two choirs, one using English on the front right, and one which sang in languages other than English, such as Oku, on the front left. Two or three drums were used at various times. There was no organ, but the singing was superb. I'm told that they learn to sing using the sol-fa method.

Just a few comments for fans of ecclesiology: there were practices which seemed a bit Anglican, such as the choirs processing in, singing, and the “passing the peace” (shaking hands with everyone within reach), while the spontaneous nature of the singing seemed a bit Pentecostal to me. For the hymns they used a hymnbook of Ida Sankey. What struck me was how much the congregation formed a family or a close community. A member who needed a blood transfusion was given blood donated by four church members, for example. A curious thing happened at the end of the service. Some worshippers were too poor to have any collection money, but they had brought things from their garden or store cupboard, three prickly pears and a bag of maize, for example, then these things were auctioned to raise real money for the church.

I went to visit Rose's home (pictured) - a one-roomed house, with a curtain dividing the room. She has the minimum of possessions and no running water in the house, but is contented, even cheerful. She also took me to meet her parents and her blind grandmother.

The Welsh Dragon in Bamenda / Y Ddraig Goch ym Mamenda

Organising a training day here means that you have to think of things that we don’t have to consider much at home. We have had to budget to contribute to the travel costs of participants, i.e. to pay for the famous yellow taxis. Paper is expensive here, so there needs to be a budget for agendas, worksheets and so on. The cost of flipchart paper is astronomical. All this certainly concentrates the mind. We are so wasteful of materials in Britain.

The North West Association of Development Organisations is a tiny organisation which brings together and co-ordinates the work of a number of small bodies involved in the development of the North West province of Cameroon. It is run on a shoestring, and uses the service of students on placement as well as volunteers. Attached is a picture of its coordinator Eric Ngang. I presented Eric with a Welsh dragon flag (thanks, Elinor) as you can see in this photo. It will have its place on the wall of the new training room.

I’ve been finding out a little about the indigenous languages here. Most people here are at least bilingual. Some speak their mother tongue such as Yamba, then the pidgin (pidgin English, which has its own structure and is not just a funny form of English), standard English, and French. Although this is bilingual country, not everyone speaks both English and French. Levels of literacy in the indigenous languages are very low. Indeed, some speakers questioned the need to have written materials in languages spoken by a small number of villages. The Bible exists in a number of languages including Bafut. I’ve managed to get hold of a 2009 diary with days of the week in the Yamba language. Attitudes to the languages by their speakers vary, with some people calling them a ‘dialect’ or ‘a patois’.

Today I went out using taxis, of course, to see the palace of the local ruler, the Fon. The Fon of Bafut is the fon (traditional ruler) of the town of Bafut and its adjoining areas in Cameroon which comprise the erstwhile Fondom of Bafut. Presently, the Fon of Bafut is still a local ruler, but under jurisdiction from the Government of Cameroon, and a board of Fons. He retains a local court of justice too. The Fon of Bafut was, and to some extent still is, the "supreme fon" of the region, who presides over neighbouring fons.

The original palace was built out of wood and liana. The complex and the central shrine were burnt to the ground by the Germans in the Bafut Wars, but it was rebuilt over the period 1907 - 1910 with help from the German colonists after the signing of a peace treaty. Its buildings represent both colonial influences and indigenous vernacular architectural styles, and are mostly made of fired bricks covered by tiles.

Only one building from the original palace stands - it is supposed to shelter the spirit of the Fon's ancestors. It is the Achum - the old palace, and has a striking architecture with its pyramidal thatched roof. Only the Fon and some village notables are allowed entry into the Achum.
It’s nearly 8pm on a Saturday evening and there has been yet another power cut. Fortunately for me my laptop screen continues to light up the darkness, although it begins to attract all the flying bugs and moths from miles around. The laptop screen provides just enough light to enable me to locate my handy wind-up torch.

Life in Bamenda

As the plane lands in Douala and in Yaoundé, you can look down at an apparently random series of lights. The same is true when you come over the hills towards Bamenda. These pattern-free lights are not there when you land in Manchester, Liverpool or Heathrow. Nor are they when you travel along the A55. We have long strings of lights, which enable you to pick out the roads and streets. There is no street lighting here in Cameroon, so that the random sprinkling of lights reveals no pattern at all. When there is a power cut, as happened yesterday and tonight, everything becomes pitch black – the only lights coming from car headlights. It was in such a minute of blackness that I fell last night, grazing my arm, tearing the sleeve of my Van Heusen, and staining shirt and trousers with the red sand and gravel so prevalent here. I’m none the worst after applying a plaster, but the red stains won’t wash out!

The work is becoming ever clearer. I’m grateful to Canadian volunteer Paul Mercer for his insights. You’ll find him on one of the pictures. I’m hoping to attach pictures of Rose, who looks after the Baptist accommodation, and some of the place where I’m working. The building is a bit spartan from a U.K. perspective, but it does have some modern equipment.

I’ve had more experience of the yellow taxis. I’ve sat in two with holes in the floor and two with broken windscreens. On the way home tonight I had to share the front passenger seat with a young Cameroonian woman. She didn’t complain, and nor did I!

Work starts!

The road from Yaoundé to Bamenda in the north-west is a long one, with five police or army checks on the way. Along the way Ibrahim and I dined on grilled fish and grilled plantain served at a roadside stall - see photos. I saw a tree containing the nests of the weaver bird - you'll have to believe that that's what's in the picture.

Today I have agreed my detailed plan of work with the Northwest Association of Development Organisations (NWADO), with whom VSO has strong links here. so I now have some idea how to move forward. We’ve agreed dates for training sessions, but I need to speak to a lot of people before putting the courses together.

Then I went to visit the commercial part of this sprawling town with Kharsum, a brave volunteer from the Philippines. I thought it would be good to go on foot so I could make some kind of mental map. Big mistake, I was really sweating in the persistent heat, and the red dust arose from the road as we walked along. The persistent hooting of the taxis mingled with shouts of children and roadside sellers. Eventually we were forced to take one of the rickety yellow taxis (200 Central African francs per journey within the town) which serve as public transport here.

Things that we consider standard are not so here. For example, there are no post boxes at all here and no delivery by the postal services to private homes. The water has to be filtered before being drunk.

I am impressed by the enterprise and inventiveness of people here. There’s a furniture workshop near here specialising in producing very impressive domestic furniture from wood no longer needed for other purposes

I hope to add to this blog some photos from the last couple of days, and showing where I’m living now. Let’s see if I can manage it!