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!