So Long Mary Ann: Dschang (warning: it’s a long artricle, but you have a week to read it!)

Again, I apologize for not updating this blog very often. You’ll have to get used to it, having access to the internet here is as difficult as having access to drinkable water (i.e. almost impossible…).

So, as I wrote in the previous article about Yaoundé (that I just completed as well), I am know in Dschang, little town located in the West of the country, where I will stay the majority of my 6 months.

A brief description of the location and history of Dschang before my own feedback.

Built by the German army in 1903 on the mountains of the West, Dschang has been property of England and France before becoming independent in 1960 with the entire country.

Former capital of the West province which is now Bafoussam, Dschang became the main town of the Menoua, one of the 8 departments of the West province. It has now about 80 000 inhabitants in the urban population core (close to 200 000 with the rural communities). Due to its elevated location (more than 1000 m of altitude), the climate is very different than Douala (tropical humid and very hot) and even Yaoundé, with temperatures between 15 and 25 °C most of the time. As a result, you can find most of the fruits and vegetables that you can find in Europe and the US (lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, avocados, lemons, apples…).

Cameroon and its 10 provinces and Dschang in the West (yellow circle):

View of Dschang from the hills (primary school on the foreground)

It is also probably because of this nice climate that you can find more “white” people as well! (like in the WWII, when the French people came here to find some rest from the german occupation…).

Most of the people here are Bamiléké, the main ethnic group of the West that has a strong economic and entreprenarial influence in the entire country.
http://www.bamileke.org/
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamil%C3%A9k%C3%A9s
http://www.ritesbamileke.com/

Dschang is also known as a historical and cultural town, thanks to its numerous chefferies and related arts. But I think that its main touristy attractivity comes from the fact that the town is in decentralized cooperation with the french city Nantes, which helps a lot for its development (Dschang is probably the only cameroonian town having a touristy map!).

This was for the description. You can find more here: http://www.dschang-online.com/cameroun.html

As for me, here is some words about my arrival, settlement and first steps in my new town.

I left Yaoundé at 5am on Thursday 5^th with my advisor, his wife, his driver and 2 students from ENSP (engineering school of Yaoundé). After 5 hours of bumpy road, we arrived at Teclair Hotel in Dschang, where they all stayed. There I met a group of 6 students from Montreal with their teacher, working on a urbanism project about the markets, for 2 weeks.

We all went visiting the new municipal dump site, just finished in December and realized in partnership between the municipality of Dschang and Nantes (which payed for it). It is the location where we could start a centralized site for composting, in other words my project, but I will get back to this later.

I also met the mayor who showed me where I would live for the next 6 months. To be safe, he decided that I would stay in an appartment on his land, just opposite his own house.

My “studio”, as they told me at the beginning:

the view from the living room:

You noticed it, it’s huge! (we stayed at 3 in a place half smaller than that!)

He brought some dishes and a gas stove, and promised me the TV right away. When I said that I usually don’t watch it, he was surprised, as everyone else, and asked me how I would occupy my evenings. I have books I reply (I will see later that it’s very hard to find books here and nobody read anyways…).

This was for the first day. I also had my first malaise, probably due to a mix between no sleep, no food, bad water, change of climate, periods, treatment against malaria, etc., but something normal when you arrive in such a different country.

Now I am going to be more succinct and give a summary of my main discoveries in the first week. I chose to talk about them by theme rather than chronological order, it makes more sense to me.

Work

Yes, the first thing that I will talk about is work. Why? Because I was very surprised how well I was welcomed, and introduced to the team.

First: the man I call my advisor, who is teacher at the Polytechnical School of Yaoundé and work for a local NGO in the fields of water and sanitation.

As he won’t be able to come to Dschang very often, I am going to work more closely with the Mayor and the Municipality in general (I have my office there now). Thus, I have been introduced to each person whose work is realated to sanitation in Dschang.

Then I also met teachers from the University of Dchang, resposibles of enterprises and NGOs, and French volonteers.

My first days have been full of meetings and visits, so that I now exactly what I have to do now (and reason why I didn’t even find the time to go to an internet café and say that I was alive…). The only thing that scares me: during the last meeting with all the actors of the waste project (and I was surprised how many they are!), everyone was looking at me each time the subject was about the follow up of the project. In fact, most of them have other jobs, projects, or don’t stay here long enough, whereas I am here just for it. Imagine the pressure! (especially when you are the youngest and the only woman of the group…)

Poverty and Money

I won’t surprise you if I say that the main issue here is money… when you’re white people look at you all the time, most of them thinking that they you will be able to give them some. But life seems easier here than in Yaoundé, where kids grab you and don’t leave you till you give them a coin. Here most of the population is student, the other part is merchant, so they all say Hi, either just to be nice or to make you buy something, usually more than the price it should be… but that’s the rule!
Some don't hesitate to loot the stores when an arson occurs during the night (this is some days after, when they rebuild the restaurant that burnt)

One thing that bothers me: the municipality always says that they don’t have enough money to deal with their sanitation tasks and pay more employees (they can’t be paid more than 30 000 FCFA/mth~50€). They need to borrow and get helps from NGOs and cooperation from other countries. But it comes to welcome foreigners, where do they find the money to offer us such a good dinner, with wine and champagne, served by waiters??? (this was at the mayor’s house with the canadian group from the Montreal urbanism school and the 2 French guys from the french company).

When this money could be used for people who REALLY need it… (but you’ll tell me: it’s the same everywhere…)

Water and electricity

Another big and main issue. Of course there is no drinkable water, and having water at home is already a luxury… For example in my case, I have water only between 4 and 6 pm, because I leave on the hills and in a rural area, which is the end of the water distribution system. If too many people use it (morning and evening), then the pressure is not strong enough to come here. Because I ‘m rarely at home at these hours, I need to make reserves in a bucket or ask someone to do so for me. As for warm water, forget it… Maybe if I get my stove soon I will be able to warm the water, but to be honest it’s absolutely not necessery, I got used to wash my hair with cold water!

Electricity is the same problem: how many times did I have to use my head light because of power cuts?

An example here, when I had no water and no electricity… (and no cellphone connexion either, so I went to bed, best thing to do in these case… I can say that I sleep more than in Berkeley or Lyon!)

not very confident when it comes to sleep with this kind of things walking around you... (ok this one was not in Dschang but in my hotel in Yaoundé, but the probability is the same...)

Waste

Despite the fact that when you ask people, waste are not the main issue in their life (maybe 4^th behind water and others), it is definitely shocking to see that many trash in the street everywhere you go (I haven’t seen any garbage bin so far…). I won’t write a lot about it, I think that pictures say more…
How it works so far? People leave there trash in the street, in the river or illegal dump sites…

since december, a truck is supposed to take the waste and carry it to the new dump site, but as you can see, it’s far from being efficient (especially when you think that the dump site is 3km from downtown on the hills and that this truck has to drive on a bumpy road that is probably unusable during the rainy season… and that the truck doesn’t have a door at the back of the trunk…).

As you can see, if I want to solve the problem, it’s not 6 months that I should stay, but 6 years! (at least…).

After this, I think I will be much more ecologist than ever: bying local and without wrapping (when I can, because even here most of the products are imported, as shown on the picture with the sign “Leader Price”), making compost myself, use less water and electricity (this will be easy!).

I started with the bad things and you must wonder how I can live there…
Now I’m gonna show the good ones and you will understand why you should come as well!

Markets

As you can guess, markets are THE place to go for shopping, and the rhythm of the african life.
They are 3 in Dschang (A, B, C) and one big once a week.
It’s a real pleasure to walk in, look at the colorful items and smell the diverse products (wood, spices, soap…).

Here you can have a meal for 100 FCFA (~1FF~0.15€) by buying fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and pastries J

(a funny thing: when I walk in the market, almost everyone talks to me in english and thinks that I’m american! Did I take the features after more than a year in the US???)

Nature and Wilderness

On saturday, because the canadian and french people are here for a very short time, they wanted to do some tourism. We decided to go all together to the waterwalls Ekom Nkam, probably the biggest in the country (80 meters high), only 1:30 driving from Dschang!

on the "road"...

Even if we saw lots of people walking with products on their heads, i didn't take many pictures to avoid bothering them... we did this 10km of bumpy trail driving, but they do it walking with heavy loads of bananas, water, etc.
From the few houses we swa, kids came running after the car and screaming! "cadeau! cadeau" ("gift! gift!"). I bet this is the only thing they can say in this touristy place. If only they said "hello" before...

The waterfalls of Ekom Nkam are a sacred place that you can enter only without looking at them (walking trough the door backwards) and respecting the ritual in the front of the god (tradition or tourism? I let you make your own mind…)
http://site.voila.fr/cameroon_pics/voyager/ouest_16.html

And also where has been shot the movie TARZAN by Greystoke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greystoke_-_The_Legend_of_Tarzan,_Lord_of_the_Apes

During the tour, you can see the waterfalls from 3 different location: opposite to it, at its bottom and on its top! No need to say more… enjoy!

slippery for climbing down...

slippery for climbing up!
As you can see, no fence, and according to the guide, a lot of accidents already… (no I didn’t try to dive from there! ;-)

flowers...

and wildlife:

some prefered the motorcycle, much easier to drive on the muddy road (especiall when it starts raining, the case for us on the way back!)

Since everybody is tired from climbing up and down (and sick for being in the open trunk under the rain...), we take a break in the closest town: Melong

beer and banana: the base of cameroonian food!

business among kids (and look at the "carpet" of bottle's caps. talking about waste...)

usual fact: the truck breaks down... no worries, we can always fix it on the side of the road. and it gives us time to shop in the market!

Culture

I am going to start with an event that became even more famous here thant the national independence day (may 20^th): the Internationa Women Day (March 8^th everywhere).
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

According to the guys I talked to here (only guys talk to me anyways…), this day the woman is the queen and her husband can’t say anything: he has to buy her the dress (hand made for you with the annual limited edition fabric), cook and take care of the children while the wife goes shopping and having fun dancing with her friends till the middle of the night! (I was told that a guy didn’t buy the dress to her wife and she was so upset that she woke him up throwing a pan of boiling water on him…)

For the occasion, the mayor invited us personnaly to sit in the bleachers to watch the performances and parade. As you can see, various women organisations (from the police to the students and diverses associations) in colorful dresses, all of different and personnal style! (that’s the magic of dressmakers J)

The girls from Montreal were lucky: arrived early enough to make their own dresses, i'm jealous! (but i will have time to make plenty of them! ;-)

brass band and traditional dances:

Mr le Prefet:

Miss Young Cameroon and her twin sister (the jury didn't know hot to decide, sad for her...)

the police women:

the parade: 3 colors of dresses this year

cameroonian cheerleaders!

women from the university:

and their men!

what i liked the most during this event: looking at each different style of clothes! :)

Since the canadian girls are here for a short time, they wanted to go dancing in a night club. So we went to the best of the town: Talys.

I didn’t take my camera, so I’ll try to give the atmosphere in words.

The room, not bad compared to the houses that I have seen so far, was very crowded of people well dressed up. Lots of guys (because 7 white girls entered at the same time?), all very good dancers!

Other than african dances (I forgot the names excpet “zouc”), they also dance rock’n roll, and I felt that one I danced with knew salsa!
They also love to dance alone in front of the mirror…

Food

I talked about it before, sayong that it not very diverse. And even if the restaurant gives a complete menu, don’t look at it and ask what they have, usually not a quarter of what is written on the menu, and always the same thing…

As you can see, in one of the best restaurant of the town: beef steak, fried plantains, rice and mushrooms. It’s good, but you have to wait 1-2 hours for it!

this is called "ERU". i couldn't explain exactlly what it was except that it is a speciality from the west. you eat this cabage-looking purée full of oil and beef with the "foufou", this white paste that you use as bread to take the food directly with your fingers:

We even got to make our own food after the Women festival, at Christian’s place, a student at the University of Dschang. And even if the women shouldn’t work this day, we are all more than happy to cook!

crushing pistachios:
peeling and cutting bananas:

(killing, plucking and cutting the chicken, but I won't show this...)

frying... everything! (don't look at the floor, ceiling, walls... well, don't think about it, you'll forget the dirt, dust, insects, etc. when you eat)

waiting in a nice indoor:

eating! (finally :)

Avocado/carrots/eggs salad, plantains (fried and boiled), rice, fried potatoes, fish/carrots/green beans, fried chicken, peanut sauce, “pistachio” purée (actually what they call “pistachio” is a kind of melon seeds), pineapple and papaya. (and bread!)