Getting used: region, job, way of life...

I could start with THE event of the month: the Pope coming to Cameroon.
Unfortunately I am not in Yaoundé, where he was, and don't have a TV or radio to follow what's going on. Only two friends in the army who told me that it's a mess in the city, and colleagues who reported that he advised against using condoms. enough said...

Some more about Dschang...
As I was exploring the town (by foot, finally!) last weekend, I noticed several of its characteristics that I am going to show in this article.

To start: a view of the town from the hotel Constellation, downtown:

as for me, I live on the right of this picture, where you can barely see a house with 2 domes:


This is also Dschang from the fields:
Dschang the campus-town:


besides the university, there are lots of schools (from primary to highschool, classical or technical...), as you can see with the students walking with their mendatory uniforms (lots of blue, sometimes brown, espacially for elementary school):

The University of Dschang:
first a school of agronomy (FASA), it became a university with the main departments you can find anywhere (law, literature, history, geography, sciences, medicine...)


and it's actually pretty big and extended:

Dschang, town of leisure:
Probably due to the large student population, means to have fun in Dschang are various!

Pool tables in the streets:

Soccer games:


Concert of Zyang, organized by the Franco-Cameroonian Alliance:
(funny, the bass player is just coming back from 6 years in Lyon where he knows most clubs, among them Georgia, and its cameroonian singer Sandra! sorry for those who won't follow this...)



They also play, sing and dance Salsa! Like I said, cameroonian guys are great dancers :)





And African contemporary dance, also organized by the Alliance:


Dschang, the town of motorbikes:
you will see very few cars, but most people use moto-taxi for even very small distances (100-200 FCFA/ride), and accidents are common (note that half of them don't have rear-view mirror)...


It is not rare to see 4 people on a same bike, with kids! (here 2 kids betweens the men)
everybody without helmet, of course... A frien also told me that he sometimes se 6 people on them: just add a mom with her baby in her back! crazy...

As for bicycles, i see less than one per day! the excuse? the hills...

Dschang, the religious town (catholics, protestants, muslims)





(note the simplicity of the stained glass windows compared to the ones in Europe...)


Dschang the town of hospitals (yes there are a lot, but it's necessary when you know how many diseases occur here, how often and to how many people...). all related to Church of course...



at least this one has a beautiful view of the town, and more! :)



some example of Architecture:


and a local building licence (i know someone who will be interested...)

flowers: (yes i like flowers, for thoses who didn't know yet!)




and animals:

this one is in my house...

not birds, BATS !!! there are big, noisy, numerous and everywhere!




The Climatic Center:
Oldest hotel of the town, it was built by the french people (Nantes, again!) in 1942, it hosted the officers and their family for vacation during the WWII. It is known to be the most beautiful and interesting place in the town...

from http://www.worldisround.com/articles/291170/photo79.html
view on the center (forground), the university (middle) and the town (background):


you can stay in one of the bungalows...


walk in the park...
eat in the restaurant...

swim and DIVE in the pool! (while forgetting the color and bacteria, of course...)

I can't believe that I couldn't find any diving board or equestrian center in the most famous city of California, and I will be able to do it here, in a small cameroonian town! :D

But I also promised myslef that I would practise "local" sports (no i'm not talking about soccer, but agriculture!). I bet my back won't stand it...

On Sunday, I went discovering the mountains and forests of the Menoua (name of the department) with friends...





Among the main crops:

Manioc:
Cocoa: (but they don't consume it themselve, it's only for exportaion)

Plums:

Plantain: (big banana cooked like a vegetable)

My colleague promised me to bring me to the fields to help her, so that I will feel how is the real daylife of ost people here... (most people, besides an office job, also have a bar, a restaurant and/or a shop, along with some crops).


Clothilde, volonteer for 2 years in Dschang for the cultural development, and Serge, the driver:

local bus, that i hesitate to take to go to Yaounde or Douala...

note the gear indicator and the car condition...



old chefferie, destroyed a couple of years ago to chase away the chief, now being rebuilt:
the statues can be the chief himslef or one of his ancestors.




Ok, enough fun for now. some might wonder: what about work?
here you are.

First, the environment:
I work at the old rural city hall, now offices of the decentralized cooperation between Nantes and Dschang, just next to the Courthouse:

this is my office: (note the huge armchair, that i removed after 2 days because I felt like a queen on her throne and the deep seat was going to hurt my back...)

so what have I been doing so far? well, besides reading many reports about composting and waste treatment studies in the town, I went visiting some sites and partipated to some meetings and seminars.

First: visit of the municipal dump of Dschang, paid by Nantes, useable since december 2008. As you can see, there is still a lot to do, from spreading out wastes to unblocking the water channel.
And I don't talk about environmental issues like polluted water leaking and plastic bags flying away, especially when you know that crops and rivers are closeby...

the trucks used for collecting and transporting the waste (broken and unrepaired half the year...). note the white one kindly given by Nantes and absolutely not adapted to the local roads, relative to the local yellow one...


Next step: Bafoussam, the capital of the province, to take ideas of their composting project.

wastes to be sorted out by hand:
what drives me mad is that they said that people can't sort out their waste themselve, whereas they tried only one year, and it took about 10 years to be implemented in developped countries (and still far from being perfect...)

local material to make the compost and bags of compost ready to sell:

example of crops receiving the compost:

talking about wastes, if you didn't know that Africa is the garbage of the world...



I was also invited to a seminar about bio-fertilizers. almost the only woman, and of course the only whit person, next to farmers andvillage chieves.
I discover the EM-Technology brand, apparently used worldwide, that i never heard about:

and the way of conducting a local seminar: 1:30 late, not following the outlines, not finished and ending up with the sell of the products, rather anarchical! (just imagine the noise...)

And I was always asked questions about the company, people thinking that I was one of the leaders, whereas i'm just a poor student who doesn't know anything about agriculture...
and this is everyday: people coming to my office to ask me anything. We see it right away: even if we don't want to, we are considered as "superior" in terms of knowledge and managment. examples: the speaker asked me not to ask scientific questions during the seminar because he was afraid of loosing credibility. And one of the french volonteers who work with me is definitely considered to be the manager and everyone is waiting for him to tak important decisions, whereas he's been here for just one year...
in short: there is a lot to do...