Yaoundé !

Now that I know some people in the city, and because I met another French volunteer working close to Dschang and going to Yaoundé this weekend, I decided to go with him (and an Taiwanese-American girl working for the Peace Corp).

As we had to meet in Bafoussam, I took my Friday off to sightsee a little bit. Children were receiving their grade report for the quarter, before the spring break. They go to school only to get their paper, the uniform is not mandatory that day, and they take advantage of it to dress up.

Less enjoyable, a father told me that to get this paper, parents have to pay 1000FCFA (1.5€) to the teacher, and the same amount is due monthly if you want the teacher to look after your kid (corruption again…).

The same father also took me to the chefferie. I didn’t have time to visit though, but I’ll come back, because it seems very big…

the 8 days of the week and their meaning in the dialect of Bafoussam: (basically forbidden day, day of mourning, day of market).


I met my friends at the bus station. We decided to take a car instead of a bus, it’s quicker and safer. Foreigner or not, when you arrive in such a place, guys come from everywhere to “help” you and get you a car or a bus, and they fight each other, saying that you are their own customer...(we didn’t pay them anything though, so I don’t really understand why they fight, maybe they are paid buy the drivers afterwards). We insisted to be only 4 (+driver) in the car, otherwise they don’t mind overloading, with 8 people (4 in the back, 2 on the driver seat and 2 on the other front seat)! To prove it: we were 7 to go from Dschang to Bafoussam…


The road

Driving in Africa is an unforgettable (and scarry) experience, as well as a real sport!
First of all, you don't want to travel by night, when you know that there is no light and no white line on the road, and that drivers are paid by ride: lots of them take medicines that make them stay awake, and drink alcohol between two ride (alcoholism is never checked on the road...).
But don't think that the trip is much safer by day, as the drivers don't make a break to rest (5 hours in a row to go from Dschang to Yaoundé), answer their cellphone, use cars or buses with broken belt, windows, and speed indicator, worn tires, etc. Of course there is no speed limit (and if there is, no one will tell you that you were over), speed humps are not indicated and drivers drive in freewheeling in the slopes to save gas (more common with motorbikes though)...
Also, as I said it before, they arerly stop, using the horn to warn pedestrians crossing the road or when passing another car. And in case of collision, it's never your fault, always the other: might makes right (even on pedestrian crossing...).
And to show the danger of the cameroonian road (or african in general i guess): last week, a bus and a truck carrying beers collided: everybody died...
A volounteer from AFVP (Association Française des Volontaires du Progrèstold) told me that, among the cases of rapatriation in his program, the most important was not disease but car accident…

Enough fear, I am now going to sgo how interesting and fun a ride in Cameroon can be :)
First you cross many different and beautiful landscapes: forest, fields, mountains, villages (that's for Dschang-Yaoundé, but they are even more interesting when you go to the north or the coast). I didn't take any picture though, because of the high speed...
As the driver stops at the road tolls, kids and women run to your car or bus to sell you grilled arachides, peeled fruits, cooked meat, boiled corn or manioc, and more. The occasion for you to make your trip less monotonous while listening to the people: 'ya la mangue!", "mangez le rat!", and more comfortable while trying various kind of food for a few coins:
juicy and tasty fresh fruits (4 peeled mangos or papayas for only 100FCFA=0.1$ !), meat that you would never eat elsewhere (rat, hedgehog, wild boar, hare, snake, lizard...).

Well, other than that, even if the journey can seem pretty long (5 hours for 340km), when you think that you pay 3000FCFA (5$, price of a bart ticket for Berkeley-SF...), it's not too bad :)

Arriving in Yaoundé, the first thing we did is meeting friend and drinking in a bar, then have dinner, then go to the bar again... welcome to Yaoundé!
The good thing when you know AFVP volonteers is that you can stay in "la case", an apartment that they rent for other volonteers who have to pay only 2000FCFA/night (instead of 15000 for a hotel), in the best neighborhood: Bastos (where most white people live...). more than a cheap place, it's also a way of meeting plenty of people who stay there at the same time, talking, drinking, eating or playing football with them!

This is Bastos, you can see that the houses are way different from other villages and districts...



Downtown Yaoundé

Well, as i was not in Yaoundé for staying home sleeping, like some other volonteers, I left in the morning to sightsee by myself.
First of all, i was surprised to discover that there are public transit other than taxis and motorbikes: a bus! ("THE BUS"). But i didn't dare taking it, because there is of course no schedule...

Boulevard du 20 Mai (May 20th, 1960 is the independance day in Cameroon), with administrative buildings and big hotels:

Place du 20 Mai and Hilton Hotel:


"passports" wall in the Hilton hotel. what they call "passports" are these small masks that once served as ID, the colors meaning where you come from, what status you have, etc.

Place J.F. Kennedy:


Then I met a CS friend who took me to the Bois St Anasthasie, a small but well-kept park in the city.






" payable benches: 200FCFA per couple":



then, Lac Central, where the Prime Minister lives (my friend's cousin is fiancée to his son so we got to enter the house :)


walking all day long make hungry! Ndolé or grilled fish with fried plantains, humm...


even better than in a restaurant, fresh braised fish in the street, that you eat with manioc sticks (on the left hand side of the picture).


Yaoundé Hills

2nd day: I meet my two servicemen friends who take me to the hills to see the Convention Centre:

the Presidential Palace:

and a view on the entire city. as you can see, Yaoundé is very big (only 1 million people but very extended).


the 7 hills, that make Yaoundé as famous as Rome or San Francisco! (actually, if you consider that i take a picture from a hill and that there are others behind me, Yaoundé has actually much more than 7 hills, though it depends what size a hill should be).

Noah Country Club, or wahere Yannick Noah, the famous French-Cameroonian tennis player and singer used to play before going to France:

The club has tennis and basketball courts as well as a swimming pool and a restaurant: (as you can see, mostly white people in vacation again).


Zacharie Noah (Yannick's father), former professional soccer player, now owner of the club:

just because i like trees and strange fruits...

In brief: a nice weekend, spent sightseeing with my friends and drinking/eating with the volonteers!

Feeling home again !

As I am getting used to my new life in Cameroon, I made some good friends who explain me a lot about local traditions and “rules”, and help me to find regular activities to entertain, myself.

First I would like to talk a bit about the main tribe here (and in the country, counting for about 20%): the Bamiléké. Even if there are more than 200 tribes in the country, this one is very famous in the province of course but also the entire country and even abroad.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamil%C3%A9k%C3%A9s

They are mostly known for being the businessmen of the country. Everything is closely related to money, and according to some friends who are from the center province (Yaoundé), they never do something for you without expecting something in exchange.They are also very social, what makes things even more difficult, for foreigners especially: you never know if they are nice to you because they are happy to see someone different and want to show their culture or if they want you to do something for them in exchange...
Because of this they are feared by most of the other tribes and are often discriminated. They are often compared to Jews in Europe.

Another particularity of the Bamiléké tribe is polygamy, legal for men but not for women. Even if most young men have now only one wife, their fathers used to have about 10. And I was given the example of a village chief who had 27 wives and 216 children! (but i heard that the maximum was about 50 wives...). The more wives and kids, the more powerful and respected in the village. And the men don't chose any wife, only "useful" ones, as did the father of one of my friends, with a teacher, a cook and a nurse :)
Therefore, the first thing men ask you here is if you are maried (and they closely look at your finger...). But they are pretty respectful with this (which makes me thinking more and more about wearing a wedding ring...)

Talking about tribe and chief, here is the entrance of the Chefferie FOTO, one of the most famous in the country, just at the exit of Dschang.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chefferie_Bamil%C3%A9k%C3%A9

from the inside of the chefferie:


the crops (beans, cabage, corn and tomatoes):



Now you can understand why, among all the kind of dishes you can find here, my favorite is salad! fresh lettuce, carotts, tomatoes, celery and avocado, rarely found as tasty :)


this is another famous dish: corn couscous and ndolé with beef meat. the corn couscous is served as a sticky ball, and eaten with this strange and bitter vegetable: the ndolé, mixed with hard-to-chew beef. not my favorite to be honest...

I also tried "local" meats like Rat and Hedgehog. again, not my favorite (the second tastes better than the first, though)... Did i become a bit veggie while living in Berkeley???

I would prefer apples, but they are imported from France, what a shame...
I will keep with bananas, ( i got to like them even if i didn't before), papayas, pineapples and coconuts (mangos are coming later).

talking about food: good news: I finally got a stove and a fridge! :D
ok, the fridge is a luxury, and it's very expensive (i paid 50.000 FCFA~100$ for a used one, which is more than what I would pay in the US or France!), but they are some things you can't live without...


For work, I went to Bafoussam again, the main town of the West province. only an hour driving later, you really feel a change in weather: it's much warmer there!

The City Hall:

The International Bank, in traditional architecture:

The people, hand-working for collecting waste:

getting water:
carrying things:
kids in uniforms, going to school on their owns...


During the weekend, my colleague took me to the catholic church, for the Stations of the cross. I never went to the church for the mass before and... it was long!

Fortunately the rest of the weekend was more relaxing.

1. I met Couchsurfing friends (actually the only guy in Dschang and his best friend): scientific like me, we talked a lot about school, how it's hard for them to do a master because their advisor don't advise them and keep their work for themselves; how school is corrupted (you can pay your teacher if you don't go to school or if you miss your exam); how girls only care about getting married (whereas they are 80% at school, they rarely finish...).
They also introduced me to the old lady who own the residence where they live. It was amwazing how this 72 years old woman could remember all the french songs she learned at school, had chosen to be single and not have kids (it's rare in this culture!), was so ecologist and showed me how she was sorting her waste, recycling and making her own compost! I got my example for my project :)

2. I went dancing: in a nightclub where they always have salsa and rock music after 2am. I met a guy who likes ballroom dances and we plan to go to some dance classes together! (salsa, tango, rock and waltz, but also local dances :)

3. and I went diving!!! at the climatic center. a great feeling, even though it was to realized that I lost most of my skills... and that I had to wash my hair 3 times afterwards because of the many chemicals they use for cleaning the water and that stuck in you hair forever...

A friend played with my camera, taking shooting pictures, I thought it would be fun to sjow some of them:





And because the director and monitors of the swimming center are friends, I now teach diving to kids weekly! :) (and I was impressed how they learn fast, even though half of them can't even swim yet...)




no, i didn't teach this, they are just a bit mad...
To end up with activities, I now go biking, running and working out with one of the monitors. And I am starting "Yemba" classes (Yemba is the local dialect).
Who thought that I could do so many activities here in Cameroon???

View of Dschang and an elementary school from the Radio Yemba, where I take my language class.



Tuesday, March 24th: RDPC/CPDM's 24th anniversary
http://www.rdpcpdm.cm/


The RDPC (Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais) or CPDM (Cameroon People's Democratic Movement) is the main party in Cameroon today, and the President's party of course, as he managed to make a "unique party" state, like many others in Africa... He was re-elected in 2004 by more than 70 % of the population. this is for what the governement said, because talking to people, there is corruption again, and the votes were modified afterwards, and as a result most of the opponents don't vote anymore... Some say that he is a good president because he maintains the peace, others complain that he is totally absent...
The other main parties are SDF (Social Democratic Front) and UPC (Union des Population du Cameroun) (i like thes acronyms for what they mean in France! ;)

For the occasion, there are talks, shows and a parade in Dschang (yes, african like these kind of events! 2 in one month...).
And as they did for the Women Day, they made clothes with the head of the President Paul Biya and the sign of his party...




everyone is here:
the mayor, minister, traditionnal chieves,


the employeed of the city hall:

even the kids!
after the talks, the shows: music and dance





and the parade:





Ok, enough about fun, what about work?

Well, as you can see, even if the RDPC anniversary is not a holiday, it doesn't seem to bother everyone to stop working and go to the parade. This is a good example to show the people's relationship to work... Officially, the work hours (offices mostly) are 7:30 am-4 pm. Whereas most people are up at 6am (I can hear them talking or starting to prepare the market), my colleague never comes to pick me up before 8am (we said 7:30 at my appartment and she keeps coming later and later...). Besides this, there is no formal break, you take it when you can/want. and it's not rare to see people leaving their office to do personnal things (pick up the kids at school, buy products for their bars or restaurants, have a drink with colleagues or friends...).
And when a general power cut occurs, everyone is stuck and go do something else. Same thing with rain for people who work outside: everybody goes to the bar, and drink, and drink... (the beers here are 65cl and it's common to see guys staying half a day drinking, even during their work time...).
the most famous beer here, brewed locally: Castel Beer


To emphasize the fact that people don't care about work, something that shocked me: the number of mistakes in written papers... from reports to books, but also official letters, restaurant menus or websites, I can't even count the numerous spelling or syntax errors (ok i know i also make a lot here on my blog, but this is different, i'm not publishing...). I think the best way to see that is to oppen a cameroonian webpage. is it due to the the lack of habit to use computers? or the laziness to overread? I guess a bit of both.

Last, concerning my own job: I am working with people on waste management, and they are always complaining about the fact that the town is dirty and that we should do something. Besides, they leave their tissues in the trees or let their kids throw plastic bags from the car window... no comment.

Well, I think that I should stop here, otherwise I will be one of those who make people think that i'm working when I don't...