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Here begin several installments of a journal I wrote a few years ago while traveling in Cameroon. This is especially for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelmanija but also for anyone who's interested in Africa or my weird experiences.
Cameroon One: The Coast
We arrive in Buea, a small English-speaking city (as opposed to French, which most of the country speaks; in reality, people speak Pidgin as well as several local languages, all more or less Bantu, and the educated also speak that lovely African English). Buea is on the slopes of Mt Fako (Mt. Cameroon http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/current_volcs/cameroon/cameroon.html ) which erupted several years earlier and then once since I was there. We went to the university, etc, but here's where we went to a village.
May 23, Buea
Woke up early, 5 AM—Liz says no hot water. So I doze awhile—water!! Then we eat and go first to the Children's Reading Corner, a sort of library-teaching place for encouraging children and adults to read. A great idea, has a beautiful garden, lots of nice posters—but almost no books?! Like the clinic for the wealthy we saw yesterday—beautiful form and no content.
Then to Bwassa village. Frightening road (later I come to learn that it’s one of the better roads we’ll travel)--but I believe the driver knows how to manage the little van, so try not to clutch and yelp as we tilt almost sideways going around ruts or puddles that would swallow us. In the village we see several small houses of weathered wood almost hidden by the dense growth of palms, bananas, acacias and the gardens full of corn, African yams, and beans, all growing in a tangle. The rich green and the low overcast sky, the humid air, are so much like home in the summer. Then we see a group of several houses on three sides of a square—many people are there, and one man is shouting through a tin megaphone. He’s telling people to come to the square. We get of the van and the singing group comes to lead us to the palace (one of the weathered buildings at the back of the square). The group is the “Bwassa Cultural Group”: women in bright yellow pagnes and dresses, with headwraps to match, shaking rattles and singing, men in coats and pagnes beating a drum and singing; someone blows a shrill whistle. They move forward with a rhythmical shuffle-step, tightly grouped together, and lead us to the palace.
The Fon (headman, chief) makes a speech of welcome and one villager offers a Christian prayer. Then another singing/drumming group—all men this time, with narrow bands of palms leaf tied as headbands—comes up the path, and then the elephant dancer appears, with a wooden mask over his face, moss covering head and shoulders and huge palmleaf skirt covering the rest. He is the elephant while he dances, Thomas tells us. When I read that the coast of Africa is Christian/native religion, I’ll understand how totally they are mixed here.
We eat fufu, of course (mashed yams, the standard food--sort of like American mashed potatoes) and drink palm wine. It tastes like bread yeast to me--it's the sap of the wine palm and it ferments more and more all day. Supposedly the early wine is for women and men drink it late--of course I drink the late wine! No ill effects, at least not more than usual. Thank God for Pepto-bismal. The music starts again, and they begin a general dance--we're invited to dance with them, and give them money as we dance.
Eventually we climb the hill and see the old water source, a natural stone basin. It’s still a very sacred place, though now there’s a pipe in the middle of the square to provide drinking and washing water. But the water source is like the heart of the village.
We go from Bwassa village to the Tole tea plantation. We see the velvety carpet of tea plants all over the hillsides and the steady stream of pickers wearing conical baskets on their backs, heavy with picked tea leaves, and balancing huge sacks with yet more tea on their heads. They make 50 Cameroon francs a day for picking 5 kilos. That’s about $3.50 USD per week of all day, backbreaking labor. They also get a house and a plot of land for a garden.
In the evening, Victor takes us to the chicken parlor, back in Buea. It’s in a private home where the owner cooks a meal and serves it for pay in her dining room.
May 24, Limbe
The next day we go to Limbe, on the ocean. I sit beside the driver, Christopher. His van is named Mt. Fako (each van has a name, like horses), and it’s a little red Toyota bread-box decorated with a red, yellow, and green fringe of pom-poms across the front window, and inside, painted around the roof, are dire signs: “Do not send head or arms outside the motor;” “Do not vomite inside the motor.” He speaks pidgin, little English, and my pidgin is very slight, so we have one of those guessing, gesturing conversations you have when you don’t have a real common language. I’m ignoring the sign that tells me “Do not talk to driver with motor is moving.” Christopher drives the Buea-Bamenda route through the mountains and this is part of his route, so he knows people all along the road, and frequently stops to talk or at least wave and call out a greeting. The high slopes of the volcano are beautiful—we pass a huge frozen lava flow amid the palms. I know there are mountain gorillas and little mountain elephants hidden in the green leaves, but we never see them.
We drive along the edge of the sea: the mountain comes right down to the crashing waves, with sea grapes along the shore, and fog is drifting down the slopes. The sand is black and the shore is very steep--huge waves crash at our feet. Millions of palms—great palm oil plantations—a fishing village, where low gracefully curving boats are painted bright reds and blues and heaped with nets, and the roasted fish smells and tastes fresh and spicy.
rachelmanija but also for anyone who's interested in Africa or my weird experiences.Cameroon One: The Coast
We arrive in Buea, a small English-speaking city (as opposed to French, which most of the country speaks; in reality, people speak Pidgin as well as several local languages, all more or less Bantu, and the educated also speak that lovely African English). Buea is on the slopes of Mt Fako (Mt. Cameroon http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/current_volcs/cameroon/cameroon.html ) which erupted several years earlier and then once since I was there. We went to the university, etc, but here's where we went to a village.
May 23, Buea
Woke up early, 5 AM—Liz says no hot water. So I doze awhile—water!! Then we eat and go first to the Children's Reading Corner, a sort of library-teaching place for encouraging children and adults to read. A great idea, has a beautiful garden, lots of nice posters—but almost no books?! Like the clinic for the wealthy we saw yesterday—beautiful form and no content.
Then to Bwassa village. Frightening road (later I come to learn that it’s one of the better roads we’ll travel)--but I believe the driver knows how to manage the little van, so try not to clutch and yelp as we tilt almost sideways going around ruts or puddles that would swallow us. In the village we see several small houses of weathered wood almost hidden by the dense growth of palms, bananas, acacias and the gardens full of corn, African yams, and beans, all growing in a tangle. The rich green and the low overcast sky, the humid air, are so much like home in the summer. Then we see a group of several houses on three sides of a square—many people are there, and one man is shouting through a tin megaphone. He’s telling people to come to the square. We get of the van and the singing group comes to lead us to the palace (one of the weathered buildings at the back of the square). The group is the “Bwassa Cultural Group”: women in bright yellow pagnes and dresses, with headwraps to match, shaking rattles and singing, men in coats and pagnes beating a drum and singing; someone blows a shrill whistle. They move forward with a rhythmical shuffle-step, tightly grouped together, and lead us to the palace.
The Fon (headman, chief) makes a speech of welcome and one villager offers a Christian prayer. Then another singing/drumming group—all men this time, with narrow bands of palms leaf tied as headbands—comes up the path, and then the elephant dancer appears, with a wooden mask over his face, moss covering head and shoulders and huge palmleaf skirt covering the rest. He is the elephant while he dances, Thomas tells us. When I read that the coast of Africa is Christian/native religion, I’ll understand how totally they are mixed here.
We eat fufu, of course (mashed yams, the standard food--sort of like American mashed potatoes) and drink palm wine. It tastes like bread yeast to me--it's the sap of the wine palm and it ferments more and more all day. Supposedly the early wine is for women and men drink it late--of course I drink the late wine! No ill effects, at least not more than usual. Thank God for Pepto-bismal. The music starts again, and they begin a general dance--we're invited to dance with them, and give them money as we dance.
Eventually we climb the hill and see the old water source, a natural stone basin. It’s still a very sacred place, though now there’s a pipe in the middle of the square to provide drinking and washing water. But the water source is like the heart of the village.
We go from Bwassa village to the Tole tea plantation. We see the velvety carpet of tea plants all over the hillsides and the steady stream of pickers wearing conical baskets on their backs, heavy with picked tea leaves, and balancing huge sacks with yet more tea on their heads. They make 50 Cameroon francs a day for picking 5 kilos. That’s about $3.50 USD per week of all day, backbreaking labor. They also get a house and a plot of land for a garden.
In the evening, Victor takes us to the chicken parlor, back in Buea. It’s in a private home where the owner cooks a meal and serves it for pay in her dining room.
May 24, Limbe
The next day we go to Limbe, on the ocean. I sit beside the driver, Christopher. His van is named Mt. Fako (each van has a name, like horses), and it’s a little red Toyota bread-box decorated with a red, yellow, and green fringe of pom-poms across the front window, and inside, painted around the roof, are dire signs: “Do not send head or arms outside the motor;” “Do not vomite inside the motor.” He speaks pidgin, little English, and my pidgin is very slight, so we have one of those guessing, gesturing conversations you have when you don’t have a real common language. I’m ignoring the sign that tells me “Do not talk to driver with motor is moving.” Christopher drives the Buea-Bamenda route through the mountains and this is part of his route, so he knows people all along the road, and frequently stops to talk or at least wave and call out a greeting. The high slopes of the volcano are beautiful—we pass a huge frozen lava flow amid the palms. I know there are mountain gorillas and little mountain elephants hidden in the green leaves, but we never see them.
We drive along the edge of the sea: the mountain comes right down to the crashing waves, with sea grapes along the shore, and fog is drifting down the slopes. The sand is black and the shore is very steep--huge waves crash at our feet. Millions of palms—great palm oil plantations—a fishing village, where low gracefully curving boats are painted bright reds and blues and heaped with nets, and the roasted fish smells and tastes fresh and spicy.
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Thanks for posting this-- it's fascinating stuff. I read all of Gerald Durrell's books about capturing animals in Africa when I was living in India, and I always wondered what palm wine tasted like.
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There's more than one good reason why palm wine is not exported!
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