We arrived back in Yaounde on the train at 2pm, we were very late as the train the previous night had hit a cow, even though we amazingly left on time we spent about 2 1/2 hours stopped some random place in the middle of the night as they were still clearing the line. At 3pm we were in the national stadium racing to some seats before kick off of the African Cup of National Qualifier Cameroon vs Liberia. We had popped in to Didimus' cousin to drop our bags then had to walk most the way to the stadium as the police had closed the roads. Buying tickets was pretty easy, the 500 franc tickets had sold out so we had to buy 1500 franc tickets (I have not figured out what the difference is other than the price, you sit in the same seats). I was shocked at the prices - 1500 francs to watch the national team play a competitive match, that is £1.50. I know it would be much cheaper that home but £1.50 I was dumbfounded - I figured it would be about £5. Remember that a cheaper 50p seats had sold out already, 50p to watch a national team play football - that's crazy talk.Anyway so we entered the stadium and found some seats - I say seats we actually sat on concrete steps. All around the stadium were concrete tiers with no seats. The two sides were completely full so we were sat just near one of the ends, there was a wire fence next to us meaning our view of the far end goal was not too good.Anyway on with the match Cameroon scored first goal scored after 12 minutes by Webo, he then scored again in the 24th minute. Liberia then got a sneaky goal back just 7 minutes before half time. Half time entertainment was a young chap doing some rather nifty tricks with a football and the Orange girls (as in mobile phone company) running around the pitch with pom poms.The second half was better for us as we not had the Cameroon goal close to our sights and were hopeful they would score another goal we so get a good view. We had a great view of Eto'o (Cameroon's most popular footballer plays for Barcelona) who was positioned just in front of us, however his performance was not his best. The second half was a little slower than the first, Things hotted up when Cameroon were playing 10 men after a Liberian was sent off for a second yellow. Idrissou took advantage of this a scored Cameroons third goal, the crowd went wild, well around us they did as we had a good view. so this leave Cameroon the top of their group having won three out of three games - Go Lions.
After enjoying Stephen Fry's biography I thought I would give some of his fiction a go. It is difficult to know how to describe this book, a reviewer says it is the Count of Monte Cristo for the dot.com generation, but I have never read the Count of Monte Cristo so can not comment on this comparison. It is a story of a young public school boy (Fry likes to write about things he know about) who falls in love then though a series of 'being in the wrong place at the wrong time' type events his life changes dramatically. The book is of course very well written using some great witty language, it is also very easy to read which was great for the long train journeys. You get a great introduction to the characters before the main story begins. A great story of love, revenge and human nature.
So the reward for our three day journey was to spend a day in a car - yippee. We organised for a 4X4 to collect us at 6am as it would take us a couple of hours to get to the park and give us a good chance of seeing the animals. We had hoped to stay nearer the park but just did not have the time to get there the night before. In the morning a mini bus appeared, the 4X4 was being serviced but we could still reach most places in the park in the mini bus so off we went. 
Arrived in the park and collected our guide, some other random man also got aboard who turned out to be a good Giraffe spotter. His van had broken down and we were giving him a lift back. So soon after we entered we saw a few monkeys and loads of birds - could not tell you what sort in my opinion birds are boring, however I did not find the Vultures, Eagles and Ostriches boring, they were cool. 
We also saw many Antelope and Gazelle type things. We would see the odd one by itself and large groups also. At time we had to keep tooting the horn to get them to move off the road as we passed. We did not see any Lions but were told they would be sleeping in the grasses near the Gazelles ready to pounce on them later. We did see some Lion foot prints but that is not quite a cool as seeing a Lion, if we had been able to stay the night and get to the park early we may have seen some but I do not mind not running the risk of being eaten. 
We travelled through the park to the Elephants watering hole, although once we arrived the Elephants had gone. If we had the 4X4 we may have been able to follow their track and see them but the bus was unable to pass. The star's of the day were the Giraffes. I love Giraffes I think they are such cool animals with there hugely long necks. First of all we spotted the odd one or two really tall Giraffes, there were hard to spot in amongst the trees, I know that is kind of the point but our guide and extra passenger had a good eye. A little later we saw a little family of Giraffes this was so cool, Mum, Dad and Junior (less than a year old according to the guide) shading themselves under a tree. They were pretty close to the road and we got out and took a few steps forward but were worried they would run. They were quite happy just standing there looking at us looking at them. 
As we travelled out the park we also saw a big group of Giraffes who had been drinking at the watering hole, I think we counted seven in total. At this point we also saw a whole group of monkeys. So we had a great day an I think it was well worth the three days travel.
As you may have noticed there has been a lack of blogging this is beacuse last week we took a mammoth trip to the Extreme North province. We travelled approximately 1120 km (695 miles). The point of this trip was to visit Waza national park but as with most things in this country the trip there was an experience in itself. Our plan was a six day trip, two days to get there two days in the park and two days back, it ended as a eight day trip with only one day in the park! Travelling in this country is such an experiance in iteself it deserves its own (rather too long, sorry) blog entry.Step one: Bus from Buea to YaoundeBuea to Yaounde is a five hour journey so we allowed eight hours to do it in order to catch a train at 6pm. We left Buea at 10am, well we left out house at about 10, we left the bus park in Buea at about 12:30 after waiting 2 hours for the bus to fill. Well not to panic we allowed time for bus filling, it usually about an hour but some women were faffing for ages about getting on the bus. The journey was going well, we passes through Douala in good time and were on the main road to Yaounde. Ahead I saw huge cloud of smoke and commented to Joe 'something is on fire' it just so happened that that thing on fire was a 70 seat coach. Our bus joined a queue of traffic and almost immediately people on the bus knew it was a bus on fire and which company bus which was impressive as we could not see it from where we were. Everybody got out of the bus and many started walking towards the fire, I did not like to go a watch but was slightly concerned there was no medical help on site yet. So we wondered down to the site of the fire, which was not too far from our bus. What looked like an army ambulance arrived soon after we started walking so I knew my medical expertise would not be required and soon after that a fire engine came too. There are of course no emergency services as we know it in Cameroon, the fire engine would have had to come from Douala or Yaounde, which are miles apart with no other services in between. Soon followed a replacement bus for the passengers, there had been a leak in the fuel pipe and the driver noticed the smell or something and evacuated the bus and got the luggage off before the fire really started so thankfully no-one was hurt. The fire crew put the fire out and we were able to pass the smoking shell of a bus - which I am guessing will be left there to rot now. At this point I was singing to myself 'the comedy on the bus goes on and on' oh how true!OK so running a little behind schedule now but we still have time to get to the train station, well we did have until we joined another queue of traffic. A tanker had crashed and traffic was being diverted on to bush paths, not really suitable for a bus but the drivers do not care about that. We were going along this tiny busy road pretty well until we passed traffic trying to come the other way which made difficult passing, the local villagers were helping out. We then had to pass an uneven bit of road which out the bus on a really steep angle everybody panicked thinking we would tip over, I was really quite worried at this point. So we all got off the bus Joe and I trying to advice on weight distribution, which was not listened too. We all got out and the bus safely passed. By the time we got back on to the main road we were not very hopeful of catching our train. We arrived in Yaounde at 6pm, the time the train was due to leave but as this is Africa and nothing happens on time we decided to try catching it. We got in a taxi and raced across town to the station, the train had of course gone. Our taxi driver had the idea of driving to the next stop about an hour away to try and catch it. He seemed pretty hopeful we would be able to get the train so took his advice and chased the train. As we arrived at the station the train was visible but moving 'arriver ou depart' our taxi driver was asking, turns out it was departing. So back to Yaounde we go to find some food, have a beer and sleep.Step two: Train from Yaounde to Ngaoundere 
Getting the train was good fun, getting the tickets was the hard part, we spent all day in Yaounde train station trying to buy tickets. Our plan was a cabin for 2 for me and Joe and a comfy seat for Didimus, however he got confused when buying his ticket and ended up in the second class over packed plastic seats - poor Didimus did not sleep all night. Anyway our taxi driver from the previous night collected us at 10:30 to take us to the station to buy tickets nice and early. We arrived at the station to discover the ticket office opens at 12:00 - I am sure he knew this all along but wanted to be at the station to met the incoming train for some business. So he conveniently left us at his sisters bar to have a drink and wait for the office to open. At 12:00 we went to the office, we were told to wait until 1:00. Then we were asked if we had reserved, we had no idea we were supposed to, so we were told to come back at 4:00 to find out the availability of the tickets. So we go out in Yaounde for a few hours and visit some of Didimus' family. We return at 4:00 and are told to wait until 5:00 when we got called and finally given tickets for a cabin for two. The train left on time and was much better than we expected. Clean cotton sheets, a sink in the room a lovely waitress who gave us dinner and breakfast - even though she spoke no English.
We arrived in Ngaoundere at 10am, according to the guide book the train should take 12 hours, but also according to the guide book it leaves at 18:30 and arrives at 08:30 - which by my calculations is not 12 hours - so I do not believe much of what Ben West says. I think we made pretty good time.Step three - Bus from Ngaoundere to MarouaDidimus had bought bus tickets on the train in advance so we were expecting this to be easy!! They keep the tickets then call your names out as you load the bus. Joe got called out Didimus and I did not, so Joe was on the bus and we were still outside and the bus was full. So Joe jumped off - through the window, not much choice when the bus is so packed. And we argued with the bus company, having already paid for these tickets we were getting a little stressed although we were assured another bus was coming and the three of us would be one it. Half and hour or so later another bus did indeed turn up and we got up, eight hours later we were in Maroua. pretty smooth journey once we were on the bus. Even spotted a few Baboons on the road side on the way - very exciting. Arrieved in Maroua about 8pm, again Ben West gets it wrong five hour journey to Maroua, I think he meant the previous town Garoua, journey took us 8 hours.Next instalment will actually be about the park!!
This is a collection of short stories written by a Cameroonian Sammy Oke Akombi. Bill lent me the book who was given it by the author who Bill worked with. I will give you a history of the author before starting on the book. Akombi grew up in Buea and schooled here, he then went to University of Lagos, Nigeria and the University of Warwick, England. He is now a teacher his literary career began in 1985 when we won the first prize at the Black Young Writers Awards of the London-based Afro-Caribbean Educational Resource Project. Five years later he won the 1990 literary prize of the national Association of Cameroonian poets and writers, four of the stories that won that prize are in this book. He is also an honorary Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa, USA and resource officer in charge of evaluation at the Yaounde pilot linguistic centre.
The book contains six short stories I will give you a synopsis of each. I am afraid the book is not available at amazon or all good bookshops so if you want to read it - you can't, sorry.
The Woman who Ate Python - This books open describing 'the immense form of the Cameroon mountain' as the village the book is set in is at the foot of the mountain. An only child, quite a tomboyish feisty girl grows up and marries. Her husband finds a huge python and following tradition presented it to the chief for eating. Women are not allowed to eat snake as it will result in her children crawling on their bellies. This woman is chosen to prepare the meat for the chief and his elders - including her husband. When serving the meat they notice the best piece is missing - the chest of the python. Eventually the woman is brought in for questioning and she faced up to the men 'how long will you treat women like they are your property', how can I cook for you and not have the pleasure in tasting the food'. she now waits for the repercussions, while her husband cannot cope with the shame.
Death of a Dead Man - A very clever boy too late to register for secondary school gives up on life. The boys father does not agree with poor people having a secondary education and has no money to support him but this boy is the cleverest in the area and has a scholarship and support from his villagers. However he arrives to late and all the places at the school are gone. From here he lost all conviction and did not care what happened to him. He followed his father in becoming a drunk. He felt he was dead inside so why bother. We worked as a grave digger and was known around the village as 'dead man'. He develops diabetes but will not stop drinking so eventually he dies, the man known as dead man is dead.
Up From a Slum - A child's mother dies in childbirth and his father dies a year later. The child gets sent to live with his uncle in another African country. His uncle is a rich business man, they live a good life and the boy attends a good school. his uncle then gets in to trouble at work and is threatened with deportation, seeing no way out of his fate he commits suicide. The boy gets sent back to his own country as none of his uncles wives wanted him. He finds another uncle who lives in the city slum. This is a real contrast for the boy coming from western living standards to the poorest of the poor. He has no choice but to live there. His uncle cannot afford his school fees so he repeats the last year at primary as it is free. He is top of the class and gets a scholarship to grammar school. Here he studies hard and finished top of the school. He goes to university and graduates a medical doctor - anything to escape the slum.
No Armour Against Fate - A man who lives in a broken down bus on the side of the road, spends his days trying to clear the rubbish dump next to his house. He is recognised by an old school friend who invites him for a drink. They discuss what happened to home how he ended up to poor. The man once a well known journalist who then became a politician then got jailed for speaking his own mind. After his time in jail he gave up trying to get anywhere, his family abandoned him so he found a bus and decided to live there.
Acquired Drinking Efficiency Syndrome - A man comes home drunk to his house and his sister is staying, she discusses his problem with him, he answers he has Acquired Drinking Efficiency Syndrome, she does not hear so he repeats ADES. The next day the sister is worried about her brothers life so visits the chief telling him her brother has AIDS. They go together to the house to talk to the brother who denies saying anything about AIDS. He then realised they were talking about his ADES. The chief encourages him to stop drinking and tells him his organisation will have to stop using creates of beer as fines. Tears are not Forever - A woman is unhappy with her husbands lack of money - he is a civil servant and should earn more money according to her. They have an argument about this she believes death will be a release from her life and looks forward to it. The next day the civil offices collapse and she fears for her husbands life, when she arrives at the scene she see's he survived as he did not panic and calmly left the buildings. She goes home to find her son fell in the well and is dead. Well it is quite a collection, a couple are quite good, I enjoyed the ADES one and up from the slum, the others were a bit naff especially the last one and no armour against fate. However what made it more enjoyable is all the parts of life I recognised from living here. Also a couple had pidgin in which was enjoyable to read and good for improving my skills. It was pretty easy reading though - finished it in 24 hours!
For about a month now we have been trying to get Naomi to crawl (or creep as they say here). She has not quite got the hang of it yet, we have been putting her toy just out of her reach in the hope she will crawl there. She is pretty good at reaching and keeping herself balanced but cannot tuck her legs under to crawl. The tiled floors do not help as she often ends up stuck on her belly.
About a week ago Genesis was in Douala and bought Naomi a present, a baby walker. She was not convinced at first but is not whizzing around the place on her wheels. At first it had musical buttons on it too but thankfully unfortunately the batteries have run out already. So she will be up walking at no time, which means we need to child proof the house. Things like ensuring the electrical sockets are actually attached to the wall rather than hanging off, putting doors on the kitchen cupboards etc.
So here we are at our eighth month of being in Cameroon, the time is flying by and we will be back home eating cheese before we know it. So this month as you have seen on previous posts I have been pretty busy preparing the buildings for the health centre. Didimus and I spent a few solid days painting making 2 of the rooms now usable. Here is a before and after of the main hall, soon I hope to post after photos of the whole building.
Before
After
The builder is currently working, we had to get a second builder as the first bought 2 bags of cement built a small wall then disappeared with one full bag of cement - grrr. So it has taken a few weeks to find a new more trustworthy builder who is working hard. Once he has finished we have a little more painting to do then soft furnishing and furniture and equipment to sort out. We aim to open on 2nd April with a dedication service on 25th March. The church has moved into the hall so we have more space.
I have run my second and third HIV educators' seminars, one to the general public a group of 13 and the other in the prison to a group of wardens. I am enjoying the teaching especially when I get an interactive group and we can have some great discussions. I have also held follow up meetings for the first seminar I held to see what they had been doing. Only 5 came but each was able to tell me what they had done since the course. I was impressed they had run seminars or talked in small groups, visited their village and held a meeting. This made me very pleased to see my efforts are paying off and the message is spreading as we hoped.
Joe is in quite a routine with his work now, he has run his third web design course but only had one student so it was pretty intense. We have quite a few lined up for the next course so hopefully there will be a better number of students. He is also writing a photoshop course which will run between each web design course. This pretty much means he will be teaching something all the time until we leave now, maybe with a few sanity breaks to give him time to tinker on the web site.
I have also been arranging my replacement, I was getting worried that the health centre would open just a few months before we depart meaning it would be difficult to keep it going once I leave. However a friend of mine from my hospital in Oxford was planning on volunteering and having difficulty finding a job, so I suggested she came here to continue my work. She accepted so in May Helen will be arriving. Which is funny because we have had all the same jobs in our nursing career from the beginning, just a year apart. Also she took my post over from me when I left so we will be swapping and I will continue in Oxford from where she leaves - how neat and tidy!
Joe has been saying I should read this book since he read it not long after we arrived. It is not an easy read or a book you would want to take on holiday, however it is fantastic and very well written. The sad tale of the Joad family who have to leave Oklahoma due to the depression and tractors taking over all the work and their houses. They travel to California 'the land of plenty', where there will be food, work and nice little white houses to live in. Of course things do not turn out as wonderful as they expected. Life is very difficult, there is never enough food and accommodation is scarce and the locals are not welcoming. There are times when you think their life is getting better then the work runs out and they must move on.
Steinbeck is of course a fantastic writer making it very pleasing to read. It was hard to get in to at the beginning, there are a few abstract chapters describing general life and not that of the Joad family and this is how the book starts. I found these chapters hard going, especially to begin with, they became easier to follow as the book progressed.
Although it is not a true story, it is set in a time of hardship and although the Joad family did not exist many did who went through similar experiences. A great read if you have the time to be absorbed by it and can cope with no happy endings.
Today I went to have my hair plaited again. I went for a different style to last time and it was much quicker and only required one mesh. So this will be my hair style for the next few weeks. Not bad for less than a fiver!
OK so I went a bit over the top - on Friday it poured with rain all day, I was convinced that was it not more sun the rainy season had arrived. However on Saturday we had brilliant sunshine, the weather was beautiful, which was great as we had planned a day on the beach. We had a great day - topped up our tans and enjoyed a magnificent sunset. I had thought it just rained in Buea, however talking to Bill who had communicated with fellow US volunteers it had rained in many places.
So as it was just one days rain (well and a little on Sunday evening) I will say it was a relief to have it. The rain settled the dust that has been chocking up our lungs for weeks. The word dust has a whole new meaning to me now, it is no longer stuff that collects around the house that needs cleaning, this is dust from the untarred roads and fields. As the cars pass the scatter the dust every where. You cannot ride with the windows down along a dusty road as you cannot breath, the trees are red instead of green due to the dust. After a long hot journey my clothes are red with dust, my feet are constantly dirty with dust - I doubt they will ever be clean again.
So rain is not totally a bad thing, the dust has cleared a little, the air is fresher but I would be happy with a few more weeks sunshine, especially on Saturdays. Soon however the rain will come and it will rain everyday, we will miss the worst of it and be enjoying an English summer but the rain will come, the dust will go and the mud will take over.
It has been raining today, it has been raining all day - boo, this does not make me happy. Since November we have had rain about 5 times, usually a short downpour that does not last. It rained over night last night, we figured it was just another shower that would pass. When we got up it had indeed stopped so I did my washing. Then while hanging it out the rain started again and has not stopped all day.
I was hoping the rainy season would not start until April/May. I think the rain is worse here than other places due to being on a Mountain. I hope the weather is a little better on the coast, we had planned to go to the sea tomorrow. Well here comes the rainy season it will be here until we leave now.
Today is International Woman's day - I did not know it existed either! Woman's day is celebrated in many countries around the world and is like Valentines day and Mother's day rolled in to one.
I went to the celebrations here in Buea, in good Cameroon style there was singing, dancing and of course speeches. Most women dress is woman's day dress so I bought my woman's day kabba (big dress). I decided to stroll up to Bongo Square , where the festivities take place. On the way I was greeted 'happy women's day' by everyone I passed. It makes a change to be referred to as a woman I am so used to hearing 'white man' shouted at me as I walk past. One hairdresser I passed was very excited to see me in my Woman's day dress, she called me over, we took some photos and she dashed me a necklace.
When I arrived at Bongo Square it was full of people dressed in Woman's day dress. There were 100's of women, a friend of Marceline's saw me so I joined there group FOCWED (Forum of Christian Women Enterprise and Development). Once the Governor of the South West arrived the program began, there was of course singing and dancing and as there is with every Cameroonian event speeches.
Following this there was the march past, each woman's group marches past the grand stand. So I joined in with this groups that had adopted me, they could not make up their mind about where I would stand. Firstly they wanted me at the front holding a placard, but you would have seen my bra under my raised arms so that was no good, next I was to be on the outer side of the women marching, but I did not have black shoes on so could not do that either. I opted for going in the middle. We went in colour order according to our dress, pink first (that was me) then orange and green last. It was fun, I had to ensure I kept in line or I got told off! There were so many women to march we went near the beginning so then I could watch the others.
The only downer of the day was that I had my phone nicked while I was watching the marching. Very annoying, I went to the MTN centre and got a new SIM which cost 5000 francs but was then given 5000 francs credit, so that was nice. Now all I need is to get my vodaphone phone unlocked so I can use my MTN SIM. I spoke to a very nice man in the MTN service centre who was very helpful which was nice.
So to all you women out there - Happy Women's Day!
There has been a lack of posts recently but I shall not apologise because I have been too busy to write and I see that as a good thing! As I said most of last week I was in the prison each day teaching the wardens. The rest of last week was spent painting, Didimus and myself spent all day each day painting in the health centre. I wanted to help as much as possible to try and save money as this renovation is costing us dearly, especially when you give a plumber 16 000 to go any buy parts and you never see him again. Didimus had to help me as a) I am not too skilled with a roller brush and b) I would have no idea how to mix the paint.
We bought a huge bucket (20kgs) of white paint we then choose the colour. There is a choice of about 5 colours - all end up looking pastel. We choose to paint in the same colour as previous so buy some blue and green. The colour is then mixed with the white until you get the shade you require, this means once all the paint is used it is almost impossible to get the exact same shade again.
We then set about painting, we have finished three rooms and just have the one left. We have run out of paint and have to wait for the builders to continue. The builders have so far piled up a load of soil in front of the entrance, making getting in and out pretty difficult. The builders have also scarpered after doing one days work.
This week I am running another HIV seminar, the room we are based in is now a lovely shade of green but the outside needs a little more improvement.
For the last three days I have been going to the prison each day. I was able to organise doing my HIV educators' seminar for the prison wardens. It has taken a while to organise and has now finally taken place. The opportunity came about when a warden who uses the Internet at HINT participated in the first course I did, afterwards he spoke to me about doing a session in the prison. So off I went to meet the 'big man' and discuss it. I of course should have taken a stamped piece of paper with me to show which NGO I was from. However I did not have this, a week later I returned with said stamped letter and we began to organise the course.
It took about 4 visits up to the prison to finalise the date and time. We decided to hold the meeting in the barracks, prison staff are very wary of whites as so many just want to come and look at the prison and take photos, because of this I have no pictures to post as I wanted to respect their wishes.
I had a lively group of 14, I had some good questions and discussions with them. Some very in depth conversations about the ABC of abstinence, being faithful and condoms. I really enjoyed some of the discussions we had like 'what do you advice to a Fon (Chief) who has 62 wives and one is unfaithful?'
Each of my planning meetings I met with a superintendent of the prison, he organised things from their point of view. He told me during planning that the 'big man' should get a little extra for organising things. I was also told by a fellow warden at the end ' you must give the big man extra'. So to fulfil my keeping the big man happy duties and keep channels open with the prison I took him out for a drink and soya (beef) to thank him, at this he told me I was very wise oh and could he buy my UK phone off me when I leave. Now how much do I charge a Cameroonian (well paid Cameroonian who has free accommodation) for my 3 year old phone?
