UNDP ROTARY PARTNERSHIP

My next two day were spent using my old teaching skill in partnership with the UNDP presenting the sustainability aspects of the water project to the community. From a Rotary standpoint our system is a low maintenance gravity system that will provide clean water to the village. Other than pipe maintenance, no other requirement are necessary for the system.  One of the primary purposes for my travels to Cameroon was to determine if we can cap the springs. If this were possible we would be bringing virtually bring spring water to the front door.

Finally To Work: 

Developing Sustainability of the Wum Water Project.

The Rotary/UNDP (United Nations Development Project) Partnership Training Program

I have come to learn that partnerships are extremely important in projects of this nature. So I would like to tell you why this  partnership  is so important to success of Rotary’s Wum Water  project. The UNDP provides a re-forestration and watershed protection program to protect and enhance the watersheds throughout many developing countries. This system is ingenuous and one that I doubt any Rotarian or water engineer would ever concieve of.

Here is how it works. The watershed or catchment as it is called, is a rather large body of land in which rain water collects as is seeps down a drainage.   In our case the catchment consists of approximately 500 hectors. The vegetation covering this area  consists of high grass, an assortment of various tree species, and dense vegetation around the spring areas.

Re-forestration solves a number of problems with catchments that dramatically reduce or eliminates the following: cattle grazing, contamination of the water system, elimination of villagers entering the catchment in search of fire wood, increased water retention in the soil, and a revenue sources to pay for the system maintenance. All that just by planting the right trees in the watershed. 

This is how it works.

• The circumference of the watershed area is approximately four miles and to fence it with barbed wire expensive and ineffective. To solve this problem thorny trees interspersed with low growing prickly shrubs are planted to protect the perimeter of the water shed.  The thorny trees keep the cattle out and the low growing shrubs supports this as well.  Both inhibit the entrance of cattle and reduce the slash and burn fires from entering the watershed.

• The most common trees in the area are  eucalyptus, and are removed as they deplete water from the soil.

• On the other hand, there are replaced by trees that return water to the water shed and by its natural shading reduce evaporation.

• Within the watershed trees are then planted that produce profuse flowers for bee keeping. This is highly profitable product which augments the cost of maintenance for the water system.

• Harvesting of firewood is a major problem as wood is the primary source for cooking. It is scarce. To discourage this practice  trees are cut down they are cut down and replace with indigenous income producing trees  such as orange, avocado, lemon. 

All I can say is, what an ingenious system. 

A Wum Welcome

A Wum Welcome

        

The next day I awoke to a knock at the door.  It was Honorable Kuchta and a delegation from the water committee coming to greet me. Still suffering from a jet lag + and no coffee I was swept off to attend a meeting of the water council.   Although I protested and told them I was exhausted they insisted that I come immediately.  But when we arrived at the town I understood why. A large group of people beside the road was waiting to greet me. Then Honorable Kuchta and I got out and a parade commenced to the town.  As we continued  the crowd grew as people gathered behind us

As many of you may guess, I am not big on things like this and was somewhat embarrassed.  But I thought that if this is what they wanted to do it was ok with me.  When we arrived in town we proceeded to the Town Hall to greet the additional members of the water committee who represent the twelve villages.  Then after a somewhat long and rambling speech from Honorable Kuchta, which is his custom at these things, I had an opportunity to address the group and give them an update on the project and what results they could expect in the near future.

The people of Wum have been disappointed on many occasions in regard to the water project, which had originally been initiated in 1989 so I reinforced to them that even though the piping would come to town they could not expect water immediately.   All in all it was quite an event AND I was glad it was not too long.  I departed and went back to the house and slept till the next day.

 

Limbe to Bamenda

Limbe to Bamenda to Wum (The Long Haul)

Driving on two lane roads at 60-70 mph in Cameroon is like driving in the Indianapolis 500, only cars are coming at you full speed while you are passing and cars seem to be trying to push you off the road while they pass you.  At least that is what it felt like to me. It is enough to make your heart stop and now you know why I am a strong advocate of hiring an experienced driver when in a third world country.  Even with that, it takes awhile to have confidence in the drivers’ skills and of course there is the occasional incident when you find yourself pressing your foot to the floor as if you were able to slam on the break.  Our ten and a half hour journey to Bamenda and Wum had only one mishap, a flat tire.  Not a big deal, except we didn’t have a spare, and we were in a remote village with only five homes.  Obviously there was no service station in sight.  As I was helping the driver take the tire off I had a chance to examine its condition and could not believe what I saw -- cords of the inner lining showing on the surface of the tire as well as having cut through the tire about an inch.  No chance for a plug that was for sure. At this point I thought we were sunk -- however, Cameroonian ingenuity came into play. The driver just walked down the road and found a homeowner working on his car. You guessed it; he had all the tools to take the tire off the rim, and a somewhat oversized inner tube to replace the flat.  We had only one other problem -- how to fix the slash in the tire.    Once again Cameroonian ingenuity came into play. The driver took an older inner tube, cut large pieces and stuffed it inside to cover the tire. After re-inflating the tire we were off again.  As we drove off, I was convinced the tire would not last -- we made it to Bamenda with a clunk clunk, clunk noise all the way.

 We stopped in Bamenda and got a real tire, took a break and pushed on so we would not have to drive at night. The trip from Bamenda to Wum is about two and a half hours and the hard part of the trip. It is a dangerous dirt road -- washed out, covered with potholes, and sometimes fraught with landslides. Bang bash, up and down we go -- swerve left swerve right plus honk, honk, honk, around all the hairpin turns. It was painful at this point.  As a confidence builder I could look down the cliffs to see an old vehicle below. No guardrails. Luckily there were no landslides, which I had experienced the last time I was here.

Finally -- exhausted, dehydrated, and covered with dirt and dust -- we arrived in Wum.  It was a welcome sight to say the least. To turn into Sammy Buo’s compound with lush gardens three structures and a home that looked as if it had been built in a developed country.  In America we would call it a large house but to me it was an oasis. I walked into the guesthouse and crashed. And do remember, the daily wage is $2.00 per day;the wall around the compound is high; there is no police department. 

Making it to Wum

Communications in Cameroon

We sometimes have a communications  problem here -- no lights in town, two separate phone systems - you use one or the other depending upon which one is working.  Line speed is slow--  it takes 20 minutes to load a Google page. 

Travels to Cameroon

"Up Up and Away" --  Washington DC to Amsterdam to Douala (Cameroon) -- As one lands in Douala, you know immediately you are landing in a developing country. Like many infrastructures in developing countries, Europeans designed them; the Douala airport is an example. The airport was built with expectations of large volumes of air traffic. In this case three landing terminals with five gates on each side. An airport of this size satisfies the needs of a city the size of Richmond, Virginia. However, the reality is that, to this day, only two planes land per day, it is unprofitable, too costly to maintain and the structure itself has fallen into disrepair. Unfortunately this is true of many grandiose plans -- office buildings, roads, railroads, etc built--somewhat equivalent to 'a bridge to nowhere'.

I can only describe Douala as a dirty seaport town, over crowded with air pollution, traffic jams, poor zoning, and many buildings only partially constructed. The good news is that you can buy almost anything that you can find in the U.S. in Douala.   The people here are not lazy as some people may think.  Everyone works if they can find work. Everyone is selling something to someone. The streets are full of vendors. Shops are squeezed into alleyways. Sidewalks are full of street vendors and, if that is not enough, the vendors walk through the traffic and knock on your window to sell you, cigarettes, candy, fruit, or whatever they have for the day. We as Europeans (the term used for white people in Africa) forget that this is the world in which approximately 4 billion people on our planet live.

Travel within Cameroon

Traveling by public transportation is again somewhat interesting and an experience everyone who gets frustrated with traffic jams in America should have so they may better appreciate what they have. Travel around Africa is done via Mamie Wagon (here it is a Volkswagen 9 seater van, and of course, in Cameroon, we make it fit 16).  To say the least, it is cramped!   After the first hour you just become numb, go into a trance with the heat and zone out. The journey to Limbe is about two and a half hours.  However, our trip took a bit longer because before we arrived, we were transferred to a taxi, a Honda Civic (which generally seat 5 and of course we managed to fit 7).

When I arrived in Limbe, I was very grateful that I have done a lot of yoga and am quite flexible--otherwise I would not have been able to walk when I unraveled my self from my pretzel -like experience. The Atlantic Hotel in Limbe has a beautiful view of the ocean and being there brought back memories of all the times I had been there in my Peace Corps days -- most especially with my dear friend Don Scott. We had great times there.

As I have grown older, I have come to believe there are no coincidences. This is one of those instances. Don passed away just ten days before my departure to Cameroon and his final wish was to have his ashes buried in Cameroon.  Nana, his former student, is the Judge Magistrate for the second highest court in Cameroon and is a wonderfully kind and intelligent person.  He had offered to take Don’s ashes and bury them at the school where Don had taught.

When I arrived at his house, Nana had prepared a meal that would make

Thanksgiving dinner look like a snack. Serving upon serving came and each one better than the other. His house is a 'jumbo house' by American standards. After swapping some stories about Don I left his ashes with Nana and returned back to Limbe.

Acknowledgments to all who helped make the Wum Water Project a Reality

This Blog is dedicated to all people who have contributed to continued success to our Cameroon Water Project and to the late Don Scott, former Peace Corps volunteer who loved Cameroon and its people(March 29,1932-October 26 2010).

It is impossible for me to list all the people to thank and I wish to thank the following members. 

Cameroonians and Aghem people: Chief Ramond Buhmbi, Dr Princwel, Martin Foy, Sammy, Zelma, and Tim Buo, all the dancers and Cameroonians who showed up for our most successful fund raiser, Akwo Boniface and Honorable Kuchta.

Rotary  Club of Cameroon  Mathias Ofon,and the Rotary Club of Bamenda: 

Rotary Club of  Charlottesville: Jennifer King and Jeff Gould (for believing in me and the project in the beginning) 

and the whole Charlottesville Club, especially, Jim Perkins, and his wife Morgan, Larry Mellinger and his wife Claire, and the other Event Committee members 

Albermerale County Rotary Club:  Olivia Branch, Harry Taylor, 

Blue Ridge Club: Mike Fitzgerald, Wayne Murphy, all who helped make the fund raiser such a success.

Rotary District: 7610 Scott Mills, Suyong Min, Vance Zevala, Travis White, Chuck Davidson, Ron Marion, Sandy    Duckworth, Tin Tin Rashead, and Julia Franklin

Students  and Faculty of UVa: Samantha, Kelly especially , and all the team members and to the faculty Dana Elzey and Garrick Louis

The Episcopal Church of Keswick, Cathy Bodkin, Bert Brittan, Julia.Norton

Miriam Young of the Rotary Foundation  You are the Best!