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.