Life and AIDS Work in NorthWest Cameroon

Prologue & Postscript

This blog describes my experiences working on an HIV/AIDS project in a small rural hospital in the mountains of NorthWest Cameroon.  Like all blogs, it is in reverse order with the most recent entries at the beginning.  So if you are a new reader it might be easier to start with the June entries by scrolling down to the archives.

Enjoy!

Fiona Smith                                                                Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Music of Cameroon

Cameroon has a great variety of pop music. In clubs, you can hear acoustic music with the easy listening accapella style of Bobby McFerrin, or recordings of the latest electronic Afropop music from Ivory Coast and the Congo. In bus stations, gospel music from Nigeria wafts out from large speakers. In the markets, you can buy counterfeit CDs with old hits from Madonna, Celine Dion, and Whitney Houston. But it is rare to hear raunchy hip hop music.

Here are samples of the music styles you are likely to hear in Cameroon.

Makossa is the most popular style of music in Cameroon. San Fan Thomas produced many "golden oldies" popular in the 1970s. My favorite song on this album is "Sabine." Listen To Makassi

Bikutsi has a catchy beat. The song "Beza Ba Dzo" by Anne Marie Nze captures its joie de vivre. Listen To Beza Ba Dzo

Acoustic guitar and soft songs is what I heard when I went to night clubs for live music. Here's an example of this type of music, which seems to be inspired by many evenings seducing beautiful French girls. Listen To Wa

Coupee de Kale music is from the Ivory Coast and it is extremely popular in Cameroon. The song "atchimon" capture the classic syncopated beat of the snare drum: Listen To La Rénovation (Pays de Joie)

Soukous is another popular music style originally from Congo (Zaire). I used to hate the unending cheerfulness of this music, but now I can not get enough of it, especially the song "Lagos night/Sweet Mother." Listen To Megamix, Vol. 1

Congolese Rumba is a mellow version of soukous mixed with the subtle rhythms of Cuba. Listen To Bayekeleye

Zouk music is very popular for dancing slow and close. This music is from the French West Indies in the Caribbean and has crossed the Atlantic to romance and entrance people all over West Africa. Listen To Lune . . . . De Miel . . .

Dreams Come True

In the last week, my last in Cameroon I have come full circle.  I now see that many of my dreams have come true during my six months on Cameroon.  I mean dreams in both senses of the word:

::: Dreams, the lofty aspirations you think you may never achieve, such as taking six months off to work in Africa on HIV/AIDS at the grassroots level :::

as well as

::: Dreams, those surreal nocturnal experiences that evoke magic or menace, like the dream of flying, losing all your teeth, or going to work naked, again ::: 

I am lucky to have achieved things I have dreamed about for years:

• Engaging in hands-on development work in Africa with little or no bureaucratic paperwork
• Collaborating with a team of talented individuals whose commitment and communication skills sometimes gave me goosebumps
• Creating a network of Cameroonian friends and colleagues
• Exploring an almost undiscovered paradise and its complex culture
• Adding some new items to my repertoire of exotic languages and anecdotes
• And, last but not least, enjoying the support of a spouse who understands and appreciates my independence and idealistic ambitions   

Yet, on the other hand, I have also encountered difficulties that are so profound that they left me feeling dislocated and doomed.  Indeed a few of my meetings with the Mother Superior/Executive Director were so unpleasant and unpredictable that they felt like a nightmare gone awry.

We usually talked about important problems, such as donations going "missing" and whether or not condoms are an ethical way to prevent HIV/AIDS.  But when the Matron felt that her authority was questioned, she could become hostile and go on the offensive, asserting her control through cut-throat criticism.

In the end, we could not bridge the deep rift between our world views despite common goals and good intentions.   Yes, we both recognized that we are similar in many ways: opinionated, passionate, and committed to what we believe is right. 

But  even after countless conversations, we still had completely different opinions. I believe condoms are an ethical way to prevent HIV/AIDS.  She believes they are an evil device that promotes promiscuity and anyone who uses them will burn in hell. 

But I suppose that is a lesson in and of itself: some differences are irreconcilable and no amount of conversation or cultural relativism can overcome them.  In some cases there is no universally acceptable interpretation of ethics, and efforts to create one may be futile.   I suppose that is what makes my experiences here a gritty reality, and not a dreamy illusion.

The Last Resort

After I completed the last of my medical exams and paperwork in the capitol, Yaounde, I headed out of the city to spend my last weekend in Cameroon at the beach.   

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Kribi is beautiful town, a  fishing village where in the late 1890s the German colonial government set up a port and a few administrative offices. 

You can see one of the German buildings from the fishing docks.

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Kribi has recently opened up to tourism.  About five years ago, the road from Yaounde and Douala was paved, and some oil rigs were put up off the coast to process the oil shipped down the pipeline from Chad. 

Before you could say Copacabana, a beach town sprung up complete with an homage to the icons of all beach bums worldwide, Bob Marley and Che Guevara.

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I stayed at a romantic little place right on the beach.  So romantic, in fact, that I felt really awkward being there by myself while clusters of young expats frolicked and lounged about with their beautiful friends and lovers.

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Still it was a beautiful place to watch the sunset.  I tried to think deep thoughts about my time in Cameroon and what I will do next, but insight evaded me.  So I watched the sun go down and the lights go on on the oil rigs off the coast.

Cosmopolitan Cameroon

Cameroon may be a developing country that has many of the usual problems with establishing a good transportation infrastructure, power grid, and reliable water and sanitation system.

However the people are already amazingly sophisticated and elegant.  Case in point, these two sisters in Garoua.

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Next Top Model

Right now, she is a cashier in Yaounde, but next month she might be on the pages of Vogue or on the runways of Paris or Milan.

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My dentist

She's a calm and composed woman who managed to make the same old lecture about flossing sound elegant and erudite.

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The Prestige bakery in downtown Yaounde.

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My favorite breakfast:  cafe au lait and beignets.  Tastes even better in Yaounde than in New Orleans.

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Shiny supermarket run by Indians/Pakistanis

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Hip internet cafe

It serves the best Greek salad that I have ever had.

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Cafe de Yaounde.  The grounds smell like jasmine, and the dining area has an eclectic collection of masks & modern African art. 

The art displays a surreal twist on the usual tourist souvenir cliches.  Paintings of safari animals and village life have Daliesque distortions and the standard statues of half naked women are in ebony and brass, posing demurely under lampshades. 
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Beautifully carved doors in the Mont Febe Hotel. 

This would be part of the spread for a Gourmet magazine article, should they ever be inspired to describe travel in the real Africa.

 

Grand Finale

Alex and I enjoyed my last week in Njinikom to the fullest.

On Sunday, we went to FPaul's Thanksgiving celebration at the Martyr Baptist Church in Wombong.  Unlike the American version, in Cameroon Thanksgiving is celebrated by giving a portion of your harvest or annual income to the church to express gratitude for a year of good work.  In my case, I was giving thanks was for spending a wonderful five months in Njinikom and for surviving the bus accident unscathed.

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Thanksgiving offering

Little girl and congregation

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On Monday, I got caught up on work: teaching staff how to complete the design and content of the new website, while Alex stayed at home and got caught up on his own work for MOTU.

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On Tuesday, we went to a raucous potluck dinner at MacDonald's (also known as the bad boy Snoop MacYeng.)   The food was excellent as usual and spirits were high.  Alex ended up drinking far too much Guinness.

Here we are with Gloria from the pharmacy.  She likes to joke she will be the future Minister of Health, so we need to be nice to her now.

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Wednesday night, Alex and I were invited to the convent for prayers and dinner.  Alex's head nearly blew off when in the midst of the high pitched singing the nuns whipped out their drums and pounded out an uplifting beat.

Thursday was spent on more work, revising budgets, completing reports, and conducting my last program management training session.

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On Friday, Project Hope organized a large send-off party for me, complete with traditional dancers, a present of matching traditional outfits, a plate of delicious ginger scented fried chicken, and many quintessentially complex Cameroonian speeches.   "Who is Fiona Smith?" intoned T.Paul.  "That is what we are here to discover and discuss."

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Saturday, we went with Fpaul and his fiancee, Victorine, to visit the two most powerful traditional leaders in our region:  The Fon of the Kom people, and the Ado, who leads the Fulani herders that live high up on the plateau.

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Here Alex arrives at the Fon's with FPaul.  Alex must not have made the right sacrifices to the Saint Cristopher the protector of travelers, because on this trip the motorcycle he was originally riding on broke its chain, and he needed to get a ride on FPaul's motorcycle.

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The Fon.  He is an old man of about 80 with about 60 wives.  He was very interested in FPaul's fiancee, Victorine, asking her name, address, and father's name.   Both of them were freaked out by the experience and were dreading the red X that appears at the doorway of the intended's house.  No one knows what happens to the women who turn him down.

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The heads of certain neighborhoods are required to donate carvings to the Fon.  Here I am standing in one of the most elaborately carved doorways with two of the Fon's more than 100 children.

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We continued hiking until we got on top of the plateau where the Fulanis live and herd their cattle.

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The Ado.  He is very laid back and approachable in comparison to the Fon.  The Fon required a donation of $30, but the Ado was happy to receive 4 blocks of soap worth about 80 cents.

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The hike back was equally spectacular with views of volcanic hills in the mist.

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Victorine and FPaul.

One of the highlights of the hike was watching the two of them joke around and entertain each other.  At first, Victorine was very shy around me, barely saying five five words (yes, no, I don't know) in my presence.  So I was pleased and relieved to see her open up and actively engage in conversation. 

It is great that they can now be more open about their relationship.  Up to recently, they hid it because pre-marital relationships, though common, are not really approved of in the culture.  Furthermore it is expensive and intimidating to get engaged because of the number of hoops you have to jump through to get the families' formal approval and save money for the wedding.

Tourism in the Extreme North: Intriguing, Annoying, Hazardous

Tourism in Cameroon is tough. Although this country has many spectacular sights and is far more developed than other African countries, the decrepit transportation infrastructure makes travel grueling and dangerous.  Furthermore, the lodging and food can be quite expensive for what it is. 

I wanted to go to the Extreme North Province of Cameroon to satisfy my curiousity and wanderlust, but in the end, it did not feel like it was worth it.  Fortunately, Alex is a lot more laid back about the experience.  Having never been to Africa before he expected the difficulties and was willing to roll with the punches.  I just got annoyed. 

I realize now that what I like most about being here is living and working in a small village where I know people in the context of their daily life and community.  Being a tourist is not at all fulfilling in comparison.  After dealing with all the delays, discomforts, and potential dangers, what you get to see of the destination is quite shallow and superficial.

Here are some of the highlights.

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Mosques and Mobil stations are ubiquitous.

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Alex in an elephant's footprint.  We did not get to see any elephants but did see their guerilla tactics to keeps the annoying tourists at bay:  stomp up the road so that the land rovers can not get past.

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What is faster:  a land rover or a herd of giraffes?

Giraffes!   Here a herd of giraffes races past.  When they run it looks like they are in slow motion, but they can cover a lot of ground with their gangly limbs.
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The beautiful Porte Mayo hotel, a relaxing oasis in the hot and dusty town of Maroua. 

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View of the volcanic mountains surrounding Rhumsiki.

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The similarities between Cameroon and Mali are remarkable.  As in Mali, it is hot, dry, the people are predominantly Muslim, and the lingua franca is Fulani.  The main food is millet paste and sauce made of peanut butter or various green leaves.

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Alex playing with a cat in Rhumsiki.

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A woman sits next to her house, two granaries and kitchen.  She is one of 46 wives of a chief.
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Bus accident.   Our bus hit a pothole, lost control, and toppled over into a culvert on our way back.  We were not hurt at all, but one man died and a woman severely broke her leg. 

The only good thing to come out of it was that we had a long talk with an Iman from Chad in the shade of a thorn bush, while waiting for our luggage.  Then, some nuns from a nearby town took pity on us and fed us delicious food and put us up in their calm sanctuary, without even asking for a marriage certificate.

From Yaounde to Ngaoundere by Train

After a day in Yaounde, Alex and I made our way to the extreme north, bracing ourselves for a long complicated trip.   

The start was auspicious.   We heard that it could take three hours to get a reservation on the train and that you might need to show proof that you are legally married in order to get a two person sleeper car.  So just to be on the safe side the Peace Corps director wrote us an affivadit to  prove that we are legally married.  (Our marriage certificate, slightly stained from the rain that came through the roof of the train car.)

But once we arrived at the train station, we sailed to the ticket window and got a ticket in less than one minute.  Then, another surprise, the train left at 6PM sharp, with none of the usual delays while waiting for the vehicle to fill up or baggage to be loaded, as on the buses.

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Settling into the sleeper car for the long trip north.   Having a beer and good reading material can make the 18-26 hour trip almost bearable.

We chugged through the night uneventfully, until we woke to the sounds of yelling outside the window.   The train had stopped and the security guards were arguing with some strangers who had congregated on the tracks.   We did not find out till the morning that armed robbers were known to stop the train in the midde of the night in order to grab what they could.

At 3AM, it was ominously quiet again and for the next 7 hours we did not move.   A cargo train had derailed ahead of us.   

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A view from the train

At about 10AM we finally started rolling again, when suddenly at 10:30AM the train lurched to a stop again.  There was a flurry of activity at the back of the train.   A man from one of the local towns who was surfing the trains jumping on while it rolled through the station and jumping off once it was in the outskirts, lost his grip and fell partway under the train and lost part of his hands as the train sped past.   After another long delay he was put on the train to transport him to the nearest hospital.

We finally arrived in our destination, Ngaoundere, about 10 hours behind schedule and 26 hours after our departure setting a new record for delays. 

As Alex said, "Maybe we have wandered too far from the beaten track."

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The train station in Ngaoundere.  Only 8 more hours in the bus to go!

Money Misadventure

Today, I had to go to the bank to get some of my personal savings to pay for my trip to Northern Cameroon with Alex.  I brought two means of obtaining those personal savings: travelers checks and an ATM card.   Even small errands like this end up becoming a scavenger hunt here in Cameroon.  So follow along for a blow-by-blow decription of my 2.5 hour long extreme adventure in getting cash for my vacation.

11:35:  I went to get my credit card and travelers checks from the safe.   Here in Cameroon you need to bring the receipts for travelers checks or they will not cash them.  So I got those as well.

11:45  Left the office with the country director who was kind enough to give me a lift to one of two banks he knew have ATMs that work with US accounts.

12:00: The ATM at first bank is not working, and they do not cash travelers cheques in US dollars, just those in Euros.

12:10 Walked through the rain to the next bank, Credit Lyonnais.  Insert my ATM into the machine and nothing happens.  I start to feel nervous when after 5 minutes the screen is still frozen.  Ask another customer for help, then at long last my card is spit out, rejected.   Walk upstairs trying to find the person responsible for travelers checks, and finally find a secretary who says that they are a branch office and I should go to their main office downtown.

12:25  Dodged more raindrops on the way to the next bank.  My hair is damp, my sandals muddy.  They only cash travelers checks for people with an account.  And their ATM is down.

12:50  Arrive in downtown where all the main bank branches are located.  First bank  has not ATM and only does Thomas Cook, not American Express travelers check.

12:55  Arrive at second major bank downtown.  Huge lines snake along the walls of the main lobby.  There is no sign of an ATMs (because there are none.)   After asking several people, I find a small spiral staircase that leads down into the basement.  I stand in one line, waiting for the impartial clerk to make eye contact.  She stares down at her paperwork as if she does not notice the ten people in line waiting to talk to her.  Finally I make it to the front of the line, "Go to the next counter."  There is no one there.  Wait 5 minutes for someone to show.  "Sorry we can not cash travelers checks because the internet is down, and so we can not validate the check numbers.  Try across the street."

1:10 Walk across the street.  Wow!  There is a small buiding with hge shiny windows and not one but three ATM machines.   Insert my card.   Wow!  It is asking my passcode!  Type it in.  Wow!  It asks how much money I want.  OK, $100.   Then, suddenly, the machine spits out my card.  "Insuffient funds."  This has got to me a mistake.  But no after trying all three machines, three times, I can not even withdraw $50 from my account. 

I am beginning to get worried because I need cash to pay for a cab to the airport (a whopping $40 round trip), and a night in a hotel ($22).  What if nothing works?  Will I be able to borrow money from another volunteer or Peace Corps staff member?

1:15   Go inside the bank to try my luck with the travelers checks.  Walk up a spiral staircase to their travelers check counter.  No one is there.  "Come back later.  She will not be back for 20 minutes."   I am getting more nervous.  I have an important meeting with the country director and director of the health program at 2pm.   Am I going to make it?  I do not have a cell phone anymore, so I can not even call them to tell them I am running late.

1:30 The clerk finally arrives.  "I am not sure we will be able to verify your checks.  The computer system has not been working.  But let me try."  Tipity-type-Tipity-type-Tipity-type...  Her face is passive and unreadable.  Nothing is happening.  Tipity-type-Tipity-type-  "Can you fill out these three forms?"  So I print my name, birthdate, birthplace, US address, reason for obtaining cash, passport number.   Sign three times...no here also. Tipity-type-Tipity-type-Tipity-type...  Finally something happens. "Are you OK if we give you 88,000 for $200?"  As a matter of fact, it is not OK.  The current exchange rate would normally give me 100,000, so they are deducting $24 for the pleasure and security of using travelers checks. But hey, beggars can not be choosers, and I need the money.  "I'll take it."

Two hours later, and $24 dollars poorer, I have enough cash to pay for a cab to the airport and a hotel room tonight and maybe for part of my train fare to the north.  Alex is bringing cash to cover the rest.   Carrying so much in cash would be insane in any other country, but here in Cameroon, that is better than the alternative.

2:05 I am back at headquarters for my meeting.  "So what are you doing here in Yaounde today?"

By way of Dubai

My husband Alex is coming to visit.  His initial flight was canceled, and his new itinerary takes him to Cameroon by the circuituous route of Boston- New York- Dubai- Nairobi- Yaounde.   Despite the inconvenience he is thrilled to see another part of the world, and he has always enjoyed spending hours and hours lookign out airplane windows examining geography from the air.  Here's an excerpt of the e-mail he sent to me from the Dubai airport.  Enjoy!
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This is one of the coolest trips I've ever been on. We flew in over the Persian gulf and the man made resort islands that they have been building here. It looked a little like Los Angeles from the sky except for the minarets and mosques.

The gulf here has an almost indescribable color. I can't do it justice but I can say that it varies from dark blue to the color that copper turns when its very weathered. That copper green color shows up everywhere there is an up-welling of current and everywhere a ship has sailed. So each large ship had billowing clouds of blue-green water for miles behind. As we were taxiing towards the terminal I saw the ski area. Yes, the ski area. Actually, its more of a ski facility.

The flight had almost no one on it, and Emirates airlines is a joy.  They have a camera on the nose of the plane and one on the bottom looking down that you can tune in to on the computer video system at any time. Since the seats around me were empty, I set one of the monitors to the forward camera and one to the down camera and then I could watch out the window too. I was in hog heaven during take off and landing. Sunrise on the screen in front of me was cool too.

The plane has outlets that I can plug my computer into. So I watched one movie on the airplane system and one on my mac and I worked for an hour or two. I've got an hour or so here in Dubai then a five hour flight to Kenya and four hours to Yaounde. Yipes, thats crazy. I'll probably sleep a lot on those flights.

In Dubai its fun to stumble around gawking only to notice other Europeans and Americans with what is obviously the same stupid look on their face. I'm going to go walk around and enjoy the next hour or so in this mall.. um, I mean airport.