Life and AIDS Work in NorthWest Cameroon

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.

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.

Signs and Sayings

I love the local sayings and the homemade signs painted by local artists.  These signs and sayings seem to adorn every small business, consumer item, and means of transportation.  Here are some of my favorites.

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"No food for the lazy man."

- Embroidery on purse.

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"Keep out evil."

- Painting in bar

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"If I Be Know"

- Sign for car wash

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"God's time is the best."

- Sign on sandwich and omelette cart   

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"When I grew up to be a man, the first thing I wanted to be was a pedestrian until I met Amour Mezam Express [bus lines]."

- Placard at a bus station

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"If na you"... then who?

- Mud flap on bicycle

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"More talks, more blessings, hard working success!"

- Motorcycle mudflap

 

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"Shame on Mr. and Mrs. Wicked"

- Sign on local taxi

Teaching: A "Delicate, Noble, and Tantalizing Profession"

October 5 was "World Teachers Day" a national holiday celebrated with much pomp and circumstance here in Cameroon. Although it is called "World Teachers Day" I have not heard of it being celebrated in any other country. Indeed, one person I spoke with yesterday had a cynical conclusion. He said, "The government did not want to provide teachers with good pay or working conditions, so they "dashed" them (i.e. bribed them) with one day off."

Three of us from Project Hope attended to present information about how HIV/AIDS is affecting students, teachers, and the community in general. 11% of youths, or about 1,500 students, in Njinikom have HIV/AIDS, and Project Hope has identified at least 900 children in Njinikom who have lost one or both parents, many of them to AIDS. We described what Project Hope is doing through youth clubs and what the teachers can do to help contain the epidemic and help the people who are affected.

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Festivities began with a march through the middle of town. Teachers sang, "I am a pedagogue, and I will do my best" dressed in outfits made with the official "Teacher's Day" fabric.

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This young girl gave one of many speeches. "A teacher can not give what he does not have. A teacher who ceases to learn ceases to teach... Concern for each pupil gives them the push to dive into the river of learning with both legs and climb the ladder of success not with hands in pockets. Values are not taught, they are caught."

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Here Francis Nkwain, a town elder who has served as a teacher, school administrator, and diplomat in Washington DC and New York City gives the history of professional teachers in Njinikom, beginning with the German missionaries.

He also alluded to some of the problems teachers face:  low wages, huge classes (one teacher I know has 90 eleven-year-olds in her class.   "Do not turn to drink out of frustration. Do not become indifferent and cease to care. If the world fails to reward you for your work. God will certainly reward you."

Absenteeism and corruption are problems in government schools.  In some, 30% of the teachers never show up for work and just draw a salary while working at private schools or running a private business.
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Two teachers take in the speeches. Njinikom has two Catholic schools, so many teachers are nuns.

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Next, the town notables handed out certificates of appreciation to top teachers.
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Here one teacher shows off her certificate.

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Cry Die

Yesterday, we went to the death celebration, or "Cry Die," of a man who was born in 1894.   Since elderly people are revered here, all the "jujus" or masked dancers came to the memorial service, including some that made the long trek from the Fon's palace in Fundong.  The Fon is the ruler of all the Kom people, so this was the highest honor that can be bestowed on a community member.

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Heidi and Peter trekking through the mud.  It rained on and off, all day long, and the location of the funeral was about an hour walk from town.

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When we arrived, we had to jump in the bushes because the jujus were on the loose and there are some you should not look at.  I snuck a photo of them from where I was hiding.  These are called "Nantang."

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Here is Peter posing with "Nikang," the Joker jugu, who prances around in what looks like a pair of droopy diapers.

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There was a huge crowd that gathered to celebrate despite the the persistent rain and remote location.

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Here is "Mabu," a powerful jugu that comes from the Fon's palace only for very special occasions.  Everyone is bent over as a sign of respect.  Also, if you don't bend down, it may come over and hit you with the spear.

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Here is the nephew that inherited the old man's land and six surviving wives.  Inheritance is matrilineal: the "successor" is the first son of the deceased's oldest sister.

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Children at Work

There has been a surge of interest in child trafficking here in Cameroon with churches, government agencies, legal firms, and foreign donors raising awareness of the dangers of sending children from rural areas to the cities to work as servants and street vendors.  Parents or guardians usually receive some money for "lending" their children to distant relatives, and there is concern that these youngsters are prone to exploitation, neglect, and sexual abuse once they are away from their families, friends, and neighbors.  I have even met a law student from the US here for a 6 week internship who is portraying this as child slavery, though in the vast majority cases, these arrangements are temporary and made between family members.   

What makes this a complex issue is that children in rural areas have traditionally done a lot of work at very young ages, from child care, to farm work, to selling fruit and vegetables and hauling firewood.  Is it healthy for them to work such long hours and have such big responsibilities?  Many poor farming families can not afford to send all of their children to school, so some stay home to work.  UNICEF defines child labor as exploitation when it keeps them away from their family and allows them no time for school and recreational activities.

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A girl brings home the goats at the end of the day.

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This young girl moved into the orphanage for a couple of months to take care of her younger brother full time.

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Kids fetching water and doing laundry.

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Hanging out and "helping" mom at the restaurant.  In urban areas in the north, there are kids serving as dishwashers who sleep on the streets. Unlike this little boy, they are away from their family and can not go to school.

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P.S. All photos are by Ingrid Frey.  Thanks, Ingrid, for providing visual stimulation while I wait for a new camera.

Big Day Maria

Today was "Big Day Maria," a public holiday to celebrate the assencion of Mary, mother of Jesus, into heaven.  It is an offical holiday throughout Cameroon, so even non-Catholics like me got to take the day off from work.   

Here in Njinikom, the day was celebrated with two huge, interminable masses at the Catholic church where about 70 children took their first communion.  My camera is broken so you will just have to picture a parade of little girls in tiny white wedding dresses, complete with veils, gloves, and earnest prayerful expressions.  Boys were dressed in suits, most of which seemed about three sizes too big for them.  The most surprising moment of the service was when the priest said to the children, "Maria is our mother and Satan is our father."  No touchy-feel-good sermon here!   

Afterwards, the girls' soccer teams had a championship tournament in the field below the church.  I love the idea of a competitive girls soccer league and think that it is really cool that Project Hope sponsors a girls team as a way to empower young women and promote gender equity.  But I decided to not to watch the game because the only thing more interminable than a church service is a soccer match. 

Instead I decided to make the rounds of the community in order to partake in some of the feasts at the homes of the parents of the girls and boys who took first communion.  First, I visited the home of my official supervisor, Augustine, and met his wife and four daughters. They had a generous spread of all the traditional foods: chin-chin, chicken, koki beans, fufu and njama-jama. The girls were playing with balloons brought by some German visitors while the adults watched African music videos of writhing well-endowed females and studly men driving around the streets of Paris.

Then, I hiked up halfway up Mount Boyo to visit with another family where I ate eru, gari, and jolof rice.   Others were drinking cheap whisky and watching bad romantic comedies from South Africa and Nigeria.  One of the adult daughters there for the celebration had just come back from working at the United Nations and as a diplomat in Senegal and South Africa.  I tried to convince her to help me get a job in Geneva at WHO or the UN, so I can continue to soothe my restless soul and avoid coming back to the US while George Bush continues to erode our economy, ethics, environment, and human rights.

Then I went home to hang out with the cat and watch the sunset over the hills in my backyard. It finally occurred to me to count the number of mountain ridges from my house to the horizon.  There are seven.  But it was impossible to count the number of shades of grey, blue, and pale yellow as the sun set.  It was spectacular with rays of sunshine piercing through huge fortresses of cumulous clouds just as if to prove there really is a divine presense..the devil as father notwithstanding.

Beaten by witches

amazonI have had a cold for about a week now.  It started out with the normal allergies, scratchy throat, sneezing, and sniffles.  Then it graduated to back aches, fatigue, and bone pain. 

I was telling the folks in the office about it, and they said that around here people would say that the back pain is the result of being beaten all night by witches who want to punish, kill, or drive me out.  So, I decided to make a joke about it with the next person I saw.   "Can you help me?  I am being beaten all night by witches.   What can I do?"  Their jaw dropped and a look of shock stopped them in their tracks.   "Sorry!! You need to leave immediately and go back to the US. The people here are evil.  You must go before they get you."

After reassuring them that I was just joking, I got to thinking what it would be like to live in a community where you sincerely believe that your neighbors and extended family would harbor such ill will against you that they would pay a traditional healer to cast an evil spell on you.  In the olden days, such witches and sorcerers would be exiled from the community.  But people say that now witchcraft is so pervasive that people are afraid to take action against sorcerers for fear of being accused themselves of practicing witchcraft.  I guess there might be a certain sense of security in believing that no illness and accident is random, and that every occurance has a meaning.

Cameroonian Cuisine

The food here in Njinikom, and in the North West Province in general, is very plentiful, inexpensive, and good. Fresh fruits and vegetables abound. Right now corn, bananas, peanuts, tomatoes are in season. Habanero peppers are also always available and are the most popular seasoning after Maggi (or salty, meat-flavored bouillion cubes.) People eat a bit of meat and fish if they can afford it. Servings are usually very small, the size of live mouse (or half the size of a computer mouse). In other parts of Cameroon, people eat monkeys and other wild game, but here they only have chicken, beef, and goat in very small quantities.

Cameroonian cuisine is very satisfying comfort food. It is not fancy, but it is flavorful. One of my side goals is to get my cholesterol level down to a level where I do not need to take lipid lowering medications.  I might just be able to achieve that if I can avoid the palm oil and fried foods, like the delicious "beignets" or small doughnuts/munchkins.

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BREAKFAST

• Banana muffin: 30 cents
• Coffee with powdered milk (must make at home)
• "Pap with teabread:" traditional breakfast of slightly fermented corn porridge (pap) and sticks of fried dough (teabread)

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LUNCH

I almost always eat at the hospital canteen because it has good, inexpensive freshly cooked food.

• Fufu and njamajama: 50 cents.  Fufu is cooked cornmeal, tastes like polenta.  "Njamajama"
• is a sauce made of cooked huckleberry leaves, a drak green slightly bitter leaf like a cross between spinach and kale.
• Rice with peanut sauce: 30 cents
• Manioc with okra sauce; 30 cents
• Plate of black beans cooked with garlic, ginger, and palm oil: 20 cents

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Youths eating rice with groundnut sauce. 

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DINNER

• Grilled mackerel with "bobolo" or stick of slightly fermented manioc: $1.25
• Spaghetti made at home
• Potatoes mashed with red beans and mixed with palm oil (free at a friend's house)

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SNACKS

You can get all sorts of great snacks by the roadside. 

• Corn: one cob, grilled 20 cents
• Mangos: 5 for 10 cents
• Pineapple: 30 cents
• Peanuts: handful of fresh peanuts 20 cents
• "Soya" or meat on a stick: 20 cents each, need 2-3 to fill up

In addition, you can get imported packaged foods, like cookies from Saudi Arabia and the Phillipines, which are more expensive

Traditional Wedding

Last Saturday I attended a traditional wedding, which takes place at night and lasts until the following dawn.  The groom picked me up at 8pm on his third trip of hauling firewood from his house to the bride’s house about 8 km away, or a half an hour's walk.   He was accompanied by about 8 friends carrying firewood, and we walked mostly in the dark with occasional illumination by flashlights, crossing what sounded like 4 waterfalls, but must have been just streams filled to the brink with the recent rains.

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Here in Cameroon it is the bridegroom’s responsibility to pay for most of the costs associated with the wedding.   The amount the groom is expected to give to the bride’s family varies.  If I understood correctly, it is determined by how much the bride’s mother’s family received when she got married.  But it also increases with a bride’s education level.  So, some men marry women with lower education levels and then have them continue education after marriage because they can not afford to marry a women with a university degree.

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For this particular wedding, Erik had to get together the following:

s         10 tins (250 liters or about 60 gallons) of palm oil

s         A barrel of meat

s         100,000 FCFA (about $2,000) in cash

s         As much firewood as the groom’s friends can bring

s         A "married woman's outfit" for the bride to wear after the wedding so people know she is no longer available

Another important aspect of a traditional wedding is the comedian who keeps the older females in the bride’s family entertained during the long evening of food preparations.  (The men sit in a separate hut where they talk and listen to music cassettes.) 

Here is the comedian greeting the bride's grandmother and beginning a long string of bawdy jokes to keep the elder ladies flattered and entertained.  The women on the right are cooking a big kettle of fufu corn to feed all the guests, about 200 hundred people.

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It is a tradition to slaughter a chicken at a wedding.  Before doing so the comedian put it on his head then asked it a lot of questions and interpreted its clucks.  The meat from this one chicken was then shared with the 50 people that were in the house of the women.

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Here Eric (the groom) and Elizabeth (the bride) share a bite of fufu and djamajama the traditional staple food around here.   Note they keep their head bowed during all of the ceremony.

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Here is Elizabeth (in the beads) and her bridesmaids posing for pictures after the ceremony was over and they could show their faces.  During the wedding itself there was a "roast" of each one of them as well as of the groomsmen.

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For the last couple of weeks, Erik has been excited about the wedding but also agitated and stressed about getting all this together while at the same time trying to finish up a small house that he was building in his parents compound for him to live in with his new bride. I supported him by buying one tin of palm oil. He was so happy he skipped around the shed we were working. (He is the one running the market outreach program in Belo.) Giving gifts to locals is always controversial, because you do not want to provoke envy and or floods of requests from others, but Eric's little happy dance made it all worth it.

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At the wedding, corn beer was served (sparingly) but who needs lots of alcohol, when you are allowed to doze off in the ceremony without embarrassment.   Here the appetizers of Kola nuts, popcorn, and yam are being served.

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When the going gets rough...

As some of you already know, the last two weeks have been very stressful for me.   First I observed an abstinence only HIV/AIDS training for youth club leaders, which included false information about condoms and a fair amount of moralizing which implied that HIV/AIDS is linked to laziness and other sinful attitudes.  I am doing what I can to remedy the situation, but it is very draining and disturbing to witness this.

Then on Monday, I was suddenly and inexplicably moved from one house to a far more rustic one, which although it is much larger than my previous place, smells strongly of mold, has no toilet seat, no refrigerator, and almost no kitchen supplies.  Instead of a view of mountains in my backyard, I now look out onto 4 outhouses.

So what to do when the going gets rough?  Go shopping of course!

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Fabric shopping with Ingrid, a friend of Shannon's, here for a 4 week visit.

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I am babysitting the cats of the two Catholic missionaries who are now living in my former room.  Here is one posing on one of my new fabrics. 

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Here is the other kitten playing on the other fabric that I bought.

Death Celebration

FUNERALS: Not a Morbid Affair

In this area, funerals are called "death celebrations," an apt name because they are a big party, with masks, dancing, free beer and food for hundreds.  Here are some snapshots from one I attended on Sunday.  Because I am an outsider and a woman, most photos were taken by James, the young man with the red jersey, slouchy hat, and big grin  like the cool dude from Fat Albert.