The North

For the past two weeks we have been in Ngaoundéré, a city located in the "Grand North" of Cameroon, not far from where my family lived. There is a much greater influence of Islam here than in the other places we have stayed but ironically the project I am working here for the next month is related to Christianity. I am living with Muslim host "parents", Hawa and Awal, who are the same age as me, and who live in a compound with Awal's extended family and a friendly horse. We live conveniently right next to the main mosque; the morning Call to Prayer works well as an alarm clock. Hawa has been busy making me into a Cameroonian, sewing me a Cameroonian outfit, drawing with henna all over my hands and feet and giving me household tasks that usually involve sifting, grinding or plucking. I have even gotten used to bucket showers and a toilet that consists of a hole in the ground.

We recently got back from a short trip to Waza, in the "Extreme North" of the country, where we went on safari, meaning that I finally have pictures of giraffes, which may or may not legitimize my experience. I spent the first half of the day sweating and bumping along on the back of a safari truck through the desert fantasizing about cold water. In the afternoon, however, I rode on top of our bus, which was a thoroughly pleasant experience. As we drove through the desert at sunset with the breeze in my hair, surrounded by sand and exotic animals, I couldn't help but succumb to the to thrill of seeing this beautiful, albeit cliché, part of Africa.

What seems to best characterize my time in Ngaoundéré so far, though, is being surrounded by religions. Last week students from my group put on a Passover seder at the house of one of the Muslim host families, which ended up to be a very multicultural event. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning about each others' traditions, and we ate a delicious meal, making culinary substitutions when necessary. After eating, singing, and storytelling, we went around and named a marginalized group in the world today or something that we would like to see change. We ended with one of the Cameroonian Muslim family members, who said that he wants an end to religious conflict and peaceful coexistence of all different faiths. Looking around the room, I could not have thought of a better image of this.

200 francs, Tsinga

If you need to go somewhere in Yaounde that is too far to walk and you don't have a car (which is most people), you don't hope on a bus or metro; you take a taxi. As in much of Cameroon, taxis are the primary form of transportation in the capital city, yet the system is very different from that of the United States. First of all, taxis here are communal, meaning that the driver will take as many passengers as he chooses, picking up and dropping off people on the way. As one can imagine, this means that taxis are often packed tightly with people. "Doubling" riders in the front passenger seat is to be expected, and it is not at all unusual to have four (or more) in the back. Occasionally, you even see taxi drivers sitting on other passengers' laps. This move is called "petit chauffeur". It is also common to pick up people from the market loaded with hefty baskets full of produce to toss in the trunk, along with the occasional live animal.

To hail a cab, you stand on the side of the street where traffic is moving in the direction that you want to go and wait, although on slow days, drivers will often pull up beside any random pedestrian to offer a ride. Once the driver slows down near you, you generally have a window of about two seconds to call out the neighborhood you want to go to and the price that you want to pay. If the driver is going that direction and/or likes the price you offer, they nod, honk and stop for you to hop in and specify the location before barreling off down the road and repeating the process with other potential clients. Sometimes it can take several tries to find someone who is going your direction; the communal aspect means that drivers are restricted by the destinations of the other passengers.

The first few times that I took cabs this had not been explained to me, and I got offended as driver after driver shook their heads at me and sped off. By now, taking cabs has begun to feel fairly natural. I know the correct names and locations for the places that I go regularly as well as the prices. It costs me 200 francs (the equivalent of a little under 50 cents) to go from my school in Bastos to my house in Tsinga, and I've been conditioned to reject any driver that insists on 250 or even 300 francs. There are some drivers who assume that they can charge much more that what is normal since I am obviously foreign, but generally I name my place and price with enough conviction that people believe that I know what I'm talking about.

The roads of Yaounde are always filled with taxis; generally yellow and in various states of disrepair. Through my American liberal-arts-school lense for sustainability, the environmental impact of using taxis for public transportation instead of, say, a good bus system is hard to miss. However, the taxis provide a ton of jobs in a country where the unemployment rate is through the roof. They are at least cheap and efficient, and provide the background for a lot of wild adventures.

The Wild West

I am now back in Yaoundé after two weeks in the west of the country. For a majority of the time we stayed with host families in a smaller town, called Dschang. My host family was very welcoming, and with four children between the ages of five and eleven, things were never boring. It was a good experience to be outside the city for a bit, away from the chaos of Yaoundé. It took me a while to adjust to living without consistent electricity and running water, but people are so adept at dealing without these amenities that the frequent "cuts" of the water and electrical current do not impede daily activities such as showering and doing homework at night. I became very efficient at washing clothes and dishes by hand and helping my host mother cook, sometimes over a fire outside. It seems ironic that many people consider this lifestyle to be so charmingly "simple" when in fact it is a lot of hard work.

Ultimately, two weeks was not enough time to get used to all the new things, but it was a nice glimpse. One afternoon, I had the opportunity to travel with my host mother to her natal village, which consisted of a few houses constructed from mud and straw surrounded by fields and livestock. The family all spoke in their mother tongue (one of over 200 in Cameroon) and shared all that they had with each other. When we finally left, we were sent off with warm hugs and a trunk full of agricultural products. Leaving Dschang was not entirely different for me. My host family loaded me with gifts and snacks for my journey, and the open invitation to come "home" to see them at any time.

After Dschang; we travelled to the city of Bamenda; which is located in one of the only anglophone regions of the country. There, we discussed the conflict between anglophones and francophones with a member of a radical secessionist group, the Southern Cameroon National Council. This linguistic division is a major point of controversy throughout the country; every speaker we have had has expressed a different point of view on the situation of the anglophone minority in Cameroon. While in Bamenda, we also met with Ni John Fru Ndi, the chairman of the primary party opposing the current administration. We talked primarily about the upcoming presidential election in 2011; in which Fru Ndi will likely be the main contender running against President Biya, who has been in office since 1982. However, there is a lot of speculation about the fairness of the electoral process, leading many people to doubt the probability of democratic change in the next election. We'll just have to wait and see.

Yaounde, Cameroon

After about sixteen years away from Cameroon, I am finally back to the country that was my first home. The only problem that I have had since my arrival last Monday is that each day I have so many stories worth recording and not enough time to write them down. These stories all center around interactions with people. Everyone I have met has been gracious, welcoming, and lively. Everywhere I have gone I have felt at home somehow; surrounded by sights, sounds, smells and tastes that feel new and familiar at the same time.

My first encounter with Cameroonian hospitality happened before I even set foot on African soil. Waiting at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, I met a woman who was dropping off her uncle to fly home to Yaounde. The pair took me under their wing, checking me in and buying me breakfast. The uncle, who turned out to be a prominent judge in Yaounde, became my travel companion for the day. At the airport in Cameroon, he introduced me to his family, and we parted with the promise that we would see each other again soon. The next day, as I was walking down the dusty city streets, I heard someone call my name. I turned my head to the road and there was Saker, my first friend in Yaounde, waving energetically from a passing car.

Over the next few days, I learned that this kind of friendliness is far from unusual in Cameroon. Everywhere I go, I am greeted with friendly "bonjour"s and offers to help me navigate the multi-colored labyrinth that is the capital city. Yesterday, I attended an artisan's fair, filled with merchants from across the nation, as well as throughout the continent. A young woman, dressed beautifully in a patterned green dress, approached my friend and me, requesting that we follow her to her stand. I explained to her that I did not have money with me to buy anything and she responded and she simply wanted us to "discover" her art. At her stand, she showed beautiful wood pieces and taught me to play an African game that seemed to be a confusing version of Mancala. We chatted, took pictures together, and exchanged contact information so that she could invite me to a traditional festival in her village. When I left, she gave me a beautiful Cameroonian mask as a present; a "souvenir" of the fair.

This morning was another fantastic experience. My "grandmother", the 74 year old woman that I live with, took me to the market to buy fresh fish and fruit. In addition to being the site of my first marriage proposal, the market was a wild adventure. Everywhere I looked, I saw young boys pushing wheelbarrows filled with every type of fruit imaginable, women arguing over prices, and men holding live chickens upside down by their legs, two in each hand. Our first stop was at a "poissonerie", where we examined numerous varieties of dead fish, and watched as workers cleaned and chopped the ones that we selected, sending scales flying in every direction. After this, we strolled hand in hand past countless stalls, stopping occasionally to buy produce for the rest of the week. When we finally left, loaded with heavy bags, music erupted around us. There, with the sun shining down on my face, I felt so happy and so at home that I felt as if I could cry. It was that moment that I truly believed what so many people have told me; that I am back to my roots.

Manternach, Luxembourg

Photo by Christian Steinbach

In some ways, my stay in Luxembourg feels like living in a fairytale. My perspective is of course biased; with no school or work, I have no real responsibilities to mar my impression of beauty and simplicity. One cannot deny, however, that the setting is reminiscent of a storybook illustration. Picturesque countryside stretches out in all directions over rolling hills, spattered with the occasional rural village, always filled with multi-colored houses and the steeple of a Catholic church rising above all the roftops. Now, as I gaze out the window at Manternach, I cannot help but feel as though the even layer of snow dusted on the streets and buildings gives the village an even more charming appearance. The one unexpected factor is the pervading aroma of cows outside; a logical phenomenon for such a pastoral landscape but somehow always left out of the fairytales in the same setting.

Even in this environment, however, I cannot shake the desire to be productive in some way, an urge that I have satisfied by establishing the goal of "training" for walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in the Spring. This May, I will join hundreds of pilgrims to trek the famous Route of Saint James through France and Spain. In preparation, I have been spending my days in Luxembourg wandering along country roads. The first day that I ventured off on my own, I walked from Manternach to the next village, Berbourg, along gravel roads where one is more likely to meet a horse than a human; more likely to be run over by a tractor than a car. Somewhere along that path, surrounded by fields in all directions, I came across a sign with a blue background and a yellow pictogram of a shell, the symbol of Saint James, aka Santiago. There I was, in the Luxembourg countryside, breaking in my hiking boots for the Camino, and I discovered that I was already on it.

New Years in Paris

New Years Eve, le Réveillon, is perhaps the one magical night of the year that Parisians seem to be consistently cheery, eager to wish strangers a "Bonne Année" with a fist bump or a kiss on the cheek. For Christian and me, the festivities began after a busy day of sightseeing. After wandering along the cobblestone streets of Montmartre, we found our restaurant, less than a hundred yards from the Sacrée Coeur Cathedral but tucked away from the main tourist thoroughfare. It was a cozy, familiar atmosphere, with delicious food and friendly owners who served us our meals themselves. Our waitress had the air of a slightly overbearing mother, checking on us every five minutes, enlisting our help to translate menu items for other anglophone customers, and offering unsolicited advice on what to order. "No, no, no...ze andouillette...eet eez not for you," she proclamed firmly to our Dutch neighbors.

Just before midnight, we positioned ourselves at the top of the hill to ring in the New Year, while overlooking the city. Foggy weather made it difficult to see the main fireworks show, but we were nevertheless surrounded by an explosion of firecrackers set off by locals and tourists alike. On our way back to the hotel, we ran into a pair of young men who addressed us in broken French, asking "Ah kell urr kee-tay lah metro?" Christian was bewildered, but luckily I am fluent in American French, and was able to respond that I had no idea when the metro would stop running.

Overall, the four days that we spent in Paris were very enjoyable. We loved staring at Monet's enormous water lily paintings at the Orangerie, eating roasted chestnuts at the Christmas market, and of course, comparing outrageous fur clothing. My favorite ensemble belonged to a pampered Parisian dog, poking its head out of its owner's purse and wearing a fur coat. Now, I have arrived in Luxembourg and am ready to embark on three weeks of intensive relaxation before flying to Cameroon. I look forward to many new adventures in 2010 and wish all of my family and friends a Bonne Année!