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.