Tea for the Tillerman

The technology of tractors may seem less than enthralling nowadays. We have tractors that can do just about everything- thresh grain, dig holes, seed corn- all with the help of GPS so that the farmer in the cabin doesn’t even have to touch a single control. Here in the South of Cameroon, one is hard pressed to find land that is cultivatable with the help of tractors. With the Comice, the 2011 agric show, came a tractor assembly factory just a half a mile from my house. Here, outdated tractor technology is mostly out of the average farmers hands, primarily because of financing, but also because most of the land that the average farmer farms in the South is hilly, rocky, and often laden with trees or tree stumps. These factors, combined with the fact that Ebolowa is really just out of the way from major ports, or the entire North (which is, in contrast, cultivatable by tractor), just emphasizes poor government planning.

Aside from the fact that I believe that this factory will likely lead to environmental issues, particularly polluted water (in an area where people still rely on untreated ground water), I also get more and more upset everyday by the fact that Ngalane is slowly becoming an industrial park. This is evidenced by the presence of increasing numbers of shipping containers filled with tractors littering the site of the Comice. And even though people farm past the grounds of the Comice, the tractor factory owners bought out the land where they are storing the shipping containers and have now put a gigantic fence around their newly acquired land. This means that my neighbors who used to be able to take short cuts directly through the site of the Comice are now forced to walk around the entire perimeter when most of the area inside is not even being used. And I don’t know who to be more angry at: the tractor assembly factory for not caring about the people who use the land, or my neighbors because they sold their land in the first place in order to have a really good Christmas 20 years ago.

But the reality is the tractor assembly factory is here and they are here to show off what they can do. There are several hectares of land that are flat and relatively free of tree stumps right by me. These fields are found on the Comice land, and are cleared of tree stumps because the government cleaned out the fields several decades ago in anticipation of the Comice. Now, post-Comice and in order to test the usefulness of the tractors, the tractors are sent out to clear a few hectares of land. But, instead of using the green manure from cut grasses to help fertilize the soil, they sent out manual labor to burn the piles of cut grasses. Then, they resend out the tractors to till the soil, which is now conveniently free of nutrients, and then they send out more manual labor to seed the site. It is so frustrating to watch the teams of men working together to make piles of dead grasses to burn. What is the point of a tractor, particularly in the 21st century, knowing what we know, if you’re going to interrupt its work with underpaid manual labor? Doesn’t anyone read? If you’re going to have the costs of tractor upkeep, you might as well get the most bang for your buck. Or you should probably just try something cool and innovative, like NOT burning the grasses, but rather using them as organic manure. In America, we talk about no-till farming, organic farming, niche farming. If Cameroonians with the capability to make large financial investments simply looked at trends in other parts of the world, I think worldviews could be transformed. Instead, they are just going to do something mediocre at best.

The Motherland Calling

About a week and a half ago, my very faithful mother sent me a few articles from the MetroWest, a NY/NJ Jewish weekly. One of them was about Israeli’s work in Africa, and the other was about young Jews who don’t believe in God, but still believe in Judaism. I immediately connected with the second article about young Jews who don’t believe in God, particularly because here EVERYONE is religious and they always take it upon themselves to extol the virtues of Jesus and being saved. This kind of drives me insane, particularly because I’m a liberal American. “Hey, man, if you want to believe, that is up to you. Just do right by your mother.” However, my doctrine doesn’t really work here. Often times, before even learning your name, people will ask you, “Tu est quoi?” You are what, specifically referring to what church you belong to. Because “I am Lauren, I am an American,” doesn’t suffice as a response to this question, I’ve taken it upon myself to tell everyone that I’m a Jew. Now, as anyone who’s ever read the Erin and Lauren Do God blog can tell me, I’m a sceptic, a doubter among doubters, and I often use my Star of David only when it comes in handy (sometimes to make fun of the Jews or to make myself sound more responsible/serious than I am). But the beauty is that here I can use it all the time because no one’s ever met a Jew before. They all know we have been prosecuted throughout our history, so if anything, I think it makes Cameroonians like me more (they can identify with my people). And no one (except the Muslims) can really grasp the idea that I don’t believe that Jesus was our Messiah. It’s true, too, that I’m not really sure of this whole God thing, let alone the waiting for the Messiah, but I’ve never before in my life been more of a cultural Jew without even having the culture. The only Jew you meet can speak on behalf of all the Jews and still be correct. And since we’re the chosen people, well-educated, a minority, not white-bred, I’m happy to be the only Jew most Cameroonians will ever meet. At least now they know that Jews are hilarious.

The strange thing is that Saturday, while avoiding the wedding that was happening right next to my house (they were so proud to fight against tribalism in a marriage of Bulu with Bamoun), I ran into the director of an agricultural school that is right by my house. He invited me to this special reception of The Israelis who were coming to check out the ag school, to see what opportunities and constraints existed, and probably to do some ground truthing to make sure that the school actually exists. I wasn’t excited until I realized it was just a husband/wife couple who were actually interested in talking to me. After a very awkward ceremony dealing with language differences and cultural differences, I had a nice opportunity to talk to the husband, a guy who works with the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, African development sector. It makes sense that Israel would want to invest in African agriculture. They know a lot about limited resources, they know all about war, and they need as many friends as they can get. Well, they have a friend in Cameroon, especially considering that the person in charge of country security (or something or other like that) was an Israeli, many people in agriculture here have studied in Israel or with the Israelis, and that the only coffee house in Yaounde is owned by Israelis. Anyway, it turned out to be a great networking opportunity for me and I might be able to send some women farmers to an agribusiness seminar for West Africa in February (totally cool). It was clear to me that this school (who has come knocking on my door looking for funding) was just looking for funding. They couldn’t care about the other cool things that the Israeli was talking to me about (counter-season production, specifically, to help with the fact that they’re cultivating in the rainforest), they were just excited about the connection and the possibility that they would get money from the Jews. Who have a lot of it, as we all know.

It was good to talk to this super-Jewish couple who kept using big Hebrew words that I didn’t know, like the one that refers to doing God’s work everyday. (Actually I realized I can only remember the words for “shut up please” and my name in Hebrew…) They reminded me that it is difficult to keep Kosher (tell me about it, and I don’t even try), that I am still a Jew even if I’m in Africa and that I need to visit the motherland. And I was reminded of how nice it is to be able to have an excuse to not go to church on Sunday.