The trouble with pygmies, stray puppies, wild jungle cats, and elephants

There is a story about a pygmy man who has great powers over love, and I heard it from 2 different people so it must be true. There is a pygmy man who lives somewhere on the coast between Kribi and Campo. He is well-known for his potions and other supernatural powers. One day, a European couple, on vacation, are at the beach. They are both out for a swim, and she gets tired. She leaves the water to rest on the beach, while her partner still swims. This pygmy man sees her lying there and violates her. By the time the woman's partner sees the commotion on shore, it is too late and she has been victimized and he escapes. But the real interesting story is that a woman from Douala hears about the pygmy's ability to make love potions. She wants to capture a man's heart, so she seeks out this pygmy. She tells him she wants to learn how to make the potion, so he teaches her. But instead of letting her go, he uses this magic potion on her. They wind up having children together and she lives in the middle of nowhere with him and their children, never to be seen again by her family or friends.

I saw this man on my way to Campo for work. He was sitting outside his tent on the road, perhaps for work, perhaps to capture hearts of other women.

The distance from Ebolowa to Campo is not very long, but it takes about 13 hours of driving to get there because there are just a few miles of good road. On our way out, at 4 in the morning in the middle of nowhere, we saw 3 different jungle cats! These were all very strange looking and I managed to catch a picture of one of them. As we all know, bad roads aid greatly in the ability to do wildlife viewing.

Campo is a small rural town, sort of a mini-city if you will, with running water, cell service, electricity, but no radio or public television. It is situated just north of Equitorial Guinea, a country that made it's riches on petrol export. Within the area, there are many conflicting interests, and here is where the story lies (Perhaps a PhD dissertation if anyone is looking for something really interesting). Just outside of Campo is a national park, Campo Mann, run by the Minestry of Flora and Fauna (or something like that) and partly overseen by WWF. The main economy is not touristic, however, because it is isolated by a few bad roads and no one has thought about going into the public ferry business yet. There is very little agriculture, and mostly people fish for about half the year when it is the season and live in food dearth the rest of the year. There is a lot of logging interest in the region, and although the locals think they have a lot of land (like all of the South, 'Il y a la terrain!') much of their land is on it's way out as iron export builds trains running through Campo, logging industry increases, and a dam is expected to be built soon. Climate change is happening here, with visible differences in rain patterns, and there is sometimes devestation of agricultural land by elephants (for those who do farm), as elephants get hunted by Guineans and search out new land. Furthermore, what food production that does happen here is often exported to Guinea because they do not farm across the river, making food in village very expensive. Food costs are expected to increase as more people move in with the train/dam industry. To make matters worse, there is a very structured power pyramid that is aimed to help, but may actually diminish local voices. Talk about a complex problem! I will learn more, I am certain, each time I go.

The return home was also eventful. At 2 am, I got out of the truck to pee. As I am squatted, a little puppy comes out from the middle of nowhere and rolls onto its back, expecting a belly rub. There was not a village or house in sight, and I was briefly enamoured and unsure of what to do. Instead of thinking with my brain (puppy was female, and female puppies usually die when you try to spay them), I decide to do something, so I take the puppy in the truck with me. It is sitting on my lap, probably frightened or maybe excited that the belly rub trick actually worked, and it just keeps farting. The dog is seriously stinking up the truck. At this point, I am realizing that I made the wrong choice. I mean, I hadn't even seen the dog, really, and was delerious with sleep deprivation. Finally, we see some houses, and decide to drop the dog off outside. I am sad, still, at this point. It is only when the smell still lingers that I realize I made the right choice. After a few minutes, I realize the smell is not leaving, and I shortly thereafter touch the cadeaux, the present, she left for me. So, not only did the dog crap on me and the inside the truck, but later, as I can not stop scratching all over my body, I realize I got some sort of long-lasting rash from her.

The lesson is to never decide, at 2 am, to bring home a dog. And be wary of pygmy powers.

You know you are an American when...

your Cameroonian friend calls you in the morning after the Super Bowl to tell you who won and you don't even know who played. Or that there was a Super Bowl.

Never joke about water

In what I thought was a pretty lame, somewhat funny joke about how visitors get free floor space, but have to pay for their water, I recognized it really is not funny to joke about this. I realized this when I returned to my house after 5 days away, with 2 other PC volunteers for the weekend, and there was no power or water. How exciting. It really keeps you on your toes when you have to limit toilet flushes with 3 people, one of whom was sick. Power was even cut in town for a day. Everywhere except the fancy Greek owned bakery/store had no power (they have a generator). It was chaos, at least for me. But really life was quieter and I was able to sleep through the night without listening to non-stop television.

Finally, I ran out of stored water. This meant I had to walk really far with 2 empty bidons, 2 because I was feeling over ambitious, apparently. I had walked this way many times before, but I never realized how far it was as when I had to walk back with a bidon, mostly full, on my head. I fortunately had the luck of running into my neighbors, who helped me carry one bidon. I am certain my head flattened a little bit. But I could not even succesfully carry water all the way home. It was a 10 year old with a wheelbarrow who helped me get the water home. All the while, I walked home in shame because everyone thought I was crazy for thinking I could carry 2 bidons with my hands.

The road to London is a 2 track dirt road

Yes, that is correct. I have been to London, via Paris, on a 2-track dirt road. This road starts at Ebolowa, and just when you think you are heading to Kribi (THE BEACH!!), you turn off on a road that looks like it hasn't seen a car in years. In fact, the whole time you are on this road, you don't.


The road to Londre is 40km outside of Ebolowa, and it takes 2 hours to get there, including picking up and dropping off hitchhikers along the way (as there are no cars). I was essentially stalked down by Madame le Marie (the second in command to the Mayor) who has run into me several times in town, always insisting that she wants my help. Because she knowns my counterpart, she was able to rope me in (without my knowledge) to go visit the village that she married into (Londre). So, Sunday morning, Madame and her very wealthy friend who works in Doula but has a summer home (if you will) in Londre, picked me and my two counterparts up in his truck. We start on the road to Kribi, but turn off onto the worst road of all of Cameroon (no joke, it was BAD). This road is so bad that there are many many kilometers of bruce (wild jungle, wild farmland) in between each village. For the 2 hour ride, most of it on this 2 track dirt road, we passed through an entire 5 villages. When we finally reach this man's home, I realize that his farm is basically his playland. He has orchards of expensive grafted trees (with the grafted part either eaten by his many cows or cut off by his careless caretaker... meaning he has orchards of expensive unimproved fruits), many cows, goats, chickens. He has fields for corn (also suffering from hungry cows), and many ponds for fish farming. This guy even has solar panels, and therefore electricity in a village that does not have current. After visiting all of this, we sit down to a lunch of expensive bread, butter (real, delicious, salted butter!!!), and salami/ham. It is clear that his farm has a lot going for it, including star fruit. My only suggestion, aside from good fencing and better communication with his caretaker, was food transformation. He watches the fruit overripen on the tree, and with such poor roads, even with a crew to harvest, there is no way he could get it to a good market in time (especially in the rainy season, I can imagine). So, all of this in contrast to the problems of other (most) Cameroonians... money.

This past Thursday was my first real failure, or what my counterpart calls 'development work.' This means that after making a major cultural error of not asking the family first for a moto driver, I asked some random guy on a moto who turns out wasn't even a moto taxi driver. After a great deal of confusion and significant argument (in the Bulu manner: really angry for 10 or 15 minutes and then sharing a drink of palm wine, laughing like old friends), I find a driver for the ride out to Avoundi. We go out at 7 am, get there at 8, and find that the guy we were suppossed to meet to talk about agroforestry trees is out en bruce, in the jungle, 5 km out. He forgot! All of that for nothing! So, my counterpart and I compromise and settle on drinking some morning coffee (aka palm wine) before returning home, frustrated at this thing called development work, and tired from too much morning coffee.

This is how I broke two motos...

Yesterday I spent a total of 5 hours on a moto! Yikes, that does not do wonders for your back. But it was all worth it. My slightly annoying friend Mozart, appropriately named for all the music he brings into my life because he calls me 5 times a day, took me and my counterpart, Serges, out to his village, 50km outside of Ebolowa. We had to ride through the real bruce to get there, most of it on really bad dirt roads. Because of the state of his moto, I had to basically sit underneath him while he drove. Not only was this really awkward, but this was also painfully uncomfortable. On our way out, we stopped to visit some amazing rock formations that just appear out of nowhere. But first, we visit the chef (a female!) to pay respect. The guides, who we we supposed to pay 5 dollars, as I learned later, took us up some very steep volcanic rock (pictures to come soon) to the highest point for many, many miles. This is a sacred place, so one washes hands in the river before and after visiting. There is a strong belief that God has created these rocks, and the village has done a really good job of protecting their rock, particularly through the creation of this guided visit. After the visit, we went back to say thank you to the chef, when the arguing ensued over whether or not we should have paid for the tour. My group's argument was that we are not tourists, as I am here for work, and when my family/friends visit, then we will bring more. This really upset the guides (understandably, it is their work) but the chef was cool that we did not pay. In the lidst of this argument, we abruptly got up and left after throwing down 1000 CFA, 2 dollars. Yikes. That was uncomfortable.

After finally arriving at Mozart's village, we visited his field, and went back to his house where I ran my very first soy formation. Ca va dire, I am hard at work as an extension agent. It is hard to communicate everything in French, but fortunately for me, the village mostly speaks Bulu, so everything I said was translated through my counterpart who has actually cultivated soy. We also talked about the virtues of actively improving fallowing fields through the use of agroforestry trees. It seems like they are a community willing to try both, so perhaps it was a successful day in the field. And then we ate! I am constantly critiqued for not eating when food is offered to me. (Au Cameroon, on mange!) But these days, it seems work cuts into a normal eating schedule so lunch keeps getting pushed back towards dinner time. Which means I, too, eat like a Cameroonian (eg, monkey, again, and fish prepared 2 different ways).

And on the return home, after just a few hours of work au village, I managed to be a bad omen for 2 motos. First Mozart's moto lost an essential part just as we hit the paved road (thankfully), and then the 2nd moto we took lost a major part between there and town. But we made it back safetly, fortunately, after a really long day en bruce.

This is how I became a housewife

Degraining dried corn. That is it. Sitting in a house, watching really bad (but surpringly addictive) Brazilian telenovellas, removing the corn grains from the husk for hours each day. And all I dream about is white wine. So, this is how I became a housewife, though I would much prefer to be a 70's housewife, with a glass of white wine in my hand from morning 'til night.

This is also the blog about how I decided to visit my counterpart by bike last week. Keep in mind that this is the dry season. I rode my bike out to his house, a 15 to 20 minute bike ride. We went out to check out his plantain plantation, which he says is ready to incorporate agroforestry, nitrogen fixing trees (Woah! That was easier convincing than I thought was required!). After we return to his house, the rain starts. A big rain! About 1.5 hours later, which is just 45 minutes before dark, I decide that the rain will not stop and it is better to leave than to stay. And so I found out what the mud in the South is like. Everyone tells me because it is sandier here, the mud is a different quality than in the West, where I recently experienced the long rainy season. I quickly found out that maybe, in fact, they are different, but mud in the South is just as good at sticking in between the tires, the brakes, and the frame. Ride on? Not possible! I could not even push the bike because the tires would not spin! Man, that is some heavy mud. I am not sure how I made it out of that low spot. When I finally arrived home, I was exhausted from pushing my bike, but was saved, yet again, by eager pre-pubescent children who cleaned my entire bike, and even tried to clean inside the tubes. Moral of the story: Cameroonians are really good at cleaning things! And eager children get rewarded with parties involving promises of soda (jus) and popcorn.

Weird things I have eaten

My goal is to scare, disgust, and keep track of all the weird things I have eaten and will eat over these 27 months. Let's give it a go!

-Grubs, soaked in hot piment pepper (Delicious)
-Monkey (that's right, our closest cousin. Mediocre)
-Porcepic (Much like what we know as the porcupine, only cuter. Delicious)
-Rat (not the good cane rat, raised in a cage, but the wild kind, caught in the bush. Not good)
-Bush hog (probably the most delicious meat I have eaten in Cameroon)
-Wild mango (unsellable as fruit due to its inability to keep for long, but delicious especially when given to you by a group of smiling women, cutting them open for the seed, and children, happily eating the fruit as fast as they can, all under the shade of a mango tree)
-The foot of a chicken (very cartiledgy, lots of bones, interesting enough with piment)
-The foot of a village pig (which may make me more un-kosher than the fact that I ate it's lung also)
-Lung of village pig
-A wild bird that looked like a vulture, and, yes, tasted kind of like chicken