Monday, March 24, 2008

The Female Lake


The pictures don't do it justice, just breathtaking. The moment we looked over the edge to this view was one of my favorites from the whole trip.

Vistas




It took us 2 hours and 45 minutes to do the hike. We were happy to have beaten Tom and Jennifer to the top, they had driven up in his car with the picnic supplies.

It was hot as you can see by my soaking wet t-shirt. The boys are Hadison, Leanghi, and Divine-our guide.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

The Hike




Peter, Meredith, John, Leanghi, Hadison and I trekked up the mountain to the volcanic lakes. It was on a dirt road, not through the rain forest, for at least 3 miles going up, up, up. It was really pretty, no air pollution, and mostly overcast so not too hot. We were guided up by a local boy named Divine. This is a shot of a church we saw on the way. It was full of people attending Palm Sunday service. Pete is with Hadison, aka Sporty Spice, who actually ran the whole way down the mountain when we were done. Meredith and I were still impressed by the fact there were signs telling us where to go.

Palm Wine Hut




As part of our welcoming into the compound we were brought to the palm wine "hut". It is where the MEN congregate to drink the local liquor, so it was a big deal that we girls got to go in. It is made from tapping a palm tree in the morning and the sap ferments by afternoon. The one time I tried it last year it was sweeter than this one. I cannot equate it to anything I have ever had before... it was fizzy, but did not have the kick of hard liquor. It was one of those moments where we just had to take the plunge. They gave us a communal glass, which was still wet (we have to dry everything so we don't get sick), I am sure not washed with any sort of soap, and drank with all the toasts they gave us. At times things can be very formal here, many speeches and acknowledgements. They rose their glass to Tom- a son to them all- many times, saying he was a true son of Africa because he came back. It was actually quite touching and nice for him. Meredith, Jennifer, and I took a sip and the poured the remainder in Hadison's glass. Pete got out of it because he was on medicine--you can get very ill if you drink liquor while trying to rid yourself of parasites! Most of the men were three sheets to the wind so it started to get loud with laughter as everyone vied for a chance to get their picture taken. We were very popular, many pictures were taken, but not too many turned out as they were so blurry.

Our walk back to the hotel was beautiful and moonlit, we all crashed early to gt ready for the big hike up to the twin lakes.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Upper Arm Work Out




Jennifer and I are trying to pound the cassava. Now I know why so many people here have such cut arms! The sacks are filled with coffee beans that will be exported for sale. Like the tea plantation we visited last year, every available place is terraced to grow their cash crop. Farming here is nothing like the states, all done by hand, no machines to help out.

Traditional Cooking Hut




We were introduced to everyone. The little kids followed us around and delighted in getting their pictures taken. We were shown how the cassava root is mashed and each took a turn at it. It was unbelievably hard! It is a root about the size of a rolling pin, but wider. They boil it and then while it is still piping hot use a stick to mash it in large bowls. It has no nutritional value, just a starch to use as a filler. It is the base for much of what the locals eat. We have had it, it is like pasty mashed potatoes with no flavor whatsoever.

The cooking hut shown here is about 110 years old. Just a few months ago part of the roof fell in and it is now used as storage. The materials used is a plant grown here. It has a snowflake-like pattern internally that helps retain heat. It is amazing what nature provides for us if you need it!

Town Shots


Meredith and I on a cool looking root system. That is the main road behind.
Pete, Tom and Hadison at a bar we sat at to wait out a rain storm.

We eventually made it to the family Tom got close with when he was in PC. The tree in the background is a coffee tree- the main source of income in the area-- it ahs laundry drying on it. Up front is the water source for about 10 families.

Bangem




After a pretty long day of driving we made it to Bangem. The hotel was about the nicest we have stayed at so far--no overwhelming smell of mold or urine and for only 10,000 cfa (about $20 US) a night! Tom did a fantastic job of making out a menu and cooking for us the whole time. Meredith, Jennifer, and I knew we wouldn't eat the local food. Pete decided not to after recently visiting the doctor and being diagnosed with not one, but 2, amoebas and was on medication. We walked around town a bit . We noted that this area was much more clean, organised, and in general friendlier than the other areas of Cameroon we have been to. I believe it was partly that it is an Anglophone province, that Tom is something of a celebrity there, and this is the first area we have been to that makes it a bit easier on tourists. There were signs for the lake we hiked to the next day and even a road sign!

Taxi Stand




We stopped for a drink at a taxi stand in a village on the way to Bangem. It is about 40 minutes down the mountain from it. Basically there are a series of shacks/shops where people can buy supplies and get a beer while they wait for a bush taxi to become available. You can wait all day for it to fill up. Not because there are not enough people, noooooo-oh. They wait all day because they overload the vehicles with people and products. I tried to get shots of it as we waited, hopefully you can pick out what I describe. In the first two pictures towards the back you can see trucks overloaded with people and supplies. The last shot is of a little boy balancing a tray of dried fish on his head, for sale to eat.

Lower Shots




We took a little path to see the waterfall from a lower view. Meredith is at the top of the steps we climbed. We were surprised that there were stone steps, usually it is just dirt. Hadison was our model at each place, we kept calling him new GQ names. He is Cameroonian, but had never traveled to this part of the country so it was an adventure for him too.

Spring Break




This year we went with a great group from school to the Southwest Province, specifically the village of Bangem. Tom, a co-worker, was a Peace Corps volunteer there about 15 years ago, had talked a lot about it, and wanted to share it with us. I am so glad he did. This was our smoothest trip yet. We went in two cars and our biggest difficulty was a flat tire.

These shots are on the way to Bangem on the first day. While going down the highway we saw an overloaded bus driving with a man clinging on the back. He actually got back into the bus while were driving about 100 kilometers per hour!

The red car is Tom's, passing the bus. The scenery was much different, more lush and mountainous. Lastly, a waterfall we stopped to check out and give our legs a stretch.

Happy Belated Birthdays


To Rich and Anna: Hope you had nice birthdays! Pete and I think of you daily. Three months to go and then we will not have so many technical difficulties that prevent us from communicating! LOVE YOU!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Earth Hour

Hey, I just signed up to the new Earth Hour website for 2008 and I thought you might like to take a look and possibly sign up too. Earth Hour is on 29 March 2008 at 8pm, and it looks like it's going to be really big. So far, as well as Sydney, there'll also be Chicago, Tel Aviv, Manila, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Brisbane and Toronto all turning off their lights for an hour in the name of fighting global warming. And I'm sure there'll be more cities by March. Sign up for Earth Hour with me by visiting http://www.earthhour.org/sign-up and join the movement.

That is what I copied off the website. I hope I don't usually sound as bland/cheerleaderlike as that little blurb. However, I do think this is a great idea and hope you will sign up and participate. Having lived in Cameroon over the last 2 years I see how dependant we have become on electricity-- and how little effort it takes to change that. We have not had as many outages this year, especially with a back-up generator, but we have gotten a glimpse of what it is like. Candles and a good book go a long way to make the time go by. When was the last time you spent one minute, let alone one hour with nothing electrical on? Give it a try, and while your at it, unplug little-used appliances, shut your computer off instead of always keeping it on sleep mode, and change those light bulbs!

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Birthday Celebrations


This is an old picture of Katie, Kristie, Pete and myself in Nairobi, at the Carnivore restaurant.
CHEERS!

Over the weekend we had a "gal pal" get together for my birthday and three others. Today is my actual birthday and it has been quite nice. I got up at o'dark-thirty to come into school for 6:00 am to do my planning for the next week. OK, that part really was not nice. The nice part came I went down stairs to ride in with Meredith and she made me a cute sign. At school my students made me a banner, brought in gifts, and some treats. The last part of the day we are going to have a little party. I was surprised by several co-workers showing up with gifts and flowers. The flowers here are gigantic and exotic so I feel like I won a pageant or something.


Generally, things are back to normal here. The marked difference is the number of extra militia around town. There are now men in black flack jackets, with black berets, and operational machine guns at most intersections. If we see ones in purple berets that is cause for alarm because they are the president's personal army and he does not call them out lightly. As of now we don't know what we will do over spring break (next Saturday). It will depend on how the Ministry meetings go next week. I'll keep you posted.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Back to School


The teachers reported to school today so we could discuss how we thought the evacuation went, how we can improve, and where we stand now. People are all over the place with how they are handling the continued civil unrest here. I am not sure what to think. I am not a political thinker and I have never lived through anything like this before. Some of our staff have been through a civil war before and keep saying, "This is how it starts". At this point we are having school tomorrow with a "business as usual" standpoint. In some ways that is good since I think the kids and even myself need stability and routine. On the other hand, I don't want to be trapped at school for days or in this country if the pressure cooker decides to explode. The picture is from Nairobi--Amboseli safari we went on. Tornadoes are dangerous, right? Is this one far enough away and too small to harm us? Will it sweep up everything in it's path or just get a little grit in your eye? That's how things feel here right now... how much damage can the "tornado" cause?

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Sunday 3/2




Pete is at a meeting with our administration and people from the embassy to discuss how the evacuation from school on Wednesday and what our next course of action is. We were told that there are organised demonstrations over by the Hilton today and to avoid that area. It was not supposed to start up again until Monday, so again we have no idea how dangerous things are. Hopefully Pete will have more info for us when he gets back.

Meredith, Fred, Marianne and I went up to the closest shop and got more food. Part of the problem is that our refrigerators are half the size of the ones in the US so it is difficult to keep more than a few days worth of food. The store was busy, but at least food had been replenished on the shelves. Our housekeeper has been ill so we actually had to cook and clean ourselves this week. I know, boo-hoo right? It is the dry season and there is a thick coat of orange dust on everything-even my papers I have to grade each day.
These shots are on our patio. We share the building with a UN office. We hope they'll give a us a ride to the airport (yeah right) if we evacuate. You can see the white tanks of our back-up water system.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

As of Now




Mixed messages all around. Alarmists are trying to find a way out of the country, but that is what the embassy has advised us to do. We can't leave, it would break our contract, we wouldn't get paid, and I don't want to leave this way. We live far away from the airport and there is no army tank to escort us, even if we could get a ticket.
However, I went outside to exercise this morning and plan on going running with 3 other ladies tomorrow morning. Yesterday we went swimming and Kristie's and over to Tom's for pizza. Today we had a joint birthday party for myself and 3 others who have their birthdays in the next week. We still don't know if it will be safe to resume school. One minute I am panicked, the next just fine.
I will try to update as we find out more. Meredith and I are cutting the tres leche cake Ann made for the 4 of us celebrating our birthdays. The other shot is Tom's pizza party-we all played Cranium after gobbling down the food. Tom is an excellent pizza baker! My sad offering was what I dug up out of the freezer. I have found people will dip anything into salsa, especially if you cut it up into bite size pieces, have a tooth pick sticking out of it, and put it on a colorful dish!

Thursday 2/28 Gas Station

Ann reported to us that it was safe to go get gas so we figured better to do it when we had time. Pete and I went and got in the line. There was militia there trying to keep order. The motorcycles were four deep in their line and there were several lines for cars. It took us about 30 minutes. In that time we saw a man get billy-clubbed for trying to walk up and get his jerrycans filled with gas. They do not like that because they just go down the street and try to resell it. We also got cut in the line by another car. Others tried to follow him and it just created a big cluster. They limited how much you could get. At this point there were still no taxis driving--that is why there were so many motorcycles, people were using them more than normal as taxis. My nerves were shot.
We then went to the local shop and it took us 45 minutes. It was so packed we had to park on the street. However, everyone was orderly and it went smoothly. I had a headache after all that.
We hung out with Meredith and Adrianna all day. Mid afternoon we got the call that there was bad rioting in the city that is at the base of Mount Cameroon. There is a University there and have been more than one protest there since we have lived here. So we cancelled school for Friday.
Wednesday night the president had addressed the nation-- first time. The general consensus was that his speech did not go over well. He said he will use whatever force he has to and that the strike should cease. Many Cameroonians felt his speech was arrogant and did not address the country as a father. So as of now nothing is settled and the people are still angry.

Wednesday Night


We had to use our emergency phone trees to let our students know that school was cancelled Thursday. In amongst those phone calls we got calls about what was going on in town. No gas, food shortages, and violence. There were gun shots heard in our neighborhood while were at school.
The strike was now becoming about criminals taking advantage of the situation. Banditry was being reports. Tha night one of my student's family was attacked in their home by men with machettes and guns. Luckily the kids and wife barricaded themselves in while the guard and Dad held the men at bay. Their panic button was tripped, the police arrived and the two attackers were killed. We were so freaked out we set up booby traps around our apartment. We live in a compound, with huge walls and barbed wire, but the guards here make next to nothing and are definately not going to imperil their own lives to save ours.
The embassy was now recommending we pack emergency bags. The ridiculous in me wanted to pick all my beautiful dresses I have gotten made. The realistic in me thought about what I would need if we have to be "refugees" for a bit. Our bag is not all the way packed, but we have all our important documents, clothes and toiletrees ready.
We got very little rest Wednesday night.

Meredith and Adrianna came up to play cards/watch videos. I was already in my pajamas.

Wednesday-2/27 The Evacuation

We got to school ok. The embassy warnings we recieve via the internet reported a lot of violence in outlying cities. Around 10:30 or so drivers started showing up to get kids because there were riots throughout the city. I found out because the French teacher Francois, stopped teaching my class and asked me to find out why all the Americans kids were leaving. It was a bad sign. I was in the middle of emailing my parents that there was a bit of civil unrest and that we were fine-my email changed at the very end. It was decided by the embassy that it was too dangerous to move any kids and then no one could leave the campus. Rumors were flying as some of the drivers came in telling us things that were not confirmed-rioting, looting, barricades, fires. Kids got wind of some of it and a few of my students got upset. The older kids were more flustered as they were trying to get a hold of their parents via cellphone and got bad news. Needless to say the academic day was shot and we were doing our best to keep the kids calm and distracted. Many staff were on cell phones trying to get information and to make sure their families were ok.
Around 12 the bell rang. At first I thought it was the civil unrest bell and had started to barricade my class into my room. Harry came along and let us know to go to the soccer field as it was a fire alarm bell. It was really so we could all be together to get evacuated. Our school has no PA system-- kids were leaving with drivers and we just needed to make sure everyone was accounted for. Pete worked with Harry, Nanci, Ann , and Miguel (security officer from the embassy) to get kids on busses or rides home.
All through this I was nervous, but kept it light as a few of the kids were visibly shaken. I got nervous when we heard helicopters. There are no helicopters here. Nothing flies overhead here, except out at the airport. We have never even seen one before. Now there were more than one helicopter looking for crowds to drop tear gas on. That made me tremble inside.
Once all the kids were finally gone we headed out. With us was Meredith and Adrianna. Adrianna is student teaching here, her parents are missionaries here, but she could not get a hold of them so she came to stay in our building with us. The roads were clear, but we saw large burn marks on the roads and a back hoe drove down the road with about 15 militia on it. We had no food to speak of so Kristie let us shop in her pantry.
We made it home with no problems. Meredith and Adrianna camped out with us while we ate, got phone calls with updates, and try to distract one another.

Tuesday 2/26-Tempers Flare

Tuesday started off with a little nervousness, but with the news that the leaders of the taxis strikers were meeting with Ministers of the government at 10 am. We were nervous because if the negotiations went badly we would be stuck at school with the kids as the city broke out with riots. As it turned out the Ministers agreed to drop the price of gas from 600fca a liter to 594 cfs, when it had been at 584cfa just a few weeks ago. To clarify gas here is sold by the liter. It is over $5 a gallon and they agreed to drop it less than one cent. It was completely insulting and not taken well. Gas/oil is one of Cameroon's largest export and it is being made to expensive for the people who live here to afford.
The strike was now becoming more about other problems here. Food prices are skyrocketing for certain stable things like milk, flour, and oil. It hurts mine and Pete's pocket a bit, but to the locals it is making their lives even harder and many cannot afford to keep food with any nutritional value on the table. Cameroonians have been trained to just take it from the government-which has been the same "president" for over 20 years. They were seeing Kenya and Chad and how civil unrest gets results-not necessarily good ones, but results.
We left school, with the warning to fill up on gas as the stations were becoming targets and there would be a shortage. Before the last kid left it was reported to us that there was no gas left in town and the roads had been blocked preventing any supply trucks from getting into the city. We, of course and along with several others, had less than a 1/4 tank. We avoided the gas stations as the live was so long it was causing traffic problems. There were reports of violence so we decided to try to get to the commissary for some supplies. We get through some crazy traffic and it was closed, way early. We then went to the local shop, but were diverted when a young child was hit by a car and the people involved were fighting/getting the child into a car for help. It is always dangerous to be blocked in when the crowd gets involved and we were one car away.By the time we got into the shop we were frazzled as it was jam packed with people stock piling. There was no bread or eggs and some other things were not available. We got some more things that still didn't make a meal--Linda our house keeper was ill and hadn't gotten us any food this week.

Monday 2/25-The Strike Begins

The taxis unified and set a strike into motion. In Duoala, the port city where everything is imported from, the riots were very bad, businesses and schools were closed, with under 10 deaths being reported. We heard of this in Yaounde, but did not see any of it firsthand. It was very strange to be on the road and see no yellow taxis clogging traffic. ASOY decided to cancel after school activities and we were all allowed to go home right at 3:15. We stopped off at the store to get some extra food, just in case. At the local shop in our neighborhood people were started to stock pile things and this made us a little wary to see parents from school get cartloads of water.
The basis of the strike is gas prices. It was raised 16cfa in a matter of a few weeks. That is just a few cents to you and I, but it is a lot to the people here. It was raised twice, the second time was the night Cameroon beat Ghana in the Africa Cup soccer series (soccer is the national past time here) so the people wouldn't notice right off. They got it together and made sure no taxis went out Monday. Any that were out, were not picking people up, but had their flashers on so they wouldn't get stoned. It caused a lot of problems because so many people depend on them. Workers at out school couldn't make it in, many of the general public had to walk hours to get to their jobs, and local students couldn't make it to schoo. Our preschool teacher, Helen, walked and hour and a half to get to school.
At this point we weren't too alarmed. We felt bad for the people where the riots were, but it wasn't localized yet.