The Highlands High Life

OK, so I can readily admit that the title for this post is extremely uninspired, but I' hope to make up for it with my post content. To the right, as you can probably tell, is the reproductive structure of a banana tree, something I had never had the chance to see before until this week. The purplish-black pod that is hanging down is actually the flower. As the banana comes into bloom, the flower gradually opens it’s petals one by one, revealing the flowerlets (excuse my botany) which you can see ringing the top of the flower. These sets of flowerlets then get pollinated and create one bunch of bananas. Depending on how much rain occurs in the season, the banana will open its flower to a greater or lesser extent, resulting in fewer or more bananas. Ok, I’ve explained it to death, but it’s REALLY NEATO.

As of today, I’ve been in Bangante, Ouest Provence for nine days. I will call this place home for the next eleven weeks of training, and what a home it is! Bangante is in the humid highlands of western Cameroon, and the climate is absolutely perfect: 70-80 deg F every day, with afternoon and evening rains. I think we’re about to enter the dry season, and it’s going to get a lot hotter, but right now it’s certainly more temperate than Alabama, even at four degrees north.That’s my host family that I’m staying with, or at least part of it. From left to right, there’s Rosine my mom, Carol my sister, Cyril my uncle, and Jessica my sister. Not pictured is my dad Yves. Carol is actually my dad’s little sister, but she lives with us, and Cyril lives right next door, as does much of the extended family. My mother, as you can see is quite young (actually younger than me) and beautiful, and I think my dad resembles quite handsomely a young Harry Belafonte. Jessica, as you will note, is absolutely adorable and quite impish. In this picture, we’re all sitting by the outside hearth where most of the cooking is done (although we also have a gas range.) My family has been extremely gracious to me since my arrival, and most importantly, they are very patient with my French. My mom is actually an English teacher at a local school, but she steadfastly refuses to speak English to me. My dad runs the local internet cafe, Cyber Cafe Medumbanet (Medumba is the local language). To the right is a picture of my house. My accommodations are a lot more posh than most of the volunteers and certainly nicer than my accommodations last summer in North Carolina: flush toilet, shower (cold), electricity, satellite TV, gas stove. You can see the laundry drying on the bushes out front. There is no such thing as a washing machine here, and I’m learning bit by bit to do my laundry by hand. My palms were sore until Thursday from doing my laundry last Sunday, as it involves a lot of pounding it against the ground.

I live on the outskirts of Bangante, a relatively large town which is sort of like the county seat of the Nde division of the Ouest Provence. Across the street from me is the chefferie, or the lodging of the chief. In Cameroon, there are parallel power structures, the traditional and the administrative. Although the region has a prefect who oversees taxation, civil services, criminal court, and the gendarmerie, the chief exerts a good deal of power in the day-to-day lives of the people. For instance, if there is a civil dispute, generally it is the chief who settles the matter. I visited the chefferie the other day, but the chief was not in. I did however get to meet a few of his wives. I forgot to mention, the chief has twenty wives and over a hundred children, all of whom live at the compound with him! Polygamy is practiced to varying degrees across Cameroon. Below is a picture of the entrance to the chefferie. To the left is a picture of the lion that guards the entrance to the chefferie. I believe that the lion is the chief is the symbol of the chief of Bangante.

  I know that a few of you are curious about what kind of food they have here, and I can say that it is very, very good, although it could just be the case that my mother is an excellent cook. Tonight, I had ndole, which is a kind of green, that is prepared with ground peanuts, onions, garlic, and some sort of meat (beef in my case) and served with couscous, which is actually really thick corn grits. It was fantastic! Another great dish that I’ve had was fish in a spicy peanut sauce with rice. The diet is very starch heavy, with lots of plantains, sweet potatoes, irish potatoes, koki (cowpea paste), unripe bananas, and yams. And then there is the fresh fruit;  the bananas are fantastic, as are the pineapple, as are the papayas, although I’m still not too fond of them. I had my first guava ever the other day, and it was truly the culinary highlight of my trip so far. When I broke it open, the smell was indescribably good. I had previously only known the guava flavor from artificial fruit juices such as the Fruitopia in my high school vending machine, and it was (of course) 1000x better to eat a real one. Much to my dismay, the one thing you can’t find here is a great cup of coffee. Even though Cameroon is a major exporter of coffee, there are almost no roasteries, and most everyone in Cameroon drinks Nescafe. I’m learning to like it, though, and it is certainly better than no coffee at all. The one thing that I think everyone here misses more than everything is cheese. Dairy products are nearly impossible to come by here. The other day, though, my dad did something very nice for me: I had mentioned that I missed milk,and he went to the market the very next day and bought a liter and a half of what he said was fresh milk, sold , as many things are here, in a reused water bottle. When I opened it and it fizzed, and then I poured it and it was much thicker than regular milk, I was a little bit skeptical. I realized though that the milk here is sold as cultured buttermilk, since there is the refrigeration issue. The milk was tangy and delicious, though, and I can’t wait to get some again! I also would rather have my milk be cultured anyway, because at least then the sugars have been consumed by a known bacteria, and not spoiled by whatever’s in the air.

My French is coming along quite well I think, especially since I had never spoken to anyone in French before two weeks ago. I’m starting to understand my family better, and my language classes are great, if a bit long. There have been too many miscommunications to recount, but I will tell my funniest one. Other ones I have included in letters to some of you. When I first arrived, my mom let me put my room in order, and after she asked if my room had been arranged. I said I didn’t understand, and she replied “I asked if you have cleaned up your room.” Or, in French “J’ai demande, est-ce que tu as arrange ta chambre?” I unfortunately translated this as “I demand that you clean up your room.” So I returned to my room and promptly repacked a lot of the stuff that I had just unpacked, thinking that my mom thought that I had too much clutter. It was only the next day that I realized my mistake.

Anyway, there’s so much more that I could write about, particularly about my agroforestry training, but I think I’ll save that for another post, as this one is already quite long. Cameroon is quite wonderful, but I miss you all. I’ve sent letters to MANY of you, so you should see those in about a month. PLEASE write to me! My address is in the left-hand column. All of my love.

-Richard