Lá Fhéile Pádraig…Cameroonian style!

“No electricity! What do you mean they’re cutting the electricity tomorrow? Well b@ll*x anyway; I still haven’t printed out the questions or answer sheets for the Paddy’s Day pub quiz tomorrow night!”

So it was with a mad rush that I jumped on the next passing moto last Friday night and hightailed it to the VSO office in an attempt to save the inaugural Soirée St. Patrick. I mightened have been so bothered only our plans would be plastered all over an Irish national newspaper on the following Tuesday.

On arriving at the office the side gate was locked so I hopped the wall and was greeted by two security guards who were none too pleased seeing as it was after 10pm. I explained my case and said that the work I’d to do was of the upmost national importance (ok, I didn’t use the word ‘upmost’ as I don’t know what it is in French, so I probably said « très »). They assented begrudgingly and after having a fight with the printer I successfully got the necessary “Top Secret” paperwork printed.

Having just read over this paragraph, this blog entry is beginning to sound like the opening chapter of a Tom Clancy novel…it wasn’t as frenetic as that…it was more John Grisham I think.

‘So what was so “Top Secret”?’ I hear you yawn. Well some of the questions posed were along the lines of: What is the longest river in Ireland?; St Patrick is said to have banished what from the shores of Ireland?; The Irish author Jonathan Swift wrote what literary classic?; The Irish Famine in 1845 was caused by the failure of what crop?

All very 3rd class stuff I admit but you have to remember who we were dealing with – a bunch of Canadian, French and English volunteers with a smattering of locals whose knowledge of Ireland is haphazard to say the least. Some Cameroonians think that Ireland is somewhere in North America yet others do remember Mattie Holland’s equaliser for Ireland in the 2002 World Cup match.

Apart from a couple of rounds of Irish questions there were also a few with a Cameroonian twist and, of course, the obligatory picture round. Rather than spend hours on the web searching for pictures of Brian Cowen, Brian O’Driscoll and Brian Bóru, I spent hours doctoring pictures of the other vols instead which was a big hit. The winning team were a bunch of vols who knew their local knowledge. Thankfully the usual pub quiz sharks from Ballaghaderreen never showed up so the round of drinks for the winners stayed locally.

To cap the night off there was a bit of brawl among the locals and we had a sing-song that didn’t last very long. Despite the best efforts of Lizzie on the guitar there wasn’t a sinner who could sing a decent Irish song even when the words of Fiddler’s Green were put in front of them. Mea Culpa. Always had a sneaky suspicion that my talents lay elsewhere…it’s no longer a suspicion.

So where do we take our St. Patrick’s Day celebrations from here? Well we’ve a year to give Kiltimagh and Boston a run for their money. The Cameroonians love a good parade so if I can convince the army to show up, throw in a few dodgy West African Presidents dressed in green and call the whole thing “Operation Pádraig - highly classified”; then I think we’d have the makings of a real Tom Clancy style St. Patrick’s Day.

GC

“Waiter, there’s no fly in my soup!”

The menu board on the wall of the Super Restaurant in Yagoua lists at least 25 different dishes. A great variety you may think but a closer inspection reveals there are actually a limited number of dishes available; the variety is all in the combinations. For instance, according to the menu, you can order beef and rice, beef and chips, beef and bread, beef and macaroni, beef and plantains – plantains being long green bananas that are delicious when fried. Apart from beef there is also (again, according to the menu) chicken, liver and kidneys with the same side combinations.

“Right,” I thought to myself last week as the boo-boo clad waiter approached, “what do I feel like?”
“Monsieur?”
“Je vais prendre poulet plantains, s’il vous plait!”
“Il n’y en a pas!”
“D’accord, poulet riz?”
“Il n’y en a pas!”
“Ahh! Foie pommes?”

And again, with his inscrutable face which suggested that he could keep this up all day, he answered “Il n’y en a pas!” Time to change tactic, I reckoned. “Alors, qu’est ce que vous’avez?” And so the secret to ordering in the Super Restaurant was discovered. Basically, you need to ignore the menu and just ask what they have. Last time out, it was beef and chips, beef and bread or an omelette, and that was it. Whoever neatly hand-painted the extensive menu on the huge blackboard was wasting their time.

The food here is pretty good and most of the time I’ll rustle up some concoction or other at home. There are only two restaurants and a plethora of chop houses in Yags. With the narrow variety available on the menus and the need to monitor the amount of barbecued beef I eat, I’m not left with much option but to cook. So what keeps me going? Well, it all depends on the season and what you can get at the market. Mostly you can get onions, tomatoes, chillis, rice, spuds (yes, real spuds), lots of different herbs and spices, kidney beans, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and different fruit depending on the season – oranges have just been replaced by mangos as the fruit of choice.

As the Grahame Cleary Cookbook could be written on the back of any parish newsletter, my culinary skills extend to about 4 different dishes. Stews, curries (same dish just different types of spices), stir fries, pasta, salads and pancakes are pretty much the staple. Cooking is done on my luxurious gas cooker though there are times when I crave lasagne and hanker after an oven. There are other vols who use what’s called a dutch oven; which involves putting sand in the bottom of a large saucepan together with empty tin cans though I haven’t gotten around to trying that yet.

I have ventured to add meat occasionally to the stews and curries but it took me four months before I took a trip to the butchers. The butchers here are not like any butchers you get at home. No aprons, no little sinks with notices warning “This sink is for washing hands only!” and no cold storage. The Yagoua victuallers hang out in the market with nothing more than a butcher’s block, a couple of knives, half a (dead) cow and half a (live) hundred flies. Something to bear in mind the next time you’re taking that cellophane wrapped t-bone steak from the freezer in Super-Valu.

What finally persuaded me to take the dead bull by the horns was that after a few months eating meat in restaurants and chop houses I had no ill effects; when I wondered where this meat came from I had only one logical answer…the meat market. Having gone there regularly now, I have developed a tactic whereby I’ll pass through the row of butchers and select one where there is a reasonably big slab of meat and a reasonably small number of flies. I’ll order my 500 frs worth of meat and then I’ll watch the butcher closely to check that the meat he puts on the battered scales is in fact meat. I’m not that knowledgeable about the different sides of beef you can get but I can tell the difference between meat, gristle and offal and it pays to check. Nothing is wasted and even Pedigree Chum would have trouble finding leftovers to include in their cans of dog food; incidentally, I’ve never seen hungrier dogs in my life.

So having honed my meat buying skills I now see nothing out of the ordinary in a butcher chopping up slabs of beef on the side of a log of timber with nothing but an axe. It’s what people do, it’s how they live and it doesn’t seem to do them (or me – touche le bois!) a bit of harm…provided the meat is cooked thoroughly – (just doing my bit for the Food Safety Authority in case they’re reading).

So, word is out – I’m not going hungry in Africa and I don’t think you would either. If you do happen to find yourself in Yagoua any time soon and are looking for somewhere to eat then you could do worse than calling into the Super Restaurant. It does a good beef and chips (when it’s on the menu) and thus far I’ve yet to find a fly in my soup!
GC

The Trans-Cameroonian Railway

One of the perks of taking a year out in Africa is that you rely completely on public transport to get around. It’s mad but I haven’t driven a car in over 4 and a half months if you exclude the day we went to visit the Crab Doctor and I had to jump start Bashyr’s car. Public transport here consists of an assortment of trains, buses, minibuses, taxis, bush taxis and mototaxis. Ok, for those of you who wish to split hairs, taxis don’t strictly fall under the definition of public transport but if you can have 5 people (excluding the driver) squashed together in a shared yellow Toyota taxi, then that’s public enough for me.

Over the Christmas holidays I took myself off to Ghana but before I had the pleasure of buckling up with Virgin Nigeria I first had to find my way down to Doala. The journey down south involved a 10 hour bus trip with Danay Express (my local bus company which will get a whole blog of its own at some stage!) to N’Gaoundère where I had to catch the train to Yaoundé and then another 4 hour bus trip to Doala.

The train, I’ve read, is called the Trans-Cameroonian Railway but for a country that is twice the size of the UK the journey is only 600km; for those of you imperialists that’s 373 miles. The thing is, the journey took 15 hours…THAT’S 25 MILES AN HOUR! I’d nearly cycle quicker.

Still, what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in character…I was just about to write comfort there for a second but just checked myself on time! It’s a night train which leaves just after 6pm and there’s an option of 3 types of ticket – a 1st class couchette, a 1st class seat or a 2nd class hard, timber, arse-numbing bench. I opted for the a seat in 1st class as after a trip in a sleeper carriage last year in Vietnam with two scans, I wasn’t prepared to be cooped up in a cabin for15 hours; nor was I too happy about squeezing onto a bench with mother’s, babies, soldiers and happy go lucky “voleurs” who would see me, or more importantly my bags, as an early Christmas present.

The journey to be fair, both ways, was comfortable enough and the food tasty too. The train stops frequently for whatever sort of delay – the Cameroonian equivalent of Iarnrod Eireann’s “leaves on the track” I suppose. It also stops at various stations along the way where it is an experience to see everything from bananas, water, mandarins and batons (which are sticks of manioc wrapped in banana leaves) being bought and sold through the windows of the carriages. Seeing so many women and children out (for them) in the cold at 4am making hard sales just shows how much these people depend on the train, which passes once a day in each direction, to make a living…that’s their job!

Apart from all the stops, my fellow traveller’s also ensured that the time was never long. The Cameroonians are great talkers and love nothing more than a good heated discussion at all hours of the night. Topics rarely included the weather, never politics but instead focussed on things like fidelity, love and God. I pretended to sleep.

Sleep though came easier than expected. However, it was hard to close my eyes at times when there was a soldier standing not 10 feet away with his machine gun slung around his neck with only a piece of old rope keeping it in place.

On arriving in Yaoundé, a battalion of soldiers couldn’t have stopped the hordes of porters who climbed aboard as the train pulled into the station. These guys were amazing to watch – they were carrying two suitcases at a time on their heads while carrying another bag in one hand. They made a mockery of the suitcases with wheels and the ergonomically designed rucksacks. Incidentally, I carried my own rucksack…at least as far as the nearest battered, yellow taxi!

GC

A Trip to the Crab Doctor

Went on a day trip to Rhumsiki yesterday. It’s about 3 hours by car so we were on the road good and early. Rhumsiki is famous for its unusual landscape – lots of large rocky peaks sticking up out of the desert like fingers (typically many phallic references were also made which made Ruth blush no end). Rhumsiki is a small village on the lip of a valley which wanders around and about the large rocky outcrops. There are other villages dotted around the valley and it is towards them we headed on our 2 hour trek. It was great to get out in the open countryside again. It was pretty easy going and we arrived back in Rhumsiki happy and ravenous. The slices of Tomazi’s pizza which we brought with us were devoured in no time at all. Afterwards, watered and fed we went off to visit the Crab Doctor.

Now before your mind wonders too much; let me explain. The crab doctor is not a medical professional who cures people of uncomfortable itches in their nether regions. Oh no. He is an ancient and “wise” witch doctor who allows people to ask him one question and then gives them an answer…a bit of a fortune teller, so to speak. Well in fact he is only the intermediary; it is the crab who tells him and he passes on the word. When I heard the description I couldn’t but go.

We were greeted by an old, rheumy eyed man sitting outside a mud hit wearing filthy clothes and whose skins was like cow hide that’s been left to dry and shrivel in the sun for years. He had two clay pots in front of him; one held the fresh water crab, the other was filled with sand. Taking 5 small stones which represented Africa, places abroad, the youngest in the group, the oldest in the group and… sorry, I can’t remember what the last stone signified, wasn’t paying attention. He arranged the stones in the sand in a circle but not before spitting on each one. He liked to spit a lot. Then he asked if there were any questions.

As it was my first time dabbling in black magic (never really liked the chocolate sweets either; more of a Quality Street man) I spent a bit of time beforehand trying to decide on the question I was going to ask. Everything from “will Liverpool win the league?” to “when will the electricity in my house be switched back on?” were all considered but deemed unsuitable. In the end I asked him if I would stay in Cameroon longer than a year. After taking the crab and spitting on it, he placed it into the clay pot with the sand and stones and covered it. Then he waited. Now, afterwards we talked amongst ourselves about his “aura” and the vibe he gave off which sounds crazy but while we were waiting everyone felt that they had to be respectful and attentive…we didn’t want to anger the crab! After sufficient time had elapsed the crab doctor lifted the lid and poked the crab a bit. Then lifting it out of the clay pot he gave his answer which was translated by our guide.

Afterwards, having answered all the questions he “blessed” us by touching our feet and hands with one of the stones and then spat on us! Rhumsiki’s answer to holy water I suppose.

Oh yeah, the crabs answer? Well it appears that I won’t be staying in Cameroon any longer than a year but that I will come back one day to visit on holiday or to work. So there you have it. The crab of Rhumsiki has spoken. Anyone planning a visit anytime soon better get their arse in gear. Time is a slipping away.

GC

"Gauche, gauche, gauche, droite, gauche..."

Although I’m not here to teach, with a bit of free time on my hands I decided to volunteer (yeah, haven’t had enough of that word yet!) to teach English in one of the schools once a week. So last Tuesday I took up some chalk and recommenced my fight against ignorance with a group of 80 bemused and amused Cameroonian students.

Now in advance, I had observed an English class last Friday and taken a few notes. I also talked to the teacher and found out what he had planned to do next. He said that I could stick to the curriculum or do whatever I wanted. I decided to mix it a bit and was planning to do the parts of the face and the five senses (to cover the curriculum) and add in colours in respect of hair and eyes. Good work I thought to myself. However, thinking about it a bit more I realised that I wouldn’t have got very far as every kid I would have asked what colour their hair and eyes were, would have answered black and brown. C'est tout!

And if that wasn’t bad enough if I was to demonstrate on myself I would have ended up with the same result. Thankfully it was one of the few classes in my career (hope Batt O’Keefe isn’t reading this) where I decided to prepare in advance rather than just wing it and changed my approach.

As it turned out however, all my preparations were in vain as they didn’t understand a word I was saying so spent the class teaching basic greetings and classroom vocab. Winging it is definitely the way to go Batt!

It was strange to be in front of so many students but you just get on with it as they do. All of the students bar nine were sitting on the floor. The nine lucky ones (they happened to be the biggest students in the room) were sitting three at a time on desks. There weren’t many books between them but they all had copies, pens and mini blackboards.

Entry into the classroom after break involved lining up in two lines outside the door and waiting for the teacher to start. This is where it all turned a bit boot-campish. The teacher called “left”, and the students shouted “left” and stood to attention while stamping their left foot. The procedure was repeated with the right and alternated for a couple of minutes until the teacher/sergeant major called for both feet, whereby the students started marching on the spot and singing. On the teachers signal everyone marched into the classroom in the most orderly and musical fashion I’ve ever seen.

Am looking forward to working with the students over the next few weeks. Reckon I’ll learn a lot and once I learn the words to the marching song the students in Coola Post Primary School won’t know what’s hit them.

GC

Reality Bytes!

Deux mois déjà!

Just talking this evening to Lizzie, another vol, tonight about how quickly you get settled in and how the novelty wears off. The humdrum exists everywhere. I was scratching my head all week wondering what I could write here that would shed some light on my experience here and came up with very little. I didn’t have any little anecdotes to share or axes to grind. Is that how quickly acclimatisation happens, we wondered?

Sure, I'm not near accepted nor do I understand the culture, the people or the country. Still there are certain things that I don't really bat an eyelid at anymore. Like what? Well, - and all of a sudden a blog topic emerges - in no apparent order:

Being called Nassara 2 million times a day - the kids here have a sixth sense for when I leave my house. Seconds after sticking my head out the gate of my concession I'll hear "Nassara, Bonjour" from kids as young as 2. Nassara refers to the colour of my skin; apparently I stick out a bit here!

Going running at 6.15am - ok, the reason I don't bat an eyelid is because my eyelids are welded firmly shut and don't open until 15 minutes into the run when I see my tree and termite mound which marks the turning point (too early - won't get used to that).

Killing crickets and cockroaches (though I still get a sadistic boyhood pleasure in that - nothing comes between me and my sleep.)

Hissing at people to get their attention...waiters, motodrivers, traders selling beignets. I'm not a very good hisser (yes that's hisser, it's not a typo) yet but am working at it. I've seen (or rather heard) a Cameroonian friend successfully hiss at a motodriver about 100 yards away, even though the same moto had passed me 20 seconds before as I was waving one hand in the air and holding a motorbike helmet in the other!

Having the nearest internet 210km away - I'm like a heroin junkie every fortnight when I arrive in Maroua to get my fix of bytes.

Animals wandering everywhere - a guy during the week explained to me that we imprison our animals in the West (we place them in fields behind fences!) while here in Cameroon they are free to roam anywhere. And they do. Goats and sheep graze the streets while hens regularly waltz into my yard to clean it of the bits of spaghetti that were in with the dish water I had thrown out the night before. Pigs, though, are the Tony Soprano’s of waste disposal. They eat everything except for plastic bags. If anyone is looking for an idea for 'Dragon's Den' then invent a plastic bag that is palatable for a pig. It would clean up the severe litter problem that exists here and you'd be on it's bloody back. And it would all be legal, already!

Not having a kitchen sink.

Ca y est,

GC

A Man in Yags

Nearly two week into my life in Yagoua (or as it’s affectionately known Yags) and almost 6 into my life in Cameroon and I’m settling in well. Finally moved out of the Baptist Mission and have been busy moving into my new house – hanging mozzie nets, collecting furniture from the bus station, hanging curtains, filtering water and killing cockroaches and crickets.

Let’s start with the latter! When W.B. Yeats wrote about living on Innisfree and surrounding himself with bees, linnets, bean-rows, heather and singing crickets; he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about – either that or he was deaf. I’m convinced he never slept in a house, or a small cabin for that matter, that contained a family of crickets. They’re fine when they’re outside cricketing up a tree but when your bedroom doorframe hosts Jimeney and his extended family, then the peace doesn’t really come dropping all that slowly. In fact the only peace that existed after I launched my attack against Mr. J. Cricket and Co. with my Pif-Paf powder was of the “May They Rest In” kind. Job done.

My now ‘cricket free’ house is what everyone calls around here a concession. It’s a 2 bed house, where the kitchen/dining room/living room is all one. One bedroom opens up directly to the small yard which serves as my front (or is back?) yard where I get my buckets of water. I share the yard with a family who live behind me and every hour of the day there’s someone in and out. Until I bought a funky set of gold curtains for my door and window I had plenty of curious looks and stares. Now it is only the curtains that are getting the curious stares. My own room is about as big as my one at home and it’s ensuite with a real toilet that flushes and a shower that showers…a luxury in these parts.

The town itself is about as big as, let me see, I don’t know it’s really hard to compare…ok, let’s say Roscommon town but without the roundabouts, two storey buildings, Morelli’s chipper, Dunnes or cars for that matter…ok, come to think about it, it’s not a bit like Roscommon. The only way of getting around is on the back of a moto or walk, which I do mostly for now. The streets are all covered in sand which will make it interesting when I get my hands on a bike. Work is about 2 miles away so that should be a nice sandy spin in the mornings, and a hot sweaty sandy spin home in the afternoons.

Work is going well, albeit at its own pace. Day one was a real baptism of fire. There was a “Journée Pedagogique” organised for all the primary teachers of the arrondissement. It started at about half 8 and the protocol was unbelievable…everyone in attendance had their name read by the inspector. Any teacher that hadn’t their name read out was then asked to come to the table and give their name. Then the mayor arrived and there were speeches and the national anthem was sung. Finally, the seminar started about 2 hours later.

Now when I say seminar I should say sermon. My boss sat behind a big table and preached for…wait for it…7 hours. I nearly died. I sat at the same table and was amazed how patient and attentive everyone was. They just listened and took notes and asked and answered the odd question. Still, at times I had to wonder where I was. A mother was there breast-feeding her baby; a dog waltzed in in the middle of proceedings, sniffed about a bit and was eventually ran; someone’s phone rang and was answered in front of everybody.

Now the best/worst thing of all is the capacity of these people to keep going without a break. During the entire day, which eventually finished at about half five, there was one twenty minute break for a cup of sweet tea and a bread roll. We got butter the first day but on day 2 (oh yes, there was a second day very similar to the first) there was no butter. Though was a little bit better prepared on day 2 and had a bottle of water and some energy bars with me.

I could’ve down with some energy bars last Saturday morning when I played my first game of football Cameroonian style. It was another experience all together. I came on at the start of the second half and ran around like a lunatic for the first 5 minutes without touching the ball. When the ball eventually arrived I ended up fluffing it. 3 minutes later I was running for a ball at full tilt when, without anybody near me, I fell flat on my face to the amusement and bemusement of half the town. Everyone kept saying “doucement, doucement”, and after 15 minutes I knew why. Playing on the sand was like playing football whilst wearing a pair of ski boots made of lead.

As the game went on “Le Blanc” (certainly no relation to the French World Cup winning star, Laurent) missed a couple of chances before redeeming himself and scoring a screamer from all of 2 yards. It was an experience to be repeated as I’m now a member of “les vieux lions” (a poor cousin of the Cameroonian national team known as the Indominatable Lions) and have bought myself a new pair of boots. Just wait until I get them playing GAA and reciting Yeats’ poetry.

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