Our Trip to Cameroon Over Easter

“Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Buses, Taxis, and Motorcycles…

CAMEROON!! (or Cameroun as they say in French).

March 15 – 29, 2008

Getting ready to go

It was hard for me to believe that this dream was finally a reality – we were actually on our way to Cameroon! My family had left Cameroon in 1986 when I was 10 years old. The last time I had set foot on my birth country was the summer of 1990 for a short 2-week visit with my parents and my brother, Glenn. That was almost 18 years ago!

Now I was going to visit Cameroon as an adult, this time with my husband, Tim, to show him where I grew up. A month earlier, we still didn’t have plane tickets or Visas for Cameroon. I was getting a bit nervous thinking that it might not happen. Our main problem was that Niger does not have a Cameroonian embassy. The nearest embassies are in Nigeria or in Senegal, and we weren’t about to make a special trip to any of those countries or send our documents in the mail! We weren’t sure what to do with so little time left. Even the Canadian embassy here in Niamey couldn’t offer us much help. Then, a surprising opportunity came available. There just so happened to be a Samaritan’s Purse training conference in Ethiopia that Tim was asked to attend only 2 weeks before our planned trip to Cameroon. Furthermore, there just so happened to be a Cameroonian embassy in Addis Ababa. So…in order to get our Visas for Cameroon (in central Africa), Tim had to fly from Niger (West Africa) all the way across to East Africa! Crazy, but it’s amazing how God works things out! The rest came together fine after that: the Air Ivoire tickets to Cameroon, the Visas for Benin, the bus tickets to Cotonou in Benin, bookings for accommodations during our travels.

The Incredible Journey :-)

Traveling itself was quite a ride as well, here's all the places we visited: Cotonou & Grand Popo (Benin); and in Cameroon: Douala, Yaounde, N'Gaoundere, Meiganga, and Garoua-Boulai.

Time was rather tight throughout our entire vacation, but we had a great 2 weeks none-the-less. Tim was delayed by 4 days coming back from Ethiopia & Mali, and so he had only 4 days (working!) back in Niamey before we headed out on this trip. Our vacation started very early Saturday morning after a very busy work week for both of us. We endured a very bumpy 20 hour bus ride to Cotonou.

We took a day of R & R at the beach in Grand Popo Benin to recover from the long bus ride. Ah – jumping in the ocean waves, so nice!

Photo of the fishing boat we saw regularly at the beach, the "Philosopher's boat" with wise sayings on the side.

Then we drove back to Cotonou to catch our flight. Only hours before we were supposed to be checking in at the airport, we got stuck in our first heavy rain in months. We had gone to an internet café and to this really delicious vegetarian restaurant when it started to pour. Honestly, I was enjoying the rain and would have loved to jump in the huge puddle in the middle of the street, but I wasn’t smiling when later I had to pick my way through the dirty water in search of a taxi. Finding a car taxi in Cotonou isn’t so easy since moto taxis, called zims, are more common. But even zims were hard to flag down in the rain! We walked half way back to the SIM guesthouse when we finally hailed a zim. We were soggy and sticky, but there was no time for a shower before we had to catch the plane. As it turned out, our flight was delayed until the next morning so we spent an extra night in Cotonou. We arrived at a vacant airport the next morning at 5:00am for our 7:30am flight. The only people awake were some men washing the floors. Security guards lay sleeping at their desks; the 24 hour drug store was closed but the owner lay sleeping behind the counter; the sound of snoring came from an office nearby. We waited for an hour and a half for anyone to appear, only to learn that the flight would be delayed until 11am. The Cotonou airport is rather small, and there was no AC since the electricity was cut all morning. So we sat in one of the two stuffy waiting rooms all morning. The plane from Abidjan didn’t come until 1pm, and we didn’t take off until 1:45pm! Due to technical problems with the plane in Abidjan, Air Ivoire had to borrow a plane from Air Méditerranéen. Despite, all the waiting, the flight to Douala (the large port of Cameroon) only took 1 ½ hours.

Cameroon at Last!

Our first impressions flying over Douala were: “Wow, it’s really GREEN down there! Look at all the thick forest and lush vegetation!” What a welcome change from dry, sandy semi-arid desert (called the Sahel region) where we live in Niamey. The southern part of Cameroon is primarily tropical rainforest. What a feast for the eyes!

We were greeted in Douala by Daniel Simeu, the father of our friend Bélise who attends the same church we do in Niamey. I was immediately drawn to his big smile. Considering we had to phone him three times to change the pick-up time and the fact that he had to take a day off work to be available for our arrival, he cheerfully met us at the airport with a bouquet of tropical flowers for me. He generously took care of us, putting us up in a rustic inn a block away from his house, showing us around Douala that evening in the driving rain during a power outage, introducing us to his family, and delivering us early the next morning to the bus station.

Yaoundé the capital!

On our way out of Douala, we came upon a three-vehicle accident involving two large trailer trucks and a bus. No worries, though. We had been advised that this was one of the best business class coach lines commuting between Douala and Yaoundé!

The curvy, uphill road was paved from the coast to the capital city, Yaoundé, located at high altitude, surrounded by beautiful hills and having a very pleasant climate. Along the way, we passed by small farms, lush forest and rusted out car wrecks at what seemed like break-neck speed.

We were met at the Yaoundé bus station by Pastor Samuel Frouisou, a (tall!) man who spent a week at our place in Ottawa a number of years ago. See photo at left. He took us to his office, located conveniently a 5-min walk to the train station, where we dropped our bags. Then we spent almost an hour waiting in line to get a train ticket for the evening train. We were only able to get 2 seats in first class rather than a double sleeper car. (Once we were on the train, we were able to upgrade to a 4-person sleeper.)

Pastor Frouisou arranged for a driver to take us around Yaoundé during the afternoon. Issa took us up Mount Fébé to get a good view of the city from a very ritzy hotel at the top. Picture on the right taken in Yaounde.

Yaounde is on a plateau and is mountainous, making for a great climate!The presidential palace was nearby, and an expensive-looking golf course was directly below us. Rainy season had already started a couple weeks earlier than normal in the south of Cameroon. Heavy late afternoon downpours are normal. Fortunately, the rain abated by the time we had to walk to the train station.

African Train

From Yaounde we took the overnight train to N'Gaoundere in the north, 16 hours train each way.

We sat in our assigned seats in first class until sometime after the train started moving (after an hour delay). First class was okay with its padded seats, but it was run down and dirty. If this is 1^st class, I wonder what economy class is like! We were entertained (annoyed) by traveling salesmen who were selling everything from ginseng miracle products, to magazines, CDs and snacks/drinks. Luckily, we were able to move to a quieter 4-person sleeper early on in the trip. Horizontal sleep was much appreciated, even if the cabin was rather stuffy.

It was fun being a kid again and sleeping on the top bunk, but eating meals from a tray and drinking tea was a bit of a challenge! I wasn’t too impressed with the bathrooms on the trains. Stinky. Sticky. Smelly. We were a little more comfortable on our return trip a week later. We were able to reserve a 2-person sleeper which had its own sink and running water (although still not drinkable). Unfortunately, I still had to deal with stinky toilets!

One thing I enjoyed about the 16-hour train ride was watching the changing geography: from lush rainforests to grassy savanna pocketed by forested river valleys. The grasslands we passed looked so much like a wildlife reserve that we half expected to see antelopes or lions and giraffes in the distance! No such luck. Furthermore, Tim and I were rather surprised to see so much grassy bush land yet very little livestock grazing on the abundant grass. In Niger you see cows and goats everywhere, even in the most remote places.

I also enjoyed watching the vendors at the various stops along the way selling food through the windows to passengers. It appears that the entire community comes out to watch when the train passes through town! It’s great business for them. You could buy water, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, peanuts, roasted pumpkin seeds, mandarins, doughnut holes (beignets), wild honey in bottles, dried fish, baguettes, ground fish wrapped in banana leaves (pistache) and cassava starch wrapped in banana leaves (baton de manioc). Men, women and children learn early on how to balance a load on their heads. One little girl amazed me at how she was able to balance a 1 ½ litre bottle of water perfectly on her head!

Bottle, Bottle!
One picture will forever remain etched in my mind. As the train slowed down to approach villages, we could see children from our window children who were running exciting alongside the train yelling “bouteille” (bottle) or “Tangui vides”. They were asking for passengers to throw them their empty plastic water bottles. You could see from their faces that it was a thrill to have someone chuck a bottle their way, like receiving a gift. Empty bottles are valuable in Africa and can be reused and refilled to sell almost anything (honey, nuts, oil, juice). When a passenger would throw an empty bottle out the window, all the children would excitedly run towards it. Some children worked together and gathered many bottles. Other children preferred to stand off on their own in hopes of being the lucky winner of their own bottle. I particularly remember this one boy off on his own. His arms were wide open and he had an expectant smile on his face that would melt your heart. To think that a water bottle I had no more use for and could easily replace could bring such joy to the life of a child!

Familiar Faces and Places

I could tell we had arrived at the outskirts of N’Gaoundéré when I saw the familiar chain of hills and one hill in particular with a large rock balanced on top that gives the town its name.

In the local language, N’Gaoundéré means “Belly button” because the chain of hills looks like a person lying on their back with an “outy” bellybutton protruding from their stomach.

This photo with the moon taken where we attended a Easter morning sunrise church service with the English Cameroon church there.

Jim Noss met us at the station and drove us to the mission station where we met his wife, Karen. Jim and Karen are long time missionary friends of our family who will be retiring this summer. Karen, our amazing hostess, set us up in a comfortable guesthouse just next door and served us most of our evening meals.

It was fun telling stories around the dinner table of our years together in Cameroon. Things looked pretty much how I remembered them, except for a few things (a wall around the compound, a large new “Millenium” church, larger trees, and some rundown buildings). Of course, I had many memories to share with Tim at every turn as we walked around and visited the house we lived in for 2 years, the hospital my father worked at and other buildings. We also loved all the flowering trees on the mission station! Despite it still being dry season in N’Gaoundéré (the rains had not yet arrived), it was still much greener than we are used to in Niger!

We spent 5 days in N’Gaoundéré. Tim and I visited two families who were friends of my family (Salatou Paul, Etienne and Jeanne Fomgbami). One afternoon, we went exploring the paths behind the station which led us past people’s vegetable fields and several active soccer games. We also went hiking in the hills behind the station with some of the doctors (Tim and Wen Bartholomew) and medical students who were living there.

Photo of us from up top of Ngoundere mountain, with the town in the background.

One of the "cool" adventures we had was visiting and jumping into the crater lake. On Saturday, a number of us drove out to the large, deep crater lake called Lac Mbalang where the Norwegian missionaries have a little cottage for a picnic.

As a kid, I remember swimming from a raft in the middle of this lake on special outings. Tim and I joined Jim and two others (Dr. Jim and Marianne Menges) on a hike around the rim of the lake.

I couldn’t resist the cool, blue water. So we took a motor boat out to the middle of the lake for a swim. Refreshing! I felt like I was back in Ontario swimming in a cool lake at the cottage!

Some crazy prickly trees out there ...




And guavas too! Christine could not resist, Tim caught her in the act...

- and we were not alone

Easter morning found us at the base of “Bellybutton Mountain” for a sunrise Easter service with the English-speaking Lutheran congregation (FYI, Joseph Barya is the pastor at the moment). Photo of Christine sitting with the congregation at the outdoor service.

Later that day, Tim and I climbed and conquered “Bellybutton Mountain” to gain a beautiful view. Sunday evening, we attended a concert of the high school choir “Gospel Singers” at the new church.

I’m Home!

Monday morning, Tim and I drove the 300 or so kilometers to my hometown of Garoua-Boulai (GB).

A missionary family needed us to drive their truck down to GB so that saved us having to take a public bus. We left at 7:30am, had a 2 ½ hour stop at Meiganga to visit my friend and didn’t arrive in GB until 5:30pm! The roads were pretty rough all the way: very bad potholes from N’Gaoundéré to Meiganga, none-stop washboards from Meiganga to GB. Although many vehicles chose to pass us along the way, Tim drove carefully, for which I am very thankful.

We were fortunate to be offered a truck to drive; unfortunate to get a flat tire! Tim was covered in red dirt after changing the tire. It gets everywhere!

In Meiganga, we visited my best childhood friend, Anne Yadji, and her family.

Life is difficult in Africa. Anne has lost her father, 3 brothers and a sister. Her two sons and only daughter all died before the age of 2. The only remaining members of her family are her mother (solid as an oak), one sister and two brothers. It was a short, yet special visit with Anne.

Excitement was mounting in me as we got closer to my hometown. When we crossed the Lom River, I knew we were almost there. The scenery had changed and become more tropical and lush: from the dry and hilly plateau of N’Gaoundéré to the flat grassland of Meiganga to the lush hills closer to GB.

Photo of us below on a bridge over the Lom river. It's tropical there!It had been cloudy and threatening rain all day, and was starting to rain when we arrived.

At GB, we settled into our guesthouse (which we shared with the noisy bats in the attic) and then headed over to have supper with Dr. Solofou and his wife Joely. Gado, another childhood friend, also joined us for supper.

Walking back to our guesthouse that evening, I felt like I had never left Cameroon, like I was walking home after a movie night at the dorm. In the dark, everything looked the same. The curves in the road felt the same. The trees lining the road were the same, even though many had grown taller over the years. Photo on right side is the Jacobsen family house.

In the daylight, I noticed that some trees that I had remembered so well were now gone, but most were just taller and showing their age.

The avocado tree that Glenn planted from a seed was still beside our house (photo below). Alas - the tree is too big for the photo!

The frangipani trees were blooming. The bark looked well-loved from years of kids climbing on their branches. My favourite guava trees behind the dorm had long ago been cut down. Gado helped Tim and me find the only remaining rubber tree planted on the station where we kids used to gather the sap to make little bouncy rubber balls. The towering kapok tree that used to be at the centre of the station had been cut down since it was dangerously close to several houses. Fortunately, there still remains one healthy kapok tree with fruit pods that will provide cotton fuzz and little wooden boats for kids to play with for years to come. :-)

It was a rather sad for me to notice many of the buildings on the station looking more run down than I had remembered them. It felt rather empty, not like I remembered when the station was bustling with missionary activity. It’s harder to keep things maintained now that the local church has been handed over that responsibility due to fewer missionaries in recent years. Our house where we lived for so many years is showing its age, but at least it’s still standing firm. I was happy, though, to see that my 4-room school, which was closed about 10 years ago, is now being used by the Bible School. They had added another room to house a library. The junglegym structure is still holding strong, but the swing set is lacking swings. The dormitory is used by the Cameroon church for meetings and conferences, and the screened in porch is being used as a sewing school for illiterate girls. The pool looked rather sad with no water in it. The volleyball court is now being used to dry cassava flour! The large water tower which was built next to our house in 1986 to provide city water is no longer functioning (apparently it never did work). It now has a cell phone tower on top of it. Another company built a tower nearby too. Different times, different needs, different purposes.

Our time in GB was way too short. We caught a ride back to N’Gaoundéré that afternoon with Dr. Salofou and his wife who were planning on going to the city for business. Tim and I had only the morning to walk around, take pictures, and meet friends who knew me or my family. Gado was our “guide” and “interpreter” of memories.

We met his older sister, Ina, in the market and he introduced us to many others like Pauline, who babysat Glenn and me and had many funny stories to tell. He also brought us to his house and showed us the dirt mounds where family members were buried. Just this past January, his youngest baby daughter, Christine, (named after me) died from eating improperly prepared cassava that still had traces of cyanide in it (normally found in the variety of cassava grown in this region but removed through soaking the root in water for a few days). Disease, poor nutrition, AIDS and death are so familiar to many in Africa.

The Hospital

Dr. Salofou gave us a nice tour of the hospital where my father worked for many years and where I was born! Photo of Christine and Gado (Glenn's friend) in the Lutheran mission hospital, standing by the mural painting, painted by an anthropologist in 1980 when they were kids.

There were only 2 older nurses’ aides who had known and worked with my dad. Dad sure left such a wonderful legacy and witness of Christ’s love! I felt honoured to have such a rich heritage. Everywhere we went, whether in the hospital or the market, people remembered my father’s name. Some Fulani women were sitting in the maternity hall, and when they heard that I was Dr. Jacobsen’s daughter, their ears perked up and they started chatting amongst themselves and smiling at me. Insufficient funding is making it hard for the church-run hospital to provide the quality of care that used to be available.

The orphanage is now being used as a nutrition centre where severely malnourished children and adults live for a month and are provided a special diet and basic classes in nutrition. Since GB is a boarder town, it has received many refugees from neighbouring Central African Republic where there have been rebel attacks on villages in the recent months. The nutrition centre has seen a rise in cases of malnutrition with the influx of refugees. Thankfully, those who are sent to the nutrition centre often see great improvement after the month-long program. I smile when I think back to the beautiful faces of the Fulani women sitting on mats outside the centre playing with their happy little babies.

Photo of Christine , Gado, and Gado's sister in the GB market.

Changes

Much has changed in the 24 years since I lived in Garoua-Boulai. It is no longer a little town of 10 000, but has expanded in all directions. The main road running through town is now paved and runs all the way to the next biggest town of Bertoua, which is now only a 3-hour drive. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the road from GB to N’Gaoundéré will be paved anytime in the near future.) The prominent cement round-about at the main intersection gives the town an air of importance! It even has a hotel with a restaurant, most likely catering to the influx of aid-workers in the area. City-wide electricity has been one of the biggest changes. There is more of a night-life now. It also means that morning sleep is now interrupted by the call to prayer since the local mosques now have microphones that can now be heard even as far as the mission station! There is an internet café, and TVs can be found in almost every eatery. And, the (one and only) gas station now has electric pumps rather than manual pumps!

Return to Reality

The 3-day return trip to Niger went a lot smoother than our trip to Cameroon. No major delays or problems. The train ride was a bit noisy – we heard the next morning that the guards had caught a thief and they were beating him up all night, and keeping him in the toilet room.

Our two week vacation went by too fast. The time was too short to spend very long with any one person or family. Although I didn't feel like I came with much to offer or many material gifts, people thanked me over and over again for the gift of friendship that our family had maintained over the years. Their words to us were “Thank you for remembering us here in Cameroon after all these years. Thank you for not forgetting us. Thank you for visiting us.” Tim and I were so well taken care of during our time in Cameroon, thanks to the generosity and hospitality of the many friends we met along the way. It was a dream come true to go back to Cameroon as an adult with Tim. I was not ready to wake up. It wasn’t until our bumpy bus ride from Benin to Niger that I really began to realize that we were now entering the Sahel. From lush forests and green grass to sand and stunted trees with thorns and little leaves. Welcome to Niger, a place where life holds on hopefully to every little blessing and promise…and…thrives. Welcome to the garden where I am currently planted and learning to bloom. The Gardener has not forgotten about his oasis in Niger. The rains are coming soon.

Favourite Food:

Plantain everywhere! One of our first snacks in Douala was roasted plantain from a street vendor. Mmmmm. Plantain is served either fried like French fries or boiled like a potato at almost every meal in Cameroun. We took advantage of this abundance. Delicious!

Food for the Adventurous:

In Yaoundé, while waiting for Pastor Frouisou, we had a late breakfast/brunch at a little kiosk at the side of the road. Fish in tomato sauce (with the head still on) and bread for dipping. Now doesn’t that sound appetizing?

On the way back Tim ate a hot plate of crocodile! There are very unusual bones in a plate of crocodile. Tasty and worth trying again!

On the train to N’Gaoundéré, I was looking for something to eat with our baguette. I asked a vendor from the train window about a little package wrapped in banana leaves. It looked like something I had eaten as a kid. I was hoping it was pound cassava leaves with spices. He called it “pistache”. Hmmm. Sounds kind of like pistachios. “Should be good,” I thought. Well, it ended up being fish pate with bones and all. Even though Tim and I enjoy eating fish, one bite of this was enough for both of us!

Lessons learned:

In Douala, a power outage means no water from the taps.

It’s good to check your tires often while driving.

Meiganga does not have tonic soda.

What to do? No Public Phone Booths.
No need to have public phone booths when you have “call boxes” at almost every street corner. A call box is a small open booth/kiosk where you can borrow a cell phone to make a call for a small fee. You can even find call boxes in small towns since many places now have cell phone reception.

Favourite Roadside Attraction:

Little knee-high mud termite mounds in the shape of toad stools. Cute! You could see large “cities” of these toad stool homes in the fields at the side of the road. Some of the termite mounds had 2 “mushroom caps” on one stalk: maybe an upstairs suite for the in-laws! J

Talking about mushroom caps, the rainy season happens to be the start of mushroom picking season. As we were driving to and from GB, we passed by a couple roadside kiosks where they were selling large mushroom caps the side of a dinner plate! And when you buy the monstrous mushroom, you don’t just get the top, you also get a foot or more of the root! Imagine how many omelets or bowls of soup you could make with it!

Faces I will Never Forget:

Word got out quickly that Dr. Jacobsen’s daughter was in town. On our last day in N’Gaoundéré, a Fulani woman named Mariama came looking for me. Her face and arms were all covered in scars, but she beamed with joy and hugged me like a long lost daughter. She told me her story. Many years ago she had fallen into the fire and had received severe burns all over her body. She was brought to the GB hospital where my father treated her and gave her skin grafts to cover the opened wounds. She was now completely healed, and even more exciting was that she had found Jesus as her Healer and Saviour. She had made the big jump from Islam and was beaming with an indescribable joy. Before we departed, she took my hands in hers and prayed a passionate prayer.

Planes, Trains, Buses, Motorcycles, and Trucks!

• Flying 3 hours; Waiting in airports: 11 hours
  
• bus: 45 hours
• Train:32 hours
• Truck: 13 hours (8 driving); Motorcycle: 1 hour