A Day of Sunshine

Nov 30
I get up after the first call to prayer, The Muezzin sings out for 2 minutes or so, mostly melodic, in Arabic of course. It's dark still but soon the eastern sky lightens and the mountains are backlit as the sun rises towards the edge of the hills. Down below in the city there are occasional taxis and motorbikes, a few people are walking down the hill to the market where trucks have arrived, unloading sacks of oranges from Nigeria, baskets of tomatoes and hundreds of melons passed  and thrown to waiting vendors who stack them in the open area in short wide pyramids. Sometimes the whole area is a peculiar green from the piles of them, like thousands of grapes covering the place. Running up the hill are the morning exercisers, who congregate in front of the building doing stretches and counting in husky, breathy voices together.
 The Sun makes it to the edge of the horizon just after 7am and below, the city is bathed in dust or haze, everything is indistinct except the noise. More people walking down the hill as the traffic increases. The sun is now brilliant, strong and hot as the light fills our apartment. I have to drop the curtain since I’m facing east and it shines into my eyes. The cool air of the night dissipates quickly. We have put our “perishables” on the balcony overnight and I pull them in before the sun has risen past  the mountain. Some vegetables and occasionally cheese. This is my time every morning. I sit and write and look at email.
Elke sits with her coffee and does exercise in the other room, then we make breakfast. After, I do the dishes standing at the window with the curtain part way down. The dishes dry quickly with the sun shining directly on them. By 11am the sun has gone past the edge of the building and we are in the shade.  A bit of wind might come up the dust/haze diminishes some.  By 1pm it is very warm.
Yesterday after writing /editing a piece for BWC I walked down to the market. There I bought some pears (avocado)  1 ripe, 1 almost ripe and 2 not so ripe- 900 francs- a bit expensive, the season is about to start so there are not a lot of them available. When they are, we buy 10 or 11 for 100 francs. about 20 cents. Tomatoes 10 or 12 for 500 francs-$1.00  Fresh (still covered in dirt) carrots, potatoes, and beans(no dirt), papaya’s in season and my daily lemon. Occasionally a treat; an eggplant, mushrooms in season, Chinese cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower. We rarely if ever buy melons, too big, no fridge, they go bad fast.
 After shopping I walked back up the hill, slowly with my walking stick. Arriving at the top I was sweating pretty heavily, heart rate up, shirt soaked. Inside the apartment a cool wind blows up or down the stairs. I have to watch myself on them  as they are inconsistant in depth and height. I’ve tripped a few times.
 Elke will have done laundry in a bucket in the bathroom and hung it out on the balcony. We have no large sink, this apartment is actually office space. We had a tap installed on the toilet  line to fill buckets. Dish water gets dumped down the toilet. The laundry is usually dry by the time we eat lunch.
By 5pm the wall in the bathroom has heated the pipes in it enough to have an almost hot shower. It  will radiate heat all night long so sometimes we leave the balcony door open during the night.
I miss the sunsets, they are on the other side of the building. By sticking my head out of the bathroom window I can sometimes catch it but it’s awkward. The window is just big enough for my head to poke through.And I have to remember to look. Around 6 the bats begin to fly from the cliff to the east, the flow of pedestrians up the hill increases and the setting sun lights up any clouds building in the north east,  bright red and pink. We often sit out on the balcony to cool down and talk  until the smell of some noxious burning substance drives us inside.

Funeral -redefined

We were invited to a burial this weekend. Not a funeral. The uncle of a close friend,  one of the last of the elders in his family had passed . He had been a big man in the community, well liked  and a significant influence supporting many members of  his village to go on to become educated.
Our friends, the daughters, nephews and cousins went off to the village of Mankwi early in the day to do preparations. A group of us volunteers shared a taxi and made our way off the pavement and into the mountains behind Bafut. The narrow road was dusty with occasional large rocks and a few potholes, squeezing to the side as an occasional taxi or truck roared past.  The views were majestic, through some seemingly unharvested forest, infrequent houses and a great valley falling away below to the mountain across the way,  eroded and scalped by the locals preparing to grow crops once it starts raining again.
Arriving in the village the road was plugged with pedestrians, parked buses and cars. Most folks dressed in their finest clothes, some in ceremonial robes and all the family we knew, wearing one fabric. As well there were choirs and women’s groups also all dressed in a "uniform" of colourful fabric making their way uphill to the church.
 Our friends welcomed us and insisted we head up to the church, along with  the continuous stream of arriving friends and relatives.
There were a few choirs,  the congregation sang,  eulogies and an overflowing building. But no lamentations.
After the service the coffin was driven down to the man’s residence where it was laid to rest in front of the house.
All around people were singing, greeting old friends and sharing food. We were offered the regional favourite Achu; cooked cocoyam with banana, wrapped in banana leaf. Unwrapped, it is spread round and round with flourish then formed into a mini bottomless bowl on the plate.  Yellow “soup” is ladled in and chunks of fish, chicken and/or beef placed beside. Normally eaten with index and pointer fingers much amusement ensues when I ask for a spoon. The spices in the sauce bear further investigation.

While our companions were busy snapping pictures, a parade of family and friends circulated through the room and through the village, meeting and greeting.
Outside we could hear  drums and after eating, walked down to where a dance group were performing surrounded by spectators.

What  a celebration of life! Everyone seemed joyous and friendly, although in the dancing there was occasional aggression and likely symbolic expression: Men shaking sticks and charging the circle of onlookers, occasional passionate arguing and of course the masked dancers posturing spinning, stamping their feet, ankles ringed with rattling seed pods.

No somber looks here, the pleasures of feasting, family reunion and witnessing the growth and maturation of children all speak to a culture focused on life and living.
And libation, the palm wine flowing freely, beer and carbonated sodas, men drinking from their cow horn cups, folks walking by in both directions with cases of beer, soda and jugs of mimbo.
During the dancing men were uncapping bottles and pouring it bubbling onto the ground amid shouts and clapping.
Back in the room where we had eaten, most of the Eco-builder  women's group began dancing with the folks from Betterworld  to the beat of a drummer,  practicing at first, with almost everyone in the room joining in.

I did my best to record their “entrance” weaving in among the celebrants down to the crowd at the main house where another group were dancing, circling the gravesite.






Our group stepped in once the others left. As I  filmed the dancers, everybody laughing singing and  having a good time I was struck by the lack of grief, the sheer exuberance and delight of the crowd. I managed to dance briefly as it wound down.

This was truly a celebration of life, the impact and deeply created connections of one man in community. It was inspiring. That’s what I want to happen when I go, no funeral for me,  instead family and friends celebrating the joy and appreciation for how well I lived my life.

Reflections on Christmas in Bamenda 2015

I find it hard to reconcile the Christmas traditions of my North American upbringing with the reality of tropical Cameroon. There are signs and indications; Christmas carols blasted out from bars or loud speakers on passing trucks from early in the morning starting December 1st, an occasional synthetic Christmas tree parked at the roadside and young vendors walking the streets with baskets of those shiny mylar Chinese folded garlands and decorations in red green and yellow. I even spotted a cluster of those trees beside a gas station like an imitation tree lot without the snow or the camper and fence to prevent thefts. I don’t miss the grand push to purchase piles of corporate generated frivolity, the over the top commercialization and excessive advertising, the implied guilt and expectation to provide everyone I know with something.
I do miss my family, opportunities to connect, eating meals together, making cookies and other treats with children. Sitting together talking late into the night about what is important and how to make a difference in the world. The change of seasons surprisingly (or maybe not) was always a marker of time passing. Here the marker is the end or beginning of dry season. This year it came early and there were no grasshoppers. A tasty treat lightly fried, I’d come to associate them with Christmas.
The solstice came and went, the only noticeable indication the location of the rising sun now as far south as it will go.
And this is marriage season, who wants a wedding reception out in the rain? To celebrate, fireworks are set off, great flashes of light accompanied by sparkles and  concussions of sound reverberating  across the  city. Not only do they go all night long but for some reason they continue during the day, hardly visible even without the haze from the harmattan, dust from the Sahara. It looks like mist or fog, I half expect it to rain… wishful thinking.
The pictures of snowy mountains, trees lit up and decorated on the internet do bring a sense of nostalgia to me, but I prefer to be warm and not participate in the consumer frenzy.
We managed to speak with number of family members through the magic of internet technology, but the cookies are a challenge. Few ovens here and the ingredients are not so available.
Still we have found community and context - dinner with a local family who’ve “adopted” us.  Their newly occupied house, still unfinished, a construction site, but they are home. The opportunity to read a story to the youngest member of the family was grounding. The book, a Canadian  gift from me to him.
I found something deeply satisfying about that, sharing of myself, sitting together reading out loud. This is what  I believe is at the essence of the celebration for me, through food and drink, connecting, reminiscing making plans for the future, enjoying the present of the moment.

Field trip on the Ring Road-Menchum Falls- Bafut to Befang and back

After some time the city, meetings, research and visits to the farm aren’t enough. We want to see some of this country so called a friendly taxi driver to take us on a tour.
 First stop the Bafut market to pick up a few snacks. Then to a nearby bar for some white mimbo or palm wine followed by a stop at a spring for some fresh water.
The road out of Bafut is dusty, clouds of it settling on the bananas turning their leaves red, Potholed and rough in places we swayed back and forth as Eric the driver negotiated each stretch and avoided oncoming trucks and minivans. The road twists and turns into valleys, around mountains,  past villages and farms. These smallholdings with minimalist rectangular redbrick buildings, unplastered and roofed with corrugated “zinc”line the road between sections of forest and  field. Often there were children and occasional adults staring as we drove past.  Upon spotting our faces the children would chant “whiteman, whiteman” to which I, as often as possible, waved in reply.
The road began to descend, briefly became paved and as we approached each corner Eric honked a warning. Often there were great holes, missing pavement, bone jarring drops and it wasn’t always possible to avoid them. But the terrain was spectacular, miles of mostly untouched tropical forest the mountains draped in shades of green punctuated with flashes of orange and red flowers. Valley and hill as far as the eyes could see without any evidence of cultivation.This is the sacred Bafut forest, protecting the watersheds and vegetal heritage of the kingdom. Unfortunately for the photographers it wasn’t possible to stop, although that narrow view seldom expresses the majesty and verdant fecundity of the scene.As the road again levelled out we crossed over the  Menchum river and  entered a broad valley.

Rice growing alluvial landscape, fields separated by ditches and flapping clothing suspended on sticks to scare away the birds. The elephant grass easily 3 metres tall where it wasn’t hacked down and piled beside the road. There were numerous highly rutted access roads down to the water where young men and boys poled their broad canoe shaped boats back and forth.

The boys dive down with buckets, scoop the sand into the boats then shovel it onto shore to be loaded later into trucks and transported to Bamenda. For a brief while we were tailed by one of the trucks, coming up behind us as we scraped our way out of one of the biggest potholes I’ve ever been in. The side of the road even with the windows of the taxi. Definitely don’t try this in the rainy season.
I attempted to take notes on this trip, writing the occasional undecipherable word as we careened and bumped along till pavement appeared again. Eric would then accelerate till the pavement gave way while I attempted to read the occasional sign naming each village.

It was quite warm in the car, the mimbo in the recycled soda bottles continuing to ferment, building up  pressure. We had the windows open but every passing vehicle would raise such clouds of dust we were rolling them up in  fruitless attempts to keep it out.

Crossing the river again we came into an area of grasslands, the rolling mountains denuded of trees except in the narrow clefts and valleys between hills.

 Then again beside the river and arrival at the falls.
  Just below the road is a small picnic area and viewing spot with a cement fence to keep folks back from the sheer drop.

 Impressive.
 A tremendous amount of water cascades down with incredible turbulence sending spray out  from top to bottom. Not much if anything would survive that fall. We stepped back and enjoyed our picnic, slowly releasing the pressure on the  warm mimbo  till we could drink it.
























Then a short drive down to the crossroads at Befang; north to Wum and west to Benakuma.

By this time we’d had enough of the driving and chose to turn around.

 Stopped at the top of the falls to wet our faces and watch the boys shovel sand from boat to shore.

And again at the bailey bridge to take pictures,  then caught a few views as we climbed out of the valley  on our way towards Bafut.

 The road was not any less bumpy on the return.