A few months ago I reached a point
of incredible frustration with Cameroon. I can’t point my finger on exactly
what caused it, but it was just a culmination of all of the various stressors
that come with life here. I didn’t want to hear “white man” called at me when I
walked down the street, I didn’t have the energy to bargain for fair prices in
the market, and I certainly had no patience for dealing with my ridiculously
high electricity bill (and the various neighbor skirmishes that accompanied
it). At this point I was probably about four months from the end of my service;
just long enough to feel distant but close enough that “early-terminating” my
service seemed unnecessary. So I booked a vacation.
One of my
friends from college has been living in Israel for the past year, and I decided
that visiting him would be the perfect break from the frustrations of life in
Cameroon. And as wonderful as my Peace Corps friends are, there’s something
nice about spending time with someone who has known you for longer than two
years and outside the unique context of PC service.
But before
I can go to Israel, I have to get to the airport. And before I can get to the
airport, I have to make my way to Douala, with a stopover in Yaoundé to pick up
my passport and verify that I am officially cleared to leave the country. Back
in America, I never lived further than an hour away from the nearest airport.
Sometimes my flights back to college were even out of the local county airport,
a brief 15-minute trip from my house. But here, the closest (operational)
airport is a seven-hour bus ride from Bamenda, an entire day’s journey.
I know I’ve
written about travel misadventures in the past, but rarely have my trips
started out on such shaky ground. This bus is barely five minutes out of the
station before we have a breakdown. And so there we sit, just on the outskirts
of Bamenda, while they first try to fix our bus and then admit defeat and send
a new bus. In the meantime I get out of the bus for a second, only to slip into
a medium-sized puddle of mud. My clothing is covered with rapidly drying mud,
all of my fellow passengers are staring, and the bus hasn’t even left Bamenda
yet. My desire to get out of the country is increasing by the second.
But like
always, we eventually make it down to Yaoundé. I arrive at the Peace Corps
transit house in a bit of a daze, only to learn that our quarter of the city is
going to be essentially blocked off the next day because the Nigerian president
is in town for a meeting with President Paul Biya. So the next day I find
myself walking to the nearest police station to get the various stamps and
forms necessary to renew my entry/exit visa, due to the absence of taxis on our
normally bustling road.
My patience
for Cameroonian bus travel temporarily at its limit, I decide to take the train
to Douala. All of my prior Cameroonian train experiences have been quite
pleasant, so I’m optimistic about what the next few hours will bring. And I’m
not disappointed; the air aboard the car is pleasant and calm and most of the
passengers have already taken their seats. In many ways I feel like I’ve
stepped onto a Metro-North train bound for Manhattan-there is none of the
discomfort or general ridiculousness that I’ve come to associate with
Cameroonian travel. The kids across the aisle from me are even each playing on
their own tablets, so I’m happy to pull out my iPod and block out the rest of
the world.
In my mind
I’ve all but left Cameroon when I look up to see a dispute breaking out just
next to me. Apparently the train station accidentally sold two tickets for the
same seat, and the man who came to find his seat already taken is not pleased
at all. He is dressed in traditional Muslim apparel, and is speaking a language
that isn’t French or English, most likely Fulfulde, a local dialect spoken by
Muslim groups. What language he is speaking doesn’t really matter to the woman
currently occupying the disputed seat; she can’t understand him and just sees
an angry older man screaming at her. The situation escalates when he strikes
out at her; unfortunately I am sitting between the two of them and immediately
lose whatever patience I had previously had. Luckily the train officials have
gotten word of the problem and rush to help the man find a different seat after
his friends pull him away.
Frustrating
as the entire situation is, the interesting part comes next, when a younger
companion of the man returns to apologize to my neighbor and I. He offers a few
explanations for the man’s behavior, concluding with his lack of education. Cameroon
is very much still a developing country, but I rarely find myself in situations
that so visibly capture the range of progress that it is currently making. Here
we are, immersed in our various personal entertainment systems and reading
American tabloids, (I wasn’t even the one that brought them!) when an older man
who wasn’t lucky enough to receive any kind of secondary education confronts us
over an administrative error.
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| A post-work parent/child lesson in my neighborhood-a rare sight worth admiring! |
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