Blogs from West, Cameroon, Africa

In February 2012, my services were enlisted to attend to an electrical matter on a ship in Douala. The flight, via Libreville, Gabon, was quite tiring, and it was relief to get my sore butt off the plane. After a long wait for the baggage to reach the carousel, we were whisked into town by the agent, who had our passports. More on that later. It transpired that I would lodge at the Hotel Prince de Galles , in Akwa, downtown Douala. The ride into town was daunting, to say the least. Some vehicles drive without their lights at night. The roads are in poor condition, but the show goes on. After checking in, I dropped my bags in my room and headed off to the pub downstairs. The only local brews were Castel, and the ... read more

The well has been successfully drilled and we are currently developing it. Pump is installed and the concrete pad goes in today. Hurray! It is pumping clean water and we have tested it for many water quality constituents. Will need to wait 24 - 48 hours for bacteria analysis, but it is looking good so far. Water hygiene education program is going very well. The Council Member in charge of sanitation and hygiene is so excited about the materials that I brought to share. He has been going to the radio station to announce more workshops and so the information dissemination is really taking off. We have been having trouble using internet. There have been many power outages and then problems with the computers and network. On Wednesday, we will begin our multi-leg journey home. Can't ... read more

Map of travel route attached.... read more

After several hours at the Nigerian side of the border trying to exit that country, we ended up spending the night at the Cameroon border post as we were already hitting night fall by the time entry was being sorted out. This is the real disadvantage to group travel, because border crossings take 10 times longer when you're trying to get 20 people and a large truck across. Christmas day was one to remember. We drove a total of 36km in 8 hours, the roads were that bad. This, after several locals and police men had told us the roads were very good. In fact, they were good because they were dry. During the wet season our truck would not have had a chance at getting through. We made it the rest of the way to ... read more

"It's all part of the trip" people say about breaking down.......but why did it have to be in the middle of a two day jungle crossing between Cameroon and Nigeria?....... Flying into Douala on the west coast of Cameroon reminded me of the Apocalypse Now movie - the wooded and thatch huts surrounded by flooded jungle and a dense thick humid air. Not really the type of scene that wants to make you leap out of the plane and jump straight down the throats of bribing French speaking customs officials, but it was going to have to be that way. One of the initial things I noticed about being in West Africa for the first time was that people were more traditionally dressed than what I had seen in East Africa and that their dress was ... read more