Blogs from Cameroon, Africa

We’ve more or less finished our actual fieldwork. In Ma’an area, we managed to make quite some interviews, so in the end the number reached around 30. This made us really happy! We hired a car and a driver for this last area. Our driver “Papa” looked like some kids in Finland, driving his Toyota Corolla, with a cap always on, a towel around his neck, and Wunderbaums hanging from the front mirror. The car was a 4WD though, and he was very good on the red, muddy, slippery roads. It was like driving on ice sometimes. A car made our travel much easier. Still we decided to stay a lot in villages due to distances and condition of the roads, and this offered us some nice experiences and talks with people again. Most of the ... read more

On our last day in Yaoundé we visited a primate sanctuary in the national park of Mfou. To get there we called a number found in my Cameroon guide book. We didn’t really understand each other with the people in the other end, so after all we just agreed that someone English speaking would still call us back the morning after. By late next morning it was anyhow me who called the people again, but that was good because finally there was the park director in the phone, speaking perfect English and giving us instructions about how to get to the park and what it would cost. So everything seems to work out eventually, people can be so easy-going and helpful..! One just needs some patience and trust in things. We went to the park by ... read more

It’s my first time in Africa, and now also my first travel blog. I'm carrying out fieldwork for my master thesis in Campo Ma'an region of southern Cameroon, for a period of around three months. We share the work and other experiences with Linda, another student from Wageningen university; a lovely, energetic companion. After actual work, there's maybe some time for travelling before returning to the Netherlands and producing a nice piece of text about the findings we do here, no matter what they eventually turn out to be. Even though I love to message with all the precious people individually during my travels, to write the stories here saves some time for me.. and gives me a chance to reflect on all sorts of things that I encounter here. Sometimes I may produce lengthy writings, ... read more

The past few weeks have been quite eventful. We have spent a lot of time with one of the other volunteers, Jessica, mainly at Bob’s bar. It’s nice to have someone we can talk to in English who can sympathise with us on the cultural differences! She is from Seattle, she was adopted from Korea and so everyone here immediately assumes she is Chinese. There doesn’t seem to be a concept of multiculturalism. When Marie-Claire first met her the first thing she said was “Are you Chinese?” Jessica said “No, I’m American”, Marie looked bewildered by this and proceeded to say “but you look Chinese. Valentina, doesn’t she look Chinese?” I had only just met Jessica myself and was pretty mortified by this entire scenario. Since then Jessica told us that everyone shouts “Chinoise” at her ... read more

Cameroon: Our last country of this trip! We didn’t get across into Ekok, Cameroon, until about 5ish as it was already quite late when we arrived at the Nigerian immigration point; the Cameroonian side wasn’t too bad, however the huge mass of black clouds looming over head were very ominous! Then suddenly, the very second we were officially entered into Cameroon, the heavens opened and we were suddenly under the most torrential downpour most us have ever witnessed, sheets of rain, flashes of lightning and booms of thunder were everywhere – it was just magical, especially as we found a ‘hotel’ (we use the term loosely!) just at the end of town, so we could all sleep inside (four to a room) and sit in the bar and enjoy the light show in the sky. The ... read more

We arrived into an extremely humid (from which I fear our hair will never recover) Douala at about 5am, a short drive later and we were at the home of our Cameroonian family. There were a lot of people there to greet us and having not slept all night it was very difficult to get to grips with who everyone was, it still is a bit. After having the tour of the home we were asked what we would like to do, it dawned on us that this was a normal time to be up and about in Douala so we quickly mentioned going to bed before we were roped into some activity or other! People it seems sleep for about 6 hours and this does not sit well with Daniel at all. Later once we ... read more