The Beginning

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I spent the last two years serving as an agro-forestry volunteer for United States Peace Corps in rural Cameroon. Cameroon is a medium sized country in Central Africa. The southern part borders Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. It is dense equatorial rainforest along with the eastern part bordering The Congo and Central African Republic. To the north the vegetation turns to savanna the trees getting shorter and sparser, turning to desert scrub and finally a narrow ribbon of sahel.
After I finished I wanted to explore some of the nearby countries. Your teacher, Ms. Hyduke and my little sister asked me to keep a record of my travels for you to read along the way.
We took a train from the capitol city of Yaoundé Friday night and arrived in Ngoundéré Saturday morning. Ngoundéré is the capitol city of the Adamaoua region. Within the three northern regions of Cameroon there is a much higher prevalence of Muslim culture. While French is still the official language, most people speak Fulfulde. Women who were not educated and small children often speak very little French. Ethnically many people are identified as Fulbé. They raise cattle for livelihood. There are brochettes of delicious beef on ever corner.
On Sunday morning we took a bus for eight hours to reach Maroua, the capitol of the Extreme North, on the way we passed through Garoua and looked for hippos out the bus window in the Benoue River. The bus stopped outside of Garoua at a mosque for the Muslims to pray. By this time, the trees were much sparser and the houses were circular, mud huts with thatch roofs. Family compounds are usually divided with mud or thatch walls. Muslim men can have up to four wives, and each wife has her own small house. People grow cotton and millet predominately, and as the dry season has started, you can see piles of both drying upon elevated platforms within family compounds from the recent harvest.
Maroua is a beautiful city, with many Neem trees for shade. It can get very dusty during the dry season, and people throw water on the sandy streets to keep the dust down.
We are crossing the border into Nigeria Tuesday and I’ll have time to write again while we apply for our visa to Niger in Kano.

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