Bangem

Jules and I did some collaboration work with Joe in Bangem at the end of May. Of course we did the work we set out to do, but the trip involved a considerable amount more "recreational activities" than any business trip really should. I had wanted to go check out Joe's post at some point because he was always talking about how scenic it was (I was not disappointed), and I hadn't really done anything since IST aside from work, read, play guitar, and wish that the power would come back, so the trip seemed like a good idea. I stopped off in Yaounde to pick up some official Peace Corps literature to display and hand out, and then headed out to Bangem.

Surprisingly for me its actually a lot harder for me to communicate in the Anglophobe regions. Unless you hear it everyday the English they speak there is almost incomprehensible because the accent and word order is really strange, and those are the people who speak “grammar.” A lot of people speak pidgin which is for the most part a separate language loosely based on English which is for me is completely incomprehensible. I think its also odd for me because the only people that I ever speak English to are people I know, other PCV's, and Admin, and the few random people who like to practice speaking English with me. It usually takes me a few days after getting to the Anglophone regions to start speaking and responding in English to random people that I meet, and because their English is so weird sometimes I just stick to French anyways. I'm sure that the French I have learned here would sound as odd to anyone from France as the English sounds to me, but it gets me by. One thing that I always get from Cameroonians when I can't understand their English is them telling me dismissively, “I speak the British English, and you, you speak the American English, that why you not understand.” Well sir, with all due respect I can understand British English just fine, and had you been speaking it I could have understood you.  At least I got to feel useful at the show when the few Francophones came through and I could speak French with them.

The Mbororo, a mostly nomadic tribe from the North has settled near Bangem, they are known for their horses and cows apparently.  

Setting up the booth.  Joe presented some organic pesticide, and we all talked about what the Peace Corps does here.

There was an odd rasta man who sold handicrafts made out of plantain leaves.

After the show we took a day long walk up an extinct volcano called Mt. Manenguba to see some crater lakes. It took a couple of hours walking uphill on slick muddy roads to get there, and we gained a ridiculous amount of elevation, but the lakes where as promised beautiful. The scenery looks like absolutely nothing else I have seen in Cameroon, and there is enough elevation that I had to wear the hoodie I brought which was nice.  These two lakes are right next to one another and the pictures where taken from the same spot.  I tried to stitch them all together but it didn't look right, so I just made two separate panorama's According to Joe the Female lake has one of the highest depth to surface area's of any lake in the world, which I am just going to go ahead and say is probably true.  He did not however know why they are called the female and male lakes.
 

Mt. Manenguba Male Lake

Mt. Manenguba Female Lake

Pépinière

Getting a tree nursery (pépinière) off the ground has been more than a little bit difficult, but it was supposed to be my number one priority according to some of the work I did with my community host (Florence) during stage in Bafia. After a few trips to Yaounde to find the needed supplies, Florence and I started mixing the substrate to fill the polypots (aka mixing cow shit with sand, compost, and dirt then putting it in plastic bags).

My natural state here seems to be disgustingly sweaty

The first big difficulty was trying to find seeds, I had decided we would start with a small batch of 300 cacao because everyone in Bibondi already grows it, and it would be easy to sell. After a few months of waiting for some one who claimed would provide me with the seeds I ended up having to go all the way to Ebolowa myself, a 16 hour round trip with an overnight stop in Yaounde to literally pick the cabooses myself. It ended up being worth it though because I met a guy doing doctoral research on cacao at the IRAD (government agricultural research) station that speaks perfect English, and he told me I could call him any time I have any technical questions. Once I got the seeds back to Bibondi they where washed and allowed to germinate before being put into the polypots.  I did all this with a woman's group that Florence is the head of called CAAFBI. 

Washing

The seeds take about a week to germinate, and cannot be allowed to dry out, or be exposed to the sun.

The next big hurtle was getting some one to put up the shade. Many tree's, especially cacao, don't do well in direct sunlight at first, so you need to construct a shade for them. Unfortunately all the seedlings that had been placed in polypots where now sitting in either direct sunlight or total shade (50% shade is best). I finally gave up on waiting for some one else to do it (If I do the work myself it isn't really sustainable development), and started putting up the posts, luckily once some one saw that I was motivated I got plenty of help, and the shade went up in a few days. Afterward we placed the polypots in the pépinière, treated them with fungicide, and we are now in the process of watering and waiting.

Just a small portion of the frame is shaded because there are only 300 plants right now, but there is plenty of room to expand

Placing the polypots

The pépinière will be managed by CAAFBI, and used by EFA (the girls agricultural school) to teach about various cash crops, composting, and nursery management. It will also provide a local resource for cacao, oil palm, and other tree's that are expensive to buy and transport long distances. Right now we are also working on a lot of composting to have enough substrate for 2000 cacao, and 1500 oil palm in December. I know that was a bit boring, but I feel like I needed to post something about the actual work I am doing. 

Fêtetastic

I will just post one update for both the Fête du travaille and the Vingt Mai. All of the national holidays are celebrated in pretty much the same manner. The teachers, or young people, or workers, or women, or whoever the day is honoring march in the town center, then everyone goes to the bar. All of the government officials in the town show up for the marching, and I have learned from experience it is better to greet them at the beginning and then duck out as soon as the parade is over. This after ending up a little too drunk for the middle of the afternoon after the Fête du travaille. The problem is that as a sub-divisional capital Lolodorf has quite a few government officials, all of whom like to buy you a drink or two, and in Cameroon it is considered extremely rude to refuse a drink when some one offers to buy.

Religious holidays are about the same with church instead of marching before the bar. On Easter everyone was kind of confused by my questioning this, “so everyone gets drunk and dances all night... because its Easter?” I guess it makes about as much sense as chocolate bunnies and Easter egg hunts though.

The Fête du travaille is pretty much labor day, except all of the large employers, and businesses in Lolodorf made their employee's march. This was a lot more interesting than the other marches I have seen, some community forest drove logging equipment, another marched while loudly revving chainsaws, a cacao organization did a little demonstration of applying chemicals to a cacao seedling, and Butran (the bus agency here) drove some of their buses. Then of course there was the rolling sound system which I ended up marching with. Earlier in the morning Auguste asked me if I would be marching, I assumed that he meant with the community forest (which did not march for some reason) so I of course said yes. I was told to show up in Lolodorf and they would give me a shirt. When I did show up it turned out I was marching with the local bar, Ampoule Rouge. Apparently Ampoule Rouge has a side business, renting out large sound systems, so I marched along main street in Lolodorf next to an old Toyota with four huge speakers strapped to the roof, and a generator in the trunk blaring “Lady Ponce.”

Notice the use of safety goggles.

I wish I could say they did not get drunk and drive these through town way too fast afterwards

  

At least they took off the dangerous part.

I loaned my camera to some one who got a lot of good pictures, but unfortunately not of me.

Sometimes when shit gets really weird its best to just roll with it

Le Vingt Mai (May 20th) is National Unification Day. It commemorates the unification of the Anglophone provinces with the Francophone provinces in 1961. Pretty much anyone in a uniform marches, but unfortunately there are only a couple of policemen, and a couple boy scouts in mismatched, incomplete uniforms who came from God knows where. I can only assume it is because of this that all of the schools in the surrounding area had to march.  There where also several political parties, and associations who marched, but it was all topped off with a demonstration from the Karate school (you can't make this crap up).  

Fierce.

The Vingt Mai is considered the end of  Fête season, so it is looking to be a long paradeless summer. I will throw up some pictures of the tree nursery I have been working on tomorrow, and then my trip to Bangem at some point after that.