A Better Tomorrow

The women of Achoubong Group in Bafou, Cameroon sing a song thanks and safe journey to the Heifer Cameroon staff and I.

Days 6-8

January 6

We traveled an hour and a half to the hilltop village of Bafou. It is a much more pleasant climate in the Western Highland province than in the more southern provinces of Cameroon.

We arrived first at Martha Nandog’s home where I sat on a bench outside and spoke with her through an interpreter named Ali. She told me that she was a nurse working in the city and living with her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family.
“We came back to the village and we were empty handed because he was a diabetic,” Martha said. “Here, to manage a diabetic patient you need a lot of money. He died in 1995, leaving no food, no money and the children dropped out of school.”
Martha found herself living a “life of borrowing,” by having to constantly ask neighbors and family for food and money. During this time, one of her children was in the hospital for two years and went through eight operations. To pay for the operations she had to lease out the land they owned.
“When I came back from the hospital, I can only thank god that Heifer came to our community,” she said. “I was one of the first people to be assisted here.”
Martha received four piglets and training on how take properly take care of them. She said the training in agroforestry, composting and integrating livestock and agriculture has increased the production on her farm.
“I have been able to pay all of the debt and I have taken back our farm land that I leased out,” Martha said. “I now own our farm again.”
For two of her sons that dropped out of school, Martha used her profits to purchase them motorcycles so that they can make money by providing transportation. She has five grandchildren that now live near her and she is the one that provides their daily food.
“I am very, very happy. I have been able to take care of my family,” Martha said. “I don’t have to go here or there to ask for help.”
She said other women in the village now come to her to learn how she takes cares of her pigs and farm. She has also Passed on the Gift of four piglets to others.
“When I think about how I was before and look at where I am now, it is good to also give an opportunity to someone else to see how there life can also change. I am copying what Heifer has done for me,” Martha said.
“I feel like a man now. It is true that the husband is gone, but Heifer is my second husband.”

Next, we head back down the dirt road to a home just around the corner from Achoubong Group meeting house. Here I meet Louise Zamgue, a woman who has experienced many trials and hardships. Her first husband kicked her out his home when she could not get pregnant after five years of marriage. She then returned to her father’s house and in less than a month she was pregnant by someone she was seeing.
She then had a couple of children by a man and was forced to leave her father’s house.
“I was forced to become a crop farmer and I got nothing out of it because I did not know you could use manure to improve yields,” Louise said. “I depended on my father and relatives to take care of my children.”
Louise eventually remarried, but her second husband died when she was pregnant with her fourth child. But before he died, she had begged him to buy her a small piece of land of her own and he did.
“We did not have enough food to feed all the mouths because the crop yields were really poor because we had no knowledge of how to improve,” Louise said. “It was a problem having food all year round.”
In 2004, Louise got involved with Heifer International, receiving four piglets and learning agroforestry, composting, animal husbandry, ethnoveterinary treatment, gender issues and leadership skills.
“There were certain things I didn’t know I could do to improve my life,” Louise said.
“Before there were some socially constructed rules around the village where certain functions were abundant to men. I was always having problems because I expected my brothers to do the work and they didn’t do it. With the gender training, I understood that I could do it.”
With the profits from her farm, Mary took care of one of her son’s medical problems. She also began buying materials a piece at a time for the eventual construction of the simple home she lives in now.
“I am so very happy because I was reduced to a beggar, but presently I am able to take care of everything and provide for my children,” Louise said.
Before she could not care for her children or pay for their school fees. The children lived with relatives until she began to see a profit on her farm and were able to bring them back home.
I then ask Louise if in the past could she have imagined everything that has happened in her life since becoming involved with Heifer. She replied with a question.
“How could I imagine it when I had nothing?” Louise said. “I could not have even dreamt of having a house of my own. I thought I would die without having anything my own.”
We then toured her home, including the small seamstress room and a kitchen she recently constructed. Louise has a infectious smile the whole time she is showing me her home.
We then walk back to the meeting room where a spread of fried plantains, roasted nuts, fresh fruit and some Cokes has been laid out. When I set down with my plate, all of the women in the group, including Martha and Louise, dance down to the front of the room where I am sitting and begin singing a high-spirited song that is directed toward me and the Heifer Cameroon staff. It is a song of thanks and safe journey and I am beyond touched by the gesture. As soon as they finish, I ask if I can go get my video camera out of the truck and could they all sing it all again. They are more than happy to oblige, and what I have is the short clip above.

Louise Zamgue works part-time as a seamstress in the home she constructed with profits from pigs and farming.

Martha Nandog, a widow, has been able to take care of her children and grandchildren with the money she has made raising pigs.

The night before I leave I have dinner with the Heifer Cameroon staff at Sister Rose's in Bamenda.

February 7

Mary has taught many members of her community the skills she has learned from Heifer.

I could barely hold myself up today. A nasty cold as well as eating all of the spreads of food at the different projects finally caught up with me, as I spent a miserable night with stomach issues of the highest order and some hardcore congestion.
For my last project visit, we went to a place just outside of Bameda to visit Mary Sirri Ndikum, who is married to his Royal Highness, The Fon of Akum. This is the very first interaction I have with traditional African royalty (on the local level). Mary is youngest one of five wives. I arrive at the compound feeling so incredibly weak. All of the wives have a string of white beads around their head to designate their status.
I am introduced to the Fon, whose hand you never shake. I am shown a bow and clap greeting that everyone gets a big kick out of when I introduce myself to the Fon. I film an interview first with the Fon, who tells me how Heifer has help his village so much. He praises his wife, Mary, for her skill at managing the farm in his absence. He then takes his leave and I interview the very charming and industrious Mary. She has become a real leader in the community thanks to the training she has received from Heifer. She provides for all the Fon’s children and helps other families learn how to take care of their cattle and crops. Before we leave she gives me a couple bottle of yogurt and some tubes of ice cream she has made. Check back in to this blog in the near future for a short film on Mary’s life.

What has been most surprising to me is how gender equity instruction has seemingly transformed families and entire communities in Cameroon. Men who once left their wives with no money and allowed them no say in family decisions now treat their wives as equal partners who can be trusted to handle any issues that may arise. And what makes sense to many of the men is how much more successful their farming operations are when they work with their wives as a team. Decisions are now made together as a family – a huge leap from the traditional Cameroonian family structure.

February 8

I am somewhere over the Sahara Desert sipping white wine and watching The Darjeeling Limited on the overhead screen. A few hours before I left Cameroon (after a six-hour drive to Douala), we checked into the Royal Palace Hotel – for the third time this trip – so I could shower and eat a meal of skewered fish and fries, while I watched Cameroon play host Ghana in the semi-finals of the Africa Cup. Humphrey met me at the front of the hotel at 7:45 and told me I had left a folder at the offices up the road. The driver whisked me back down dead streets lined with shack bars and open-air restaurants that were packed with still, silent crowds watching the final minutes of the match. There were tiny 20-inch television sets all along the street with anywhere from 5 to 50 people gathered around. It was pure poetry.
We made a quick stop-off at the office, where several employees were watching the final seconds tick away after a late work meeting. We hit the road again just as the match ended. The silent streets erupted with the unfettered joy of the Cameroonian people. Where only moments earlier everyone had been frozen in silence as they awaited the 1-0 win, they were now hugging, dancing and drinking in celebration. People were running with flares, honking any horn that could be found, and emptying back into the streets to relish the victory with everyone else.

–Jeremy Glover