Lives of Others

A shantytown at the edge of the tea plantations in Tole'.

Cameroon: Days 1-2

January 31 or February 1

Currently, I am just off the eastern seaboard, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, unsure of the exact date and time after a brief nap. I’m guessing the date is the still the former, as the eight-hour flight departed just a few hours ago.

So this is it: A trip into the unknown. This is the very thing that so piqued my interest last spring when I applied for this job. I am to spend the next seven days in Cameroon with my tape recorder, digital camera, video camera, journal and notebook, where I’ll be collecting stories, thoughts and impressions for my employer, Heifer Foundation.

I couldn’t be more pleased. But what awaits? That’s always the best story of all.

Exposure to a people and a way of life that is completely removed from all I’ve known. I’ve been told I won’t come back the same, and I believe it. I feel a little like I did as an impressionable 20-year-old spending the summer studying in Europe. Life is certainly for the living.

After 22 hours of traveling, I arrived in a foggy state of mind. Upon landing, I was immediately struck by how Douala International Airport looked like a bombed-out war relic that has since been reclaimed and was barely functioning. It had a stained, dingy appearance, with no air conditioning on the inside and a long stretch of pointless walkways leading to a police and customs, which was the calm before the madness, at least in my jet-lagged state. Dripping with sweat, I staggered about reading unfamiliar names off of signs people were holding. The baggage claim was a barrage of people with signs and aggressive drivers who would almost force you to ride with them to the city. I fended off one before forcing my way outside to find the friendliest people I had seen thus far waiting for me behind a barricade, which may or may not have been put up to keep back the raucous parade of youth who were banging drums and bells and waving signs that said “Welcome Prince!” – a Cameroonian pop star who was on the same plane as me. The carnival atmosphere was a surreal first impression to say the least. But my welcoming party of Dr. Humphrey Taboh, assistant director of Heifer Cameroon; Hilda Mbungai, zonal manager for the Humid Rainforest Program Zone; and Dominic, our driver, was warm and pleasant and they had a large bottle of cold water for me.

Douala is the financial capitol of Cameroon, which is why some of the squalor and lack of sanitation was surprising. Many of the shops are nothing more than a 10-foot wooden shack selling cell phones, drinks, snacks and jugs of gas. The roads are all crumbling and the streets are teeming with people selling fruits, vegetables and other goods. Children are at most intersections balancing impossible looking amounts of fruits on their heads and coming up to your window to see if you are interested. While the lack of sanitation is striking, it is far outweighed by the occasional glimpses into Cameroon’s natural beauty that pop up throughout the city. We arrive at the Royal Palace Hotel, which is not quite what the name would have you believe, but it still has an otherworldly charm with its heavy, dark wood lobby with arch shaped mirrors along the walls.

My first impression of the Cameroonian people is that they generally have a reserved, friendly nature and a natural sense of style. Later that night while waiting to meet with Humphrey and Hilda in the lobby of the hotel, a man in wearing sunglasses at night came in sporting a candy-striped conductors hat with matching sleeveless, button-up shirt with a denim jacket slung over his shoulder. So where do I get my candy-striped conductors hat?

February 2

A little rest can do wonders. I’m in Africa. When I woke up, I got that sensation of fully realizing a situation. Today, we have an hour drive to the town of Buea where I’ll visit the Signal Hill Pig Farming Group. On the roads, small Volvo taxis are everywhere and motorcycles are even more abundant with no apparent traffic laws or fear of death. Honking governs the road. A honk can mean anything: I’m passing, let me in, why did you not let me in, please go around, thank you for not hitting me…

Just outside of Douala, there is a junction in the road where a stream passes under a bridge. When we pass the trash-littered stream, it is being used by a family to clean their motorcycle and wash their clothes, while the children played nearby. Soon after this we pass a bridge that is a physical symbol of connection between the French and English speaking provinces. As we cross the river lined with fishing boats and women and children washing cloths, I begin to contemplate how life for the people of Cameroon would be different now if not for colonialism. In what ways? I’m not sure, and I know very little so far about this country.

We drive past miles of rubber tree plantations and massive fields of bananas that are owned by Del Monte while listening to Christian reggae with one song’s chorus repeating “I’m on the lord’s side.” Everyone in Cameroon speaks Pidgin English, which reminded me of the Patios I heard in last year in Jamaica. Humphrey tells me there are more than 200 dialects of Pidgin and since they are from different places that he could not always understand our driver Dominic and that he can’t really understand the youth who’s Pidgin has been influenced by the slang of one of Cameroon’s pop stars.

Oben Andrew Bessem at home with his granddaughter.

The first person in the Signal Hill Group I visit was Oben Andrew Bessem, president of the group. His home is up a short trail on the side of a hill. He and the fellow group members received their training and first piglets from Heifer International in 2002 and the difference it has made in his life and the lives of his family is quite obvious when talking to this older man of short stature who has a beaming smile. Before becoming involved with pigs and farming, he worked in the private sector until 1980, when he lost his job due to his involvement with trade unions. This when he decided to become a farmer, which he hoped would be enough to provide his young children with all the food they needed as well as pay for their education. He did not know any modern methods of farming or animal husbandry and struggled for years to provide for his family of ten. For many years his dream was simply having three meals a day for his children.

The training on proper livestock management and agricultural integration meant increased profits on his farm.

“With the knowledge I have gained from Heifer I can be independent,” Oben said. “At first, we didn’t know how to go about doing anything. Now I know how to compost manure. I know when a pig is not well. I know how to go to a bush and cut the leaves to give to the animal if they have a problem.”

When I ask what it has meant for Oben’s family, he tells me that I would be surprised just how much it has changed their lives.

“With these pigs I have been able to send four children to the university,” Oben said. “A fifth one is there now.”

He then tells me of one of his sons who studied botany at the university and now has a job in London, a trip he helped pay for through the pig farm. One of his daughters is majoring in environmental science and hopes to be a teacher. Another daughter works with the forestry delegation and another studied management and is now working with an uncle.

Oben also points out the leadership courses he received from Heifer as well as the gender equity training, which he said has made a happier home.

“I have been a leader of this group for seven years,” he said. “With the knowledge I have gained, I have also been managing a group outside of my group.”

Oben has also constructed a new toilet for his family, but said his future goal, after all of his children are out of school, is to construct a solid permanent home where his wooden home now stands.

Madame Foretia (center) with her family at their pig farm.

We leave Oben and drive down the road a few kilometers to meet with Madame Emilia Foretia and other members of the Signal Hill Group. Usually, when you interview people, you are not the center of attention, but in this case I am treated as a guest of honor (something I’ll have to get used to during the coming days).

We walk past Madame Foretia’s elevated pigsties to a small wooden meeting room where I sit in the middle of the group and ask them about how their involvement with Heifer has affected their lives.

Peter, the secretary of the group, sits to my right with a two other men who are a little chattier than most Cameroonians I had met. Peter speaks enthusiastically about what Heifer has meant to his life.

“So much impact,” Peter said. “Heifer has changed my life tremendously. When I started on my own, I was realizing nothing, because the training was not there. As soon as Heifer gave us that training, everything was perfect. From Heifer, I have been able to send my children to school.

Peter then listed the training Heifer has provided including proper sanitation, animal husbandry, leadership approach, bookkeeping and gender equity.

“Without knowledge, you cannot do anything,” Peter said. “When I started keeping pigs on my own, I was having a mortality rate on a yearly basis. The mortality rate was so high. But as soon as Heifer came to us with the training there was a zero mortality rate.”

Heifer’s Cornerstones of sharing and caring is something the group continually practices, Peter said.

“We always go out and give education to those that are interested,” he said. “Right now, we have a group we are trying to pass on our gift to.”

The group was preparing to pass on piglets to another group in the community who were involved with Heifer.

“To pass on the gift, to pass on the knowledge, to pass on everything you have learned – you have a great joy,” Madame Foretia said.

She also speaks of the “great change” that has taken place in the life of her family since becoming involved with Heifer’s various trainings and teachings.

“The knowledge that I have right now… to live well with my neighbors and to make the production grow well – I have a lot.”

Her son Denis is now in Medical school in New Jersey, which she said brings her “great joy.” She was able to help pay for his visa and flight to America through money she raised from her pig farm.

Her son, Ivo, who is still in secondary school, has opened an account at the local credit union with the money he has made from the pigs.

“He has an interest in the pigs so much and also farm work,” she said. “He bases all his interest on that. We started an account to motivate him to work harder.”

Ivo now wants to study to be a veterinarian to continue the trainings and teachings Heifer had provided to his family.

Other families send their children to stay and learn from Madame Foretia. It is a task she fully embraces.

“I do it free of charge,” she said. “I see it that as they have trained me and I should also help other people. I should not keep the knowledge within me. That does not help anything.”

She sees this instruction as providing a future to the youths that come to stay with her.

“If the child has enough interest he can then take what he has learned and make his life in that way,” she said.

Before leaving the group to go to Madame Foretia’s new home, the group sings a song about Heifer to express their appreciation. It is sung in Pidgin, so I cant’ make it all out but the chorus is, “Heifer is a friend, a friend that doesn’t let you down.”

When I asked if I could take his picture, he put his sunglasses on to let me know I could.

Back in the city of Buea is the home the Foretia’s first began building nearly 20 years ago, but were only able to complete last year with money that their son sent from America. Instead of the wooden frame house with dirt floors I had seen so far, her new home has concrete floors and walls. Madame Foretia gets out a box of glasses, cups and saucers that she was able to purchase for when they have guests over. She also shows me a griddle she bought so that her children can fix quick meals before and after school. They had also a bought a very small television to keep the children around the house more.

Madame Foretia then pulls out her record books to show me how she plans for the upcoming years pig sales based on her past figures. Hilda tells me recordkeeping in not traditionally part of the Cameroonian culture, but it is something Heifer Cameroon teaches in order for the recipients to see their profits and plan for the future.

“If you do not record it, you do not realize it,” Madame Foretia said.

Our driver had to returned to the farm to pick up their children so they can tell me about what Heifer has meant. After speaking with Madame Foretia and her husband Stephen for some time, I began to get anxious as I thought I had everything I needed to tell Madame Foretia’s story. I was wrong and it was the last time I would be anxious for the rest of the trip. When their children arrive, they are all noticeably nervous to talk to me and hesitant to even utter a word. Ivo finally talks about wanting to be veterinarian and another boy who is staying with the family shyly tells me what he has learned. Regina had not yet spoken. When she tried to speak she began to cry. Her father asked why she is crying. Hilda interjected that she was happy. She fought through the tears as she spoke of everything her mother had done for their family.

“My mother started with one pig and now my mother has 22 pigs,” Regina said. “She pays our school fees and gives us transportation. Everything that my mother works is in the pigsty.”

Hilda had to wipe away her tears. It was the first and not the last time I would have to hold back my tears.

We continue past Buea and before I know it we are skirting across some of the most gorgeous countryside I have ever seen. It is the tea fields of Tole’. The serene rolling hills filled with tea plantations provide a stark contrast to the living conditions of the tea field workers in the shantytown that runs alongside one of the larger plantations. Here is where a nascent snail project is underway. As the leader of the local snail initiative shows us the snails, he starts talking about finding good prices for the snails at cities farther away. This leads to a very interesting conversation between him and Humphrey about first building up a local market and supplying the local people with snails to better their nutrition. Humphrey repeatedly points out that he should not neglect building the local markets first before expanding to other areas.

Before we leave, I attract the attention of some of the boys who were hanging around in a field. I take a few pictures and then talk with them some. I tell them to “get down and show me how you do it,” and they start jumping around and posing.

They ask if I will be coming back. I tell them I will sometime in the coming years, which I know may be a lie, but I hope it is true.

We drive back through Buea and then down to the coast to the seaside town of Limbe, where we will stay in small one-room bungalows just a few feet from the rocky coastline. There are strange Europeans camping beside the rooms and there is an open-air restaurant with football (soccer) on at all times. That night, I order some fish and chips and talk with Hilda about different foods in Cameroon and the possibility of going to church tomorrow morning.

I then go sit in a plastic chair on the edge of the small cliff and listen to the waves crash and watch the moon twinkle on the water. The old night watchmen who lets people in and out of the gate late at night comes and sits at the next plastic table. He asks me if I am going to the club that night. I tell him no, that I’m just here to listen to the waves.

–Jeremy Glover