Cameroon: A Place Where Nothing Works

By a VSO Volunteer in Bamenda, Cameroon

I am sitting, writing this at 7.44 on Monday night.I am writing it by laptop battery power. The power has gone again.It was off all day yesterday - I eventually gave up around eight and just went to sleep. There was literally nothing else to do.

The lights came back on earlier but the internet was still down.When I tried to flush my toilet there was no water.Talking of my toilet, when I first moved in to my temporary flat it still needed to be installed - in the short term I used my neighbour's. Eventually though my toilet was ready.

Within a day it started to overflow. I recognised the problem, took off the cistern lid and tried to adjust the mechanism. Despite being brand new, it snapped in my hands.
Later when it was replaced, water started gushing out of the pipe at the wall end. The metal nut had cracked.

Last week I bought flip flops. They came apart in two days. This weekend, in a bid to stop using plastic bags, I bought a rucksack to shop with. The effort of taking half a dozen cans to a friend's house ripped off a strap.

Earlier when the lights went we tried to fire up the, still new, generator. It whirred into life - then spluttered out. Dead. It wouldn't start again. You can buy DVDs on the main street. In order to make them as cheap as possible they cram 20 - 30 films onto one disc. Each film file size is a tiny percentage of what it should be, leaving the movie so distorted and pixelated they are virtually unwatchable.

The TV series I bought wasn't even that good. I took it home only to find the disc was blank.The mains adaptor I bought blew the first time it was plugged in.A friend bought a blender that made a single turn and blew.

The house I am still waiting to move into is finally going to get connected to the (intermittent) electricity grid. Nearly three weeks of a colleague visiting the power people every day has finally got them moving. But now we are told that we have to wait for another person to fit a meter.

Nothing works here. Not for long anyway. I thought I was experienced at living and working in developing countries but I am genuinely shocked by it. Is all Africa like this or just Cameroon?

Or is it just Bamenda? What you must remember is this:
This is not a war zone. Nor is it an area of famine. It has been hit by no major recent natural disasters. Political turmoil is limited. As I understand it the economy is in no great shape but there's no rampant inflation either.

This is where the products that China makes, and the West doesn't want, end up. They tell if you want anything to last you have to buy second hand. Nothing new here is good.
This includes absolutely everything - from clothes to pots and pans. I can't imagine where the second hand flip flops come from but there are thousands of them in the market place. Dead men's shoes?

This will be reality of my time here. What I am describing in my domestic life will be writ large across my working life. Just as I can't fire up the internet, my employer can't reach patients in remote villages because the roads simply don't work.

We left the office at two today and went home. There was nothing we could do without power. As TV news reporters say: 'These are the lucky ones…But everything takes several times more effort than it needs to, just to achieve anything.

I wonder how people manage to live like this. I wonder how it got so bad.Suddenly it's not hard to see how diseases take hold and remain unchecked.And I'm starting to understand why some people just give up.

Comments

[tombele]

Well come to Bamenda VSO volunteer now you know how things work in anglophone Cameroon. Join the rest of us to oust these donkey years serving dictators and their french colonial handlers. May be you should also read the newspapers and watch the suvs on the streets. In case you haven't noticed, Cameroon has come up with the best high tech development tool in the world, pure genius called CORRUPTION AND PURE ROBBERY. That's why President Obama will like to talk to these experts.

Hear him: "To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."

[CountryFowl]

Dear VSO Volunteer in Bamenda, Cameroon,

Thanks a million for writing & expressing your experiences in Bamenda.
You will be doing all of us Cameroonians an invaluable good, if you could also find other newspapers, online magazines and other media outlets to air out your points of view and to bring to the world's attention the horrific things that are happening in that country.

When we ourselves write and attempt to explain what is happening to our country, our voices are immediately extinguished and drown out by a huge crescendo of lies and massive onslaughts of intoxicating propaganda from the ruling oligarchy, its die hard supporters, minnows and well wishers. They sing and shout that what we are expressing is mere rhetoric, non factual and without any hard evidences to support our claims....!!!!!!.

I visited Bamenda not too long ago, after many years of absence and believe me, the overwhelming sensations & upwelling of feelings that sprouted out from the mind, from what was being observed and witnessed, can not be adequately with words.
For starters, I visited our old school primary school and rumour has it that John Ngu Foncha, our late first prime minister, Solomon Tandeng Muna, another prominent politician of late and a host of other well known public figures, even younger ones like Clarkson Mbeinow and others whom I can not recollect off head immediately had all passed through that institution.
To make a long story short, several goats were eating, frolicking and ideally strolling back and forth in one of the offices that our headmasters, Mr. Nsieh and later on Mr. J.P. Amah, had used as their temporal office.
All around the school yard, sheep, goats and chickens were having a field day.
What does this say..??? that even the institutions which nurtured and helped us to get a foot in life, are not remembered..!!!! that even our prominent brothers and sisters to whom we bestow political powers do not care enough for us little ones to leave behind any lasting legacy for us and our children as well.

You can take a look at that old primary school. It is called Government School Bamenda Upstation and you will see that nearby this school, is a large gendarmerie garrison, which is very modern and up to date. Our government and our politicians would rather spend all the countries monies, resources and human labour in building prisons, police stations and arming our brothers and sisters to either shoot us on sight or imprison us for the simple crime of trying to exist. That is the Cameroonian reality.

Now, go to Nkwen and take a look at the little stream that trickles quietly behind Nkwen motor park..!! that was once a little river. It was a swimming ground for kids, it provided water for some. Today it is a garbage dump. Dead bodies of animals, empty beer bottles, tins, plastic bags, cans, dead wood, all kinds of filth, soil, motor oil, old car parts have plugged it. This once majestic stream whose banks were graced by mango trees, guavas, sugar cane, all kinds of small exotic fruits, populated with cat fish and gumming-stone fish has become the shame of that neighborhood, it is being used like a public toilet.
It is an appalling shame.

If you look up towards Banja, and follow the sky line where the hills disappear towards Mendangnkwe, you will notice plenty of bald spots and empty spaces. These were pristine forest regions, populated with fine and beautiful trees such as kolanut trees, monkey kola, and a lot of rare woods. Today they have been savaged and raped by unscrupulous and vociferous non-feeling individuals. It is said that the SDOs, DOs and other government officials are dividing that land to themselves, chopping off the forest to build their ramshackle mansions.
This is just a little picture of how Cameroon has been slowly brutalized, maimed, raped, savaged and butchered up by a gang of individuals for the last 30 years or more. So do not be surprised by what you are witnessing. It is not all of Africa that is this way, many other countries are beginning to awaken and be conscious of the damages that our politicians can inflict on our communities by bad governance.

But off course, we the citizens also have to refuse to accept such a way of life. It is also our duty to kick out and not tolerate such policies and decisions that are destroying our whole culture and way of life.
Perhaps there is a new dawn for the country when the people would have been able to chase out these group of hyenas, vultures, crocodiles and serpents that are strangulating the country.

Thank you.

[Altruist]

Well said countryfowl. Couldn't have put it better. maybe we should also check the unemployment rate.