Up Station Mountain Club

Interesting Facts: Butterfruit or West African Plum

by Emil I Mondoa, MD

One of the many African foods I miss is what most people call the plum or bush butter. It is a completely different species of fruit than what people in the West call plums. It is native to the west coast of Africa, between Eastern Nigeria and Angola, and goes by the botanical name of Dacryodes edulis. Everyone knows that it is boiled or roasted and goes very well with fresh roasted or boiled corn. It presents a different more complex flavor when it allowed to ripen and become soft, and can be eaten at that time without cooking.

Recently, I came across a well researched book, entitled "Lost Crops of Africa", which details a large number of food crops that are little known outside of Africa. I was very impressed by the nutritional content of this fruit, which is mostly eaten as a snack in Africa. It turns out that this snack could have more nutritional power than the main course.

Photo: Crates of Grog

 

Sotomayor's American Journey: From the Bronx Housing Projects to the Supreme Court

By Emmanuel Konde

Few American Dreams and dreamers can compare with Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s. Hers’ is more of a journey than a dream, a life’s journey that began in the Bronx Housing Projects of New York to ultimately end at the Supreme Court of the United States of America in Washingtom, DC.  This transformation in the life of Sotomayor epitomizes the change candidate Barack Obama had promised Americans during his campaign for the Office of President.  The slogan was “Change We Can Believe In”—the kind of change possible only in America— that President Obama is now transforming from mere belief to reality.

Photo: Impossible Car

*Was Otto Pfister Worth the Wait?

*This article was originally published in the column Geof's Game Plan in the Herald newspaper in October 2007 after Pfister's appointment.

By Geof

It has taken Cameroonian sport officials eight months to name a new man at the head of the football national team. His name is Otto Pfister. Is he worth the wait? What are the pros and cons of this choice?

Wax - Miss Real, Mr Regular (The Video)

Hot new single from Wax, from the soon-to-be-released album, African Dream.

Photo: Grombif

(Book Review) The Paradoxes of Self-Determination in the Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration: The Search for Identity, Well-Being and Continuity

Bongfen Chem-Langhëë. (2004). The Paradoxes of Self-Determination in the Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration: The Search for Identity, Well-Being and Continuity. America University Press, 260 pages (Paperback)

This volume deals essentially with the rise and evolution of the nationalist movements in the British Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons (the Cameroons), the factors that conditioned those movements, and how and why their results came to be as they were.

How the Gendarmerie Dislodged Fraudulent Abriba from Victoria

By Emmanuel Konde

The Problem in Perspective

I was only a boy when the momentous social transformations I am about to narrate were initiated in Victoria.  Granted, I cannot recollect every detail of what I observed but my inability to recollect these details cannot stop me from chronicling these events.  There is a lot of confusion out there being peddled by obstructionists and separatists.  And I think this is the historical juncture at which to narrate these facts.  I will, therefore, attempt to zero-in only on those aspects that I can still visualize with clarity, and try to present at least some outlines that can be filled by other Victoria boys and girls who witnessed them. 

Photo: rattan

The Origins of Creation and the Bantus: Part 2

Louis Egbe Mbua

Living Lights are of the opinion that a diversified opinionated society is the vital ingredient to the advancement of that community. In March, this year, a debate happened amongst Cameroonians, in camnetwork, as to the validity of Darwin’s theories of evolution; and which was published, partly, in the same month, in this Forum. It is the opinion of this writer that the ideas posed were of a high level; and that this should be circulated to the wider public as it seems that these varied opinions have wider implications than would be imagined in everyday assumptions of life. Publishing ideas directly connected to other people is a daunting task. However, one is hard-pressed: choosing between what the wider public ought to know; and what one may consider an information resource bordering on the irrelevance. More so, at a time of world integration when men and women are not confined to their ancestral communalities and tribal clans; and when every man, woman and child have a reasonable access to information in this day and age of technological revolution, this is of relevance. Technological revolution on its own is not new. Different periods of the epic of world existence have seen their own strides of advances. Yet, what is presented here is of a different and extraordinary era. Although the world may or may not recognise its significance, Living Lights are fully convinced that such dispatches of knowledge may be adventitious to human advancement.

Guantanamo And Waterboarding: Evil or Virtue? Part 2

Prince & PA Hamilton Ayuk.

I agree that the right to fight anywhere should reside with the UN and any other organization that they are signatory to. I also agree that in the case of Saddam, Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction. But I disagree that the invasion and occupation was not necessary. The rate at which Saddam was crazy could have led him to use chemical weapons on Israel. I also disagree that since the war began on a wrong premise then the criminals of war taken to Guantanamo are not being treated fairly. They were caught fighting for the insurgence; it was not a defense of their country for they had already surrendered. In addition, most of the Prisoners Of War (POW) caught in Iraq and Afghanistanare foreigners and they are the ones shackled in Guantanamo.

Photo: Bee

Should the Sperm of A Dead Man Be Used To Father A Child?

The desire of a woman to be a grandmother; her wish to have a grandchild prompted Marissa Evans to say that she wanted to harvest the sperm of the dead son for a surrogate pregnancy so that though gone the son: Nikolas Evans should have a child. Initially it was rejected but she went to court and won the judgment. She said she wants to fulfill his wishes for he always wanted to be a father. On April 18, 2009, ten days after the Evans case, Gisela Marrero won the Supreme Court judgment to preserve the sperm of the dead fiancée so she could retain his legacy . Immediately the question arises: is this ethical? To determine whether anything is ethical or not is first and only by consulting the Bible because that is the constitution that God gave to mankind. You will have good ethics if you follow the Bible but you will have no ethics if you reject it.

On the Lack of Patriotism in Africa

By Innocent Chia

I have been pre-occupied increasingly by the subjects of nation building and patriotism. In fact, it is still not clear to my mind whether to separate nation building from patriotism or to treat them as two sides of the same coin. I am also confounded as to which comes before the other - does the chick come before the egg or is it the egg that comes before the chick? Is it patriotism that comes before nation building or vice versa, and why?  

Yet, I do know that there is a common and compelling thread tying failed or failing States to territories that did not fight for independence, especially paying the ultimate price with broken limb and lost life. It is the route that causes, including the former British territory known as Southern Cameroons, currently under the annexation of La Republique du Cameroun, must take in order to avoid the pitfalls that are crucifying progress and development the world over and particularly in Africa.

Continue reading "On the Lack of Patriotism in Africa" »

I have been pre-occupied increasingly by the subjects of nation building and patriotism. In fact, it is still not clear to my mind whether to separate nation building from patriotism or to treat them as two sides of the same coin. I am also confounded as to which comes before the other - does the chick come before the egg or is it the egg that comes before the chick? Is it patriotism that comes before nation building or vice versa, and why?  

Yet, I do know that there is a common and compelling thread tying failed or failing States to territories that did not fight for independence, especially paying the ultimate price with broken limb and lost life. It is the route that causes, including the former British territory known as Southern Cameroons, currently under the annexation of La Republique du Cameroun, must take in order to avoid the pitfalls that are crucifying progress and development the world over and particularly in Africa.

I have been pre-occupied increasingly by the subjects of nation building and patriotism. In fact, it is still not clear to my mind whether to separate nation building from patriotism or to treat them as two sides of the same coin. I am also confounded as to which comes before the other - does the chick come before the egg or is it the egg that comes before the chick? Is it patriotism that comes before nation building or vice versa, and why?  

Yet, I do know that there is a common and compelling thread tying failed or failing States to territories that did not fight for independence, especially paying the ultimate price with broken limb and lost life. It is the route that causes, including the former British territory known as Southern Cameroons, currently under the annexation of La Republique du Cameroun, must take in order to avoid the pitfalls that are crucifying progress and development the world over and particularly in Africa.

Police, taking it easy

May 26, 1990: The Launching of the SDF

Culled from Reform and Repression in Cameroon: A Chronicle of the Smoldering Years (1990-1992), a forthcoming book by Dibussi Tande commemorating the 20th anniversary of the beginning of Cameroon’s tumultuous democratization process.

On March 16, 1990, barely six days after the Biya regime insisted that multipartyism was not illegal in Cameroon, John Fru Ndi, a Bamenda-based bookseller, and Dr. Siga Assanga, a lecturer at the University of Yaounde, submitted an application with the Mezam divisional office seeking authorization for a political party called the Social Democratic Front (SDF).

Although the application was in direct response to the government’s declaration that multipartyism was not prohibited in Cameroon, the SDF had actually been in gestation months before the Yondo affair...

Click here to continue reading this article.

Pictures: Decamping to the CPDM

 

Away with foreign military bases and foreign troops in Africa

By Aloysius Agendia (Originally published in Sharing Knowledge and Ideas for Positive Change)

There is almost no African country (especially Francophone Africa) without the presence of foreign troops or these funny military bases said to have been built based on bilateral relations and protection. I wonder how many military bases we have in Europe, America etc.

As part of tightening the grip on Africa, which has been auctioned to imperialists by the neo colonial ruling aristocratic class, is the authorisation by these regimes most of whose legality and legitimacy is highly questioned, to allow foreign troops station in  various countries in the continent.

Guantanamo And Waterboarding: Evil or Virtue?

This is a huge debate that is not only between the Democrats and Republicans, amongst republicans but between the rest of the world and the US. First I will define both terms: evil and virtue, examine them in the Bible and then reconcile them with the US constitution and international torture conventions look at the conventions about torture.

Evil is anything sinful and virtue is anything that conforms to morality. So the question would be: are Quantanamo and Waterboarding sinful?

The Global Recession and Cameroon's Economy

Originally posted on State on State blog

President Paul Biya of Cameroon welcomed French Prime Minister François Fillon this week to sign cooperation agreements between the two governments in the areas of immigration, health, and defense.  Also during the Prime Minster's visit, a roundtable was held between French businessmen and their Cameroonian counterparts to discuss ways in which Cameroon can access increased investment and trade opportunities while protecting itself from further recession.  

Families accuse Boeing of cover-up over crash in Cameroon jungle

Ben Webster (Originally published in Times Online)

Catherine Fitzgibbon told her two small children that their daddy had died after getting lost in the jungle. She did not tell them the truth, because she feared that they would be left with a lifelong terror of boarding an aircraft. Living in Kenya but with all their relatives in Britain, flying was already a regular part of life for Tom and Rose, aged 3 and 1. Anthony Mitchell, their father, was one of 114 people who died on May 5, 2007, when a new Boeing 737, operated by Kenya Airways, nosedived into a swamp 30 seconds after taking off during a storm from Douala in Cameroon. Four other Britons were among the dead.

Photos: Cameroon or Plantoon?

 

The people eat so much plantain, it should be land of plantains and not land of shrimp.

Photo: More!

Yes...

Book Review: Second Engagement by Susan Nkwentie Nde

Review by Fatou A. Minah 

Susan Nkwentie Nde. Second Engagement (Paperback). Bamenda, Langaa Publishers, 2009. 208 pages.
 
This second novel by a high school language teacher in Buea in Cameroon (in the heart of Africa) is a journey through the mind and times of a young woman between girlhood and womanhood, village life and city life, tradition and modernity. The main character, Lizzy, a married civil servant and businesswoman, looks back on how she bridged these spaces and lived the linkages. What emerges is life shaped by happenstance as much as by reaching out to embrace dreams and give them feet.
 
Lizzy and her friend Jane grow up together. They learn how to enjoy nights out in the town without getting wrapped up with playboys. Then they observe each other, with a bit more distance, as they each learn to humour the men they have chosen as life partners.