Week One, long version

(leaving SFO)


We’re here in Cameroon, in the capital city of Yaounde, for the next year. Specifically, I’m at the kitchen table drinking coffee and typing. The Vaio laptop I’m using comes with a trial version of MSWord, but MSWorks is on here too, so at least I can compose in something that does word wrap. It’s about 740am; we go to bed early, since we’re still adjusting to the time change (GMT +1), and it’s unusual to go out at night here. We have a meeting at 930 at the Secretariat of the Eglise Presbyterienne Camerounais (hmm, my spellchecker doesn’t speak French, have to see if I can fix that) to discuss our work for them. I have two positions here, one to do some computer instruction for them, the other to assemble a database of microloan beneficiaries for an NGO called RELUFA, which is just up the street. Ann will be interviewing RELUFA beneficiaries and writing articles to promote the microloan program, and probably working with me at the EPC. Since most of this is in French, it’s a full plate for the time being at least, and we’re just settling in. We went to RELUFA yesterday and had a long and fascinating talk with the coordinator, Valery, about RELUFA’s initiatives, what different staff members do, and how we might be able to help. RELUFA is a network of other organizations, and has a micro loan program (lending small amounts of money directly to individuals), a food sovereignty program for farmers, and a transparency initiative directed at multinationals, but of course this is the briefest of overviews.

We are housesitting through December for Jeff and Christi, who work with the EPC and RELUFA, respectively. Their place is in a neighborhood called Jongolo (not sure of the spelling), across the street from the EPC office and a few minutes’ walk from RELUFA, which saves us from communiting in Yaounde’s fearless anarchic taxicabs every morning. We need to find our own place starting in January, but the EPC may be able to help with that; we’d like to stay in the neighborhood. The house has a big yard with a 6’ wall around it and a 24-hour guard. It’s warm here, but we’re at a couple of thousand feet of altitude so it’s about 65 to 85 degrees with high humidity. The windows are louvres with screens and bars, and its pleasantly cool at night. We have a small stove and oven that run on propane, a big fridge, and bought ourselves a water filter on the second day that consists of two silver pots that stack, and filters the water through “candles” made of minerals. It looks like a big silver coffee urn. We’ve been doing our own cooking and it’s nice to have a gas stove again; the one in San Francisco is electric. They have some great bread and baked goods here -- baguettes, beignets, etc. It’s the rainy season here (you get 2 on the equator, rainy and dry, or maybe 3: dry, rainy, and extra rainy), and it’s great to lie in bed at night and listen to thunderstorms and rain, and wake up in the morning hearing all sorts of birds. I miss having real weather, living in San Francisco.

We flew out of SFO last week Tuesday, a week ago already. Brian (our friend who has our place while we’re gone) and Miriam (Ann’s sister) and all our luggage for a year, and us, all packed into our Scion XA and drove to the airport.


(sendoff committee)

We flew to Paris on Air France, which serves really good food, by the way, if you’re flying overseas. We booked our tickets within the past 2 months so we had a 24-hour layover in Paris, but this turned out to be a good thing, something I’d do on purpose next time. Our friends Joe and Morgen, writers who moved to Paris from SF three months ago, met us at the airport. Our luggage stayed checked through all the way to Africa, so we just took our carryons and wandered off with them to the train into town. No customs! We dropped our stuff off, went out to lunch, and meandered around Paris awhile.


(lunch with Morgen and Joe)


(walking by canal near Joe and Morgen's place)

They have an apartment in the 10th arrondissement, and have a panoramic view of Paris out their bathroom window. Paris felt like home, since we were going so far away. We later took the Metro to fin Boris, a friend of Ann’s volunteer days in SF, who put us up for the night.


(Ann and Boris on the Pont Mirabeau, Tour Eiffel behind them)


(Tour Eiffel, with lights on the hour)

In the morning we grabbed a ‘choco Suisse” from the local patisserie on Boris’s recommendation -- bread with chocolate and pudding. Then we found our way back to the airport via the Metro and RER trains, and boarded another Air France flight for Cameroon.

We overflew Algeria, which I never thought I’d see, so I took a couple of pictures.


Then over the Sahara, Chad, Nigeria and into Cameroon. More good Air France food. College friend Ann K. met us at the airport in Yaounde; her NGO has diplomatic status here, so she came right in and found us at the baggage carousel. Again, no customs. Getting back into the US next year probably won’t be so easy. Ann K. drove us to their place in Yaounde. She and husband Ray, both college friends of mine and Ann’s youth group leaders, work here for an NGO called SIL.


(Ray and Ann)

Ann’s a translator, and Ray is a pilot. They have three kids, and live in a beautiful house near other SIL folks on the other side of Yaounde from where we’re staying. They helped us get set up here, giving us all sorts of information, and driving us around in their enormous truck to buy groceries, a broom, a water filter, etc. Ray paid someone to solder what the Aussies call “roo bars” on the outside of the truck, due to the aforementioned taxis, and the bars already have some dents and spots of yellow paint. Apparently a new truck makes the taxis bolder, because they figure you don’t want to bang it up, so the bars buy a lot of respect.

We went with Ann K. and their kids on a picnic a couple of days later:


We spent our first night at Ann and Ray’s, and they brought us here to the house the next day. Jeff and Christi and their kids threw all their stuff into the house before leaving town, and had not actually lived in here, so we had some rearranging to do, but we’re settled in now. We also displaced a journalist when we arrived, who was staying at the house. She’s the Cameroon rep for AFP, France’s newswire agency (go to news.yahoo.com and look at the tabs under “World”, and you’ll see AFP listed alongside the AP, Reuters, etc.). She works at the RELUFA offices and is looking for an apartment in the area. Once we figured this out, we invited her to stay at the house with us until she finds something. It’s a three bedroom, so she’s in one, we’re in another, and all the extra furniture is in the third. We had a long talk with her last night about the history of this country, her work and our own. All in French, actually, and mostly me, since Ann has lost her voice at the moment.. My French is probably embarrassing, but most of the time I can make myself understood, and I understand more than I speak. It’s enough to get started. Ann knows more than me, but is still getting used to actually speaking it.

So today it’s activating the cellphones we bought yesterday with help from Valery and Gilles from RELUFA, meeting with the EPC in about 90 minutes, going to RELUFA to get some help obtaining certified copies of our passports (you need to carry ID, but it’s a really bad idea to carry your actual passport around), and trying to keep our heads above water speaking French. And installing Civilization 4 on my laptop and figuring out the play-by-email option. More soon.