Kribi, weekend of Nov. 3

We spent a busy 36 hours taking a trip to the coastal town of Kribi the weekend of November 3, for the start of the Eglise Presbyterian Camerounaise 50-year Golden Jubilee. This celebrates the handover in 1957 of church organization from the American Presbyterian Mission which originally evangalized Cameroon to the EPC. The jubilee commenced in Kribi to mark the landing of the first American missionaries there in the 1880s. It was an endless round of greetings, services, speeches and songs, a visit to the first American Presbyterian mission nearby, and a short night of sleep, bookended by two long busrides. The EPC Moderator invited us a couple of days before, and said they would put us up, and take care of our transportation and meals, so we were literally just along for the ride, and often unclear about exactly what was happing next, when it might start, and how exactly we were getting home. Getting into situations like this is part of the point of our trip.

Kribi is a beach town. We saw people swimming, and during the day saw people fishing out of dugout canoes. The beaches are white sand lined with palm trees. The air is clear out at sea, so the horizon is sharp, unlike the fuzzy one on the Pacific back home. It was a relief to get home to Yaounde and cool off, but we'd like to get back to Kribi and spend some time on the beach.

Kribi is hot, far hotter than Yaounde where we live. There's a pleasant cool sea breeze at night if you're on the shore, but it amazed me to see all the Cameroonian church officials wear formal dark suits and ties right through the day, some mopping the sweat off their foreheads. People's standards are a little different though, living here; we were at a restaurant next to the beach at night, with a breeze blowing and a storm coming in. It felt to me like it was finally cooling off, deliciously, as the wind dried out my sweat-soaked linen shirt, but a Cameroonian we were talking to told us that he was cold, and he was wearing a shirt and a jacket.

We saw several of the partly-constructed houses I mentioned earlier on our way out of Yaounde.

Ann made a friend in Kribi. This little guy came around to say hello when we were in the guesthouse next to the church with the other Americans, waiting for the welcome celebration to start. We think he was about three. He was shy at first, but by our second or third visit to the church he came right up to Ann to talk with her.

There were two choirs in the after-dinner welcoming festivities the night we arrived. This one was from the EPC Moderator's home church in Yaounde. It was all women, fronted by a male soloist. They were amazing, and sang a mix of familiar Protestant hymns with French lyrics, and music of African origin. They've recorded at least one CD, which they presented to the PC-USA delegation.

Here's the soloist. One of the two additional local choirs that sang that weekend also featured male soloist with a mic, but this time fronting a mixed-gender choir. The fourth, which performed first the night we arrived, was student-aged girls.

These guys were visiting from a Presbyterian church in Minneapolis. They were great, and were also professionals like the EPC choir. They sang Bobby McFerrin, Biebl's Ave Maria, spirituals and hymns. They were off right away to sing somewhere else in Cameroon, so we didn't get a chance to talk with them.

Eventually, the moderators of the Cameroonian and US Presbyterian Churches ended up on their feet, dancing along with the African choir, much of the EPC and PC-USA delegations, and us. The man in the white track suit is the EPC Moderator. The white lady in the background is the PC-USA Moderator, and the tall man in the blue shirt the PC-USA Vice-Moderator. The man in the black suit and clerical collar is Rev. Marcel, who speaks French, English, and doubtless several Cameroonian languages as well, and who did lots of translating during ceremonies. He studied in Memphis, traveled the US widely in the sixties, and has been back several times since. He is a history professor at the theological college in Yaounde, a pastor, and, he told us this weekend, a traditional chief as well. He spoke of inviting us to his farm outside Yaounde.

This is part of the band that accompanied all official events over the weekend. They played in the parade we had over the last kilometer to the church when we arrived, played at ceremonies, and during services. These guys were hanging out in the parking lot when we emerged after the first welcome ceremonies, and when we came out, starting playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was a mild shock to hear it, and although we're not really flag-waving types, it was an unexpected pleasure to hear it so far from home, a reminder of Fourth of July picnics and fireworks and concerts in the park.

This is both delegations, Cameroonian (EPC) and American (PC-USA). Front and center are Simon-Pierre, the EPC Moderator (blue shirt with clerical collar), and Joan, the PC-USA Moderator (with flowers). The tall man in the blazer next to her is Bob, the PC-USA Vice-Moderator. To his left, with the beard, is Doug from PC-USA Missions. Joan's husband William is just above the EPC Moderator in the picture. On his left, the tall bearded man with the tie is Jeff, whose place we're currently housesitting.

The PC-USA Moderator with women of the EPC.

Us with the PC-USA group. From left: Jeff, me, Ann, Joan, William, Bob and Doug. Given the climate in Kribi, I was glad it had not occurred to me to bring my suit, since I would have felt obligated to wear it if I had. Everyone in the American delegation peeled down to shirtsleeves when thing got a little less formal.

Dinner that night was at a seaside restaurant in Kribi. We could hear the waves and feel the breeze as we ate on the verandah. The food was delicious: small shrimp on skewers, four or five different kinds of fish, fiery hot sauce we were carefully warned about, chicken and beef, two or three varieties of plantain, rice, stewed greens with smoked fish, and an excellent Chilean Cabernet whose label recommended it with tuna. One dish in particular was something the original American missionaries were probably served, a traditional preparation of small fish cooked with salt, pepper and lemon in banana leaves:

The filmmakers were friendly younger guys, and we spent some time chatting with them at the church, and again at dinner. Here they are with Ann on the verandah of the restaurant. The guy in the white shirt was encouraging us to see all the provinces of Cameroon before we left. People here tend to have a serious expression when posing for pictures, so the pictures can be a little misleading. With us, these guys were usually all smiles. Ann tells me that they were journalists, and actually worked for CRTV, the government media company here, but were also hired to produce a DVD about the event for the EPC.

There was a ceremonial laying of a wreath of flowers on the grave of the first American missionary to Cameroon, who lived to a ripe old age and asked to be buried here, not far from his mission, now a twenty-minute drive from the church we were at in Kribi. Others in that mission met a grimmer end, however; as we wandered through the century-old graveyard, which had apparently just been cleared of brush, we saw several other graves of younger adults and even children, one of whom died at three days old in 1901.

The view from the door of our hotel room, facing the ocean.

Cameroon and Chad recently completed an oil pipeline ("oleduc" in French). It carries oil from landlocked Chad to the Cameroonian terminus in Kribi. The harbor there is too shallow for oil tankers, so the connection point is 25km out to sea. You can see it from shore, though, lit up at night like a faraway town. (I shot this from the restaurant at lunch with the 3x zoom on our little camera. This 400-pixel-wide image is actual-size, incidentally, cut from a 7MB original).

RELUFA, the NGO we work with, is involved in efforts to assess and mitigate the environmental and social fallout from the pipeline project, and we've been reading some articles in French about it by Fanny, the AFP reporter who works at our office.

The lizards we see in Yaounde are also in Kribi, but bigger. This one was at the restaurant, and was about eight inches long. Ray tells me these are geckos.

The EPC women's group presented the PC-USA Moderator with an African outfit. It was made from cloth commemorating the EPC jubilee. In addition to being made into several outfits for men and women, this cloth also covered the tables at the church and the restaurant. The African lady in these pictures is the president of the EPC women's organization. The video camera was a constant presence throughout the weekend.