Community Development:
We are working with a top rate organization headed by an inspiring person who knows a great deal about community development here in the Northwest Cameroon. Madame Oussematou is a ‘fire stick’ as they say in Trinidad & Tobago, but one whose special traits, perhaps best defined by a very inclusive nature in dealing with others, have helped her to exercise a pioneering influence on several social fronts in the northwest. Simply titled as IDF coordinator since 1984 Madame Oussematou studied social sciences/community development on the Montreal campus of the University of Quebec in the early 1980’s. Her underlying philosophy is that meaningful community development can only take place upward from the ‘grass roots’. She emphasizes that in order for it to be meaningful, the process must directly involve, actively listen to, organize and empower people to participate in their community’s development.
It was in Canada/Quebec she says that she first discovered the possibilities for empowerment of women in the Cameroon. She has worked at the grassroots level developing community or ‘grass roots power’, developing and using her own methodology with which to mobilize a community to positive action, making its own decisions as to how the community should develop and bring the decision to reality. We daresay that in Canada and the rest of the world there is much to be learned from people like Oussematou. We are attempting to capture some of the effectiveness of her methods on camera. As we are in a part of the world not all that easily accessed, in order for others (including NGO’s and other donor agencies) to see what IDF has nurtured and accomplished, we have prepared three movies that now are ready to upload to U Tube. Oussematou is writing dialogues with which she will narrate each film.
1. Lessons learned about Grass Roots Power in Developing the Bamenda Quarters (i.e. local communities) of Atuazire and Mugheb.
2. Challenges in Building Community Bridges, Roads and Other Infrastructure
3. One Soccer Ball, One School
Our Trip to Wum
What a trip. Not one for someone who cherishes their creature comforts! We knew that there would be nothing available for us to buy restaurant- wise. So I packed tuna fish canned meat, rusks, juice packs (carrot, broccoli, cherry juice), tomatoes that did not travel well in the heat and jostle, a can of forbidden spam (salt!)-Allan says we have to eat something and two kinds of bread. The bread I eat they call Diabetic Bread. It is a dry, crumbly bread that I try to slice but end up dumping the crumbs into the pan or dish. I have seen CESO projects for elsewhere in the world requesting VA’s to help improve the bread making process. They could stand one here. The gluten sure is not well developed in that bread. Interestingly enough, some of the breads are labelled ‘made under sanitary conditions.’ We did buy one loaf from a street vendor that looks like the French stick and also two evenings past, 4 rolls that were absolutely the best anywhere. Allan was concerned about people’s hands having handled that product. I steamed or fried that one – it was crumbly too. The other style of bread is a fast acting carbohydrate that tastes like coconut. It is yummy but not the best choice for someone who has a need for long acting complex carbohydrates! So what I am getting to is that there is no good choice for bread but the best for us (let’s say for Lydia, as I/Allan am now doing the editorial re-write), is the crumbly Diabetic bread.
Along the way to Wum, we bought bananas. Bananas are the main stay of our existence. We are still adjusting to the time change (five hours) and the culture change so we (ed. Lydia) has been having a banana break in the middle of the night! To buy the bananas along the way, we give Oussamatou the money because she knows the good bananas (there are many varieties and they are SO good.)
The road to Wum going North from Bamenda is most interesting from so many angles. Along the way, the mountains are beautiful. When one works in a community like this, close to the people, they share the stories with you. These are volcanic mountains. The worst of the stories they told us about happened in 2008 when deadly gas erupted from the bottom of a lake. This lake is just beyond the corn/rice farm we visited and which is the rather sad remains of a big ‘top down’ northern hemisphere style German funded mega-farm project that as soon as it was turned over to be run by the national government in 1987, succumbed to the political temptations of greed, fraud and corruption. Anyways, the area around the lake is called ‘Cameroon 's Valley of Death’. Father Fred Tenhorn, a Dutch priest at the Roman Catholic mission in Wum said he would go into the area (the army’s disaster response team had refused to go in) and if he did not come out with some survivors within ten minutes to consider him dead. He said he could not just sit back and let survivors die, he would rather die himself. He went in, brought the first load of survivors out and gave courage to others to mobilize rescue operations. Oussematou says that she would like us to meet Father Tenhorn. He is retired now but she saw him recently. You can imagine how respected he is.
In a journal on Disasters, (Disasters_1987_Vol_11_No) figures released by the Government of Cameroon in Nov 1986 speak of 1,746 dead, 4430 displaced survivors temporarily sheltered in the towns of Wum and surrounding area, Bafumen is also mentioned. 90% of the population died within a radius of 10 km of the lake. It is estimated that 75,000 cattle died but surprisingly chickens survived.
Another such story emerged as we were driving to the same farm. Oussamatou showed us the area where there was a mud slide down into the road area. Oussamatou was working at the farm at the time and was walking along the debris when she heard a voice crying out. A woman and her child were buried by the mud slide. She had been trapped for a long time. Oussamatou called for help and they were able to dig them out. Oussamatou should write books, she has such a wealth of memories and experience.
So, the trip to Wum! The road is paved for the first part of the way, then imagine washouts, pot holes the size of a VW, etc. My neck got very tired being jostled about.
Sand mining is a big industry here. The river drops the sand and people mine the sand to be brought into Bamenda for the block making industry. Block making factories are located in people’s front yards. Each block is made individually. The pile of sand, the concrete mixing, the form all individually poured. That’s the way we do it said one person. It’s good. Employment and sales happen right there. The buildings are all made of blocks, the color varies according to the color of the sand in the area. So we saw dug out canoes (made from a tree trunk) out in the river being filled with sand to bring the sand to shore.
Travelling through the villages along the way is always interesting. People doing what is necessary to survive. Carrying water in pails on their heads, washing clothes at the village well or stream or river. My favourite clothes washing location that I have seen is just up the road from our apartment. People stand in the gutter (sorry but that’s the way it is) and wash their clothes on the gutter’s edge at the proper height for working, not bent over like the stream or even at the well. The other part of why I like the location for washing near us is there is a water fall up on the hillside above that has more pure water than some of the other water!
One has to be very careful about taking pictures of people. For this one, our driver stopped and asked the man if we could take his picture. These baskets and containers are hand made, probably by him. I paid him for being so kind as to allow us to take his picture.
Back to the Wum trip. Head carrying is standard, even for carrying heavy bags of rice out of the farm a full 5 km.....and women do all the heavy work. You should hear Oussematou on this topic. Without women she says there would be no corn or rice harvest. The women do the planting, the weeding, the harvest, the sorting, the grinding, the bagging and all the carrying. The men stoke the fire for drying the corn and tell the women when it’s time to get back to work. Oussamatou says the women have no choice. They must do this work. This is a very sensitive area. The farm (ed. Or at least what’s left of it) is run by the government. Definitely exploitation of women! The women and Oussematou did a chant that is a winner for affirmative action labor rights. The setting was the drying and sorting barn for corn, very dark and very hot. My camera is wonderful but there is no light with video. And whether by divine countenance or what, my batteries had to be changed, my cards in the camera were full. Everything went wrong at once. Fortunately Allan had brought the old camera and was taking pictures so some of the times when I was in adaptation mode trying to determine what camera card could be erased (hate doing that for fear of losing precious pictures), he was taking pictures. As well, the old camera has a 30 sec video so that too can help us.
At first the women at the government-operated corn/rice farm did not want their picture taken and definitely did not want their picture taken carrying the heavy bags of corn on their heads but when they saw that we were taking a picture of the men with the corn, they quickly came to join the group. I heard them asking Oussamatou if they could serve us tea when we came back. So, here is the picture of a few of the workers at the government run maize/rice farm. This farm is a whole story by itself and will be told at a separate time.
Another thing that happened to us concerning the camera, is the current is the double circular plug, European style here so we bought a battery charger in France (around 30 euros-not cheap). We used it to charge batteries for a week here. We were noticing the batteries were very hot so were not leaving it on unless we were here. Well, the night before our trip to Wum, the battery charger set up heavy sparks and noise and died. There are two good news things about this. One is we had brought a car charger for batteries. The bad news is most cars on the road here are old, poorly maintained cars sometimes missing important parts (like window winders) with other parts not functioning (like cigarette lighters.” The good news is Oussematou found a driver to take us to Wum who had a GOOD car with a functioning cigarette lighter plug so we charged batteries when we were driving. One thing about his car we appreciated was the ability to operate the windows. Most taxis have the winders removed from the back seat windows. None of the cars have air conditioning and it does get very hot some days here. Also, the seats in his (Steven’s) car are very comfortable. Steven is an excellent driver. He never leaves the car, always right there for us. Oussamatou hired Steven again yesterday for Terrance, Program Director for IDF, and I to go out for the morning to visit Promoters (women who operate businesses who have taken loans through the Coop to establish the business. All of the women who are Promoters are HIV positive). We are glad to have a reliable drive with whom we feel very safe.
Meeting with HIV/AIDS Promoters
We were greeted with hugs and the traditional touch one cheek, touch the other cheek and again touch the first cheek. Each Promoter welcomed each of us with a big hug and three beside the cheek touches. Oussematou is a wonderful mentor, group leader, communicator and facilitator. She opened the meeting and asked someone to offer prayer. You could feel the warmth and see her encouraging leadership and participation. Each person introduced themself. The ladies each told of the business that they have developed with a microcredit loan through the Microcredit Coop that IDF has founded. Each Promoter told us what their business is. In the group there were pig farmers (all women remember) whom we visited later. It’s an incredible program! The women are doing great things with small amounts of money.
Our first field visit with a Promoter (that’s what they call people who take loans to develop small business) was with a young girl of 25 who operates her own small store. Her mother helps her. She wanted to introduce herself as HIV positive but Oussamatou told her there was no need to tell that part. I was really impressed by her store. It was very small and very dark but she had a great selection of useful items. Something I had never seen before caught my attention. Plastic sheets cut the shape of a diaper. What a great idea. Use cloth diapers and protect them with an outside moisture proof liner. We had looked in a number of shops and had not been able to buy matches so we were happy to find she had matches (necessary for lighting our gas cooking stove and candles when the power goes out). I loved her spirit. Oussamatou explained that she had opened her business before but had extended credit to too many people who had not paid her back so she was forced to close. She then took the training for business offered by IDF and set up again with a loan through the microcredit Coop set up by IDF and is proudly operating a successful business. Her business is before you get to Wum. The trip to Wum from Bamenda where her goods are secured is horrific and that is the trip she has to take to stock her store. It’s about 3 hours minimum one way. When she buys her store supplies a question that can be asked is “how does she get them back to Wum?” By bus of course! The picture below is her in front of her store. The second picture is her with her mother. (An interesting connection....her sister is the principal of the school we visited the following day). I especially liked her positive upbeat attitude. She and other Promoters that we interviewed henceforth will be referred to with a number to protect identity. Oussematou has a form for them to sign if they choose to let their pictures be used.
Bus is the usual means of travel. Roads are challenging and buses have their challenges. Many times we have come across buses broken down on the road. Everything travels by bus, including our excess luggage from Douala to Bamenda. Some of the more unusual things I have seen travelling on the top of a bus are chickens and a casket. Buses are frequently seen broken down alongside the road.
Our next stop was at the IDF office in Wum. We met the two staff members, viewed the two Nanfang (Chinese) motorbikes donated by VSO and then proceeded to the District Health Office where we met the doctor who is District Health Officer. He was very busy but we had a good meeting with him and he came to the front of the building after our meeting for a picture.
Polio Immunization:
There is a rigorous schedule for polio immunization for babies. Babies receive four doses of polio vaccine spaced over several months. We know this region is in a band across Africa where there is high alert for malaria, cholera, polio and more as we know from our visits to the International Travel Clinic preparing for this trip. The Health Officer emphasized malaria. I took pictures of the posters around the center as they show immunization programs are emphasized. It was good to see such a remote area being apparently well served with immunization. One thing I noticed on the poster that I did not connect before is the connection between the polio virus and Gillian Barr..... I was glad to hear that measles is one of the things that children are vaccinated for. We worked with so many deaf in Trinidad, born to mothers who had measles during pregnancy.
People are so warm and respectful toward us. We suspect they know we are here for good reasons. They call me Mother. They call Allan ‘white man’ on the street (ed. Or uncle or something I think may mean grandpa, hopefully not anything bad!). They actually say thank you if we greet them with a Good Morning or Hello.
I am going to cut this off because it could become a book. I am going to add pictures, get Allan to look it over, then head into the laborious process of attempting to send it out!
We so appreciate your little notes and comments.
For now....
Allan and Lydia
PS. Can you figure out which one is the pig farmer?
