Kentzou!

            After our long day of traveling, Geoff and I dropped our bags off at his house (where there was an adorable Welcome Steph poster colored in by children of Kentzou hanging in his living room). Geoff has a pretty sick spot for a peace corps volunteer. His house is concrete, with a tin roof and screened windows. He also has a smaller house in his compound for his chickens (he has 2). In addition to that, he has a large yard, a normal latrine and a bread oven.

            The following morning we went to the market where I met a zillion of Geoff’s friends and acquaintances. Kentzou is great because there is a market everyday. In most villages, the market only occurs one or two days a week, so you have to get all your shopping done that day. Kentzou is a border town (it is way closer to the Central African Republic than to Batouri), and a stop for logging trucks coming from the Congo in the CAR, so a market every day makes sense. On the flipside of that, Kentzou can be more dangerous for Peace Corps volunteers because of the amount of strangers that come through daily. The “village” is home to 15,000 people, with 3,000 of that number being refugees from the CAR. Geoff has never had a problem with his safety or anyone breaking into his house, but he takes the necessary precautions to prevent that. He walks around town with his machete frequently (I’m not joking), does not display his American wealth (computer, etc), and made friends with all the right people (police, army, political officials as well as informal leaders of the community like chiefs or businessmen). Most villages where PCVs are posted are small enough where the community looks out for the PCVs and those means are probably smart, but not necessary. That’s not the case with Kentzou because of its size and the transitory nature of the people living there. But don’t get me wrong, I never once felt unsafe while I was there. I merely aim to describe what its like for a white person (stereotype of white people in Africa is that they are all rich) to live in a Cameroonian border town.

            In the market I met my favorite family in Kentzou, headed by Douda and Ina (pronounced dow-DA and EE-na). Douda owns a very nice boutique in the market where his children sell the goods from their farm. He is also a prominent member of the Islamic community (which forms the majority of the people in Kentzou). Long story short, Douda is a boss. Ina was one of the nicest people I met in Cameroon. Despite our language barrier (she didn’t speak much French and hey, neither did I at that point), she was always wonderfully welcoming and kind, and for the most part, we made ourselves understood to one another. Ina ushered us into their house (which was right next to Douda’s shop) and immediately shoved a baby in my arms. This baby wasn’t as afraid of white people. She fed us (as is customary when receiving a guest) beans and rice as well as a drink called ‘gari’ in Fulfulde and ‘buie’ in French. Gari is a liquidy porridge made from fermented milk and oats. Definitely an acquired taste.

            While walking through Kentzou, I discovered that its inhabitants have a different name for white girl than I would’ve thought. In Kentzou, Julia means white girl. I would be walking down the street and have children rush up to me yelling “Julia! Julia! Julia! Saanu!” (Saanu is Fulfulde for hello). The first day, I told them all that no, I was not Julia. But after the eightieth time, I gave up. After that, I just smiled and said hello back. Julia is Geoff’s post mate and was the first girl to be posted in Kentzou. She was almost at the completion of her service, so had been living and working in Kentzou for about two years (she was an education volunteer and taught English in the schools). Its incredible the impression that she made on that community. Everybody knew who Julia was, which is a good and bad thing. Good, because she made such a positive impact on the community, and bad because she could never get a moment’s peace (also bad because if everyone knows where the white person lives, everyone knows where to steal from…especially in a town where the people in it changes frequently). Finally, at the end of my four days in Kentzou, some children called me Julia and their mother yelled at them, that is NOT Julia. I was thrilled she recognized me as not-Julia. 

Bertoua to Batouri to Kentzou

          There are a few wonderful things about African countries that I miss when I am back stateside. The first is the wide variety of items you can get at a market. Think of a Wal-Mart, but instead of aisles, you have individual vendors each selling a different item for a price that you can negotiate. Not to mention they already have all the add-ons that mega-marts are going for now (nail and hair places, food shops, pharmacies, etc). You can walk down one lane of a market and purchase anything from tomatoes to electronic sockets to fake hair to cloth. We spent the morning in the market, where Geoff bought a pair of pants that were the same color as the dirt (reddish brown) in Kentzou. The second thing I love is that you can get the clothes you buy tailored to fit you right there in the market for the equivalent of a dollar and the time commitment of ten minutes, as Geoff did with his pants. Amazing.

            It started raining while we were in the market and the effect on Cameroonians is immediate and pretty amusing. Cameroonians do NOT like the rain. Rain deranges (Peace corps French meaning: annoys, messes up, bothers, disturbs) everything. If you have a meeting with a Cameroonian and it’s raining, you can bet on the fact that they will not show up to the meeting. “It was raining” is as good a reason not to show up as any. So while it was raining in the market, Geoff and I stopped off under a stall to avoid the rain ourselves and watched the vendors and shoppers scramble to escape the rain as well as protect their goods from the offensive water. Fortunately, it was just a quick shower and we chose that opportunity to return to the case. Once we were back at the case, the real rain started. The road from the main road to the case is dirt and really, ridiculously bad. After the rain that day, the road got even worse, which I didn’t think was possible. Giant sinkholes of mud made traveling on any sort of vehicle a miserable experience.

            That night I had my first (and worst) reaction to food. I got food poisoning from one of Geoff’s favorite places to eat in Bertoua, “Beef Tec”. It wasn’t fun but it wasn’t the worst that could’ve happened. Plus my sickness didn’t mess up any of our traveling plans, which was a bonus. The next day we began our trek to Kentzou. We took a private car from Bertoua to Batouri, which is a faster but more expensive means of transportation. Africans tend to pack as many people as will fit in a vehicle and this was no exception. There were four adults and one baby in the back and two adults in the passenger seat in the front of a 1990 Honda. For 3 hours. On a pockmarked dirt road. We reached Bartouri just in time to catch the last prison bus to Kentzou (I was glad, at this point I was anxious to get to Geoff’s village). In typical African travel fashion, we bought our bus tickets, saved our seats and then had to wait about an hour for the bus to leave Batouri. The bus took about 4 hours to get to Kentzou due to numerous stops for Muslims to pray and to load and unload passengers. Despite the longer time, I preferred a prison bus to a private car. A prison bus is a tank. If we hit anything or if any car/truck/moto hit us, I doubt the bus would even gain a dent. There are speed limits posted on the roads but no one follows or enforces them. (Overall, I think Cameroonians drive too fast for the quality of roads and cars that they use.) And Geoff and I had our own seat that I didn’t have to share with another Cameroonian and her baby.

            One funny story from the bus. A big, happy Cameroonian mama gets on with a giggling, smiley baby girl. As the mama boards the bus, the baby is happily whacking the mama’s gigantic cleavage. I’ve never seen a happier baby. The woman settles in on the seat in front and diagonal from Geoff and I. Her baby continues her game until she catches sight of me. Her eyes get wide, her mouth falls open, and I do the thing that comes natural to me when I see a baby: I smile. The happiest-baby-in-Cameroon’s face takes on a look of horror and then crumples. She starts screaming and the mama looks to see what caused the abrupt change in attitude. When she realizes it was my offensive white face, she turns into the happiest-mama-in-Cameroon and all her friends join in. The white person scares the baby game continued for about an hour until I gave up and wrapped my head in my shawl.