Cameroon
COSTS : In-country: £403.32 (£5.04 a day) // Out of country: £1287.14 *(see breakdown at end)
CURRENCY : Central African Franc Fr
DATE : 15th September 2021 - 3rd December 2021
DURATION : 80 days
AGE : 20
TOP APPS : Workaway/Currency Converter
My first solo trip to Africa and first trip as a part-time volunteer/part-time uni student, this adventure was quite something. I volunteered for 11 weeks at Kujaecopads, making biodegradable sanitary pads for young girls and learning about the culture.
I couldn’t recommend Cameroon more as a starting place those who have never travelled in Africa (especially for young, naive, white travellers like myself 😂). People call the country ‘Africa in miniature’ due to its sample of varying foods, cultures, climates and religions.
However, it’s not all fufu and sunshine. As always, I threw myself in the deep end.
In this post I will explain the pros and cons of my volunteering experience, how I organised it, cultural differences I observed, and some of the (many) crazy adventures I had along the way.
Contents:
🔴 Bamenda/Baffousam
🔴 Yaoundé
🔴 Cultural Observations
Bamenda
Bamenda is the largest city in the North-West region.
I lived in a village called Menda Nkwe just outside the city; living and working in the sunshine, nature and peace of rural life… (apart from the generator which started every morning at 7am 😌)
I woke soon after this, had a coffee, read the news, then worked with 6 local women and girls from 9-2. We would then have lunch together. The food was great, with loads I’d never tried before like fufu, plantain, njama njama and my favourite; cornchaff. After this, I would do uni work in a lovely jeep with flat tyres just in front of the house.
The beautiful view from my jeep office . . .
There would be spontaneous walks to visit friends, dig yams in the fields, visit the market on Saturdays and go to church on Sundays. Rainy season subsided a month after I arrived, the days were warm, ciçadas buzzed that tropical holiday sound throughout the night and the stars were breathtaking.
The women treated me like family and created dresses for me, the children touched my hair and people stared wherever I went.
Strangers whispered ‘white man’ in shock when I passed in the street, which I found out is just the name for any white person. When I asked the women, ‘why I’m not white woman?’ they promptly burst into laughter. I do not think it had ever crossed their minds. I was left in an unanswered but apparently endearing state 🤷♀️.
I went to the 64th anniversary of the local church and felt like bloomin Princess Diana. We distributed 2400 sanitary pads to 200 school girls (see the video below). I tried (and failed) to speak pidgin, rode on the back of motorbikes, attended a funeral, listened to my friend Dammy rap after we’d smoked a joint together and read an amazing book called ‘The Innocent Anthropologist’. I even tried to flirt my way out of a police station after our car got a parking fine 😂. Finally, I attended the induction of a new pastor, went to the celebration at his compound (the local word for house) and ended up dancing with everyone in the middle of his living room! 🎉
But on a serious level, I felt isolated. It’s hard connecting with people who have had such a different lived experience and do not speak English well. Language and cultural barriers led me to isolate myself, resulting in misunderstandings as the women thought I didn’t want to be with them. Additionally, the internet wasn’t great, so that added to frustrations. Living without Instagram etc for two months was refreshing tho.
My white privilege was hammered home everywhere I looked. Yes, I did accidentally ask a child in a West African village if she had heard of yoga. Yes, when I showed her some photos she looked at one of me and my boyfriend at the time and her immediate response was ‘where’s the baby?’.
Patriachal society, in which men have social, financial and cultural power, was a shock to me. Women, on average, have 3 years less time in school than men, they marry young, have 5+ children and can get beaten by their husbands. Children were shot passing through road checkpoints by soldiers who open fire without good reason. There is an ongoing crisis in the region where I lived, which barely gets any media attention in the West, and people struggle every day to survive.
But there is a sense of community. Everyone says ‘good morning’ when you walk around the village (even at 4 in the afternoon ?🤷♀️). Children play and are not (completely) addicted to phones. People have utter faith in God. They believe in existence greater than themselves and are not (so) individualistic. I once let a friend borrow my phone and the first site he went to was BBC Bitesize! They are a friendly, caring and passionate people.
I realised how white I am. In the biological sense, that I have simply evolved from successive generations who needed less melanin in their skin, but also in the societal sense. My life has been so white. I would look through my camera roll (on my Apple phone that most people here do not have) and notice that my life up till this moment has involved white people only. There was one black girl in my year at school, none of my friends were black and the list goes on. It’s blaringly obvious, but easy to be ignorant, to the fact that racism exists globally. I definitely recognise more fully my undeserved privilege.
*Tips: take your passport with you everywhere as the police check people randomly and often.
Yaoundé
Yaoundé is the capital. I was lucky enough to visit for an event at the British High Commission as Marie-Claire (my project host) had won an award for sustainable development. At the end of my trip I also lived with a lovely lady called Sandrine. I was meant to volunteer at Sandrine’s project for two weeks, but, unfortunately, the father of my ex boyfriend died in a car accident so I went to France to support him.
Some highlights in the city included:
🤍 My journey there… after waking up hungover and bamboozled, the wonderful Collin helped me (even cleaning my feet for me) catch the bus. I had no money (the 30,000 francs/£40 I had left were stolen the night before), no phone (I forgot to put it on charge 😪) and no idea what was going to happen. But, as we were reaching the capital, a kind man came to my rescue and called Sandrine, gave me some water and restored my faith in humanity.
🤍 Walking Sandrine’s three children to school, them plaiting my hair, doing yoga together…
🤍 Being aided by a customer of Sandrine’s (photo below) who saved my ass by letting me accompany him around the city (otherwise I would have needed to rent a taxi for the whole day). We ran errands together, like changing my flight at the AirFrance office, buying xmas presents, having a delicious local meal, and seeing daily life in his hectic capital :)
🤍 Having an amazing conversation with Bertrand, the taxi driver on the way to the airport. He explained that he had never met a white woman and that he had expected me to get in the back of the car and not talk to him. Instead I sat next to him in the front and we chatted away in French about life, race, politics and love.
Worst vegetarian ever but I was hella hungover and the fried chicken is so damn good…
Cultural Observations:
🔴 The taxi system is hilarious. You want a taxi? You stand at the side of the road, the taxi slows down just enough for you to shout to the driver where you want to go and how much you will pay, if he fancies it you’re given a nod and hop in. If not, he drives off. Also who says cars only hold 5 people? 8 is standard. Beat that Uber.
🔴 The number of mates who have asked me about how it was being vegetarian there. It’s like people picture wild hunter-gatherers still. In reality, most people do not eat a lot of meat. Meat is expensive. You want chicken? You go to the market, buy a chicken, kill it in your garden on the day of the celebration (actually much more humane than developed countries’ sourcing of meat).
🔴 Your respect others by calling them Ma, Auntie, Pa, Uncle, Sister etc. (whether you are related or not).
🔴 There are over 280 dialects. Now, I didn’t know what this meant before I left, but basically, it means someone from London for example, would not understand someone from Oxford. The languages are slightly different in each community with pidgin as an intermediary. A guy once looked at me dumbstruck when I said ‘yeah! everyone in my country speaks the same language’. Diversity is beautiful, if divisive.
🔴 I didn’t see many pigeons in Cameroon. Instead there are beautiful butterflies, birds, moths and some very sexy cockroaches in the kitchen.
🔴 Fashion is fabulous. People wear such bright colours and express themselves fully. Many clothes are hand-made. You want a new dress? You go to the tailor, she measures you, and a couple of days later you have yourself a tailor made dress for 9 quid!
Out-of-country cost breakdown
£ 701.08 Flights - 210 quid extra as changed my flight to leave earlier as my boyfriend’s dad died so I went to France to be with him 😭 + AirFrance is a lil bitch that likes to make lots of money
£ 236.09 Travel Insurance - Cameroon is classified as a ‘high risk’ country and most travel insurance companies don’t cover you if you’re going to a country which the UK gov recommends you don’t go to (lol) but using High Risk Voyager Travel Insurance + the discount of a ‘recognised risk management company’ this was quite a bargain (email if you need to know more)
£ 209.94 Health-related costs e.g. malaria tablets/repellant, yellow-fever vaccine and the rest covid tests (which they don’t even check)
£ 140 Visa + quick trip to the Cameroonian embassy in London
💫 This experience was made possible by Workaway -
an amazing platform which connects travellers to hosts across the world!
