September 8th: Road Trip, Cameroon style

September 8th: Road Trip, Cameroon style

Train
It was crazier than I thought it would be. We started our journey at 6pm, and it ended at 9pm the next day. The first step was the train. To get our tickets, we had to send a VSO worker 4 hours early to the station. For some reason, you can’t simply reserve tickets and buy them here. Everything has to be more complicated and chaotic. Once he got us tickets, getting through the train station was difficult too. Everyone shouts “nasara” at us, which means “white person” in fulfuldé, a popular local language. In the station, we saw someone chasing down a kid to hit him. Perhaps it was because the child was trying to steal. Also, many people rush to get your luggage. Some are designated porters; others might run off with it. Once in the train, it wasn’t that bad. We travelled “first class” and had access to a “couchette.” First class means different things in Canada and in Cameroon. We shared a room for four, and its walls were very filthy. The toilet led to a hole at the bottom of train.

To make the 13 hours pass by faster, I watched movies and made some interviews with other volunteers. We stopped about 15 times on our route. When we did, we got a sad glimpse of how poor people in the suburbs. At all hours of the night, dozens of people would run around the stopped train carts trying to sell local produce. I bought some bananas. I can still here some of them desperately calling out: “Banane-Banane” or “Prunet-Prunet.” The kids ran around and yelled for our empty bottles. I gave my bottle, and two kids fought over it. Afterward the selling was over, I chased a bat out of our cabin. That was cool and scary at the same time.

Bus
When the train stopped at its final destination, panic struck again. We had to rush to get on the first bus out of that small city. Again, we had tickets, but you have to hand them to someone who redistributes to a mob of yelling people. In the meantime, people were coming up to us to shake our hands, say nasara, take our bags, sell us something or beg for money. Theft was more an issue here than anywhere. One girl got her passport and 30000CFA (about 60$) stolen out of her pocket. When we got the tickets, we had to argue to get all of our bags put on board of the bus. When we did, we had to push into the crowd to get in. By the time all that stress was over and the bus was moving forward, we had 8 hours on this sauna of a vehicle to look forward too. One of the volunteers, who might have either malaria or a parasite, was white as a ghost on the bus. We got a doctor to take care of her, and luckily she eventually felt well enough to go on with the trip.

At one point, the road was flooded by about 3 feet of water. The bridge to the right of the road was out of order, so the bus decided to go straight through the water. Lucky for us, it worked, and we didn’t get stuck. Our luggage, which was being carried at the bottom of the bus, got drenched. Another option was to “porter” us across, but that would have been pretty sketchy as well. Max, it was exactly like Oregon Trails. You know what I mean.

We got to our Maroua at about 9pm. We have travelled for more than a day straight. We are staying at a Baptist Mission compound for the week. It’s actually pretty nice, I am enjoying it here.