I arrived in Cameroon, anxious and extremely excited. I always wonder what will be different and who I will get to see. As much as I try to keep in touch through calls, texts, and emails...nothing can replace the face to face and usually hug to hug, kiss to kiss and hands in hands encounters that occur frequently while I'm in Africa. The first familiar face was Mayor Roland Fobang, waiting for us at the airport. He was dressed in a traditional garment and he quickly told me it was because he thought we would have less trouble with the authorities at the airport. It did not work and soon enough I was in a big argument with customs officials who tried to get a bribe off me for the donated computers we brought to the NGO we were partnering with. After almost an hour of my pleas and threats, they let us go with all of our luggage. The Mayor and I walked out of the airport arm in arm- laughing together. He said, "Good to know you can still hear Pidgin English...Welcome back to Cameroon!"
We had four or five more rough spots with officials- police at checkpoints, usually francophone jerks who wanted to see each students passport and yellow fever card. All they did was waste our time and instill fear in us as we tried to get to the village before dark. We made it to Gundom by day two but not before dark. The students were starving because we didn't stop on the 10 hour drive for lunch. They were sustained on snacks of passion fruit, bananas, peanuts, goat meat kebabs, and grilled plaintains. We unloaded the mini-bus and put half of the group (6) and their luggage in a 4x4. As soon as I saw the driver, I almost cried. Chris Akam was the same driver we used when I was here in 2007! We were so happy to see each other. That night we designated my seat the front- in between the driver and the passenger seat- one leg on either side of the stick shift. Two more people sat beside me in the passenger's seat. We packed that car tight and kept it that way for the rest of the trip. Many people noticed bruises on our legs and arms and thought it was because of the work we were doing, but the brusies were actually from sitting packed in that vehicle. The vehicle mightily drove up the mountain that night and delivered us to our new home in Gundom.
Our arrival was momentous. We were greeted by almost everyone in the village that first night. Men were gathered on one side and the women and kids were on the other side. Both groups smiled cautiously at us, while we awkwardly greeted them my the light of their lanterns. The girls stayed in one compound and the boys stayed in the other. There was no running water or electricity. Later that week they brought up a light and a generator. We ended up using the generator everynight for a few hours. We cut it off around 9 pm and either sat in the dark and talked or happily went to sleep. We were tired most days and some of us even fell asleep when that loud generator was still running. The girls and I reviewed the bathroom/washing situation. I made jokes to keep the smiles going, but inside we all felt slight shock. We were to pee and wash on the side of the house with 1/4th of a bucket of water daily. We needed to gather this water from the spring. The women of the house did this for us in the beginning and even heated the water on the fire a few times. It only took a few days for that to end and we had to walk and get water ourselves. Heating it was too much extra work, so we bodly coldly showered with each other in the open air. Latrines were up a small hill from the compound. It was a big hole, stick covers and walls, thatched roofs and no doors. The latrines were built just for us. After the first big rainfall, the hill to walk up was very slippery. I fell pretty bad one day on my way back to the compound. No one was around to laugh but I took a tree with me on my fall and it stayed in a horizontal position. I felt bad that no one could use the tree anymore as a railing. The washing/bathroom situation became incidental after a couple days. The girl students were great and hardly complained. I think we all realized very quickly that this is the way it is all the time for the folks in Gundom, no sense in making jokes about it. Nothing about their sanitation situation was funny.
