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M y L i f e i n<br />
Bafia<br />
C a m e r o o n<br />
Memories of a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1969-1972<br />
Imagine being very, very far away from home in a small town in the middle<br />
of Africa with no internet, no television, no phone, no electricity, no running<br />
water, no car, and no paved roads. That was life in Bafia in the 1970s.
A panel from a wood carving from Bafoussam,<br />
Cameroon<br />
This memoir is dedicated to all<br />
past and future Peace Corps<br />
volunteers who have served and<br />
will serve in Bafia.<br />
<strong>Paul</strong> J. <strong>Hamel</strong><br />
1133 North Clark Street, Unit 101<br />
West Hollywood, CA 90069<br />
Home: 310-657-8814<br />
Mobil: 310-991-2374<br />
Email: paulhamel@roadrunner.com<br />
© by <strong>Paul</strong> J. <strong>Hamel</strong> <strong>All</strong> rights reserved
Sometimes people ask me<br />
what it was like serving in<br />
the Peace Corps in Africa.<br />
I usually reply that it was<br />
a life-changing experience<br />
that has influenced me<br />
greatly throughout my life.<br />
My Peace Corps experiences taught me<br />
many valuable lessons that helped guide me through<br />
life: self reliance, appreciation for what I have, the art of<br />
giving without<br />
expecting anything in<br />
return, and<br />
feeling that I<br />
have made a<br />
difference in<br />
the lives of<br />
others. After<br />
forty years,<br />
there is not a<br />
day that goes<br />
by that I don’t<br />
think about<br />
C a m e r o o n<br />
– especially<br />
at the time<br />
of writing<br />
this memoir<br />
because I<br />
will be returning to Bafia for a visit in<br />
less than a month (Sept 14-28, 2013). I can’t want<br />
to see how everything has changed. Upon my return,<br />
I plan on adding this memoir to include a “Then and<br />
Now” section.<br />
<strong>Paul</strong> <strong>Hamel</strong> and Carl Kovanemi in 1970<br />
I am happy that my adventure happened early<br />
in my life. It was my introduction to travel, community<br />
service, and a career in education. I am grateful for<br />
this extraordinary experience, and I still continue<br />
to appreciate more than ever<br />
such basics as<br />
a comfortable<br />
bed, running<br />
water, and<br />
e l e c t r i c i t y.<br />
After forty<br />
years I still<br />
find moments<br />
when I stop<br />
myself and<br />
a p p r e c i a t e<br />
the sight of<br />
a simple<br />
light switch<br />
or a faucet.<br />
L o o k i n g<br />
back, life as<br />
a volunteer was hard, but very<br />
Part of our “stage” training was in Obala<br />
satisfying. Luckily I was young, strong, and healthy.<br />
If I had to put up with the same conditions again today,<br />
I’m not sure I would be able to.
g e t t i n g t o<br />
Bafia<br />
My New Town<br />
The day had finally arrived. I was about to<br />
begin the trip to my new home<br />
in Bafia for the next two years.<br />
Bafia was then a town of a few<br />
thousand inhabitants and the<br />
capital of the Department of<br />
the Mbam in central Cameroon<br />
in West Africa.<br />
After the many<br />
months of training, first in<br />
Quebec, Canada, in Obala,<br />
then in Yaoundé, the capital<br />
of Cameroon, I was ready<br />
to embark on my longanticipated<br />
journey. I felt<br />
nervous, numb, and anxious<br />
to get to my destination. I<br />
didn’t know anything about<br />
Bafia, and I had no idea what I<br />
was going to find or where I was going to stay. Luckily<br />
I was not alone. Carl Koivunemi, another Peace Corps<br />
volunteer assigned to the same school, and I traveled<br />
by Landrover to Bafia along with Brenda Remmes who<br />
was stationed in Bokito, a neighboring village.<br />
We took a paved highway past Obala and turned<br />
off into a dirt road wondering<br />
where we were going --<br />
only later to learn that it<br />
actually was one of the major<br />
highways in Cameroon!<br />
When we got to Bafia, I<br />
waited for an audience with<br />
the Prefet while Carl and<br />
the Peace Corps Assistant<br />
Director accompanied<br />
Brenda to Bokito. By the<br />
time they got back, I was<br />
still waiting to see the Prefet.<br />
I’ve often wondered if we<br />
would have had better initial<br />
accommodations if we had<br />
gone directly to the Proviseur<br />
(Director) of the school rather than the Prefet, and why<br />
the PC told us to go to the Prefet right away.
When we arrived in Bafia, our house was not<br />
ready so we were directed to a small room behind the<br />
official government guest house, which was reserved<br />
for VIPs such as the Prime Minister or President. Carl<br />
and I shared the back room for a few weeks before our<br />
moving to a house. The room was furnished<br />
with a double bed, a<br />
table and two chairs.<br />
There was no kitchen<br />
or bathroom. Every<br />
morning a grounds<br />
worker delivered a<br />
bucket of water for<br />
washing. We used<br />
the area in back of the<br />
building to wash and<br />
shower. We quickly<br />
experienced the effects<br />
of the local food, a<br />
tarantula in our room,<br />
and the theft of some of<br />
our personal items: a pair<br />
of prescription glasses,<br />
a radio, a tape recorder, and a few pieces<br />
of clothing. We ate mostly chicken or chunks of beef<br />
or goat in peanut or some tomato-based sauce over<br />
The road from Bokito to Bafia<br />
rice. We drank only bottled drinks such as warm beer,<br />
Coke, and flavored bottled soda water. Bottled water<br />
was not available then. When we finally moved into<br />
our new home we were joined by Michel Guien, a<br />
Frenchman, who would be teaching math at<br />
the same school. There we<br />
were, plopped down in the<br />
middle of an exotic place<br />
where we had to learn to live<br />
new lives. I was young and<br />
adaptable so the transition<br />
from an urban American<br />
culture to the remoteness<br />
of the African bush went<br />
relatively smoothly. I<br />
wound up living in a<br />
new house with my own<br />
room and bathroom and a<br />
comfortable bed. It didn’t<br />
take me long to develop<br />
a daily routine.<br />
After a few weeks in<br />
Bafia, Carl and I decided to go back to Yaounde before<br />
the school year began to get some household supplies<br />
and for me to get new glasses, which were stolen from<br />
our temporary living quarters. This time we had to take<br />
A mammy-wagon<br />
crossing the Mbam<br />
River in 1969
a “mammy wagon,” a sort of mini-bus. We spent a few<br />
days collecting what we needed and headed back to<br />
our new home in Bafia.<br />
I remember getting up very early in the morning<br />
and took a taxi to the “mammy wagon” station not far<br />
from the American Embassy and the Hotel National<br />
where volunteers usually stayed while visiting the<br />
capital. We dragged our baggage through a dusty lot<br />
with scores of “mammy wagons,” mini-buses that<br />
connected the outlying villages and towns. The scene<br />
was a riot of color, sound and smell. Women wore<br />
brightly colored outfits and the men wore “boubous,”<br />
pullover shirts with embroidery around the collar and<br />
sleeves. Everyone was in a hurry; they were jostling<br />
in and out of the crowded mini-buses, taxis, and cars.<br />
The horns, motors, and exhaust added to the chaos.<br />
Carl and I found a mammy wagon heading for<br />
Bafia, but it was already full so the driver forced the<br />
occupants of the front seat out and told Carl and me<br />
to take their seats. We looked at each other and said<br />
nothing. We knew that we were getting VIP treatment<br />
and felt bad and a bit guilty for taking the front seat.<br />
The rest of the passengers rode in the back of the minibus<br />
where they were crammed in like sardines. The<br />
group was so tightly packed that no one could possibly<br />
move. Any available space was taken up with children,<br />
baggage, and small animals. The 85-mile ride from<br />
Yaoundé to Bafia took eight exhausting hours. The<br />
only relief from the constant bumps and curves were<br />
the stops at the Sanaga and Mbam Rivers. Both rivers<br />
had to be crossed by motorized “bac,” a sort of ferry<br />
attached to a cable, which guided the bac across the<br />
swiftly moving water. The Sanaga bac could handle<br />
about six cars, a few trucks, and scores of passengers.<br />
The Mbam ferry was smaller. Unpredictability was the<br />
norm. Sometimes travelers had to spend up to three<br />
days to get across one of the rivers, depending on the<br />
weather, the speed of the current, the condition of<br />
ferry motor, and the cable. One of the few food items<br />
that could be purchased and safely eaten were cans of<br />
sardines and some fruit.<br />
The commercial center of Bafia in 1971
M y N e W<br />
Home<br />
Our new home was the newest construction<br />
in town built by Mr. Bidias, the<br />
country’s finance minister, who<br />
was from Bafia. The building<br />
was a triplex occupied by new<br />
teachers. The structure was<br />
long, narrow, and spacious with<br />
many windows with iron bars,<br />
tiled floors, and an aluminum<br />
roof. It even had a garage.<br />
My Peace Corps<br />
monthly allowance was<br />
enough to take care of my<br />
basic needs. Having two<br />
housemates also allowed me<br />
to save a little extra money<br />
for unforeseen expenses such<br />
as having a new shirt made<br />
or having my motorbike<br />
repaired.<br />
Life was hard<br />
and everything was labor<br />
Luc, our cook, and Richard, our housekeeper<br />
planting a garder<br />
intensive. For example,<br />
the simplest need, such as having enough water for<br />
drinking, bathing, and washing was a major daily<br />
challenge. There was never enough time to take care of<br />
every basic need and teach full time at the local school.<br />
Help was needed to survive. There was water to fetch,<br />
filter, boil, and store. There was food to buy, prepare,<br />
and cook. And, of course, there was the need for bottled<br />
gas for cooking and kerosene for the Coleman<br />
lamp that constantly needed a<br />
new mesh almost every night.<br />
Clothes had to be washed by<br />
hand and ironed using burning<br />
charcoal in a steel iron. For me<br />
live reverted to the way I imagine<br />
our ancestors lived.<br />
We found that we couldn’t do it<br />
alone so we decided to hire two<br />
“Boys,” which was actually the<br />
official title for our cook, Luc,<br />
and housekeeper, Richard. In fact,<br />
there were three different classes<br />
of “Boys” who were hired through<br />
the Bureau du Travail. At first it<br />
was uncomfortable referring to<br />
grown men as “boys,” especially<br />
as an American who witnessed the<br />
civil rights struggle at home, but<br />
after a while I learned to appreciate<br />
that it was a prestigious title in<br />
French.<br />
Luc and Richard’s work day began early and<br />
there was always the unexpected. The typical routine
Carl reading in the living room<br />
for Luc was to pick up baguettes from the bakery<br />
and race to the house on the motorbike that I used to<br />
let him use overnight. Just before I left for school,<br />
Richard would arrive laden with bundles of fresh fruit,<br />
vegetables and the occasional piece of beef, a live<br />
chicken, or a young goat from the bi-weekly outdoor<br />
market. Richard delivered the bundles to Luc in the<br />
kitchen then started to do the laundry. He washed our<br />
clothes outside in large concrete sinks and ironed them<br />
on the dining room table with a charcoal iron.<br />
Our living room and dining room<br />
very talkative. They got along, but did not seem close.<br />
They were serious. I never witnessed any joking or<br />
laughter between them.<br />
Luc was illiterate, but was eager to learn. I<br />
taught him to bake a cake using simple drawings.<br />
Instead of writing the recipe, I drew pictures of each<br />
of the steps. It was one of my first attempts to teach<br />
someone who was illiterate. I found that using pictures<br />
worked best. At least he had something to refer to. I<br />
did the same thing for other dishes. With regret, I was<br />
never able to spend enough free time with Luc to teach<br />
him to read and write.<br />
Michel (right) with a visitor in front of the house<br />
I never knew Luc or Richard’s last<br />
names. They worked for us as a cook and laundry man<br />
six days a week, excepts on Sundays. Luc was a thin<br />
and lanky, thirty-something-year old, single, shy, with<br />
bucked teeth and an infectious smile. Richard was<br />
older than Luc: about 40 years old, married, and not<br />
Our porch where we spent most of our time
Our neighbor was the Chief of Police (third from the left pointing to<br />
the camera and his son) who invited us to his son’s wedding.<br />
Luc and Richard roasting a goat<br />
in our front yard
a n<br />
averagE<br />
day<br />
At dawn the crows began to caw and the kid<br />
goats’ hungry cry sounded<br />
like they were being tortured.<br />
Another day was beginning<br />
in Bafia. I pulled the<br />
mosquito net to one side of<br />
my bed, looked on the floor<br />
for any bugs, crawled out of<br />
bed, and put on my socks.<br />
Then I would look around<br />
the room and say good<br />
morning to the ubiquitous<br />
and harmless lizards<br />
that lived in the corners<br />
of ceiling and walls. I<br />
welcomed them and left<br />
them alone because they<br />
ate some of the many bugs<br />
that also visited our home<br />
especially at night. Then,<br />
I made my way to my<br />
“modern” bathroom and<br />
relieved myself in a real toilet, but there was no water to<br />
flush. In fact, there was no running water or electricity<br />
Michel, right, with visitors<br />
in the whole town of Bafia. To flush I used a metal pail<br />
of water that was kept nearby. And the smell! There<br />
was never enough water to flush completely. I had to<br />
live with it. There were holes in the walls throughout<br />
the house for light switches, and<br />
they remained that way;<br />
there was no electricity<br />
available.<br />
From my bathroom<br />
window I could hear the<br />
sputtering of my motorbike’s<br />
noisy engine approaching.<br />
It was Luc, the cook, who<br />
had kept the motorbike<br />
overnight. Richard, who did<br />
the shopping and the laundry,<br />
came a little later in the<br />
morning.<br />
The motorbike’s raucous<br />
approach scattered the goats<br />
and crows. The motor<br />
sputtered to a stop and Luc<br />
leaned the motorbike against<br />
the wall of the open garage.<br />
He would unlocked the kitchen door and placed a<br />
freshly-baked, aromatic French baguette on the kitchen
counter. Every morning I followed the smell of the<br />
fresh baguette to the kitchen where I greeted Luc.<br />
While Luc set out to fetch well water, I made<br />
breakfast. I emptied the small water purification<br />
I usually carried my breakfast to the front porch<br />
where I could view my neighbors beginning their day.<br />
From a distance I could see the neighbor’s children<br />
brushing their teeth, combing their hair, and getting<br />
ready for school; children and adults walking along<br />
the road; and the town’s prisoners cutting grass with<br />
machetes across the dusty red road.<br />
I turned on my battery-powered short wave<br />
radio—my only contact with the outside world except<br />
from the occasional Time or Newsweek magazines<br />
and newspaper clippings from home. With great care,<br />
I turned the dial to tune in a radio signal. Sometimes I<br />
could get Voice of America and a few French language<br />
stations. Some days I could even pick up the BBC<br />
and a Portuguese language station from Angola. Carl<br />
remembered listing to Radio Beijing. This was during<br />
the period of the Cultural Revolution, and the station<br />
was quite strident. They were always playing “The<br />
Ode to the Yellow River.”<br />
Luc would appear from behind the house with a<br />
large wash basin balanced on his head and, at the same<br />
The road to school<br />
containers that filtered water overnight.<br />
I poured the filtered water into an aluminum kettle and<br />
placed it on a burner of the gas stove. I then opened a<br />
small kerosene-run refrigerator and pulled out a stick of<br />
butter. Among my fondest memories was when I would<br />
split the warm crusty baguette in two and spread some<br />
sweet butter and some jam on it. Then, I took a jar<br />
of Nestlé’s Arabica coffee from the screened cupboard<br />
and placed a heaping spoonful in a cup. When the<br />
kettle began whistling, I added boiling water, sugar,<br />
and some sweetened condensed milk. Fresh milk was<br />
never available. That was my typical breakfast: coffee,<br />
a baguette with butter and jam, and some fruit—usually<br />
pineapple. Better continental breakfasts could not be<br />
found in all of France! Though isolated by an eighthour<br />
drive to the nearest city (Yaounde), Bafia had a<br />
bakery that produced outstanding French bread—a<br />
treat in the midst of “la brousse”—the bush. We could<br />
even get bottles of French wine and cheese from the<br />
owners of the two general store in town. They were<br />
owned by merchants from Lebanon and Cyprus.<br />
Tapping a tree<br />
for palm wine
time, carrying a plastic bucket filled with water from<br />
the nearby well. While I was finishing my breakfast<br />
and reviewing my daily lesson plans for my classes,<br />
Luc was heating water for my morning shower. Luc<br />
filled the shower<br />
bucket in my<br />
bathroom with<br />
regular well<br />
water. Then, he<br />
poured one hot<br />
kettle of water<br />
into the shower<br />
bucket to make<br />
it tepid. The<br />
pail had holes<br />
at the bottom<br />
and a cord that<br />
controlled the<br />
flow of water.<br />
A small<br />
portion of the<br />
hot water was<br />
reserved for<br />
shaving. A<br />
somewhat tepid shower was<br />
another little treat that made life in the middle of this<br />
tropical climate bearable. This was my shower routine<br />
every day and some days twice a day, especially during<br />
the dry seasons.<br />
The government guest house<br />
There was a pervasiveness of dust during the dry<br />
season and mud during the rainy season. I remember<br />
being coated with red dust whenever a car passed on<br />
the road during the dry season.<br />
My typical<br />
w a r d r o b e<br />
consisted of long<br />
pants and a colorful<br />
African shirt called<br />
a “boubou.” I<br />
loved my boubous;<br />
they were loosefitting,<br />
airy and<br />
comfortable. Short<br />
pants were not<br />
in fashion, and<br />
I always wore<br />
closed leather shoes<br />
outside. Since much<br />
of the clothing I<br />
brought with me was<br />
stolen during my<br />
first few days living<br />
at the “guest house,”<br />
I had to have clothes<br />
made by a local tailor. There were no clothing stores.<br />
Then I was off to school, the Lycee de Bafia,<br />
which was the only government run secondary school<br />
in town. I taught English as a Foreign Language. I<br />
The administrative center
taught four classes per day: three in the morning and<br />
one in the afternoon.<br />
Some days I would walk a kilometer (about a<br />
half mile) to school so that Luc or Richard could use<br />
my motorbike for shopping and running errands in the<br />
commercial center in the<br />
other part of town.<br />
Occasionally my<br />
dog, Ginger, accompanied<br />
me to school. Ginger<br />
became a novelty both<br />
in the community and<br />
at school. At school,<br />
children usually giggled,<br />
pointed at her, and made<br />
a fuss over her. Ginger<br />
was a great oddity: a pure<br />
bred dachshund—a large<br />
wiener dog in the middle<br />
of Africa. Upon arriving at<br />
school, Ginger, attracted<br />
attention, then after the<br />
bell rang, quietly curled<br />
up by the door of my<br />
classroom until the end<br />
of the lesson. I first heard<br />
about Ginger from Mary<br />
Ann, the Peace Corps<br />
doctor, who visited me twice a year for a physical<br />
and shots. Apparently Ginger was left behind by an<br />
embassy family who was returning to the States. I<br />
immediately volunteered to take her in. She was my<br />
loyal companion until the day I left Bafia. While on<br />
Flag pole in the center of the Prefecture<br />
a trip to Yaounde making arrangements to have her<br />
come back to California with me, she disappeared. I<br />
later learned that she had been stolen and eaten. I was<br />
heartbroken.<br />
On our way to school I walked along a dusty,<br />
unpaved, red-colored main road bordered by tall<br />
palms and high grass.<br />
We first passed the home<br />
of the Chief of Police<br />
whose compound was to<br />
the left of our house and<br />
consisted of a dozen small<br />
structures that housed<br />
the Police Chief’s many<br />
wives and children. Then,<br />
we moved pass the local<br />
prison, the old Post Office,<br />
the German-built Prefecture<br />
building, parade grounds,<br />
flag pole, and the Prefect’s<br />
residents on the right. It<br />
took ten or fifteen minutes to<br />
get to school. The morning<br />
walk was usually pleasant<br />
especially in the coolness<br />
of the morning. It was much<br />
less pleasant in the mid-day<br />
sun or when it rained. It was<br />
either getting covered with<br />
fine red dust or drugging through thick mud.<br />
During late afternoon and at dusk, I usually sat<br />
on my porch correcting papers and preparing lessons<br />
for the following day. Luc would clean up after the<br />
The road toward Doninking
midday meal and Richard would be finishing up ironing<br />
our clothes and put away the laundry. Everything had<br />
to be ironed in order to kill larvae that might burrow<br />
into your skin. This happened to me twice during my<br />
stay.<br />
Just before leaving for the day, Luc usually<br />
prepared a light evening meal. Richard occupied<br />
himself with attaching the silk mesh in the Coleman<br />
lamp in the living room, placing a<br />
small hurricane lamp<br />
in the kitchen, and<br />
setting down a candle<br />
on a metal dish in the<br />
bedroom hallway.<br />
As night approached,<br />
both Luc and Richard<br />
sped away on my<br />
bike.<br />
The evening<br />
meal was usually made<br />
up of leftovers from<br />
lunch and a plate of<br />
French bread, cheese<br />
and fruit, After dinner<br />
time was usually spent<br />
on the front porch with<br />
Carl, Michel and Ginger until the mosquitoes and other<br />
swarming bugs were too numerous to brush away.<br />
We had a limited number of record albums<br />
which we listened to incessantly. One of the albums<br />
I remember was the Beatle’s “Here Comes the Sun”<br />
from their Abby Road album and “On a Toute Besoin<br />
d’un Homme” from a collection of classical records<br />
that Michel had. We played the same records again and<br />
again and we were always<br />
running out of batteries.<br />
Light inside the house was<br />
provided by two Coleman<br />
lamps and candles, however<br />
there was never enough<br />
light to read comfortably<br />
so evenings were spent<br />
relaxing and chatting about<br />
everything and anything<br />
over a beer, a cigarette,<br />
or a soda. Around nine<br />
o’clock we all went to bed<br />
and waited for the next<br />
day to begin.<br />
Richard and his family<br />
The view from our front porch
Despite a general daily routine, everyday was<br />
full of challenges -- big and small. There was little<br />
time to relax. There was always something that would<br />
go wrong or something that had to be done: running<br />
out of natural gas for the stove or kerosene for the<br />
refrigerator and lamps; forgetting to filter and boil<br />
enough water; having to fix a flat tire on the motorbike;<br />
or dealing with snakes, mice, spiders, scorpions, and<br />
bugs in the house. It seemed that every night there was<br />
another kind of bug that was having its mating season.<br />
The following morning, the floor around the Coleman<br />
lamps would be completed covered with different types<br />
of insects.<br />
Once a routine was established, our lives<br />
flowed, but sometimes too slowly. Little by little I<br />
could feel myself losing contact with the outside world.<br />
There was no daily newspaper, weekly magazines, or<br />
TV. The only contact with the “outside” was a short<br />
wave radio and the occasional letters from home.<br />
Reading for pleasure was rare except during weekends<br />
of summer breaks. I couldn’t read for very long with a<br />
candle or a flickering lantern. Little reading was done<br />
at night except when there was a full moon when it<br />
was possible to read easily outside when the moon was<br />
overhead.<br />
Darleen and children along the Mbam River
The weather was always hot—either it was very<br />
humid or very dry. There were two wet and two dry<br />
seasons per year. When the first winds and rains came<br />
after the dry season, everyone celebrated. We gathered<br />
every type of container we could find to collect water.<br />
We even took turns taking cold showers in back of<br />
the house where the two roof sections came together<br />
providing a perfect showering spot. What a treat after<br />
several months of the dry season.<br />
The crossing of the Mbam River<br />
on the way to Yoko<br />
One time during my exploration of the<br />
surrounding area, I decided to try my hand at fishing. I<br />
grew up fishing having lived at the bank of the Putucket<br />
River in Rhode Island. So I thought that I would try<br />
fishing at the banks of the Mbam. It only took one<br />
time at the Mbam’s river’s edge to realize that I had the<br />
wrong equipment, the vegetation was too dense, and<br />
the current was too fast. I gave up that idea quickly.<br />
Notwithstanding these challenges, life took on<br />
a slower pace. Nothing was hurried and everything got<br />
done in its own time.
M y<br />
School<br />
le LycÉ e de Bafia<br />
The lycée was somewhat equivalent to high<br />
school--something like 9th to 13th grades. The<br />
physical compound was a collection of three cinder<br />
block buildings that housed about 300 students in a<br />
dozen classrooms. During the second year, three new<br />
buildings were constructed. The classrooms were stark<br />
and mostly bare except for rows of long, rough wooden<br />
desks, low benches, and a simple teacher’s desk with<br />
no draw or accompanying chair. The floor was earthen<br />
and uneven; the walls were unfinished and unpainted;<br />
the window openings were covered with wire mesh;<br />
and the roof was constructed of aluminum sheets<br />
positioned on a skeletal wooden frame. On rainy days,<br />
there was little else to do except to let the students work<br />
in silence since no one could speak above the noise of<br />
the rain hitting the aluminum roof.<br />
The students were made up of speciallyselected<br />
and carefully-screened, local high-schoolaged<br />
children. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the<br />
applicants were able to attend due to the limited number<br />
of spaces and a rigorous entrance exam in French, one<br />
of the official languages. (English is also an official<br />
national language, but it mostly used in Englishspeaking<br />
West Cameroon.) The local languages such<br />
as Bafia and Bulu were not taught at the lycée.
In front of the<br />
school office<br />
Only the “crème de la crème” of the applicants<br />
were admitted. Of course, there were exceptions made<br />
for those with “special connections” or for those who<br />
had money.<br />
<strong>All</strong> students wore<br />
uniforms; the boys wore<br />
grey pants with matching<br />
shirts, and the girls wore<br />
simple blue dresses.<br />
The boys had short hair<br />
and the girls showed<br />
off corn-row hair in a<br />
variety of styles. Some,<br />
but not all students wore<br />
shoes, and some of those<br />
who did could be seen<br />
carrying them on their<br />
head to and from school<br />
so that they would not<br />
wear out. The dress code<br />
was strict; students were sent home if they did not wear<br />
their uniform.<br />
As I would entered the classroom, the students<br />
raced to their places, stood to attention and shouted out,<br />
“Bonjour Monsieur.” Being an American only twentyfour<br />
years old, I was not<br />
used to this formal title of<br />
respect. In time I learned<br />
that not being addressed<br />
with “Monsieur”<br />
meant disrespect. The<br />
chalkboard was a mostly<br />
rough, thin painted,<br />
horizontal concrete<br />
slab that seemed to eat<br />
a whole stick of chalk<br />
for every stroke made.<br />
The only other teaching<br />
tool was an Englishteaching<br />
textbook and<br />
an occasional paper<br />
handout produced by<br />
a complicated process<br />
involving a stencil machine that was kept in the office.<br />
On several occasions I had been warned that I was
equesting too many handouts. This was frowned<br />
upon by the school secretary, who constantly pointed<br />
out how much paper and ink were being consumed.<br />
As a new teacher I spent many home hours drawing<br />
pictures, writing grammar rules, and etching grafts on<br />
large sheets of pager with crayons to get my teaching<br />
points across.<br />
At the beginning of a lesson I waited and gazed<br />
at my students as they were quieting down, and the<br />
students waited for my command to sit. As I motioned<br />
to the students to sit, there was one thunderous sound<br />
of creaking furniture as these youngsters settled onto<br />
their hard wooden benches and placed their books and<br />
notebooks on their desks. Then, there was silence and<br />
the lesson began. First, there was homework correction,<br />
then the presentation of new vocabulary illustrated on<br />
the board or with my amateurish illustrations on white<br />
sheets of paper, or by acting out the meaning of a word<br />
or phrase. Then the students took turns reading from<br />
a selection from the textbook. This was followed by<br />
oral and written drills. Finally, there was the usual<br />
homework assignment.<br />
The morning session ended just before noon<br />
and the students and teachers took a long afternoon<br />
break. I went home for lunch, which was the most<br />
substantial meal of the day. I, Carl, and Michel usually<br />
ate together. Lunch was followed by a quick afternoon<br />
nap before returning to school at 2 p.m.<br />
The school library consisted of a locked room<br />
where no one was permitted to enter for fear that the<br />
books would disappear. The school’s policy was that<br />
it was better to keep the books safe under lock and<br />
key rather than risking the loss of some by having the<br />
students borrow them.<br />
This changed when my sister, Darleen, became<br />
a volunteer librarian. Darleen was a student at the<br />
University of California, Berkeley and stayed with<br />
me in Bafia for the last six months of my second year.<br />
Darleen and I solicited books from the American<br />
Embassy, which supplied us with about two hundred<br />
books—the “LIFE” picture book series, novels, history<br />
books, reference books, and even a class set of Dr.<br />
Seuss’ “Cat in a Hat.” Students could read the books at<br />
school, but were still not allowed to take them home.<br />
Below: Claude, Michel, the Proviseur (Director) and Mr. Zanga
Students marching in the Independence parage<br />
One day, I had a special surprise for my students;<br />
I was going to teach them how to play baseball with a<br />
bat and ball that I discovered in the basement of the<br />
American Embassy in Yaoundé. After explaining<br />
the game on the chalkboard, I invited my students to<br />
join me after school for a game on the soccer field<br />
where I set up bases. The lesson was a huge success.<br />
Occasionally, I found ways to teach English by doing<br />
interesting and creative activities. Being a new teacher<br />
under difficult circumstances was challenging and<br />
sometimes the lessons didn’t work. On this occasion,<br />
my lesson was a great success. The day of the baseball<br />
lesson, about a dozen boys met on the soccer field for<br />
the promised game of baseball after school and a group<br />
of girls stood by to observe the event. After an hour<br />
or so, the game ended and the children scattered. I felt<br />
satisfaction at how well my student picked up the game<br />
while practicing their English skills. This was a good<br />
day for me, and everyone had fun. It was time to return<br />
home before sunset. It only took fifteen minutes to get<br />
because of the locality of the equator especially during<br />
a new moon.<br />
Below: Student watching a<br />
soccer game behind the school
T h e<br />
town<br />
of Bafia<br />
Very few<br />
foreigners lived in<br />
Bafia. There were two<br />
American missionaries at<br />
Donenken, a few Middle<br />
Eastern commercial<br />
traders, French missionary<br />
brothers and nuns, a few<br />
French teachers, a female<br />
language teacher from<br />
Germany, and two Peace<br />
Corps volunteers, I being<br />
one of them. It was hard<br />
to blend in. Everywhere<br />
I would go, I was noticed<br />
and people, especially children, would stare and point.<br />
Over time I got used to it and instead of ignoring the<br />
attention, I started to wave hello.<br />
The most imposing<br />
structure in town was<br />
the prefecture building,<br />
which would be the<br />
equivalent of a county<br />
seat. It was located in my<br />
neighborhood where the<br />
Germans had built the<br />
area’s first administrative<br />
center when Cameroon<br />
was a German territory<br />
from 1884 until the end<br />
of the First World War.<br />
As late as 1971 there<br />
were still people who<br />
spoke German. To my<br />
amazement I once visited<br />
the weekly outdoor market and witnessed our school’s<br />
German language teacher negotiate the cost of some<br />
tomatoes with an elderly woman in German.<br />
The road to the commercial center
Bafia<br />
C a m e r o o n<br />
Africa<br />
Bafia is a Cameroonian<br />
town and commune in the<br />
Centre Province region. It<br />
is the capital of the Mbamet-Inoubou<br />
department. It<br />
lies 75 miles north of the<br />
country’s capital Yaoundé.<br />
Bafia has approximately 55,700<br />
inhabitants, making it the third<br />
largest city in the province after<br />
Yaoundé and Mbalmayo. Most<br />
citizens belong to either the<br />
Bafia people or the Yambassa<br />
people.<br />
Bafia<br />
Yaoundé<br />
Origin of the Name<br />
Cameroon<br />
Independence Day Celebration in 1970<br />
The story is told that when the Germans, once the colonial power, were crossing through the Mbam region, they<br />
stopped on the high plateau of the region which is today called Bafia to ask a native who was returning from hunting<br />
what the name of the area was. Assuming that the guests were asking his name, the hunter answered, “Ufino yame<br />
yo lomo Bofia Nkano” (“My name is Bofia Nkano”). This misunderstanding led to the name “Bafia” being given to<br />
the area.<br />
The Prefecture building was the area’s first administrative center when Cameroon was a German<br />
territory from 1884 until the end of the First World War. Luc is shown riding a motorbike in 1970.
The town was divided into two main sections:<br />
the administrative area where government buildings<br />
were situated and commercial center which in many<br />
ways resembled the towns that we would see in<br />
American movie Westerns.<br />
I lived near the administrative center where there<br />
was Prefecture building, the official guest house, the<br />
Prefet’s residence,<br />
the lycee, parade<br />
grounds, courts,<br />
police station,<br />
prison, a small<br />
bar/restaurant, and<br />
post office. A small<br />
hotel was being<br />
built near the post<br />
office, but was not<br />
finished in the two<br />
years I lived there.<br />
Before independence in 1960, there was a substantial<br />
number of French nationals in Bafia. Most left taking<br />
their skills with them. Bafia once had running water in<br />
the administrative center, but the machinery gradually<br />
broke down. There were no spare parts and nobody<br />
know how to repair it. While I was in Bafia, our home<br />
had running water for only a few days during the two<br />
years I was there.<br />
The other part of town was the commercial<br />
center about a 15-minute walk from the administrative<br />
area. Stores were built along both sides of an unpaved<br />
street along one block. The streets were always full<br />
of people, mammy-wagons and trucks filled with foul<br />
smelling coco beans. Further on toward the direction<br />
of Bokito there was the slaughter area and market place<br />
where Luc or Richard used to buy meat twice a week.<br />
At least once a week a herd of cattle would pass by.<br />
They were raised in<br />
Northern Cameroon,<br />
and driven to the south<br />
stopping at towns and<br />
villages until they<br />
reached Yaoundé and<br />
beyond. I rarely went<br />
to the market during<br />
the week because I<br />
had to be at school.<br />
Richard would go to<br />
the slaughter area and<br />
buy meat twice a week.<br />
Although we usually bought the best cut of meat, “filet<br />
mignon,” it was always tough and needed to be cooked<br />
for a long time. No juicy steaks, just pieces of meat<br />
cooked in a stew.<br />
The commercial center was the area where a few<br />
families of Lebanese, Cypriot, and Greek merchants<br />
lived. They were left-overs from when there was a<br />
sizable French population before independence. There<br />
were two general stores, a gas station, an area where the<br />
The commercial center during the dry season<br />
looked a lot like a “Wild West” town.
i-weekly market was<br />
held, a bakery, a tailors,<br />
barbers, and a dozen or<br />
so small shops.<br />
The general<br />
stores reminded me<br />
of what general stores<br />
might have looked like in<br />
the American wild west.<br />
We could get anything<br />
there—canned goods,<br />
cheese, salted fish, beer,<br />
soft drinks, bedding,<br />
cloth, motorbikes, and<br />
all kinds of building<br />
materials—you name<br />
it, they had it. If they<br />
didn’t, they could get<br />
it. We had a charge<br />
account that Luc and<br />
Richard could use to<br />
buy supplies. No money was used. The merchants<br />
would charge our account and we would pay what we<br />
owned at the end of the month.<br />
The only places in<br />
town that had electricity<br />
were the Greek and<br />
Lebanon merchants’<br />
stores. They had<br />
generators to preserve<br />
fish and other perishable<br />
goods. We used their<br />
refrigerator to store<br />
birds that we hunted at<br />
a nearby seldom-used<br />
air strip. Although there<br />
were other “blancs”<br />
(whites) in town, we<br />
rarely socialized with<br />
them. The Greeks<br />
and Lebanese families<br />
stayed to themselves as<br />
did the French Catholic<br />
nuns and brothers. The<br />
only other blancs I knew<br />
were the Sandilands, who would check up on me once<br />
in a while. <strong>All</strong> business was taken care of during the<br />
day because most people stayed home and rarely went<br />
out after dark.<br />
Carl at a gas station in the commercial center
I was fortunate to<br />
be able to return to “America”<br />
on a regular basis. Not the<br />
America thousands of miles<br />
away, but an American oasis<br />
where I could reconnect and<br />
recharge.<br />
Dr. Robert Sandilands<br />
and his wife, Marie, were<br />
American medical missionaries<br />
and had lived in Cameroon<br />
for many years at the Presbyterian<br />
Hospital Mission as Medical<br />
Missionaries in Doninking,<br />
which is a few miles from Bafia.<br />
Robert was a surgeon and<br />
Maria was the anesthesiologist.<br />
T i m e<br />
Warp<br />
at Doninking<br />
Dr. Robert Sandilands and his wife Marie<br />
Going to Sandilands<br />
was like going into a time<br />
warp. As soon as I was on<br />
their property, I was in America<br />
again with all of the trappings<br />
of a typical American<br />
house. There was American<br />
furniture, doilies on the coffee<br />
table, a full kitchen, peanut<br />
butter, jelly beans, as well as<br />
a million other familiar goodies.<br />
There was running water<br />
and even electricity from a<br />
small generator that was used<br />
at night. This was my home<br />
away from home -- my escape<br />
from “my reality” for short<br />
periods of time.<br />
Staying healthy was a<br />
major challenge. It seemed
that I was sick every day I was in Bafia especially with<br />
digestive problems. There were bouts with malaria,<br />
diarrhea, stings, rashes, and fungus growth to name a<br />
few. We had to take an anti-malaria pill daily, cook everything<br />
well, not eat any raw vegetables or salads, and<br />
drink only boiled<br />
and filtered water.<br />
Visiting friends and<br />
colleagues was also<br />
a major challenge<br />
because I could not<br />
eat everything that<br />
was offered. Not<br />
having running water<br />
or electricity<br />
added enormously<br />
to these challenges.<br />
I don’t know<br />
if I would have lasted<br />
two years in Bafia<br />
without the Sandilands.<br />
Medical care<br />
was not easily available<br />
and having an American doctor nearby was truly<br />
fortunate because there were many time that I needed<br />
medical care. I had an operation done to remove a<br />
large cyst, and I spend a week the Sandilands’ guest<br />
bedroom recovering from malaria. Luc, our cook,<br />
spend several days the the hospital for a hernia operation<br />
and to receive rabies shots after having been bitten<br />
by a dog. Carl went there to get rid of a tapeworm. The<br />
list goes on and on. It seemed that there was always<br />
something physical wrong with all of us.<br />
The Sandilands<br />
The Mission Hospital became my second<br />
family with whom<br />
I spent a lot of<br />
time. I don’t consider<br />
myself a religious<br />
person, but if<br />
I had to name two<br />
people who would<br />
rise to the position<br />
of sainthood, they<br />
would be the Sandilands.<br />
They have<br />
been my role models<br />
throughout my<br />
life.<br />
When I left Cameroon,<br />
I lost contact with the Sandilands. Recently, I<br />
contacted the Presbyterian Church and discovered that<br />
Dr. Sandilands passed away in 0000 and his wife in<br />
0000.<br />
Below: Dr. Sandilands and medical<br />
staff on a hunting trip near Yoko
One day while visiting the Sandilands,<br />
I found out that their cook had died from falling<br />
off a palm tree while collecting palm wine. The<br />
center photo is an actual photo of<br />
him in a tree in the back yard of the<br />
Sandilands’ home. He had worked<br />
for them for many years and was<br />
part of their “mission family.”<br />
I accompanied Dr. Sandilands<br />
to a funeral which in a hamlet a few<br />
miles from Doninking. Expecting<br />
a lot of sadness and tears, I<br />
discovered that it was more like a<br />
celebration than a funeral. The women were all<br />
dressed up, singing, and dancing. We paid our<br />
respects to the family and viewed his body, which<br />
was laid out in one of the huts. We<br />
were welcomed by the head of the<br />
family, given a place to sit, and<br />
offered something to eat. This was<br />
the first and last time I ate monkey.<br />
The meat was cooked in a stew<br />
with lots of hot spices and served<br />
with yams and other unfamiliar<br />
vegetables. This was my only<br />
experience with “bush meat.’
T h e<br />
Bad<br />
times and ...<br />
Nightfall in Bafia<br />
As soldiers have “war stories,” Peace<br />
Corps volunteers have “horror stories.” There are too<br />
many to mention here but here are a few.<br />
My worse experience was when I ran over a<br />
child with my motorbike. I was crossing a small bridge<br />
just before entering the commercial center when a child<br />
about five years old ran in front me. I tried to stop, but<br />
not in time. The mother ran to the child, picked him<br />
up, and ran as fast as she could. I was stunned and<br />
didn’t know what to do. I just waited, and they never<br />
came back. Apparently the child wasn’t hurt because I<br />
never heard about it again.<br />
During the rainy season, it usually rained almost<br />
every day at dusk. One day there was an unusually<br />
violent storm. There was heavy rain and blinding<br />
lighting that struck a tree directly in front of our house.<br />
I was blinded for a short time and had headaches for<br />
a few days afterwards. The same<br />
storm produced a tornado that tore<br />
off the roof of the house behind<br />
ours. I saw the storm peel the roof<br />
off as if it were a can of sardines.<br />
The storm felled many trees and<br />
closed the road out of town for<br />
many days.<br />
Bush fires were a danger After a bush fire<br />
that came during the dry seasons.<br />
During one particular fire storm,<br />
flames came as close as 100 feet from our house. We<br />
were saved because the building was made of concrete,<br />
the roof of aluminium, and the area around our house<br />
was always kept clear of vegetation. Prisoners in the<br />
jail across the street and misbehaving students made<br />
sure that the areas around our house as well as other<br />
government structures were always keep clear.<br />
Walking around town at night was rare. A<br />
flashlight and a long walking stick were necessary<br />
especially during a new moon. Once I was coming<br />
back from Donenken when there was no moon for<br />
light. My motorbike broke down and I had to wait in<br />
pitch dark for someone to come along the road. It was<br />
terrifying not being able to see even an inch from my<br />
face. I didn’t move and waited for over an hour until<br />
a man on another motorbike drove by and helped me<br />
find my way home.<br />
And the bugs. There were lots of different<br />
kinds of bugs. The worse were the wasps. They were<br />
everywhere. I was stung three times. The first time<br />
while sitting in the living room of my house, another<br />
time on my ear while teaching in my classroom, and<br />
finally on my motorbike when a wasp flew up my<br />
sleeve.<br />
I learned to respect fire ants. Coming home one day<br />
I found Luc and Richard trying to get some large<br />
fire ants out of the house. It was no use. The ants<br />
were passing through and all we could do was wait<br />
until they left. They left the house cleaner than it was<br />
before. Spider webs and hornet’s<br />
nests were gone.<br />
One day our town was visited<br />
by a swarm of locus. The locus<br />
were a light green and measured<br />
about six or seven inches long.<br />
They were everywhere and landed<br />
on everything including people.<br />
I remember leaving the house to<br />
go to school and I was covered<br />
with about a dozen locus. They were harmless, but<br />
the feeling of having them crawl on me was unsettling.<br />
Same goes for flying cockroaches which grew to be<br />
two inches long.<br />
Night prowlers were a constant menace. I did<br />
not feel in danger, but there was always the chance of<br />
being robbed while not at home. Nights were mostly<br />
quiet with occasional prowlers who were chased away<br />
by our night watchman, Johnny, a one-legged older<br />
man who kept watch throughout the night.
... and The<br />
Good<br />
t i m e s<br />
There were fun days, too. One day I got<br />
a “care package” from home that contained popcorn. I<br />
told Luc that I knew magic and that I could make the<br />
seeds explode. When I showed him, he was totally<br />
“blown away.” He wanted some to show his friends. I<br />
also received a Betty Crocker cake mix, which spilled<br />
on route and covered everything<br />
in the box with chocolate flour<br />
mix. To have anything from home<br />
was cherished. Luckily, there was<br />
enough flour to make a small cake.<br />
Many high points included<br />
learning about some of the local<br />
animals. Occasionally students<br />
would show up at our front door<br />
with baby animals that they wanted<br />
to sell. Many time the animals were<br />
caught when their mothers were<br />
killed for bush meat. Over time I<br />
took in a baby baboon, a cat, a potti<br />
(a tiny large-eyed marsupial), a<br />
chameleon, and a dikki, a miniature<br />
sized deer. Because they were<br />
babies, most did not survive long<br />
without their mothers. It got to the<br />
point that I had to build an outdoor<br />
shelter for the animals that we were<br />
caring for.<br />
A fellow English teacher from our<br />
school dancing at our house<br />
Other fun times included planting a garden,<br />
exploring my domestic skills such as making curtains,<br />
and leaning how to cook using a Fanny Farmer<br />
Cookbook, which I still have today. With the help of<br />
Luc and Richard, I planted a small vegetable garden<br />
beside the house. It was our only source of lettuce that<br />
we used for salads. Due to wild animals eating the<br />
plants at night, carrying water for<br />
the plants, and the constant request<br />
from other teachers for some of our<br />
produce, I finally gave up. It became<br />
just too hard to maintain.<br />
One of my happiest memories<br />
was when we used to have a monthly<br />
party which consisted of an outside<br />
Sunday lunch in front of our house.<br />
There was no television or movie<br />
theaters so we had to find ways to<br />
amuse ourselves. We would buy a<br />
young goat, feed it oil and corn for<br />
a few weeks, then Richard would<br />
slaughter it behind the house. Luc<br />
would cook it on an outdoor spit.<br />
We would invite our school friends<br />
to join us in a potluck type feast.<br />
We would drink, eat, play records,<br />
sing, dance, tell stories, and play<br />
games such as Petanque, (a French<br />
lawn bowling game).
Another good time<br />
was when Ginger had<br />
puppies. During the first<br />
year, she had six puppies<br />
and all died at birth. It was<br />
heartbreaking. The second<br />
year, she had four puppies<br />
and all survived. The father<br />
was a dog that belonged<br />
to the one-legged night<br />
watchman. It was a pitifully<br />
mutt with half-eaten ears<br />
from all the constant swarm<br />
of gnats and flies. After they<br />
were weaned, we gave three<br />
of them to teachers at the<br />
school, and we saved one for<br />
Brenda, another volunteer, in<br />
a neighboring town or Bokito.<br />
Compared to Bafia, Bokito<br />
was more like a village where<br />
life was much more difficult on<br />
a daily basis than Bafia. Every<br />
month or so, Brenda would<br />
visit us to get away from her<br />
“isolation” in Bokito. Carl and<br />
I decided to drive to Bokito on<br />
our motorbikes to present her<br />
with her new companion. It was<br />
the first time visiting Bokito,<br />
and seeing how she lived,<br />
I appreciated my situation.<br />
Brenda, Carl and I became<br />
good friends and I always looked<br />
forwards to her visits.
There were celebrations, but never often<br />
enough. On Independence Day in 1970 the Prime<br />
Minister came to Bafia for a visit. He stayed in<br />
the guest house where Carl<br />
and I stayed during our first few<br />
weeks. He stayed in the big<br />
house unlike us who had stay in<br />
a small room in the back.<br />
During this time we<br />
had other several volunteers<br />
visiting us from other parts of<br />
the country. We were asked<br />
to perform a dance for the<br />
evening celebration to welcome<br />
the Prime Minister. Someone<br />
came up with the idea of doing<br />
a square dance. We only have<br />
an hour or so to practice, but we<br />
managed to pull it off without<br />
making fools of ourselves.<br />
We listened to the soothing sound of drums<br />
all night long. Drumming at night was meant to<br />
help our important visitors sleep better, and it was<br />
a sign of respect. The next day<br />
we went to the parade, listened<br />
to speeches, and watched our<br />
students march by along with<br />
many other local groups. Then<br />
came the famous Bafia dancers<br />
who were known throughout<br />
the country for their special<br />
kind of dance. It was amazing<br />
watching their graceful moves<br />
and synchronized steps. Some<br />
of the women danced topless,<br />
and I was warned by my<br />
neighbor, the chief of police,<br />
not to take their photo. It was<br />
too late because I already had.<br />
I quickly put my camera away<br />
and hoped that nobody noticed.<br />
Apparently nobody did.
Another great experience was caring for baby<br />
animals. Juliette, even though it was for a short time.<br />
During my service, I took in a baby baboon, a cat,<br />
a potti (a tiny large-eyed marsupial), a chameleon,<br />
and a dikki, a miniature sized deer. Because they<br />
were babies, most did not survive long without their<br />
mothers. It got to the point that I had to build an<br />
outdoor shelter for the animals that we were caring<br />
for.
M Y<br />
summer<br />
B r e a k<br />
During my first summer, I lived alone,<br />
but I was not lonely. It was nice having the house to<br />
myself. Michel was in France and Carl had moved<br />
to another house. It was a peaceful time when I could<br />
relax, read, and do whatever I wanted.<br />
This was the time I learned to feel comfortable<br />
being alone. I enjoyed time reading, cooking, playing<br />
with my dog, rewriting lesson plans, sprucing up the<br />
house, gardening, taking long naps, and doing whatever<br />
I pleased. It was like a stay-vacation at home. Luc was<br />
away visiting his family and recuperating from a hernia<br />
operation. Richard, our housekeeper was still around<br />
to help me, but mostly, I took care of myself. Richard<br />
got the water, did the laundry and the shopping, and I<br />
did my own cooking.<br />
I also found time to volunteer at the hospital<br />
at Donenken, six kilometers away. I spent a few<br />
days a week helping out at the hospital. I would help<br />
wherever I was needed: shedding cotton and wrapping<br />
pieces around twigs to be used to absorb fluids during<br />
operations; assisting Dr. Sandilands during actual<br />
operations; going on a three-day medical safari into<br />
nearby villages to immunize the populations against<br />
diseases; and organizing the construction a new<br />
Opening day ceremony<br />
at the new Martin Luther<br />
King School in Doninking<br />
in 1971<br />
classroom building for the mission elementary school.<br />
I raised the funds, drew up the plans, arranged for the<br />
permits, procured the building materials, and arranged<br />
for their delivery to the site. The structure was made<br />
of cinder blocks, a cement floor, mesh windows, and<br />
an aluminum roof. My aunt, Sister Alice Landry, a<br />
professor at Thomas Moore College in Covington,<br />
Kentucky, and her students helped me raise $1,000<br />
for this project. Another $1,000 was provided by<br />
the students from Gloucester Elementary School in<br />
Massachusetts as part of the U.S. School Partnership<br />
Program. Volunteers from the mission were responsible<br />
for making the cinder blocks and the actual construction.<br />
After about five months the school was dedicated in<br />
1971 and named after Dr. Martin Luther King.<br />
I also took part in a grueling three-day medical<br />
safari to a village near Yoko to inoculate the population<br />
against diseases. In the evenings villagers treated us to<br />
local food and we were given a place to sleep. On the<br />
way back to the mission Dr. Sandilands, a Cameroonian<br />
doctor, a local guide, and I went hunting for game that<br />
could be brought back to the hospital kitchen. This was<br />
one way to provide some meat for the patients at the<br />
hospital at Donenken. The game included monkeys,<br />
birds, and whatever else there was. We only saw one<br />
large antelope during our trip. By the late nineteen
sixties, most of the big game had already<br />
been killed off. Lions, elephants and other<br />
big animals were long gone. During my<br />
two years in Bafia, I only heard of one<br />
hippo that was killed at the Mbam River,<br />
which was only a few miles from town.<br />
Although the medical safari was a thrilling<br />
adventure, my worse memories included<br />
the constant cloud of gnats around my head<br />
and drinking water with iodine tablets. The<br />
experience was exhausting. At that time,<br />
hunting was a way to provide food for the<br />
patients at the hospital . This trip taught<br />
me what not to do, and I would never do it<br />
again.<br />
<strong>Paul</strong> and Dr. Sandilands holding a monkey and birds after a hunt on the way home from a medical safari.<br />
Left: Crossing<br />
the Mbam<br />
River on our<br />
way to a<br />
village near<br />
Yoko.<br />
Right: Medical<br />
staff hunting<br />
for bush<br />
meat on the<br />
way back to<br />
Doninking<br />
from a medical<br />
safari.
After accompaning Elanga<br />
(left) and another student to<br />
a hospital in the capital to get<br />
an eye exam, we went to the<br />
Yaounde Zoo.<br />
One day while teaching I noticed a student (I<br />
don’t remember his name.) who was having trouble<br />
reading. I discovered that he couldn’t see very well. I<br />
thought that maybe he just needed glasses. I spoke to<br />
the director of the school and then had Dr. Sandilands<br />
examine him. The doctor said that he couldn’t do<br />
anything and that the boy needed to see a specialist in<br />
Yaounde. I offered to take him to Yaounde during my<br />
summer break. Dr. Sandilands wrote a letter about his<br />
condition and I arranged to meet the boy and Elanga,<br />
a lycée student who lived with Carl, in Yaounde so<br />
that I could accompany them to the hospital for an<br />
examination. After the exam, we went to the Yaounde<br />
Zoo. Unfortunately, nothing could be done for him.<br />
He eventually became blind and left school.<br />
Elanga and a<br />
chimp at the zoo.
The Sandilands going to buy shrimp for the<br />
evening meal from the local fishermen<br />
Fishermen in Kribi<br />
The view from the guesthouse in Kribi<br />
At the end of the summer, Doctor and<br />
Mrs. Sandilands invited me to spend a week with them<br />
in Kribi, a coastal town in southwest Cameroun. We<br />
traveled by Range Rover and stayed at a mission guest<br />
house, went swimming, visited the famous coastal<br />
Kribi beach near the waterfalls<br />
waterfall, and toured the hardwood exporting town<br />
of Kribi. On the way back to Bafia we searched for<br />
bunches of a red fruit (I forgot the name.) being sold<br />
at the side of the road. Mrs. Sandilands used them<br />
for making the most wonderful jam I have ever had.<br />
We even encountered a gorilla crossing the road near<br />
Sangmelima.<br />
<strong>Paul</strong> and Kribi Falls
M Y<br />
second<br />
y e a r<br />
Summer break finally came to an end and a new<br />
daily routine was about to began.<br />
Michel returned from France and Jean-Pierre, another<br />
teacher from France, joined the household. Carl had<br />
moved out to live on his own.<br />
There were new neighbors, too, who moved in next<br />
door. They were Serge and Pamala Canadas. He was a<br />
Frenchman and she was an American. They were new<br />
teachers at the lycee. There also was another French<br />
teacher in town, Jean-Claude, who lived a little distance<br />
from us.<br />
During my second year in Bafia, daily life got a<br />
lot easier. With additional house mates and neighbors to<br />
share the cost for many household expenses, I benefitted<br />
by being able to save a little money for extras.<br />
We were able to buy a used stove with an oven from<br />
one of the Greek families in the commercial center.<br />
We even got a small used refrigerator that worked<br />
using kerosene. Another luxury was the purchase of a<br />
portable typewriter which help me in making stencils<br />
for the copy machine. The most significant change<br />
came when Michel bought a car. Now I could now ride<br />
to school, use it for shopping, and explore other local<br />
as well as more distant parts of the country.<br />
Darleen and <strong>Paul</strong> in front of their house<br />
I took responsibility for supervising the<br />
household and began exploring different foods to put<br />
some variety in our food. I remember the first time I<br />
tried to make a pineapple upside cake. It took me five<br />
tries before I got it right.<br />
I discovered a new fruit, Safou, a small purple<br />
fruit that looks a lot like a small avocado because of the<br />
large seed in the middle and the pulp was green. I used<br />
to roast them and spread the green inner paste onto a<br />
piece of bread. I became addicted to the taste, and I<br />
have never tasted anything like it since.<br />
Pam and Serge’s house next door to ours
animals in Bafia for that matter. There were only the<br />
“Zebu,” cattle that were driven through town on their<br />
way south to market. There was no grazing land and<br />
the climate was too inhospitable, especially because of<br />
the Tsetze flies, which causes sleeping sickness.<br />
I remember Claude making a big commotion.<br />
As he rode into town he attracted a large group of<br />
children who had never seen a horse before. Some of<br />
the kids were actually terrified and ran away screaming.<br />
He kept the horse for a few day then it disappeared. I<br />
don’t really know what happened to it.<br />
My sister, Darleen, visited me during the last half<br />
of my second year. She was a student at the University<br />
of California, Berkley and was taking a semester off to<br />
visit me. She was supposed to stay only a short time,<br />
Darleen holding a charcoal iron<br />
in back of the house<br />
During or winter break Michel, Jean-Pierre,<br />
and Jean-Claude took a road trip to Waza, a game<br />
reserve in Northern Cameroon. I went to Yaounde<br />
to stay with other Peace Corps volunteers.<br />
Jean-Claude was an adventurer and a<br />
teacher. He was a free spirit who did what he<br />
wanted. During my second year, he went to North<br />
Cameroon with Michel and Jean Pierre to visit<br />
Waza, a wild national park. Two of them came<br />
home by car, but Jean-Claude came home on a<br />
horse. What a scene. Horses were a rarity. There<br />
were no large domesticated<br />
Michel, Serge, and Pam having breakfast on our porch<br />
but she managed to stay for six months<br />
and eventually she married Michel. She<br />
didn’t speak French and had a hard time<br />
communicating with Luc and Richard.<br />
Fortunately, Pam and Serge spoke English<br />
and Michel spoke enough English for<br />
basic communication. Darleen took<br />
on the job as volunteer in our school’s<br />
library.<br />
Jean-Claude and his horse
Traveling was always<br />
a challenge. We could not call<br />
ahead to tell someone that we<br />
were coming, or make hotel<br />
reservations, or stop at a<br />
restaurant on the way.<br />
We had to plan ahead<br />
as well as we could.<br />
We were part of a<br />
unofficial network<br />
of friends and<br />
colleagues around<br />
the country who<br />
expected unexpected<br />
visitors.<br />
Many times<br />
out-of-town visitors<br />
would show up at<br />
our door unexpected<br />
needing a place to<br />
stay for the night.<br />
They were always welcome and we always managed<br />
to feed and house them for the night.<br />
A<br />
TRIP<br />
to West Cameroon<br />
When travelling, we<br />
were always careful about<br />
what we ate and drank. As<br />
for water, there were no<br />
plastic water bottles so we<br />
relied a lot of bottled sodas,<br />
Coke, and warm beer. We<br />
brought sandwiches and lots<br />
of fruit. One “safe”<br />
food that we ate was<br />
grilled meats on a<br />
stick that we found<br />
along the way.<br />
Before the end of the<br />
second school year,<br />
Michel, Darleen,<br />
Pam, Serge, Jean-<br />
Claude, Jean-Pierre,<br />
and I decided to take<br />
a road trip to West<br />
Cameroon. We took<br />
Serge and Michel’s<br />
cars. Going to other<br />
parts of the country<br />
required a “laissez-passer” document from the police<br />
department. Everyone went to the police station to get<br />
The road between Bafia and Bagante
one, I didn’t have enough time to get one so I left Bafia<br />
without one.<br />
On this particular adventure we visited Bagante,<br />
Bafoussam, and Foumban in the French-speaking areas<br />
and Bamenda, the capital of English-speaking West<br />
Cameroon, and Victoria at the base of Mt. Cameroon<br />
on the coast.<br />
Our first stop was in Bagante. We visited a<br />
chieferie where the local chief and his many wives lived.<br />
It was an impressive compound made up of one large<br />
central building reserved for tribal meetings. The main<br />
building was highly decorated with wood carvings and<br />
painted symbols and designs. It was surrounded by<br />
smaller huts where I was told the chief’s many wives<br />
and children lived.<br />
Main meeting house<br />
The entrance to the chieferie<br />
Chieferie of Bagante
The city of Bafoussam<br />
Darleen with men in local dress<br />
House on the way to Bafoussam<br />
House on the way to Bafoussam
Next we drove to Baffousam. People<br />
in this part of the country looked different.<br />
They were from the Hauser or Fulani tribes<br />
who were tall and slender rather than from<br />
the Bantu tribes of the south who were mostly<br />
shorter and stocker. While in Bafoussam we<br />
heard about a celebration in Foumban, only a<br />
hour away.<br />
I don’t remember the name of the<br />
holiday, but we arrived right in the middle of<br />
a celebration. People in Foumban dressed in<br />
long robes whereas the people in the south<br />
wore mostly European style clothing. Unlike<br />
the population of the eastern part of the country,<br />
who waare mostly Christian, the people in an<br />
around the area are mostly Muslim. Foumban<br />
Parade in Foumban<br />
Celebration in Foumban
Bamun Sultan’s palace in Foumban<br />
is where the Bamun tribe lives<br />
and the local sultan has a palace<br />
there. We visited the sultan’s<br />
palace and watched the parade<br />
from there.<br />
The following day, on<br />
our way to Bamenda, the capital<br />
of West Cameroon, along a<br />
narrow mountain road our car<br />
was stopped and surrounded by<br />
group of soldiers with drawn gun<br />
demanding our papers. I didn’t<br />
have a laissez-passer and they<br />
let me continue with the group<br />
anyway. Having guns aimed<br />
at us made us feel extremely<br />
Michel (center) in front of the Bamun Sultan’s palace
uncomfortable. We had heard that there had been some<br />
local political unrest so we left the area as fast as we<br />
could.<br />
Bamenda was<br />
very different from<br />
the French-speaking<br />
part of the country.<br />
Before independence<br />
West Cameroon<br />
had been under<br />
the administration<br />
of the British and<br />
there were vestiges<br />
of their influence<br />
throughout the area.<br />
People actually<br />
spoke English as<br />
well as “Pidgin,”<br />
which is a language<br />
that borrows heavily<br />
from English. For<br />
example, “How<br />
you dai? I dai fine.<br />
I dai go fo my tong<br />
fo chop.” means “How are you today. I’m fine. I’m<br />
going home to eat.” It developed as a trading language<br />
and became a lingua<br />
franca spoken in<br />
eastern Nigeria, West<br />
Cameroon and in the<br />
areas around Douala,<br />
the country’s biggest<br />
port and largest city.<br />
Michel, Jean-Claude, a friend of our host, our host,<br />
Jean-Pierre, and Serge visiting a local village near Bamenda<br />
In Bamenda we<br />
stayed with friends<br />
of Michel, Serge, and<br />
Pam for a few days.<br />
Bamenda is located at<br />
a high altitude where<br />
it actually get cold<br />
at night. There was<br />
different vegetation,<br />
stone houses, and even<br />
horses. On a day trip,<br />
our hosts invited us<br />
to visit some of their<br />
Cameroonian friends<br />
in a nearby village.<br />
Darleen (left) and Pam (right) with<br />
children of our host and his friends
From there we went<br />
to Victoria, a seaside city<br />
with black sand beaches<br />
and refreshing breezes.<br />
We stayed at a hotel that<br />
had a swimming pool,<br />
walked along the beach,<br />
and ate all the seafood<br />
we could. It was a great<br />
ending for our vacation.<br />
On the way back to<br />
home, we drove through<br />
Douala and then onward<br />
to Yaounde and then<br />
finally back to Bafia.<br />
Shortly after our vacation, the school year was<br />
was winding down, and I started planning my trip back<br />
home. We said our good buys, gave away many of our<br />
house hold items, and went to Yaounde to wait for our<br />
flights home.<br />
Michel was the first to leave; he went to France<br />
to stay with his parents in Marseille. Darleen and I<br />
left shortly afterwards. We took a detour to visit Spain,<br />
Italy, and southern France before return to the USA.<br />
While were in France, we visited Serge and Pam in<br />
Pau, a city in southern France not far from the Spanish<br />
border. It was the feast of Saint Fermin in Pamplona<br />
so we all decided to attend a bull fight and experience<br />
the running of the bulls. We spent two days there, then<br />
visited San Sebastian where we gorged ourselves on<br />
Sunset on the way back to Bafia<br />
Paella.<br />
After a few weeks, I<br />
headed home alone<br />
and Darleen stayed<br />
with Michel and his<br />
family. Darleen and<br />
Michel eventually got<br />
married, moved to Paris<br />
where Michel got a job<br />
working for a bank and<br />
Darleen resumed her<br />
studies. She attended<br />
the Sorbonne and got<br />
a degree in English<br />
literature, which<br />
allowed her to begin a<br />
career teaching English in the French public school<br />
system. Over the next several years, they had three<br />
children, Raphael, Daniel, and Aurélie.<br />
It felt strange returning home alone, and my<br />
parents were less than thrilled that Darleen stayed<br />
in France. After my parents went to France to meet<br />
Michel’s family and attend Darleen and Michel’s<br />
wedding, their concerns disappeared. Over the years<br />
they returned to France many time to visit the new<br />
French branch of our family.<br />
I spent a month back home in Campbell,<br />
California then returned to volunteer for a third year in<br />
Yaoundé.<br />
A black sand beach of Victoria, West Cameroon
I moved from a<br />
M Y<br />
third<br />
small town to the big city.<br />
The change was dramatic,<br />
and I thought that life in<br />
Yaounde would be an<br />
improvement.<br />
During my first<br />
y e a r<br />
two months, I stayed at<br />
the Central Hotel near<br />
the train station. It was a hotel room and not a home.<br />
Staying there was unpleasant because I couldn’t cook,<br />
entertain, or do any other domestic persuits.<br />
Finally, after<br />
a lot of haggling and<br />
looking at lots of<br />
places, I settled in<br />
a small house near<br />
the Brasserie du<br />
Cameroun on the way<br />
to the airport. It was<br />
a square bungalowstyle<br />
house consisting<br />
of two bedrooms, a<br />
kitchen, bathroom,<br />
and living room. And<br />
it had electricity,<br />
running water, a stove<br />
with an oven, and a<br />
small refrigerator!<br />
Compared to my<br />
house in Bafia, it was<br />
paradise with all the<br />
conveniences I needed<br />
to live comfortably.<br />
The only negative was<br />
that I had to sleep on a<br />
straw mattress, which<br />
would eventually be<br />
one of the last straws<br />
that broke the <strong>Hamel</strong>’s<br />
back.<br />
Downtown Yaounde in 1971<br />
The house was<br />
fine, but not all was well. My neighborhood was in an<br />
industrial area where there was no sense of community.<br />
The area was a ten-minute drive from the center of town<br />
-- not in walking distance to anywhere I could do my<br />
most basic shopping. I had to take taxis everywhere<br />
because there were no buses. It cost 100 francs to go<br />
to school and then another 100 francs to go downtown<br />
to take care of erands,<br />
visit the Peace Corps<br />
office, visit friends, and<br />
to buy food. And another<br />
100 francs to get home.<br />
Eventually transportation<br />
cost amounted to more<br />
than I could afford.<br />
My new teaching<br />
assignment was as an instructor of technical English<br />
at the University of Cameroon in Yaoundé. I was<br />
not prepared for what I was supposed to do. I had<br />
taught basic English<br />
language skills at a<br />
secondary school, but<br />
I didn’t have a clue<br />
how to teach technical<br />
English. I managed<br />
to get some books<br />
on the subject and<br />
got some help from<br />
an Indian woman<br />
who taught the same<br />
kind of class. I didn’t<br />
feel competent, and I<br />
really struggled in this<br />
assignment. I didn’t<br />
feel that I fit in at the<br />
university. I knew<br />
nobody and never<br />
met with any other<br />
faculty members<br />
except the Indian<br />
instructor. I had no<br />
support, no training.<br />
I felt isolated and<br />
disconnected.<br />
I had made a few<br />
friends, but none<br />
were close. I couldn’t<br />
socialize very much<br />
due to the cost of<br />
constantly having pay for taxis. I stayed home alone<br />
and began to feel depressed and lonely.<br />
Not having enough money was a big challenge.<br />
I pleaded with the Peace Corps director to raise my<br />
allowance, but was the answer was always no. The end<br />
of the month was the worse. There were several times<br />
that I had to sell some of my personal items just to
get by. While visiting the USA before coming<br />
back for my third year, my parents gave me an<br />
electric razor. I sold it to one of my neighbors<br />
so that I would have enough money before my<br />
next check.<br />
I often wished I had stayed in Bafia.<br />
My isolation continued and my dissatisfaction<br />
with living and working in Yaoundé grew.<br />
Finally, I decided to end my third year a few<br />
months early and left in March.<br />
My life in Bafia was hard, but satisfying;<br />
my life in Yaounde was disappointing and<br />
gradually became unbearable.<br />
In September, 1974 I graduated from<br />
UCLA with a masters degree in Teaching<br />
English as a Second Language. Immediately<br />
afterwards, I returned to Africa—this time to<br />
Lumbumbasi, Zaire (now the “Republic of the<br />
Congo”) where I was a member of a team of<br />
English-language teachers from UCLA sent<br />
to teach in a three-month intensive language<br />
course for university administrators and<br />
professors from the University of Zaire.<br />
Over the next four decades I pursued<br />
a career in education specializing in Teaching<br />
English as a Second Language and in<br />
Educational Administration. I earned an<br />
additional master’s degree in Educational<br />
Administration and wrote ESL textbooks. For<br />
the 36 years I worked for the Los Angeles<br />
Unified School District where I served as an<br />
adult school instructor, coordinator, assistant<br />
principal, principal, and regional principal. I<br />
retired in 2009 and now I teach ESL part-time<br />
at the American Language Center at UCLA<br />
Extension.<br />
Over the last forty-two years my<br />
former fellow Peace Corps volunteers and I<br />
have developed a unique relationship. Every<br />
year we all send a letter to one of us who in<br />
turn publishes a booklet called “From Each to<br />
Each,” which allows us to stay connected.<br />
Now I am preparing my trip back to<br />
Bafia. Upon my return I plan on writing a<br />
second part of this memoir that will be deal<br />
with how I and Cameroon have changed over<br />
the last four decades.