CAMEROON!

Written on 10th May 2009

Hey everyone,

Long time no blog – apologies! I hope this finds you all very well and having had a great Easter (yes I know it was almost a month ago, but I still wanted to say it)

Ok, as usual I’ve just returned from more travels – Cameroon this time! (I promise I will do some work soon – we start back tomorrow and we have a meeting… blah blah blah – will tell you about that in a bit)

No, actually let’s look forward first of all and then I’ll witter on about Cameroon. College now basically runs until the end of June with some exams, so during that period work I’ll be involved in includes some of the following:

- Behaviour Management workshops for the second year students who will be on teaching practice for all of the next academic year.
- Observing current third year students who are in their final term of teaching practice and then working with individual/groups on areas they could improve on.
- Bright Stars – classes with the local children who do not attend school on a regular basis.
- FAB – the organisation we are in the process of setting up to try and provide support for the Babies Home, hopefully the website should be up and running soon so I’ll post the link as soon as it is so those who are interested will be able to find out more. (Ooh, I’ve just booked myself in to run the Nottingham half marathon in September as a fundraiser for this project – although having gone running for the first time in 7 weeks this morning I think I have a LOT of work to do!)

So that’s just a few of the bits and pieces I’ll be getting up to, my target for these next weeks is to actually take photos of all of this which as most of you know will be a royal trauma for me who avoids taking pictures at all costs…

Right, onto Cameroon – now I’ll try not to bore you, but I was there for a month so…

Ok right having eventually got down to Accra (see previous blog!) I got to the airport fine and caught my first flight to Lagos (fine, except for having to go through immigration and a load of crap in Lagos – why you ask? Good question – I was just in transit! However, it did serve to waste a couple of hours(!) in my layover) and then the next flight to Douala – all good. However it was here that the real trouble started! As Ghana does not have a Cameroonian embassy I did not have a visa, instead I had a formal letter of invitation which had been stamped by the Commissaire in Yaounde (capital of Cameroon) which should have allowed me to buy my visa at the airport - ‘should have…’ Having arrived I was sent to collect my bags whilst my passport was passed on to immigration. My bag had arrived fine so I then asked where to go to get my visa and was taken out of the airport (where Grahame was waiting patiently) and then taken into departures to the Police section. Here my papers were looked at and shortly after pronounced to be inadequate and that I was to be deported immediately! Apparently the immigration rules have changed since January (before which my paperwork would have been just fine) and they were not happy and marched me straight up to put me back on the plane I had just got off of! However, unfortunately with me still hobbling from my motorcycle accident it took off before we got there. So we were marched back to the Police section where we had to see the Commissaire and with my poor understanding of French the only bits I really understood were: “Vendredi, á onze heure.” Friday at 11:00; that being when the next flight was and they wanted me on it. Now to begin with they weren’t going to let me out of the airport, but they relented and did let me go to hotel after confiscating my passport…

So this started the mission of getting my visa… basically the long and short of it is that I did get my visa 9 days later (just as I was about to change my return date and deport myself!) we had to get the British High Commission involved (and I have to say Constance was absolutely fantastic – your taxes are being spent well!) who then enabled me to stay put whilst we were waiting for the accore (the right paperwork). Meanwhile we just had to hang around in Douala, well I say hang around; by that I mean stay in the hotel - a Catholic Mission where we were woken by the sound of mass being sung at 6:30 each morning. Thankfully it had a swimming pool so we were able to swim, but besides that it was a very quiet week – reading, playing cards, swimming and eating.

Anyway, we finally managed to escape the Mission on Good Friday and started the long journey to L’Extreme Nord where Grahame lives; 4 hour bus journey to Yaounde (very nice), overnight train to N’Gaoundere (15 hours and quite comfortable) and then finally a 9 hour minibus ride to Yagoua where 5 of you are squished together onto a seat made for 4! Saying that it was fine and Grahame and I got seats where you’re not half on one and half on another which would have been uncomfortable to say the least…

The next couple of weeks we were based in Yagoua - where Grahame works – so he went to work and then we went off on trips at the weekends to Maga, Maroua, Douroum, oh and CHAD!! Yes, another country without a visa… Well not really, we went on a pirogue ride along the Logone (the river which is the border between Cameroon Chad) and the guy let us get out on the Chad side for 10 minutes so we could say we’ve been there! Whilst we were there we were discussing what the criteria for saying you’ve been to a country should be? A visa? A drink? Leaving the airport? Climbing a tree? Well, if the fourth option works for you then I’ve been to Chad! If you’ve got any funny thoughts let me know.

Well, I think I’ve probably wittered on enough for one blog entry so I’ll tell you all about that in the next entry.

I hope you’re well.

Take care, Sam xxx