The last trip went by unbelievably fast. Lise, the Cameroonian student I'm working with, was even more work-crazed than she normally is, desperate to finish so she could get back to Yaounde in time for a reunion. I was happy for her to leave early, but the Prof (who was in Yaounde but often on the phone to Lise) decreed that we must return together, and it seems his word is sacred. So we were working in the plots from 7-5 each day, not counting travelling time, with a grudging 10 minutes for lunch, and on the last day we had to put in 3 hours from 6:30 to 9:30am, before tackling the 10 hour drive back to Yaounde. We got back on Tuesday night and as you can imagine all I did yesterday was sleep!
Talking about sacred, religion seems to play a huge role in people's lives here, none more so than for Lise and the Prof. Every year they celebrate Lent in what seemed to me a surprisingly Islamic way, by fasting until 6pm each day. With the tough physical work in the forest I have no idea how they can do it. They also get up at 4am each morning to spend an hour reading the bible. As I said, religion is important to them!
The relationship between Lise and the Prof seems much closer to father-daughter than supervisor-student. She is treated just like a member of the family. I admit I am slightly envious. But they are alike in many ways, other than their religiosity and dedication to their work. They are both very no-nonsense, seemingly hard people. I was surprised at the abruptness of their bargaining style - just demanding a price and very rarely accepting any other offer. (I found it fitting that the French translation of 'to ask' is 'demander'). But the Prof has the air of a patron, while Lise makes it very clear she doesn't approve of me.
I came to feel that their no-nonsense approach garners a lot more respect than my attempted friendliness. To be honest I've found it a lot harder than usual to deal with the inequalities of wealth between myself and most people here - especially as I have been in charge of paying some of the guys working for us and deciding how much they should get. This is a process fraught with difficulty, especially when you pay someone and they declare that it is not enough and they deserve more. At this point Lise normally steps in to quell the dissent.
After the first trip I felt guilty that I been too stingy and not appreciated the guides work. So I determined to be more generous next time, but then it was pretty clear they were trying to take advantage of me, which didn't feel good. This third time I think I got it right at last.
The second and third trips were in the Anglophone region of Cameroon, and I was really looking forward to being able to communicate properly and take a full part in conversations. But while the French spoken in the Francophone region seems grammatically perfect, in the Anglophone region the main lingua franca is actually Pidgin, which is so different to English I can't understand it any better than French or Spanish. One phrase I remember because I understood it completely and it shows the different approach to tenses: "No pass here morning time." The guys could mostly understand me but their fluency in standard English was very variable - often they were better at French. Plus of course they would speak one or two native dialects as well, putting me to shame as usual.
One thing I've enjoyed here - the music is way better than in Bolivia. Having to listen to the same two CD's repeating again and again on a series of long journeys is enough to put you off any style of music (the shitty romantic covers sent me mad in Bolivia), but here I actually liked one of them so much I went out and bought some CD's in Yaounde. Even the cheesy pop music has an attraction. One of my favourite tracks has these classic lyrics in the chorus:
'Somebody say ooh girl...ooh girl...
You are my African Queen,
The girl of my dream
Take me where I've never been
Make my heart go ding-a-ling-a-ling.'
In terms of the political atmosphere here it's also a huge change from Bolivia. That was a very restive democracy, where if you wanted something done you organised a week-long road blockade to protest about it. Here it's a long-standing autocracy. The events in North Africa are on the news here but don't seem to resonate at all with the population. The next Presidential elections are due in October and already preparations by the ruling party are going full steam ahead. On our first trip we witnessed a staged event with a group of women from the village wearing dresses bearing the President's portrait and singing songs urging people to vote for him. On the second trip we could barely find a room to stay in because they were all taken up by a group of local chiefs that were in town for a meeting with an important minister. The snazziest buildings I've seen in Yaounde belong to the Office of the Prime Minister. And two other monstrosities stand half-finished because the politician who was building them (I think his title was Secretary-General to the Presidency) got jailed for corruption first. One time as we drove past I noticed a women hanging out washing in one of the unglazed first-floor windows.
