Updates and Elections

Friday, October 8, 2004

Quick update on the situation of those involved in the accident... Ryan has made a miraculous recovery, and he stopped by my house for a minute on his way back to his post. It was really wonderful to see him up and well again. Everyone else has, in fact, been released from the hospital except for Kristina. Kristina is continuing to improve little by little and can apparently ask questions (non-verbally) and understand responses when she is "awake". Everyone is very encouraged. Thank you to all who have written and/or kept her in your thoughts and prayers.

As I've returned to Edéa and tried to continue somewhat normally, interesting things continue to happen...

Alain, my friend from the post office, who wants to go to the US, came by my house for a while the other day. He was very excited since he had just received his Cameroonian passport good for five years. This is the first step in his plan to leave here. He wants my help since he's convinced that I can get him a visa to come to the US (I can't). He's spent a lot of money on his passport (about twice his monthly salary= about $110) and I do want to help him, so we're going to the US Embassy together in a couple of weeks to find out how this might be possible. I think he's much better off going to Canada, but he doesn't know anyone there. What he really wants to do is live with me...

This is also election time in Cameroon. In the run-up to the elections, things have been very quiet in Edéa. There are 16 candidates running for president (to my surprise, there were nine candidates listed on my absentee ballot for the US). Supposedly only about four of these are "national" candidates, in this country the size of California. I won't get into any political statements here (considering my readership, that could send me home), but suffice it to say that the reigning president, who has been in place for the last 21 years, is running against a fractured field. There appears to be at least one candidate for every major religion and every major tribal group? The results w?ll be known a week after the elections, which have been called for Monday.

As in most countries, election day here is a national holiday. Not only do people not work, they're not allowed to go anywhere either. To counter election fraud, they shut down the roads so that people can't be shuttled from one city to the next to vote multiple times.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

The election was yesterday, and at least in Edea, things were calm. I had talked to enough people to find out that apathy was widespread as the results, it was generally felt, were predetermined. In fact, according to a BBC broadcast last night, there were fewer than 4 million votes cast in a country of about 17 million. Again, its important to state that I'm not giving any opinions, just the facts as I know them.

Will and I spent a quiet weekend at my house, and cooked a mini-Thanksgiving dinner with roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and chocolate pudding (thanks Mom!) for dessert. Sadly, there was no big screen TV with american football.