Rollin' along- part III

RETURN OF THE BUSINESS SEMINARS
Due to popular demand (the bank's board president pretty much demanded it), I decided to do an abbreviated series of four seminars during the month of March. Taking the four most popular from the first go-round, I began with an attendance of 35 for "How to start a business", and did my least favorite, but most important subject of "Accounting Basics" this week. This time around, we're going a little deeper, and are following a real-life example to help folks see the lessons "in practice".

To advertise the seminars, I designed a sign to put over the road that leads to the market. Since there's no local newspaper, that's how you get the word out about something. It was put up a couple of days before the first seminar, but unfortunately was torn down by a large truck passing a few days later. Luckily, I at least took a couple of pictures of it beforehand.


TRIP TO THE VILLAGE OF KELLY-BITCHOKA
Living in the rather large city of Edéa, I don't get a whole lot of opportunity to get out to the small villages. The treasurer of our bank has been begging me for quite a while to come out and see her village, which is a couple of hours away by slow train from Edéa. Finally our schedules allowed a trip out, and I was warned to bring drinking water and lots of bug repellent.

I met Jacqueline (the treasurer) at the train station early Saturday morning, and after many delays, arrived at the station where her brother met us with a pickup to continue on to the family house. Of course, we had to stop and have lunch with the local catholic priest (Jacqi has a brother who will be ordained in July and a sister who is, well, a sister). We finally arrived after an hour of poor muddy roads (we had to get out and push the truck out of the mud three times). As you might imagine, there's not a whole lot to do in a small village. After touring around and drinking a beer, there was lots of sitting and occasional talking while the rest of the family caught up in the local language. One of the highlights was hanging out with one of the small boys down by the creek where they get drinking water and bathe. Its quite pretty down there. I was also shown the palm oil press and the small family palm oil plantation near the house.

Grandma gave me a couple of bottles of peanuts to take back home, and we ate a whole lot of river fish while there. As we were leaving, I gave the boy who took me down to the creek my baseball hat, which we adjusted and he wore with a big smile on his face. On the road back to Edéa (we drove back rather than wait for the train), we stopped a number of times. Once a village elder stopped the truck to give us (and me) some bananas and papayas. Another time, we stopped to have a cup of palm wine with the aging local deaf-mute traditional dancer (he feels the vibrations). It was a lot more fun coming back than the weekend had been, but overall, a great experience.


OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD
It wasn't exactly the yellow brick road, but I headed out last week to meet the General Manager of CAMCCUL, the bank network with which I am affiliated. My good friend Cathy, whose bank is also in the same network, had set up the meeting for Saturday morning with Mr. Niba, the equivalent of the CEO, at the bank headquarters in Bamenda. As much as I like Bamenda (the weather is at least 15 degrees cooler at all times, and they speak english), its about a 10 hour trip each way from Edéa. So, I decided to make a real trip out of it and accomplish a few other things on the way. Immediately after my seminar on Wednesday afternoon, I headed out for Yaoundé two hours away. I arrived to find my friend Jen in the process of leaving the country after getting tired of being harrassed and deciding that teaching math to high schoolers was not her favorite thing in the world. The next day, I got up to meet with the director and the acting director of the business program to discuss the upcoming training, among other subjects.

I left in the early afternoon, following a nice farewell lunch with Jen, and arrived later than I had hoped for at my family's house in Bandjoun. I had called them on the way to let them know of my delay, so I arrived to find dinner almost on the table. Of course, momma had prepared one of my favorite of her dishes, spaghetti with fried fish. yum. I arrived at the house in the dark to find a lot of excited kids. They were so happy to see me, and I, them. I had brought them a dozen coconuts from Edéa, which they can't get up there, so they were pretty happy with that as well. Because of my late arrival, even the smallest kids stayed up way past their bedtime. Soon after, I went to sleep in my old room.

The next morning, I took a freezing-cold bucket bath, and went to the market (I had lucked out and it was market day) to see my old friend, the window and mirror seller, Jean-Guy. I hadn't called to let him know I was coming, since I didn't know if I'd have time to stop by. He was thrilled to see me, and we talked for a bit, before I had to take off for Baffoussam. On the way out of town, momma handed me a large market bag filled with oranges and pineapples. She said that I couldn't leave town empty-handed. Smiling, I got in a taxi, and headed off to meet my friends for lunch. When I arrived at the restaurant, there were six volunteers from all over having a beer and waiting for the food. I slipped in my order and proceeded to catch up on all the volunteer gossip- of which there is always quite a bit. Following lunch, we all went our separate ways. I promised to meet them for a St. Patty's Day party if I possibly could...

The bus to Bamenda was a good time since they were almost all anglophone and they knew Peace Corps. They even complimented me on my pidgin, which I don't get to speak that often. I got to the Mondial hotel, which has a good discount for Peace Corps and headed to the shower. Shortly afterwords, Cathy showed up after coming directly from Kumba. We headed out to see her friend, Geraldine and then to dinner. Geraldine wasn't around (and her mobile phone had been stolen), so we left word with the neighbors and had a chicken dinner while watching the brand-new MTV-Africa on a big-screen TV with sattellite hook-up. One of the shows we caught was 'Punk'd', which I had heard about but never seen. Ashton is a terrible actor! And not only that, the skits are completely ripped off from Alan Funt (may he rest in peace)!

The meeting with the General Manager started early the next morning (following beans and boiled potatoes for breakfast) at the headquarters building. The GM showed up pretty much on time, and we started out with introductions. Three hours later, we had finally made it through the agenda, and the GM asked us out to a tasty lunch.

After lunch, we left the GM and made it over to the handicrafts cooperative (started by Peace Corps volunteers some forty years ago). I bought a traditional hat and a nice carved stool while Cathy bought a number of small gift items. We then headed back to Baffoussam where we met up with a couple of volunteers and had a few drinks before heading off to sleep, preparing for the long return to Edéa.


IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT...
Teaching continues to be a welcome break coming twice a week. I recently taught my younger kids how to do comparisons in english (as in, my father is older than my mother). Alexandre, a young kid with imagination to spare, read out the comparison that he had composed, "A dinosaur is taller than a coconut tree". I couldn't help but smile.

My older kids are in the process of learning "Do-Re-Mi". I'm hoping to do some kind of end-of-year concert with the four or five songs that I've been able to teach them. And yes, "If you're happy and you know it" is one of them. They particularly like the verse that ends "shout out loud!".


AND FINALLY...
Spring has sprung, even here in Cameroon, just three degrees off the equator. How do we know? Well, mangoes have arrived in the market, mating monkeys are easier to find and kill for food (there's been a marked increase available for sale), and the music man has come to town. Almost like the annual showing of 'The Sound of Music', the music man peddles his specially equipped three-wheeled bicycle (I suppose that would make it a tricycle, wouldn't it?) around town selling religious music on cassette, CD and Video CD (brilliantly, he always arrives just before Easter). This bicycle is equipped with a display case on each side, attached somehow to the frame, with a single megaphone-shaped loud-speaker at the top, announcing his arrival with African gospel music. Needless to say, his arrival is greatly anticipated, and he does quite a lot of business. After a week or so, he peddles on to the next town. The cycling music man of Cameroon is indeed a sign that ingenuity lives in people around the world.