Report

"You can never be homesick in Cameroon", said an Algerian lady I met in Yaoundé. And true enough, the Cameroonians welcomed me into their country and lives with warmth and affection. Certainly among the most affable people I've ever met, they charmed me with their zest for life and ability to laugh even through the toughest of difficulties.

Apart from the smiling faces, images of rich red soil, waving cornfields, misty mountains, arid Sahelian, dark rainforests, and spicy cuisine, form a colorful kaleidoscope of my fond memories of Cameroon.

Cameroon is all about contrasts. From the impenetrable rainforests in the south, to the arid semi-desert to the north, from extreme poverty, to tremendous generosity, from fancy cars to shanty town mud houses, from acute corruption to eagerness to share, from lack of democracy to egalitarianism. And, like the country, my summer was all about contrasts.

It struck me that life in Cameroon could be so beautiful and so ugly, so difficult and yet so easy and work so rewarding and so frustrating, all at the same time. But I took in the experience with all my senses. And although my senses were overloaded at times, it proved to be one unusual and wonderful summer.For most part, the only friends I had were the Cameroonians, and the assimilation in their culture was complete. Soon I was speaking like them, eating like them, dressing like them and even learning to cook like them. Having befriended the director's cook, I started spending some Saturday afternoons learning to cook a la Camerounaise! Armed with my notebook and plenty of curiosity, I would peer in to inquire about the menu, and hence the lesson of the day. Although there are no guarantees of my Cameroonian culinary skills, my notebook is full of recipes and memories of interesting afternoons.

If my gustatory senses were satisfied by Cameroonian cuisine, the rhythm and beat of the country were certainly music to my ears. The makossa and the bikutsi rhythms are not only captivating, but ingrained in Cameroonian culture. The people love music, and they love to dance. At most social occasions - be it weddings, communions, birthdays, or even funerals - you will find young and old rubbing shoulders and dancing into the night. And the beat and the ambience are infectious enough to draw you to the dance floor. And if you can't quite manage the makossa, rest assured that several willing instructors will show you how!

Intellectually, working as an intern for IUCN, introduced me to several issues involved in sustainable development and conservation. Although the projects pertained to the Congo Basin, the lessons learnt can be applied in development situations elsewhere

My duties included developing a fund-raising strategy and campaign for the Central African regional office, developing program ideas for a future Environmental Radio station, and other miscellaneous activities related to the communications department.

I worked on creating an easy-to-access database of foundations, comprising foundation philosophy, past giving patterns, deadlines, and more. The idea was to include relevant information so that potential funders for any given project could be identified at a flip of the page. We also wrote some proposals to obtain funds for the Environmental Radio and developed some program ideas for the radio station. I also helped with other day-to-day activities and wrote for their in-house magazine.

Travelling around the country introduced me to a rich diversity, not only in landscape, but also in culture. From the rainforest and ocean to the south east, to the mountains in the west, from the savannahs and the semi-desert in the north to floodplains further north, more contrasts were in store. The rains were just setting in when we visited the north. Following a huge downpour, the whole landscape seemed to change right before my eyes. In only a couple of hours, the scrubby yellow plains were completely transformed into muddy floodplains, bursting at their seams with water. I was told that the numerous parched and dried up rivers would be metamorphosed into rippling rivers in just a couple of weeks.

There were too, security concerns. This prevented me from moving about as and when I wanted. As a foreigner, I had to take constant care, which became a little frustrating at times. Moreover, I would often be taken advantage of monetarily, even by friends. Although I was initially disappointed, I soon figured that it did not mean that they cared any less about me. They just seemed to live by a slightly different moral standard and it was acceptable to cheat a little, even from family.

Yet when I look back on my experiences in Cameroon, it amazes me that I was so much at home in a culture so different from my own. And when I look for reasons, I find only one - the Cameroonian bonhomie. It was this that allowed me to assimilate into their culture and that was the most fun part for me. Learning fragments of their dialects, and even Cameroonian Pidgin English, listening to stories of totems and sorcery (in which they all seemed to believe), sharing the soccer fever during the World Cup, discovering the flavours of their cuisine (including hedgehog!!). The list could go on endlessly... Truly, to squeeze into a few lines the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations of this summer of contrasts, seems impossible.

And now, even if I am a continent away from Cameroon, the summer comes alive through the memory of a smell, a vibrant color, or a lively Makossa beat... Truly, in tune with the Cameroonian goodbye expression which translates as "we're together", and illustrates the typical solidarity, "On est ensemble". And always so.

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