Le Cameroun est l'Afrique en Miniature!
I left Cameroon 2 months ago, and since then I had promised myself to write something about the last moments of my live there. Ok, like usual I had the typical excuses of ‘no time’, ‘no mood for today’, but someday it would be the time to see the old pictures and to realise that I was there... even I would have never expected to be there, at least not for almost 1 year.

As expected, my main motivational motor for coming here was the opportunity for travelling. But why travelling ??? interesting question, since at the end how important should be to take pictures to every old churche or famous building in somewhere thousand kilometers far away from home ? I mean, besides me, who cares? Definitively it is not about telling others ‘look, I was here’, but to meeting people and saying ‘look, I come from this place’. I think that the second one is more exciting.

Travelling in Cameroon has been one of the best learning experiences I have ever had in this intent of independency (alright, the concept of learning experience might sound very familiar to most of my friends). Anyway, it was not only taking a bus or a train and going somewhere unknown, but also getting to know new people everyday and to realise how interesting can be to value what I have, only by the time that I don’t have it... Landscapes and food in Cameroon are wonderful, and still I could remind me about the rainforest in Peru. My god ! I have realised that in Peru I can find almost everything which is available in the world ! (I think I should call this text ‘Le Peru est le monde en miniature’). Coming back to my african temporally home country, I still remember quite good the weekend I went to Mont Cameroun, that bunch of earth of 4070 meters above sea level and all that nature I saw there. Of course the ascension had to be done by walking... from the rain forest, the climate and flora changed together with the altitude and by 2000 mts it was possible to see the savana, by 3000 mts it was very cold, and on the top I could just see rocks and to receive a freezing wind... something like being in the moon at night. Mont Cameroun was borned due to constant volcanic activity in the region (this mountain appears alone in that whole region, like an island in the middle of the rain forest), because of this, it is still possible to see some vulcan activity close to the top and even black sand. The landscape is just amazing (I definitively love mountains), green and black hills one after the other, with an overview of the sea and the main cities of Buea and Douala. A couple of NGOs are trying to develop eco-tourism in this region, I am totally glad to hear about any kind of environmental initiative, but it is still cool to feel that I was walking in a region, where few visitors come...

Some months later I went also to another region in Cameroon, full of mountains, but more crowed with cities and town (and tourist initiatives which mainly try to get as much money as possible from the rare foreigners that come to visit). The North West of Cameroon is well know for being the touristic focus of the country... it is important to understand, that tourist focus is meant in the sense that it has enough hotels and infraestructure for receiving people aiming to have relax and to travel with comfort in a car, and surrounded by lots of towns with markets for souveniers and ‘musicians’ and ‘kings’. All this is then not relevant at all for me. Well, yeah, Bafoussam and other surrounding cities are nice... like usual, I had to be quite careful when purchasing things, since people tended to take the best price (let’s say, they thought I was a rich guy from France). One of the nicest experiences was to stay in a friend’s family, something that I am not that used to... it is very nice, because in such a way, I complement this lack of moments with my family, while visiting the family of others. As we think, distance strenghts relationships...

Another region that I found really exciting in Cameroon was the North. This upper half of the country is really different from the souther rain forest, where most citizens life. This Sahel zone is simply the closest to the Sahara, and thus, climate and geography are more difficult for people (at least for the ones like me, which are very used to facilities). There is not much water, it is extremely hot and very poor. Most of the people here are muslims, so it is quite common that buses make stops in the middle of the road, so people can get down and pray for some minutes. Since I was not praying, I used to pick up some delicious mangos and to buy some water. This was however, my first direct contact with Islam...

In between I had been doing small travels to other towns close to Douala and Yaounde. But every town I see and every landscape I enjoy, reminds me to Peru... I swear, my home country has every single geographical attraction that I can imagine.

On the 28/07/2006 it was the time to say good bye to Cameroon... I have been thinking for many nights about my how I felt when leaving... it is true that I would miss lots of things, but I also was quite happy going to Germany, visiting a couple of friends and coming back to some confort. Sub-Saharan Africa is definitively a very hard place to live and this has enforces my passion for economics around developing issues. I still believe that the private entrepreneurship is the simple base for development, however poverty can not be saw just on articles or on the TV. I think it can be very exciting to work in development, while having fun. If everyone could have the chance to go there, for sure much more would be done for the world... by enjoying it.

An unexpected travel to India and Kenya

An unexpected travel to India and Kenya

I had headache during the whole day. When asking to my collegue at work, I confirmed that it was because of the heat. This means, if somebody works too much, the heat and tireness start kicking the head as a ball in a Cameroonian football match. So, not even the global economical interests but also the weather does not let me work!!!

Anyway, I wanted actually to write something about a past travel made to India and Kenya, because of the International Conference of AIESEC (the biggest during the whole year). After many discussions in my team (we were 7 aiming to flight, but only 3 places to cover), they accepted me to go there as vice president for Incoming Exchange.

Getting the visa was already a big issue (but not that interesting for writing it here), anyway, Habib (our National AIESEC President) flew first to India and Shanice and I spent 2 days later on our way to Nairobi (Kenya), for finally having a scale in Mumbai before arriving to our final destination in New Dehli. I always considered myself quite well know about Indian stuff (delicious food, Mahatma Gandhi, Taj Mahal, more than 1 billion inhabitants), but I did not expect to learn sooo much during the travel, because we would be almost the whole day in the hotel (well, the most beautiful one I have ever so far). I was also happy, because it could offer meanwhile some extra time for finding an accommodation in Douala (Camerooun).

We arrived to Nairobi early in the morning for having a delicious breakfast, then we slept 3 hours in the waiting hall (I learned how much comfortable it was after several weeks without having my own room!) and in the evening we took a flight to Mumbai. There was a nice indian film, which was actually very similar to the latin american “telenovelas - soap operas” (the rich guy finding a poor girl, with a great heart! finally leaving his job in the NASA for living in the village with her and constructing a small electricity power station). Since I was quite emotional for the last 8 weeks, I almost drop a cry in front of Shanice (who was watching his american film about gansters and hollywood). Diversity rocks!

We arrived at 1am to India (very hot!), quite hungry and exhausted. We received our tickets and we waited 4 more hours until our plane to New Dehli was prepared. I was so excited for having my first newspaper in hindi that I almost tried to read it, without success! I could also understand though some tittles about the USA, Bollywood (I wonder why it is called in that way), China and Sri Lanka. By the way, some persons approached me in Hindi!!! (I does not surprise me, since my whole has thought during my whole life that I have some Arabic roots... so I am an arabic africano nowadays). Some small problems with my passport and we finally got the flight and arrived to New Dehli at noon. What a beatiful city!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least up there from the plane. And I did not know that cars drive on the left side, lots of moto taxis like in Peru and people trying to get as much money as possible from the rich tourists...

A guy offered to carry us to Agra (our final destination), for "only" 94 USD, but something suggested us that this was not fair :) So we just took a taxi to the bus station and we got our 2 places in an old bus for 3 USD. Now it was really hot!!! I was almost happy that the bus was running like in hurry, because of the fresh wind. We could see almost every 5 minutes a monument or mosquee, a couple of camels, monkeys and lot of people eating flat bread with vegetables. Of course, I tried one of them! (fortunately without health consequences).

When finally in Agra, we took a last taxi to the hotel and before dying from exhausting we received our keys and the commitment to assist to the conference, since this had already started.

I will not take so much time writing about the International Conference, you might expect what happened there... lots of sessions, people from all over the world (includying Afghanistan) trying to change the world, cool parties and good food (at least from my point of view, because some friends were disspointed for not finding so much meat as usual).

After the conference, we still had 2 days for visiting India, so we had to hurry up!!! After watching the Taj Mahal in 15 minutes, we took quickly a train that brought us back to New Dehli. We lost the flight, but fortunately they accepted to take us the next day, so we took a shower and slept at the airport. Next morning, the flight took us back to Mumbai, where I finally had the chance to see something about this exotic country. The first day was not that exciting… we had the bad idea to rent a guy with his taxi, so he started showing us a couple of malls and jewelry stores. We tried to explain him that we wanted to see something more hindi, so he drove us to a museum of Ghandi, another one about the history of India (with cool very cool pictures! Everything so religious and mysthic!). I was anyway so exhausted that I fell asleep on the way back home. In the night there were some people to see some people in the streets, because there was a fest (I forgot the name, but their God looked something like a mixture of an elephant, snake and mouse). I got some rice with vegetables for dinner, and Shanice his sandwich with jam and cheese. We picked up some fruits to the hotel and just went to sleep early in the night.

The next day, we did surely some changes to our plans!!! Shanice and Habib went directly to the airport, so I decided to give them a couple of my bags and I start going with no direction in Mumbai... literally I just took a small map and asked somebody if it was far way from the hotel. That day was a real one! I took one of those funny red buses that dropped me close to the next train station… I definitively love trains! Full of people, no doors on the sides, women and girls with hennas (paintings in the arms and legs), men bringing big packages with products to sell in the market, etc. I was really amazed to know that there is such a good train system in India, almost to every single corner of the cities. After 30 minutes I decided to get out of the train and saw a small market 100 meters far away from me, so I just decided to get it… then I found thousand things to buy!!! From socks to small kitchens and of course all types of spices from so many different colors. I tested also some sweets, hygienic conditions seemed not to be the best, but fortunately my Cameroonian stomach was already prepared for this… what else? People all around, even sleeping close to the railways (the first thing that came to my mind: lots of them living in the streets!!! This is 10 times bigger than my hometown Lima!).

Then I tried another train... it brought me to another market... the elephant/snake/mouse God everywhere! In this second town I found a mosque, so beautiful!!! And I had never been inside one! After asking somebody, I took off my shoes, start walking in the cold white floor and saw so many elder men discussing and it seemed they were having a rest. I wanted so much to learn Hindi!! Curiously there was a man from Ivory Coast there, so we had a chat for some minutes in French, which was really delighting for me... for eating just a kind of sandwich (always spicy of course) and my favorite juice of sugar can (with lemon) and another one of orange... it was 3 pm, so I still had some hours to discover Mumbai... walking forward, cows all over the roads, lots of children, moto taxis, etc. The next train took me back to the center of Mumbai (I guess so!), and there I found (again) a market with a quite chick mall, where I decided to buy some clothes (of course!)... there I spent my last rupees… but I did not realize it until later on.

Other 2 hours of walk, small chats with people in order to get an idea how to get in the next hours to the airport... I don’t know how I arrived at 7pm to the beach and I saw my last big mosquee. An extraordinary white building in the middle of the ocean… for getting there there was a small road connecting the coast to that mosque... delighting! I started my walk and during this I could see so many families and friends going together to that place, like guys and girls in Peru when going to a disco! At my arrival, I was really exhausted and amazed about the beauty of this white palace... I walk to one of the spaces looking to the beach, I sat down and finally, I took off my shoes and I finally realized that I WAS IN INDIA. Many things came to my mind... I started remembering lots of friends and relatives, parts of my trips in Europe and Peru… and now for a small moment of my life in this part of the world. The weather warm and the waves calm, people from my age speaking with the others like having a rest...

It was more than 9 pm, and I had finally to go back home... but after 30 minutes, I could not find any bus to the airport!!! I started asking more and more people, finally I realized that my bus was not running anymore and the most logical way would be a taxi... but I didn’t have money for that!!! And even English is the official language, most people could hardly speak with me. Yes, I started to feel nervous.

One guy tried to help me, but finally he had also to leave, so he took 20 rupees from his pocket (about 2,5 euros) and gave them to me before leaving... After spending my last money with the last train and bus, I finally used the 20 rupees for getting the last moto taxi… and of course I had to bargain! When I arrived to the airport at 11pm, I had then finally 1 rupee in my pocket (as souvenir) and many times came to my mind the same question: how lucky am I that this guy helped me out? does HE exist??

Shanice and Habib were having a rest in the airport... I could finally wash my hands and face and looked at me in the mirror... like a man of 30 years old. About 4 hours later our plane brought us to Kenya, where we spent one more day before coming back to Douala.

Kenya was only one day... too short, but actually it was really comfortable to sleep in a cool hotel with a good lunch and many facilities... while making a walk, I found members of a local committee in AIESEC Nairobi, so there I got to know Leah and we made some tourism during the rest of the day. Yeah! Really nice! Visiting a couple of shops, a big park, having a big break there, speaking a lot about Kenya, Cameroon, Peru... in the evening we got a coffee and then we decided to go out in the night... unfortunately on that evening I had a really bad headache and the evening finalized with TV and some chats before falling asleep.

Early in the morning it was time to go back to the airport, after some hours traveling we finally landed in Douala, nobody was waiting for us in the airport, but in our office. I still had this headache for 2 days, but I will never know if it was an illness or just the heat and tiredness… my friends gave me anyway tablets against Malaria and I felt better...

This is what I would call more or less an amazing travel to India and Kenya, 2 countries, 2 continents in 2 weeks...