|
Letter from Cameroon
Spring 2003 |
Dickinson student Dana MacPhee '04 spent the spring 2003 semester in Cameroon, Africa. In March, she sent an e-mail to friends and faculty members describing some of her experiences.
|
| Click on image to view larger photo and hold mouse over for description. |
"Houses for Habitat in Mban"
Sent on: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 9:12 AM
Memekili, I don't know if that's the correct spelling or not, but "Memekili" means "good morning" in the local patois of the Eton people who live in the center province. I spent this past weekend in Mban, a village located about an hour's drive to the northwest of Yaoundé.
Over a month ago Johna and I were in a cab when we met a man who was a professor at the University. He invited us to his house, which happens to be only a block from the apartment. We talked to him and his wife and found out that his wife volunteers with Habitat for Humanity International-Cameroon. Just about three weeks ago, Johna and I visited the Habitat office in order to speak to the director and see if there was anything we could help do. He told us that the program here in Cameroon only began in 2001 and that so far they have only completed one house.
Their biggest problem is funding, although compared to the US, building a house here costs close to nothing. Habitat at Dickinson is helping to sponsor "The House That Dickinson Built," which I believe is costing them close to $50,000, if not more. Building a house here costs roughly 800,000cfa, which is equivalent to about $1600. The money going to build "The House That Dickinson Built" could build 30 houses here in Cameroon. The director, who is an American guy from California, told us that they didn't need as much help actually building the houses, but because that is what Johna and I really wanted to do, he would try to find a place where we could help.
This past weekend was finally our opportunity. Unfortunately Johna was sick, but Megan (from Grinnell College) came with me and we left Friday morning for Mban. About a half hour outside of Yaoundé we turned off onto a dirt road that we followed for another half hour to reach the village. When we got there, we visited the 5 different houses that had been started by the villagers. The way Habitat works here is that the community funds the building of five foundations before habitat will pay to build the actual house. Each of the sites were in different stages of being completed. As we arrived at the first site, a group of workers was diligently putting the roof on the house. That day we just went around the town, which is home to about 600 people, and met lots of different people.
That night we stayed at the house of the president of the Habitat group in Mban. The house was very simple, as it was only two or three rooms. It was a traditional house made of sticks and mud with dirt floors and a corrugated tin roof. The family had a little fenced in area in their backyard filled with pigs. There were chickens roaming around the yard and in and out of the house. They didn't have running water, but instead had a pit latrine far back in the bushes and they bathed and got water to drink and cook with from a nearby lake. The president's wife cooked us dinner and we relaxed for a while before going to bed. Luckily they put up a mosquito net for us in the room, knowing that it wasn't good for us to be exposed to the bugs. However, the next morning we still woke up covered in bites.
Saturday morning we got up ready to work. The president and some of the other men from the Habitat group brought us to one of the sites where they were just starting on the house itself. The first task of the day was to bring water back to mix with the cement. Megan and I walked to the water pump, which was actually a metal wheel that, when turned, forced water out of a faucet on the other side. A young boy had come with us and he showed us how to use it and filled our buckets with water. We knew that as soon as they were filled, he was going to put the bucket on his head to carry it. We also knew that we both wanted to learn how, so he showed us. Carefully and slowly we walked back to the site with the water resting firmly on our heads. When we got back, they gave us little wreaths made of wrapped palm fronds to rest on our heads underneath the bucket. We went back two more times for water and each time was a little easier and a lot more fun.
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. There are about 80-100 men from the village who are working to build these houses, but Saturday was their day off, so the men who were working with us were only doing so in order to give us something to do. Yet, they didn't really want us to do anything. As two young, white girls, I don't think they could really understand what we were there to do. After ten minutes of carrying buckets of cement back and forth between people, they expected us to take a break. And after 15 minutes of carrying buckets of dirt out of one of the more completed houses, they said it was their turn to work. So, we probably only spent a total of two or three hours actually working. But, I did learn how to carry water on my head!
On Sunday, the president brought us to his church. The apostolic church, which was a 3km walk from the village, was a simple wooden frame with a corrugated tin roof and dried palm fronds as walls. I sat through two hours of sermons, singing, and prayer, all of which was in French (I forgot to mention that no one in the village spoke English, so Megan had to translate from French for me all weekend. That was frustrating.) However, since some of the local people don't speak French, all of the prayers and sermons were simultaneously being translated into patois. Although I'm not religious and I hardly understood most of it, it was a good experience to see the way a small village church is run.
All in all, the trip to the village was a great learning experience. I didn't end up doing most of what I had thought I was going there to do, but living in the village for three days was a good experience to have. Mban looks how I think most people expect Africa to look. There are dirt roads, mud houses, wild chickens, goats, and pigs roaming the streets. Women pass by carrying vegetables on their heads that they have just farmed in the fields, men walk by with machetes ready to cut the grass.
But, there is also that strange element of modern ways of life. Some of the people we met were carrying cell phones and they do have cellular service there. Most everyone was wearing western clothing, a lot of which advertised American brands and products. There were a few bars in the town, so everyone was "lucky" enough to be exposed to Coke, Sprite, Guinness, Castel, and other sodas and beers. As one of my professors put it, "There are places all over Cameroon where they don't have access to clean water, electricity, or medical services, but the government makes sure that everyone has access to alcohol."
So, that was my village experience. Coming back to the city was a great relief because it was so much hotter in Mban than it is in Yaounde. The sun feels stronger and there is rarely a cool breeze. But most of all, it was nice to take a shower with running water and have a real toilet to use. I think that more than anything, we take for granted the basic utilities that we have while forgetting that some people don't even have them. Above all else, this trip to Cameroon has made me realize the things that I take for granted and I just hope that when I come back to the US, I will remember that.
Love, Dana
|
|
|
