Cameroon 2

05/02/08

Well, things didn't improve, they got worse. My baggage made it back at the second time of asking, which is the good news, but a few things quickly started to get me down – or I let them get me down – whichever way you look at it. The first thing was work related (more detail when I set up a private side-blog) while the second was problems with my apartment. Admittedly I'd had my expectations unfairly raised by my colleague's apartment in Nairobi, but still I wasn't prepared to share my flat with cockroaches and mice. My Westerner Squeamishness Factor (WSF) appears to have increased at least 40-50% since my last African outing, although I'm sure that being on my own and frustrated with other things doesn't help. In any case the cumulative effect left me fairly miserable and one particularly protracted cockroach encounter, ending with me convinced it was buried in my bedsheets, left me paranoid, lonely and doubting my manhood. Not having hot water isn't ideal, but then most other people don't have it either. I hope that soon I'll appreciate how much luxury I'm in compared to those around me and be grateful for it, but for now I'm just wishing I was in one of the really plush apartments up the hill and, occasionally, wondering what the hell I'm doing here.

Anyway, I stocked up this afternoon on bug spray, bug powder and rat poison and have done a little mission round the flat poisoning them and, given the velocity of the fan that is currently pumping air and powdered poison around the flat, probably myself as well. One or more of us is going to die, and I'll back myself to outlast them.

Cameroon won last night in the football. I watched the first half on my TV that sort of works, and each time they scored I could hear massive cheers from the whole area outside the flat, it was almost like being in a stadium. These guys really love their football. Seriously love it. Much more so than the English, and it's much more joyful, less angry. I'm really glad they won because it means I get a chance to join in next time.

Besides my moans I had a few first impressions of Cameroon that I might as well record. Douala was crazy, full of ramshackle buildings and people buzzing around on motorbikes. Everyone seemed to have one and the roads were very hectic as a result. The airport was basic: when we got off the flight we were left to wander around aimlessly through what appeared to be customs and then passport control, without seeing anybody except taxi drivers, until we hit a closed door and were stuck. After a minute a guy came out and started doing the passports, and let us through to a small room with two carousels for baggage and a big pile of luggage in the corner that probably ought not to have been there. It was a pretty modest welcome from the nation's main gateway to the world. Douala is based, it seems, around the mouth of a big fat river and what vegetation there is is very tropical and lush (some might even say equatorial), but most of the urban area seems to be a dust bowl with single story wooden-walled buildings everywhere. Hand painted signs, corrugated iron roofs and sheer chaos are the orders of the day. Again, I didn't see much and it was all from an air-conditioned 4x4, but that's the best I can do. Yaounde is very different, more ordered by comparison, very hilly and with mercifully few nutters-on-motorbikes in residence. I'm looking forward to getting out and about and forming some more informed impressions of the place. Unfortunately, as I write, a cockroach has breached my defences. All bets are off at this point...

...well, I tried to spray it and it scuttled away somewhere. I'm not sure that 'out of sight out of mind' really applies in this scenario, but it'll do for now. Argh, I'm sure I just saw another one scuttle in. Nope, that was in fact the/a mouse. My fortress is crumbling under the first signs of attack. I'm not even going to look in the kitchen(ette), I don't want to know.

So that's where I'm at. Work isn't great, I've got no friends, I can't speak to the locals and I'm under attack from rodents and insects. No doubt the last part is my own fault for adopting the siege mentality and waging an unwinnable war instead of opting for peaceful coexistence. Perhaps there's a life lesson in there somewhere.