{"id":816,"date":"2011-07-20T12:56:57","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T17:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=816"},"modified":"2011-07-20T12:56:57","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T17:56:57","slug":"road-trip-in-cameroon-culture-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=816","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip in Cameroon — culture shock!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cameroon – the shape of a chicken<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0We just\u00a0had a great summer vacation trip to the Northwest Region of Cameroon.\u00a0 Ron and I experienced a bit of culture shock on this road trip.\u00a0 Not that it was so unlike our “home” or “passport” culture; on the contrary, it was so unlike anything we’d ever experienced on a trip in Africa before!\u00a0 This was the longest continuous\u00a0stretch of paved road we have ever been on in Africa.\u00a0 We went about 380 km\u00a0in 7 hours (including potty and gas stops).\u00a0 Our friends the Norens had done just 80 km in Congo (none of it paved) in 6 hours.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 We can’t believe how far we could go in such a short time.\u00a0 And we arrived at the destination\u00a0relatively untired and feeling fresh and\u00a0fairly clean.\u00a0 Unlike our days of travel on dusty dirt roads arriving\u00a0whipped, and\u00a0completely orange from the dust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you see the map of Cameroon like a big chicken, the tail section is the Northwest Region where we went.\u00a0 Bordering Nigeria, the official\u00a0language in that area is English.\u00a0 \u00a0Cameroon is called Africa in miniature because of its varied topography, from beaches, to forests, to mountains, to dry dessert areas.\u00a0 This is a beautiful country.\u00a0 What surprised us, though, was what we saw as we drove the roads.<\/p>\n

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Billboard – Marketing Mile Marker<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

For one thing, there are billboards here.\u00a0 “33” is a certain fermented alcoholic\u00a0beverage.\u00a0 And 33 kilometers from every major cities they post these marketing tools like big red “mile markers”!<\/p>\n

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Town along the way - gas stations, power lines, moto taxis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gas stations are springing up all over the country.\u00a0 We’re not used to seeing gas stations anywhere in any other African\u00a0country we’ve lived in.\u00a0 But here in Cameroon, the filling stations are like those of the old days – where the smiling\u00a0uniformed attendant comes to your car to pump your fuel! (which is pronounced “fwell” here).\u00a0 The above\u00a0is an\u00a0OiLybia station.\u00a0 There are also Total stations complete with “Boutiques”\u00a0that have clean rest rooms and\u00a0road snacks\u00a0(like Snickers bars, Pringles, cold\u00a0Cokes etc.) to buy!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you see the power line going across the photo?\u00a0 Yup, electricity.\u00a0 ‘Nuf said.<\/p>\n

And the motorcycles buzzing along the town’s main street like busy bees are moto-taxis.\u00a0 These will go where no self respecting car can dare to go: the dirt roads of the town.\u00a0 From the looks of it, there is no use for car\u00a0taxis but great demand for moto-taxis.<\/p>\n

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Rocky mountainous terrain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The further north we went the higher the hills, rocky mountains.\u00a0 Wait, where were we?\u00a0 Colorado?\u00a0 Nope, still in Cameroon.\u00a0 Beautiful!<\/p>\n

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Huge evergreen trees along the road<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we reached a certain altitude, we started seeing evergreen trees!\u00a0 In Africa!\u00a0 We rolled down the windows and breathed in the smell of “camp” and “Up North.”\u00a0 In the van with us were 2 other missionaries from Michigan.\u00a0 We all appreciated the familiar Northern Michigan smells of pine.<\/p>\n

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Fulani herdsman and his cattle on the road <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ah, finally!\u00a0 Something familiar on a trip in Africa.\u00a0 A few different times we came across Fulani herdsmen walking with their cattle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cameroon is a beautiful country and we just experienced some new sights.\u00a0 If I were more brave, I’d have snapped photos of the toll “booths” – people in orange vests standing by big barrels in the center lane collecting the flat rate of 500 cfa (about $1.00) – there were 4 on the whole trip.\u00a0 And when you slow down to pay the toll and collect your receipt, vendors come to the car windows to sell bananas, peanuts, plantain chips, and many other local treats.<\/p>\n

And there was one major difference on this trip — while we did see barriers manned by officials, not\u00a0one of them stopped us or hassled\u00a0us.\u00a0 Thankfully, the current President has\u00a0informed all officials\u00a0to be nice to\u00a0expatriots who\u00a0are here to help\u00a0the\u00a0people of Cameroon.\u00a0 The message got through.\u00a0 They were very nice to us.\u00a0 We will go up there again some time.\u00a0 Anybody want to come with us?<\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cameroon – the shape of a chicken \u00a0We just\u00a0had a great summer vacation trip to the Northwest Region of Cameroon.\u00a0 Ron and I experienced a bit of culture shock on this road trip.\u00a0 Not that it was so unlike our “home” or “passport” culture; on the contrary, it was so unlike anything we’d ever experienced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cameroon-life","category-family-updates"],"yoast_head":"\nRoad Trip in Cameroon - culture shock! - The Ziegelbaurs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=816\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Road Trip in Cameroon - culture shock! 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