The Queen of the Mountain

On Tuesday the 26th of February, Bonnie took me to meet Sarah ‘Queen of the Mountain’ Etonge. It was the second day of the strike so I was a little hesitant of travelling but there had been no violence in Buea as yet.

We were picked up by Merideth (a volunteer at Buea deaf school) and Aloys, the man who started the NGO with with his wife some years ago. The roads were completely empty when we set off for Buea town to pick up Sarah, who was due to give a talk at the deaf school.

When I first seen her I was kind of shocked as to how frail and slight she was, she does not have one ounce of fat on her she had a very kind face. She is living proof that you should never judge a book by its cover, because to look at her, you wouldn’t know that she is one of the greatest athletes that Cameroon has ever produced.

What follows is a short transcript of the questions she was asked at the school, I have paraphrased a little as she answered in Pidgin sometimes but on the whole I have got everything she said.

You have run the race 13 times, what inspired you to attempt it in the first place?

I am a mother of 7 children and I draw great inspiration from them. In the beginning I wanted to do it for them, I wanted to work hard and train for them. I wanted to win for them too.

Can you describe to me what it takes to run the race?

There are two stages to the race, ascending and descending, I don’t like to climb up and I am not very fast at it, however I descend very fast. If you are a good climber you can not be a good descender, so you must work very hard to learn one part well. Some people are scared of falling on the sharp, volcanic rocks. I am not, I am very fast at it and this has helped me to win 7 times.

How was the last race on the 17/02/08?

I felt ready for the race, both in my mind and in my body. I avoided water before the race and I only had two slices of bread to eat. I had worked so hard and I came second. The girl who came first beat me by 3 minutes. I really wanted to win this one but I am happy with second.
I ran it in 5 hours 38 minutes. My best record is 5 hours 22 minutes. It takes me about 4 hours to reach the summit and the rest of the time to run down.

Has the race changed your life? How did it compare before to how it is now?

I have seen many things change here in Cameroon and with myself, there were hardly any female runners in the race and now that has all changed. I feel strong and proud of what I have achieved, and I am very proud of my family and my sons who are very good runners too.

What are your plans for the future?

I have to run, I have many cups and medals and I know that sport is a good thing. It makes you strong in you health.
The mountain race is very hard so that is going to be my last one. I want to continue with the marathon as I love to run and never stop. I want to see my son, Pierro, run in America. That is my dream.
I don’t know what else might happen in the future, perhaps the government can make me an ambassador….

So that was the day I met Sarah Etonge, it was a pretty special day cause the deaf school was amazing and I really appreciated what they were trying to do there. I’m hopefully going to take sign language classes. The kids were great too and they really enjoyed Sarah’s talk to them.

When we were coming back however, the tone of the day changed, a roadblock was on the road. I’m sure some boys were about to stone the car but when they seen Sarah they thought twice. It made me even more glad to be in her presence.