Going to Mamfe

Hello!! How?

I have just returned from Mamfe in the south-west province. We all left on friday and i just got back to Buea yesterday night. All us volunteers went with the Americans who will be based there doing work for the peacework organisation.

It was quite an international gang that went on the trip, there were the UAC volunteers Sofie and Berit from Denmark, Hendrieke and Wiesje from Holland, Valerie from Canada and me fae Scotland. The peacework team were Kait, Courtney, Chance, James and Hunter from the U.S.A and Loan from Vietnam.

We crammed into one of the UAC buses and all our luggage and the donations that the Americans brought went ahead of us in the 4x4 with Mr Orock and Antoinne, his driver.

We set off in the baking heat of midday, it was a scorcher and i was glad to get a window seat. Kait and i had fun chatting and looking at the endless green scenary rolling out before our eyes. Cries of 'white man' echoed whenever we passed a child on the road. It was fun and i was enjoying myself. Then we started stopping, everywhere. Mr orock is the deputy mayor of Mamfe and i appreciate the fact that he had a lot of business to attend to before going, but it started to become tedious in the blast furnace of the afternoon sun. Luckily we were a happy enough gang and we managed to ward off going stir crazy.

We got to Kumba and stopped for lunch. I had a beer and a fish with no meat on it, like my tattoo. The 4x4 was overheating so it was taken to the garage. We played some frisbee whilst a gathering of curious onlookers watched us. It musn't be a common occurance to have a bus load of white people rock up and chuck around a disc.

With the car fixed we were back on the bumpy meandering road and the green trees weaving our way through the jungle. We thought we were making good progrees when the severity of the bumps took its toll on our old bus and we got a flat tyre. We were in the middle of nowhere, well that's a lie, we were in the jungle somewhere. Travelling in Cameroon is never boring, i promise you. Tyre fixed, we rolled into the inknown towards Mamfe, it was wicked and my ipod provided some amazing backround music to it all.

We crossed these rather perilous looking bridges and i realised after crossing the first one that it was stupid to look down into the void. It was pitch black and all we could see were the beams of light from the cars illuminating the earthy brown bumps. It was getting late and we were all flagging pretty hard. Surely we would get there soon was a general consensus. These hopes were dashed when we became stuck in very thick mud, i tried to open the door to get out and push but the goop was so deep we couldn't even open the door. It was mad but eventually we got out of it, much to the expert driving from sister John.

It was now 10P.M and i was beginning to wonder if Mamfe was a real place. I looked out the window into the dark and then i seen a sign saying 'Mamfe', i choked back tears and waited and dreamed of luxaries like beds and food and showers. We had been in the bus for 13 hours!!

We all stayed at the Heritage Inn but there were not enough rooms so we all shared. There was a blackout in the city but there was still water so i had a pitch dark, freezing shower, it was amazing. Tired and in dire need of a beer i walked up to the main hotel and fell in a rather deep hole, i skinned my knee and cursed like a sailor. I thought i now deserved a beer after that so i got one and relaxed.

Tomorrow Mamfe in the daytime when you can see all the holes.