absurdly long post...

Wow. Fantastic weekend. Don't even know where to begin, but my experiences this weekend are exactly what I hoped to get out of study abroad.
On Friday after French class, we drove to the city of Bamenda in the Northwest region. It was a solid five hours drive and I did not have my iPod (which I am currently counting on being momentarily misplaced and not, well, lost) so I expected it to be a looong five hours but honestly the trip flew by -- the scenery was just that gorgeous (and my nap, unexpectedly long). The trip took us from the Centre Region, which is known for its dense, lush rainforest to the Nord-Ouest grassland zone. The grassland zone was gorgeous: rugged, rolling hills and in the valleys you can see scattered farm plots and homes made from bricks or wooden houses with tall, tin triangle roofs. I'm doing an absurdly terrible job describing the scene, but it was stunning. It was pretty funny here Prof. Muitia describe the grassland zone as "prettier than Scotland" but then learning that he only had seen Scotland in the movie "Braveheart."
By 6 PM we arrived in Bamenda, the capital of the region. Three immediate reasons why Bamenda is amazing:
1. English-speaking region
2. Dry heat. Yaoundé is beyond humid, especially now that we are right before the rainy season but Bamenda was hot without being stifling. Cameroonians even describe Bamenda as cold.
3. Nicer people/less chaotic. That's a huge generalization, of course, but I did find people to be much less aggressive than those in Yaoundé.
On Saturday, we got up and headed to an Artisan Workshop near Top-Station. Top Station is the highest point in Bamenda and is the location of the first German colonial offices before their lost their hold in Cameroon after WWI. Today though, there are still the 19th century European homes made from stone. But the artisan market, so great. We all went nuts there and spent a large chuck of our stipend buying souvenirs. Tourism doesn't really exist in Cameroon so the goods you are buying are traditional and authentic and not like a lot of the juke you see in American cities. I mainly bought souvenirs to bring back for family and friends at home, which if you're reading this, probably includes you. Elite readership here. For myself though, I bought a pair of bronze candlesticks with fish carved out of the stand and wicker bowls. Without a doubt though, I spent more money here than I have spent in an entire single day my whole time in Yaoundé.
Afterwards, we went to the palace of the Chief ("Fon") of the Bafut tribe. It is less of palace than a compound, but the Fon has over eighty wives so this is no joking matter. The Bafut tribe is noteworthy because of how well it stood up against the Germans when they tried to take over. The Germans did eventually win against the Bafut but only after years of fighting a losing guerrilla war and with the forced aide of the surrounding tribes that had previously conquered. Before the tour, we attended a tribal dance that apparently only happens once every two years. Drums, masks, stilts, Grass skirts. Everything that you think of when you imagine Africa and truly amazing. The only hint of westernization was the Cameroonian man in the corner, filming the event in his hand-held movie camera.
Then we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and see the central market of Bamenda. We didn't make it there until nearly closing at 5 PM but I did get to wander inside for a fifteen minutes. Once again, Bamenda Marchee was better than the marchees in Yaoundé -- instead of wooden stands crowding the pathways; here the Marchee had set small closets for each vender to sell their goods from and were organized clearly by product. I ended up buying a western style dress for six dollars and a maroon knit sweater that is sold for the Bamenda school uniforms. Obviously, I would buy a heavy maroon sweater while in Cameroon, but I really do love it and plan on sporting it all next year.

Next day, we began our journey home stopping halfway at Baffossum in the Ouest region. At this point, we are back in Francophone territory n the transitional zone, so not quite rainforests but by no means grasslands. After getting to Baffossum, we followed this dirt road up a steep winding road until we got to the village where we were going to spend the night. I am about to do a terrible job describing the day at the village, but before I do, I can honestly say the next twenty-fours were unbelievable and easily lists as one of the most inspirational days in my life.
The village where we were staying is home to Mr. Kumdra, a young man - perhaps thirty-five - who after attending university in Germany started his own coffee company which seeks to fix the huge disparity in between the pathetic price that Cameroonians sell their coffee beans for and the absurd profit that European/American companies make when they sell the finish product. Basically, its neo-colonialism since this big transnational organizations under the label of "Free Trade" go into Cameroon (and countless other third-world countries) and buy the raw resources for dirt cheap (because the farmers have no choice to sell since to attempt to negotiate for a higher price is financial suicide) which they then make into a finished product and sell to the rest of the world for an absurd jacked up price. Mr. Kumdra though is trying to stop this cycle, building a collective of thirteen small organic farms from his village and the surrounding area, buying their coffee at a fixed fair price and then selling it to Europe, at this moment just companies in Germany but Dickinson is trying to set up a partnership with his company. In doing so, he guarantees the women who sell the coffee a set income that is independent of market prices and the bully of big business. It's Free Trade v. Fair Trade.
Previous to this, I think I would've argued for Free Trade. Sure, I knew that Fair Trade was better for the workers, but I had taken the outlook that for a country to lift itself from poverty it was necessary to build up the economy as a whole, which was best done through Free Trade. And sure, the theory holds for the US and other European powers. But in Africa and Central America, this essential allows big business to step in, avoid environmental regulations that exist in their home country, and promote unsustainable economic and environmental practices for their profit. Hello Dickinson, I get it now.
Mr. Kumdra took us on a tour of the workshop where the women sort their coffee and bag the product before shipping it abroad. Then, we saw the village hospital that was built at the help of the money that Mr. Kumdra business brought in. It's only an eight room hospital with a pharmacy closet, doctor's office, three patient rooms, maternity ward, and reception area but the other option is traveling back down to town, easily a thirty minute ride in the car.
And there is Mr. Kumdra himself. He is young, kind of looking like a black Kramer or Einstein and speaks five different languages fluently: German, English, French, and two village languages. He is incredibly hard-working, living in the village for only four months a year, spending four months in Germany, and then traveling the world for the four months trying to promote his company. He was so happy to have us, taking countless photos with camera. Literally he would standing up, talking, walking us around the coffee fields and then in his right hand, just snapping pictures without looking. I'm sure we were a sight: nine young white women in this little, rural village. (Peter had returned early to Yaoundé to pick up his parents).
At night, we had a true Cameroonian feast, attended a village dance put on for our benefit which we then joined in on (dancing, terribly, I'm sure) and then finally crashed in our bedrooms where I actually, unbelievably, was freezing, bundled up in my jeans and sweater but still shivering -- it had poured earlier in the day, the temperature had finally dropped, and we were without a blanket. Whew. Next morning, we returned to Yaoundé.
So, there is my long winded description of the weekend, but it was amazing. I am definitely going to back a bigger effort to buy Fair Trade products and am going to try to only buy coffee Fair Trade which is certainly manageable considering how "hip" it is in the US.