Far North

Whew. So back from the Far North. I felt like a globetrekker -- nothing about the journey there was easy -- but it was fantastic and showed me another side of Africa. It would be a real wasted effort to try and summarize the past nine days so instead here are the most memorable moments:


- Travel: 36 hours on the train (eight of which were a breakdown) + over thirty hours in a bus. I think I could've handled the extreme heat/lack of AC & cramped quarters but I've lost my iPod which did not do me any favors...whine.whine.whine.

-Waza. This is the national park where we went on safari. We saw giraffes, monkeys, antelopes, wild boar, vultures, and lions. So neat. And, to give an idea how hot it was in the North, our "hotel" (re: room with bed) didn't have AC and in the end the whole group risked the bugs/possible wild animals to sleep outside just on our mattresses.

-Maroua. This is the capital of the Far North and excluding the oppressive heat the city is beautiful. The quiet dusty streets are lined with shady trees and the architecture feels like something out of the Middle East. A far cry from chaotic and crowded Yaounde.

-Muslim influence. The Far North is largely Muslim so not only is the style of dress much different (conservative, less western) but people's behavior is too. Whereas in the South of Cameroon, I am constantly bombarded as a white, here I left in peace and even the aggressive market vendors let me pass largely undisturbed. Of course, while I think there is something to be said for this, the Muslim influence also dictates strict gender roles. I hate the idea of being culturally imperialistic, but there is no way around it for me, some of the practices in the north I think undeniably violate human rights, including:
-Female Genital Mutation
-Acceptance for women as young as twelve marrying men of any age
-Shame associated with being an unmarried woman
-Expectation that women should never been seen by other men and are thus confined to the home and are nothing more than objects.

The list goes on and the necessity of keeping a woman "pure" for her husband results in bizarre ways -- there are few taxis since men hate the idea of their wives sitting next to strange men in the car and city lacks storey buildings because of the fear that men who live in upper level apartments could look down to a another courtyard and see another man's wife.

-Village life: We only drove on main roads, but nevertheless the villages we passed were so isolated and consisted just of mud huts with straw roofs and maybe a mosque. While I can do without TV/cell phone/internet for a period of time, I really can't imagine a community entirely absent of all this.

-And, best of all, we went on a six mile hike that took us over the Cameroon border and into Nigeria. No border patrol, you simply pass a small rock that marks the line and then are in Nigeria.


Obviously this doesn't even begin to describe the trip, but it was really was terrific and, because my sister is great, I even had a camera to take lots of pictures which really illustrate everything I am trying to say.