I woke up this morning at 8am for my flight at 10:30. This would have been enough time, except that I waited for a taxi outside the Hotel Baudin, where I was staying, for around 20 minutes. The taxi eventually got me there an hour before my flight was supposed to leave, barely enough time to check in. Then I waited in line to get through customs for nearly an hour, ran to a bus that was to take us to the plane, and sat there for around 15 minutes, waiting for others who were also stuck. Finally the bus took us to the plane, and we sat in the plane for half an hour before taking off. So I would have time to get something to eat, but I didn’t. So I was very hungry – and I was very glad when we got food. Air France has good airline food: got champagne, wine, cannoli, cheese cookies, bread, yummy.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Douala outside the terminal, so had the pleasure of the hot and muggy Douala afternoon – quite a change from chilly Paris. At this point I didn’t know how I was to find my driver, so I wandered through the terminal, seeing people with signs, none of which bore my name. I finally got to the baggage area, and it was chaos. To the left in the balcony were around 20 teenagers checking out the spectacle. All around were people getting baggage, people trying to organize, and people with carts trying to organize other people to put their baggage on the carts. One approached me and I declined – multiple times.
I spent awhile looking for my ride, but no one was to be found. Finally a man dressed in white with a uniform that said service asked me who I was looking for. I showed him the piece of paper Mr. Sulaiman Turay (executive director of SDI) sent me, and the serviceman made a call on his mobile. He said he found the person, so I grabbed my bags and waited for him as directed.
Apparently he was leading a group of around 30 white people. In fact, they were ALL the white people in the station. And like the pied and the piper, he led them all off and never looked back.
So there I was, with no clue what to do next. I asked another person in the same uniform to dial Sulaiman, and while I was talking with him, another younger man came up to me, asking who I was looking for. I told him, and of course he knew exactly where he was. And he knew exactly who I was too – after I told him. It seemed fishy, so I was understandably hesitant. At that point a third man in a white wife-beater came up to me and actually knew my name! He said that my ride was waiting outside and told me I had to give €10 to the military guy next to me so he wouldn’t go through my luggage – I didn’t believe that either, but I figured he at least knew where my ride was, so at least I could get going. So I gave him €15, all of which he took.
Apparently, bribing and corruption is very common here. Just after I arrived in the terminal I watched one man semi-discretely hand another some money. In fact, the wife-beater guy palmed some cash to the military guy, which I suppose I also bribed.
Anyway, one person grabbed one bag, one another, and off we went to meet a man with a sign “Welcome Shawn Lauzon!” who I was soon to find out was Mr. Sulaiman Turay himself! He said he had been waiting since 5:10 – the flight was a half hour late and I was in the station for another 30 minutes. Turay said we needed to walk down a hill to find the car, so off we went, with a couple more guys who decided to accompany us, none of whom I knew. But I kept my eyes on my 2 big suitcases, while I carried my Puma messenger bag and the hiker’s backpack.
We all got to the bottom, put my stuff down, and proceeded to wait for the driver. At that point the other people carrying the luggage started harassing me for money for carrying the bags. I thought they were with Turay, but it quickly become apparent they were just hustling for cash. The problem was that they saw the money I had left ($25 at this point) and so weren’t going to stop until I gave them some. I gave the $5, and of course they wanted the $20. So fine, he gave me the $5 and I gave the $20. Of course, another guy said that that now he needed to get paid, but I had had enough of that and kept my $5 to myself. So now I’m €15 and $20 lighter to get 2 bags carried down a rocky hill which took 2 minutes. I guess it could have been worse -- when we finally arrived at the car, Turay tells me “I was worried I wasn’t finding you – I thought the scammers had got you!” At this point I have $5 and about €2 in coins, and we left Douala, Sulaiman and me in the back, the driver in the front, without finding an ATM.
I wasn’t sure how far Douala was from Buea – I was told it was between 30 minutes and 2 hours away from Kenny, a friend of Stephanie’s, depending on the traffic. And everything was smooth, weaving around cars in a 2 lane highway with no real lanes, until we hit the bridge. And there we waited. We waited enough that we actually turned off the car – three times. Meanwhile, little motorbikes with 2 or 3 people riding it were buzzing by us on the left and right.
While we waited, vendors in little shacks were hanging out, talking with each other, and once in awhile someone would walk by down the middle of the road, selling rolls of toilet paper out of a multi-roll pack. We waited for 45 minutes before getting into the roundabout causing the whole backup. Traffic laws are nonexistent; as Turay said, it’s “battle of the strongest”, with 2 or 3 cars jockeying for position while trying to squeeze through a narrow road. So you might be able to imagine the clusterfuck which is the Cameroonian roundabout. Thankfully we made it without getting hit and started driving a bit faster.
The road alternated between semi-smooth, semi-smooth with huge potholes, and a road before the asphalt has been poured. All around to the left and right, hundreds of people were hanging out in little shanty bars drinking beers. We drove past dozens of these before getting on the main road out of Douala. At this point we started going what seemed very fast – 130km/hr, which I suppose wouldn’t be that fast if not that there are no road lights and we passed cars with little room to spare before getting front ended by other cars doing the same thing. Twice there were some flashlights ahead, which caused us to slam on the brakes to avoid running into around 50 head of cattle, being led down the middle of the road towards the market.
There were two other stops on the road: one was a military checkpoint where they looked at our id cards (or passport, in my case). I learned later that the checkpoints are actually illegal – they are government people illegally moonlighting and requiring 1000-5000 CFA ($2-$10) if your papers aren’t exactly in order. The other was a man holding a rifle next to an old woman in a chair taking 500CFA ($1) as a toll for road maintenance.
I would be lax in admitting that the whole drive from the airport to where we were staying was a bit scary, and not just because of the change of a car crash. After we got off the main road, we stopped at a gas station, where Sulaiman got out of the car, mumbled something in Pidgin (bastardized English) and left. Then the driver left. Looking out, there waited sat 10 cars with twice as many bikes and three times as many people hanging out. Obviously I stick out just a bit. I started to think “What have I gotten myself into – they have left me here!” Then left and Turay had brought me some bottled water.
Leaving the junction, we drove a bit and turned down this muddy dirt road, with a couple shacks on each side and some people walking along. At this point I started to consider how I could be led to my death. I thought “What do I really know about this org? I didn’t talk to anyone else about it – just that they had a reasonable website, an annual report, and he got me a Visa with a semi-professional stamp.” I started to envision the car stopping and someone putting a gun to my head and either kidnapping me for ransom or raping and killing me. So, I guess I started to freak out. My one positive thought was “Really? I’ve already sent $1200 over there, so what was the point of kidnapping me?” Hmmm … looking back at that thought, it doesn’t make me feel better. If I’m a person with $1200 available, perhaps a random could provide even more???
But obviously since I’m writing this you can likely surmise that it is all OK. We arrived at Turay’s home, which doubled as the office, and were greeted by his 5 volunteers / students. There were 2 young men who seemed quite intelligent and 3 young women who seemed – well, they just seemed quiet. They all put me at ease though – especially after I opened the bottle of wine from Paris. I wish I brought more! We had a lovely meal of fish, fries and plantains. We talked about this and that, politics and Paris, and the kids left and I went to bed. Sulaiman and I are the only ones remaining as I write this, and he has bolted the doors, propped a chair against one and poles against the other “as a warning bell, in case people try to break in.” I have locked the bedroom door from the inside and the bathroom door as well. None of this is altogether comforting, and I’m not at all sure what to do if the poles fall down. But I suppose the chance of something happening tonight is pretty slim, so I’m off to sleep now. As I was told when the volunteers left –a demain (see you tomorrow)!
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