Good Friday, April 03, 2015- Mutengene, Cameroon, West-Central Africa

I should briefly clarify to anyone who hasn’t heard my spiel why I’m here. Our friends, The Welty’s, are a remarkable group of doctor-type folks in McCall that we are fortunate to spend some time with. They’re all above averageJ Tom and Edie are the patriarch/matriarch who are community health physicians/clinicians who have worked in Cameroon now for 17 years battling the HIV/Aids epidemic, Cervical Cancer and mother/baby mortality in the country. They work within the organization known as the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Service (CBCHS) which is a large, Christian driven outfit dedicated to sharing the love of Jesus through health care and prevention. The CBCHS is revered in country and have sway with the 32 year incumbent government. Tom and Edie have developed an impressive network of friends and colleagues and know Cameroonians everywhere we go. They helped to purchase the grounds of the Training Center I’m at in Mutengene, a town on the foothills of Mt. Cameroon and a 20 minute drive from the beach. The Welty’s have a house on grounds here that is also used while they’re gone and there is a large classroom named for them. They don’t care about all that though. They truly just love these people. The Welty’s invited me to create a program of teaching lifesaving first aid skills to the cadre of 30-40 CBCHS drivers that are employed as transportation staff for whatever they are needed. They are on the roads virtually every day from border to border. They are the framework for providing some desperately needed emergency medical care in the country. I accepted the project. We enlisted (thank goodness) the capable help of an NP and previous EMS Paramedic, Paul Christensen also from McCall. Now we’re here and teaching! You and Elk Creek Church have raised the funds to fly this project and have provided the supplies to put together our prototype, tarp-roll first response kits.

  

I got to sleep in a bit today. French toast breakfast and eggs helped my nausea after taking Doxycycline antimalarial on an empty stomach. Good Friday is a big deal in this area of Cameroon due to the prevalence of Christian denominations. Baptist of course but also Pentecostal, Catholic, Apostolic, Bible churches and faith healing churches. We got keys to a Hilux 4-door pickup and headed to the town of Limbe at the foot of the western slope of Mt. Cameroon and Little Mt. Cameroon. Mt. Cameroon is the tallest peak between Kilaminjaro and the Colorado Rockies at 13,800 feet. It is wide and flat and they call it the cow paddy here. The hike to the summit is 12 miles up and is often done in a day though it is no easy task. It is a very active volcano with lava flows that sometimes block hikers and cross roadways in Limbe. Little Mt. Cameroon is a more dramatic apex around 8000 ft. Both rise out of the black ash beaches of the luke warm Atlantic to the west.

Limbe is a beach town with a sizeable oil platform offshore and refinery along the coast. It brings jobs and money to the area but it also brings American oil men who can be seen on occasion in the company of “free women,” or sex-trade workers, around Down Beach. With an HIV/Aids rate of over 50% in the Weltys’ focus groups it’s an alarming and tragic way for these men to behave while on “work trips.” The noise of the offshore platform in the bay, fairly close to shore, is an annoyance to those nearby to be sure. The bay is picturesque and enjoyable to sit by for dinner despite this industrial eyesore.

Seme Beach is the resort beach that most visit for swimming and beach time. The cost is 2000 Francs/person on weekends and holidays but that comes with a beer or pop at the restaurant. It’s clean and well-appointed with covered beachside picnic tables, benches, lifeguards and horseback rides for hire. The waves, planges in French, were a great size for playing in. I had some great bodysurf rides and found that when I caught a good wave I would stand up and see groups pointing and smiling at me. Might be my body surfing prowess or just the fact that I’m THAT white- likely the latter. I taught a big, young Cameroonian francophone man how to body surf and he tutored my fledgling French language skills. Kids in the water were elated and Cameroonians in all manner of swim attire from stylish women in fetching designer suits to people in white-tightees bobbed in the water. If you ever felt like you were the least tan person at the beach, try being a fair-skinned white guy from winter in Central Idaho at Seme beach. People were scrambling for sunscreen to put on their naked children when I walked by them glowing.

We drove to Down Beach where the small fisherman’s wharf and beach market is for dinner. I have been looking forward to this activity for years. For dinner you find a grill covered in seafood that looks good to you. Pick out what you want and barter for it, and then go find a table in the sand. They bring you a large metal plate with your food, in my case a seasoned, grilled sole (whole) and a large red crab of some kind garnished with pepe (pronounced “paypay,” a spicy hot pepper and palm oil puree) and a grilled plantain. No napkins, no silverware, just a bucket of clear water teeming with cholera to wash your hands in. Drinks go in your left hand and you eat with your right. I opted for hand sanitizer and waited to marinate in cholera water until after dinner. Throughout dinner, children and adults selling their wares or just plain begging visited our table while the horsemen rode back and forth to entice renters and the young fishermen threw nets from their boat into waist deep shore water. The diversity of people in the Limbe area is greater with more Europeans, North Africans and middle-Easterners on vacation here. The country is building four grand, world-class football (soccer) stadiums for the Africa Cup which visits Cameroon in 2018, one of which is in Limbe. Limbe is also the residence of our Good Samaritan Program Director, Dr. Ndasi. He is a talented orthopedic surgeon and chief of surgery at the Mutengene Baptist Hospital.

 

Pictures will have to come tomorrow. Benadryl on board for an allergic reaction to something. Stay tuned...