journey to Maroua

 

Maroua is the capital of the Far North region. It is built on two sides of a river bed that is dry for most of the year. The climate is Sahelian, hot and dry for most of the year, but the town is full of plane trees that make it shady and attractive. Very few people own cars and most people get about using motos like taxis. I enjoyed this enormously, although if you don’t wear your crash helmet, which is compulsory with VSO, they are a health and safety risk. There is a large undercover market and a long street with bars and cafes which is the hub of the night life.

I am now in Maroua – pronounced Ma-rue-wha and it is a long journey from Yaounde. First of all you take the overnight train for sixteen hours which leaves every day at 6pm from Yaounde. It is a single line and the 2 trains cross at a station in the middle where there are 2 lines. We started off very slowly because it had been raining and they have to be very careful it doesn’t derail. The overnight sleeper was perfectly OK, perhaps not as nice as the ones in Egypt and Thailand, but fine. We shared with a dialysis doctor who works in Ngoundere. To tell a Cameroonian that there is not a god would be an extreme faux pas here and this guy read his bible last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

Petit Joe came with us on the trip which was a good thing – just in terms of my luggage, now known as the ‘oh la la!’ luggage when they try to put it on their heads – getting the tickets for each stage and to cope with the surges. Cameroonians don’t queue, in this aspect they have no regard for age and surge to get on the train or bus regardless of whether they have a pre-booked seat.

At railway stations and at stopping points on the road local people gather to sell you things which they carry in trays on their heads – bunches of bananas, peeled oranges with their heads cut off that you can suck from, bags of something pronounced maze that tastes like bits of cooked pastry, little balls of something that tastes like a savoury doughnut, chopped cooked meat, little kebabs, bottles of runny honey which is a speciality of the middle region we passed through and other stuff wrapped up in leaves that I haven’t tried yet. With no social security or dole everyone is a budding entrepreneur. For example, little children run up and down the outside of the train asking for your empty water bottles that their parents can then use to put honey or fresh juice in to sell. They have lovely pineapples in the south.

After the train we went straight to the bus which is over six hours to Maroua. African people are neurotic about draughts in terms of catching colds so we sat with all the windows shut when there could have been a lovely breeze. I had some uncharitable thoughts, but I sort of got used to it because basically you don’t have a choice. The bus was mainly filled with men in their 30s, some women and 2 babies. They talk, joke the whole time about football, the heat, the angle of the sun, tease the women – it’s loud, but it’s nice too.

On the way we passed village after mud hut village and I began to feel a bit anxious about exactly how I might be expected to live, but when we arrived here they have put us in a missionary hotel which is fine with showers, fridge, air con even if it is set at 30 degrees. This morning we have been left to rest after our journey and I have done some washing – my expensive mosquito spray I bought to spray on my mosquito net in situ leaked on clothes in some of which the colours ran so I was trying to get the stains out this morning. Still –it’s not too bad. I am grateful I have got here with my luggage!

And that I still haven’t got the runs ……yet……