Easter in Fontem

You may ask me why I wrote this article in English. I did this for several reasons. First, some of my friends are Polish, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian and most of them don’t understand French. The other reason is that I spent the Easter week-end in Fontem, South-West region, in the English-speaking area of Cameroon. In fact people don’t speak eminent English of Great-Britain: they speak Pidgin, which is a kind of Creole derived from English. As I don’t speak Pidgin at all, I wrote in English. Nevertheless, Alice or Elise may help me for the next article about Fontem.

My week-end began on Friday, as it was Holy Friday which is holiday in Cameroon. Elsa (a French girl who works for Orange), Karine and Jonathan (2 French volunteers who work with orphaned monkeys), Matthieu and I left Douala at 7 to go to Dschang (West region). They stayed in Dschang and I took the bus to Fontem: 2 hours trip on a “road “of earth. I finally discovered Fontem which is a big village staying in the mountain (Cf. photos in the Fontem album), with its houses of earth, and of course its hospital. In addition, Fontem is one of the coldest spots of Cameroon: while walking outside in the night just after the Easter mass, I had to wear a pullover!!! (Brrrr…).

I arrived only 30 minutes late at the Holy Friday mass where I met Alice, a DCC volunteer who works as midwife at the hospital. While coming back to her home, we met several of her colleagues who saluted me with their “welcome”: the atmosphere is so different from Douala’s! I spent the evening with Alice as her cotenant Elise (DCC nurse) worked at the hospital.

On Saturday, we had lunch by a Mum and ate the “wata foufou” : small ball of “manioc” (sorry I didn’t’ find the translation ) with “the vegetable” cooked with red oil (I can’t tell you which vegetable it was : it seems that every green vegetable is called “vegetable” even if there are many different green vegetables in Cameroon). Just after the lunch we walked to the water falls (have a look at the beautiful photos!). Unfortunately the rain began to fall when we arrived. Nonetheless Elise and I jumped into the river. Of course the rain stopped just after the dip (Cf. Murphy law!). The day finished with Easter mass: 4 hours in Pidgin (fortunately we had our “Prions en Eglise”!)… But what a wonderful mass! About 100 baptisms and 10 weddings (in a 5000 inhabitants village!), beautiful hymns and joyfulness everywhere: the Catholic Church of Cameroon is alive!

I left Fontem on Sunday, early in the morning. (At least) 14 hours of transport for only 36 hours in Fontem: was it worth ? Yes: “I went, I saw and I loved Fontem” ;-) .

I hope you spent a nice Easter time too. See you !