I attended two end-of-term school concerts which involve songs and dancing and skits by the younger children then announcing the top students in each year. The younger kids, which can be as young as 3 years, were very cute, and sure could dance. The two concerts were slightly different but both were much more elaborate than ours typically are - the kids had outfits for some of the dances, the program had more than 20 items, the kids memorized and delivered f...

A few weeks ago I took a weekend trip to Kribi with Martin, which is "the" beach town for Cameroon, and I can now see why. The beach goes for miles each way, is clean white sand and was almost deserted. We stayed in a hotel that was right beside the ocean, when you open the door there is a private beach right in front of you, and the sound of the waves crashing lulls you to sleep. We also took a trip to the Lobé Falls, which has a set of falls just as the r...

I went to church with Massana, the mother of my new homestay house. It was the annual inauguration of new members to the Catholic Women's Association (CWA) and given there were 97 new members and they all had family members there to help them celebrate, it was packed. The CWA leadership sat me in a chair at the front of the church along one side so I could see everything that was going on. Then they introduced me to the entire congregation of at least 1,000...

I joined Excel on a visit to Bamenda, a town about 5 hours north of Douala in a hilly area with an elevation of just over 1,000 meters - it is the area where he grew up and where his father now lives. I was warned that it would be cold, and it was cooler but definitely not cold, just closer to comfortable. Excel's sister is engaged to be married, the purpose of the visit was for the two families to meet and share a meal together and talk about the marriage, a...

I-VISSION had an official visit by Mr Mahamadou Bassirou, the new Regional Delegate of Post and Telecommunications (so responsible for everything related to the internet for the Douala area of Cameroon) to find out more about I-VISSION. Our office is on the 4th floor, it is quite small and there isn't any AC, but the Minister and about 20 of his people managed to fit in (some standing for the entire presentation) and sweated through the presentation with the hel...