Cameroon, Africa

These photos, sadly, are in no particular order because Blogger did not keep them in the order I sent them in.  But there’s something kind of fun about their randomness.  This is the much-neglected big church at the mission station at Elat, where I spent five years of my youth.

The beach at Kribi.  It looks west.

The chapel of the monastery on Mount Febe in Yaoundé, the capital city.  Strangely, though the monks are all black, their statues are all white.  

The main church at Elat, sitting derelict.  The congregation was kicked out for a few years due to legal battles and literal fistfights over who was the rightful pastor of the church.  As I understand, they are back inside the historic “temple,” as they call it.  And it’s all cleaned up and put back together again.  But when I revisited my old church, in December, it was quite a sad place.

The classrooms at the school where I used to serve as English teacher and administrator.  They're looking a bit shabby these days, but the school is still functioning.

The churchyard at Elat.

The sunset on the beach at Kribi.

This is the campus of the school at Elat.  This kiosk is where the women came at midday to sell beans and bread, etc., for the students’ lunches.  It looked long disused when I visited last December.

Floating up the Lobe River toward a touristy Pygmy village, South Province.  It's a beautiful place.

A traditional home in the South Province, where I lived.

Djoungolo EPC Church—built by missionaries in the very early 20th century.

The main missionary house at the old Elat Mission Station.  It was the home of the school’s absentee principal when I was living next door.  It was originally built so that the missionary pastor could see the front door of this house (his home) from the pulpit of the big church at Elat--the one that sits derelict above.

Rowboats on the Lobe River, waiting to bear us up to the Pygmy village.

Yaoundé is actually a pretty city with a pleasant, breezy climate, built on hills.

Another classroom at Elat.

In the rural South Province—my part of Cameroon.  The wooded hills always reminded me of my faraway home when I lived there.  Now the wooded hills here remind me of Cameroon…. Why can the heart never be content?

The old missionary chapel, which was totally abandoned when I arrived at Elat, and which I partially refurbished.  The school still uses it now.

The legendary Hotel Grand Moulin in the neighborhood of Yaoundé that I frequented.  I've only stayed here once, but I've always considered it my address in the capital city.

Here again in the rural South Province.  So lovely.

This great building contained a much sought-after event hall that was owned by the mission school at Elat.  We only used it occasionally, “La Salle Haute.”  Now it apparently houses the school’s library.

Here again is the pretty Djoungolo Presbyterian Church in Yaoundé.  This too was the centerpiece of an old mission station in its day--with a school, a hospital, and a church--not to mention a dental clinic.  Now, though all these things still exist, the station has long since been engulfed by the city, and it's hard to tell that they used to form a unit.  Old maps of the city call this area "The American Protestant Mission," and it appears on the furthest edge.

And what a city Yaoundé is!  Furniture for sale beside a busy road.

The church at Elat from a distance. 

Ebolowa, the town closest to Elat.

The church at Elat.

The grave of “Mama Gwen,” Gwendolyn Charles, an American missionary who died not too long before I arrived in Cameroon.  She was a legend.  People said she came to Cameroon to atone for her sins.  They believed she was involved in creating the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Stranger things have probably happened…. She stayed for many, many decades and never married.  I lived with her ghost daily, believe me.

The view from the balcony of my apartment in the pleasant neighborhood of Bastos, Yaoundé 

Inside said apartment.  Nice, huh?

The old traditional Fang / Beti drums stacked in a corner of the Djoungolo Church in Yaoundé.  Ah, but they sound so majestic, jarring, and wild!  There is no sound more sacred to me.

A scene on the rue Joseph Essono Balla, the main thoroughfare through my part of Yaoundé.  This is relatively upscale for that city.

Here are traditional Cameroonian chairs in the chapel of the monastery on Mt. Febe.

A nicely-kept village church in the South Province.

The great church at Djoungolo, Yaoundé, from outside.

Rural South Province.

Some classrooms at my old school at Elat.

Rural South Province.

This was an old missionary house for the former Djoungolo Mission Station in Yaoundé.  It’s now a popular hostel for white travelers on the cheap, known as the Foyer Protestant.  It appears in all the travel guides as the absolute cheapest option in the city for lodgings, just as it did almost 30 years ago when I first arrived there.

Nkolandon, I believe, in the rural South Province.

Downtown Yaoundé.

Kribi beach.  We used to swim in the ocean here.  In the old days, I would gaze to the horizon and think of home—not my parents’ house, but my homeland, the place where people got my jokes and understood my Gen X references and spoke my native language.  The ocean makes a person pensive, especially an expatriate.

Kribi beach.

This is the wall that has been built around old Streshley Manor in the Bastos neighborhood of Yaoundé.  The house behind this wall was once a retreat for me—even if I felt as though the American family who lived there kind of expected me to babysit their kids.  It seemed like my payment for occasionally enjoying their luxurious home.

My recent apartment in Bastos again, very close to Streshley Manor.  I stayed here on both of my recent visits, once with my family and once alone.

The inside of the wonderful old church at Elat.  They used to pack this place out!  Maybe they do again now that it's reopened.  I sure hope so.  

An open air market in Yaoundé.

South Province rural village scene.

The administrative building at the mission school at Elat.

A view of Yaoundé from the balcony just off my godson’s office, where I was invited to meet with people for a half an hour at a time.

More classrooms at Elat.

Yaoundé as seen from Djoungolo Hill.

The campus of Elat School.  If I squint, it looks almost exactly the way it did 22 years ago.  I’ve made this photo the screensaver on my computer.

Yaoundé as seen from the “Protestant University,” which was merely the Protestant Divinity School in my day.

A village scene in the South Province.

In a middle class Cameroonian home with the playoffs to the World Cup on TV.  

Yaoundé roadside markets.

The water towers that mark Djoungolo Hill, Yaoundé.

The intricate ironwork in the windows of my recent apartment in Bastos, Yaoundé.

This is the church at Elat.  I used to sit very close to the balcony door in the dead center of the photo.  I always left early because the service was extremely long and in Bulu.  I could only understand the liturgical elements that were the same in English (Doxology, Apostles’ Creed, Lord’s Prayer, etc.).  They started doing a service in French shortly before I left the country, too late for me.

One of the teachers I knew long ago, Monsieur Ebo’o.  He’s retired now but still living on campus.  Many, if not most, of my former colleagues are dead now.  Life expectancy is so short in Cameroon.  But M. Ebo’o was never a drinker, and alcohol costs many men their lives prematurely over there.  My house is the one near the center of the photo.  Its famous mango tree has long since been cut down.

The new headquarters for the EPC (Cameroon Presbyterian Church) under construction on Djoungolo Hill in Yaoundé.

The waterfalls of the Lobe River at Kribi—one of the few places in the world where a waterfall descends directly into the ocean.

I’m actually in this picture…. Click to enlarge it.

The old headquarters of the EPC (Cameroon Presbyterian Church).  This building is being replaced.  I always did find it a little less grand than it needed to be.

Another classroom at my old school at Elat.  Many years ago, there were students in this room on a Saturday studying for their end-of-year exams when I heard screaming and whooping.  I came across the lawn to find that there was an enormous green mamba in the room—one of the deadliest snakes in the world.  🐍 

The house next door to Streshley Manor was also occupied by white people, French, but they never built the place up into a fortress.  It’s still a humble enough little compound.

Elat School with the hills of the South Province in the distance.

Kribi beach.

Typical upscale Cameroonian architecture, rural South Province.

Acacia weed, which closes whenever you touch it.

The mission station at Elat with the former principal’s house and a beautiful baobab tree.

On Mount Febe, Yaoundé.  That’s the historic Mt. Febe Hotel that overlooks the city from above and feels like the set of an old James Bond movie.

Le Foyer Protestant again.

In the Pygmy village, South Province.

This is the building at Elat School where my office was located.  There’s a huge old bank safe inside.

The monastery on Mt. Febe.  It too looked none the brighter for 22 years of wear since my last visit.  It’s wonderful museum of traditional Cameroonian art was locked tight.

I taught English in the upstairs classroom of this building, in the front.  Oh how nervous I used to be to stand in front of 30 kids and speak!

So…this unfortunate dog is descended from Bob Dole—who was my guard dog when I lived in Cameroon.  The poor pup is kept in this pen at all times and never allowed to run.  It can barely stand up because its leg muscles are so badly atrophied.  The treatment of animals in Cameroon is nightmarish.

A typical village scene in the rural South Province.

On the campus of Elat School.  It says, “Remember Frank James,” a missionary from the golden age.  These signs did not exist when I lived there—and I was the last missionary at Elat…and arguably the worst.  To be sure, there is not a sign with my name on it.

Yaoundé the beautiful.

Banana trees guard the entrance to the Pygmy village, South Province.

Again, the building where I had my office at Elat—and the ONLY TELEPHONE on campus, aside from the auxiliary line in the principal’s office.

Yaoundé from Djoungolo Hill.

The administrators' houses at Elat School.  Mine is the furthest to the right—although being to the right of anything feels out of character for me….

A dwelling in a touristy Pygmy village, South Province.  They would really only go inside if it were raining or at bedtime, so it’s nothing more than a sleeping shelter.