Cameroon – writesimon

Meeting Jacques Ngoun

I first met Jacques Ngoun, a Bagyeli Pygmy from south Cameroon, at a IUCN run forest conservation conference, on my first visit to Cameroon in February 1999.

Cameroon’s premiere spot for the savvy traveller 2760 words/15 minutes I went to Cameroon in January 1999 to attend a conference in the capital Yaounde. Or more accurately, I went to a conference in Yaounde to get into Cameroon. Cameroon doesn’t encourage visitors, and so getting a visa to Cameroon requires an invitation from aContinue reading “Club Ideal Daze”

Bambela, Etogo, Zali

Naming our daughter among the Ewondo 1700 words/12 minutes Felix with Judith and la belle mere A few weeks after my daughter was born, in the Central hospital in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, Judith and I prepared to register her birth at the town hall. Having a baby in Cameroon is not as simpleContinue reading “Bambela, Etogo, Zali”

First Knock Door

When Victor found I had an Ewondo girlfriend from the Centre Province, he asked me if I was a serious man.

“If you are a serious man, you need to know how to dote your love,” he said. “I will tell you how to go see her father.”

The Ewondo live in the French speaking Centre province, so I asked, “How do you know about the Ewondo?”

“I had a love from there,” he told me. “You must be ready for what will happen. It is called the First Knock Door. When you go to see the father to ask for his daughter, you will say to the father, ‘You have a nice flower in the family that I love’.”

A short walk in the Cameroon rainforest

(Summer 2014) Simon Waters; 15 minutes As we left Assok, morning light streamed down through the rainforest tree tops. Soon the trail crossed a wide mud-brown river on a fallen tree trunk and Etienne strolled unconcernedly across. Although my pack was lighter than Etienne’s, I needed to protect my iPhone, and digital camera, so IContinue reading “A short walk in the Cameroon rainforest”