Down on the Beach

Last Wednesday we left Buea for a five day road trip to explore and experience more of the country together at a rather more relaxed pace than our usual flying visits here.  We spent the first night in Bonapriso, Douala with my sister Bisi, consuming some cheese and wine brought with us from France and enjoying Arsenal’s comeback victory against Barcelona on the TV.

Next morning Mbella, our driver, arrived to take us and my cousin Lobe to the beach town of Kribi where we stayed with my elder brother Edube at Dad’s conference centre.  He lives there with his family including his 3 year old daughter, Suzanne who is named after my grandmother who died shortly before she was born. It is customary here to “replace” people when they die by naming new born babies after them and consequently like all families we have many mbombos (namesakes).  In memory of Grandma we now have three Suzannes (as Bisi’s Christian name is also Suzanne she and my Suzanne are also mbombos).

Su with mbombo number 1, Bisi 

...and mbombo number 2, Suzanne

 The highlights of Kribi were walking and sitting on the beach, occasionally cooling off in the warm Atlantic Ocean, and going out for the legendary Cameroonian institution of beer and fish in the evening.  Edube took us to a good bar which plays African music and shows football while outside on the street women cook fish over hot coals.  It arrives perfectly cooked and steaming hot with delicious fierce chilli sauce, fried plantain and mionda (rubbery strips made from cassava).  Eaten with the fingers and washed down with beer it was a real contrast to the night before’s cheese and wine.

The bars here are filled mostly with groups of local men supplemented by a sprinkling of middle aged male French ex-pats sitting with considerably younger Cameroonian women.  We had an amusing time catching up with Edube and trying to bridge the language barrier with Lobe (the overlap between his French and Douala and our English and Spanish is small but growing).  When Lobe couldn’t understand our English, Mbella would translate which usually meant (although he speaks French) simply repeating what we had just said in English but with a heavy African accent!

The beach 2 mins from our house in Bebambwe

The beaches north and south of the town are idyllic with white sand and palm trees.  To the north a local builder is doing a great job of refurbishing Dad’s house at Bebambwe and we also visited Grand Batanga down the dirt road south towards Equatorial Guinea. 

On the beach at Grand Batanga with Lobe, Edube & Mbella

Hopefully these havens will be preserved if the Government’s plans for a new airport, major tarmac roads, deep see container port, airport and aluminium plant come to fruition (don’t hold your breath!).  Meanwhile our own grand plans are not progressing too well locally.  The conference centre still isn’t running properly and we had no running water for most of our stay there.  We briefed Dad on the latest developments at a family meeting he called on our return (another new experience for us) and hopefully we now have agreement on the way forward for the centre – let’s hope it works.