Douala - life amid the chaos

In need of a good shower after a couple of days with only buckets of water we departed for Douala.  Suzanne was keen to experience the big city for the first time in many years.  After the first hour from Kribi to Edea, we joined the main road from Yaounde for a journey that is hard work.  The bendy single track road is busy with slow-moving lorries and the occasional fast-moving lunatic which kept Mbella, our driver, on his guard all the way.  At one point as he waited patiently to get past two slow lorries, a maniac overtook all of us on a bend at high speed tooting his horn and hoping for the best.  He avoided a head on collision but the wrecks on the side of the road show others were not so lucky.  As Dad says when he sees such driving, “he must have been in a hurry to get to his accident”.

Benskin drivers waiting for customers

The tension of the journey lowers on reaching the outskirts of Douala but the welcome to the city is unpleasant.  The last few miles are through the huge and growing manic shanty town suburb of Village, which is not an apt name.  As the one lane each way traffic slows down, all of a sudden there are four cars abreast going into town as yellow shared taxis compete with each other to gain a few metres.  The mushrooming number of cheap Chinese made motor cycles adds to the chaos and pollution.  The only way for young men to make money here is operating motor-cycle taxis carrying as many as three other people and their goods.  The bike-taxis are known as “benskins” because when you fall off you burn (pronounced “ben” locally) your skin.  There is even a Benskin ward at the local hospital!  In the road-side dust a huge informal market goes on and behind the wooden shacks sit hunched together next to some foul-smelling streams.  There is no planning, no infrastructure and lots of pollution from the overloaded lorries.

We were relieved to arrive at Bisi’s flat on Saturday morning with its hot water, air-con, satellite TV and access to European style restaurants and supermarkets.  But Sunday brought a power cut from 9am to 730pm followed by six further cuts which rather disrupted the evening.  However Africa is rather less reliant than Europe on power and life continues pretty much as normal.  We walked for an hour in the morning in the sapping heat and humidity and I showed Suzanne the market in the neighbouring poor suburb of New Bell where you can buy pretty much anything.  Judging by some of the looks of surprise, they don’t get too many white female visitors. 

Samuel Eto'o mural, New Bell's national hero

An evening drive around the centre of town to buy our supper completed Su’s tour of Douala.  It is hot, humid, crowded, mostly poor and not very pretty but it is the beating heart of Cameroon, very much alive even in the darkness of a Sunday power cut.