Introduction to Buea

Our family home is in Buea (pronounced Boy-ah) on the slopes of Mount Cameroon.  When the Germans took over "Kamerun" as they called it in the 1870s this was the colonial capital for a while.  They chose it because of its strategic location on the mountain close to the coast and because they could build at sufficiently high altitude to reduce the number of Europeans that would die of disease.  The climate is significantly cooler than the nearby economic capital, Douala.  There are still German-built colonial buildings here that have survived over a century while all around has a more temporary feel.

Buea

After Germany lost their colonies in 1918, Buea became the capital of the english speaking part of Cameroon.  Nearby Douala is over the border into the french speaking side which dominates the country despite it being officially bilingual.  Our family home village in Dibombari is also in francophone territory although the dominant language there is Duala, one of over 200 african languages in this incredibly diverse country.  Many of the languagess are spoken in a small area only - here in Buea the language is Bakweri although you will also here a lot of Pidgin - a kind of simple broken english that is unintelligible to normal english speakers.
Buea is growing fast particularly because of the university although the mountain is its original claim to fame.

What to do in the event of an eruption....

Its an occasionally active volcano - it last erupted in 1999 shortly after my family moved here, the last of seven eruptions in the 20th century.  You can still see the lava flow that happened that day which fortunately completely missed the local towns.  In February every year the Mount Cameroon race is run - a marathon that goes up the mountain and back down again!