Cameroon, a country whose existence I had confused with a pastry, seems an unlikely candidate for the Top Ten, let alone the very best experience among the thirty-odd countries we visited while in Africa. A number of events occasioned this unlikely honor: celebrating my wife, Gwynne, and my 30th Wedding Anniversary at the only live cabaret we ever saw in Africa, discovering a Lost Gorilla Valley, feeding and touching wild hippos in the Congo River, being invaded by millions of flying termites in a rare and elusive mating ritual, and paradoxically, getting so stuck in the mud that it seemed hopeless we would ever travel again.
We were going to the beach town of Kribi when our truck slipped off the road. The passengers tried for a couple of hours to dig out but we just could not provide the horsepower, plus our number was depleted due to an alternate excursion that took some of our most physically capable members. Dozens of passing locals offered their considerable suggestions and opinions via gesticulation and arm-waving since we could not speak their language, but as it was getting dark we still had not accomplished anything except burying the wheels deeper and exacerbating our predicament. Finally in desperation I offered 2000 CFA (about $40) to a young local man who had witnessed most of our futile attempts and seemed sympathetic, if he could get a truck to pull us out. I thought he understood me and help would soon arrive, even though I could not imagine where it would come from, but instead he returned with a few other young men, then a dozen more arrived, and more, until finally his whole village: men, boys, women with babies, grandmothers – everyone who wanted to be entertained – was standing around us laughing, shouting, giving unheeded advice, and generally adding to the chaotic atmosphere. Over the course of the many hours at least a hundred people stopped to help, watch, sell merchandise, and engage in drunken brawls. They were all swarming about: pushing, pulling, levering with long poles of bamboo, crawling under the wheels, expertly swinging machetes to cut back the jungle, all the while constantly yelling conflicting instructions to one another. I sat in a folding chair by the road to supervise what I had inadvertently instigated. Remarkably, it was actually worse than I can describe here – Africa is volatile enough without another white person adding to the melee. However, our bogged situation actually deteriorated.
It was long dark when finally a big truck came by. It was going to pass but the young man and his friends jumped in front of it, not letting it move. They yelled at the driver in the cab for some time but he seemed not to listen to them. When it became clear that no one was going anywhere, a price was negotiated, and we finally found ourselves unstuck but it was too late to travel, especially on those roads. A local minister allowed us to set up our tents on the dirt if front of his bamboo-walls and tin-roof church. It was early Sunday morning, the light was just coming out, and we were exhausted and hungry when we got there. The church’s parishioners were showing up in the mud in their best clothes for services. I saw the young man from the night before in probably his only suit and tie helping our cook group get the fire going. He saw me, smiled and waved, seemingly happy we were there for him to help. Somewhat uncomfortably I waved back and took a picture of him when one of my fellow travelers sidled up to me and whispered, “Do you think I’ll go to hell if I take a whiz behind the church?” I had just come from back there, and I answered, “If that’s what’s going to happen to you, I shudder to think what’s going to happen to me!”
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