for dad : backtrack to yaounde

i realized, in looking back on this blog, that i never really wrote about yaounde. thats not really fair, because 1) yaounde was an amazing part of the journey so far and b) it is chronologically innaccurate to talk about kribi after dschang as if there was no in between. in fact, kribi was more of an inbetween from yaounde to ngaoundere, if that makes sense. so...back to yaounde.

After being in a small town like dschang for 5 weeks, at first yaounde was a little like Disneyland. Mahima is a supermarket with flashing fluorescent palm trees in the parking lot and aisles of organized whites tiles with air conditioning like january in minnesota. i almost threw up the first time i went in there. the supermarket in dschang didnt have lights, much less white tiles. i had forgotten the smell of clean linoleum. i didnt miss it. it wasnt so bad the second time, but still not a place i would frequent when given a choice.

we met with several different national and international non-governmental org.s which have offices in yaounde (WWF, FAMMCameroon, World Bank), as well as national and international government org.s like Peace Corps and the US Embassy. as american students who've studied development in cameroon now, we came in as big skeptics to the world bank and the us embassy. there have been so many failures in development strategies here that sometimes it almost seems like the welfare of cameroonians is last on the list of priorities (for instance, check out any info you can on the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline, esp. at the world bank website and the WWF website. One of the most horrible mistakes in development history according to many). however, after talking to the people who work on development issues and methods every day, there is much thats being done that is hard to see. corruption makes funding very difficult, and progress comes in bits and pieces. what seems to me to work best are true national NGOS like MUFFA, a women's micorfinancing group, and foreign aid objectives through peace corps and the embassy that create a viable work force of cameroonians who can start development projects of their own on a micro or macro level. in retrospect, i am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to interview so many leaders in cameroon’s development, and I don’t think I would have had this chance with another program. Thanks SIT!