6 /15/05

I've been in Cameroon for the past few days, and it's been an amazing opportunity to see the incredible difference peace and (relative) good governance can make.

Our group of eight crosses the Chad/Cameroon border at the small town of Kousseri. After the standard round of protocol and formalities (five stamps, two forms, a visa, and several grumpy-looking soldiers, just to cross an invisible line), we head towards town in the Land Cruiser, courtesy of Abba Ali, one of the Peace Corps' chauffeurs. We're heading southwest as quickly as we can, to the resort town of Kribi, on the Atlantic coast. Less than 100 meters past the guard booth, and red-yellow-and green Cameroonian flag, things begin to look and feel different. The soldiers walking back towards the border post have uniforms that actually match, as opposed to the random jumble of khaki, camouflage, and denim which make up the average Chadian 'uniform.' The decorations of the Cameroonian soldiers are made of real metal and plastic instead of being drawn on– even the automatic weapons they carry seem shinier and newer. But there's more- the road suddenly feels smooth and recently paved, and even more amazingly, high-tension power lines begin to line the road.

Abba Ali stops at the Gare Routiere, the place to find a ride going towards Maroua, our first stop on the way south. He parks and disappears into the parking lot which constitutes the station, emerging a few minutes later.

"Je vous ai trouvé une voiture," he says. I've found you a car. Almost on cue, the car pulls up next to us, as we do a collective double take. It's a red Toyota minibus, perhaps early 1990's, designed to hold maybe 12 people. The paint still looks shiny, the seats have real padding, and the tires look almost new- compared to the rolling death-traps known as Taxi Brousse in Chad, this is absolute luxury. It's not perfect-– we still have the standard African air-conditioning system (aka windows), and the front windshield has a large spiderweb crack in it, but the driver, Mahamat, seems nice enough, and after paying our 5000 FCFA each for the three-hour trip, we're off.

We roll into Maroua, the northernmost large town in Cameroon, provincial capital of "Extreme North" province at about 5:00- right away the difference is obvious. As opposed to the standard mud-brick construction that makes up much of N'Djamena, Maroua is lined with multistory cement offices and apartments, which, amazingly, have electric lights on in the windows. The ever-present growl of portable generators you hear in N'Djamena is non-existent. After a dinner of pizza, Amstel, and rum-raisin ice cream, all near impossibilities in Chad, we go back to our hotel, which although not perfect is a huge step up from the average cheap crash pad in N'Djamena.

A bigger surprise comes the next morning, when we go to the bus station- our destination in N'Gaoundéré, 500km south, and the beginning of the Cameroonian rail system. It's about an eight-hour bus ride, and in shà Allah (God Willing, as they say here), we'll make it in time to catch the 6:15 night train to Yaoundé, Cameroon's capital. Considering the 'bus system' in Chad, our standards are set pretty low– packing 25 people into a dilapidated van meant for 12 for a journey on cratered roads will do that to you. As we walk in the gate at Touristique Express, an almost-new, gleaming white charter bus is waiting, engine revving. After about 15 minutes the doors open, and we're allowed to board- instead of the standard taxi brousse bench seats, row after row of leather chairs stretch to the back, the windows are tinted, and the air-conditioner is blowing. We are still in Africa though- a gigantic woman in a mustard-colored pagne squeezes past us to the back seats (she needs two), several imposing-looking soldiers in black t-shirts carrying semiautomatics and knives climb on, and the smell of fish wafts inside, as someone stuffs a recent catch into the lower baggage compartment. The clock hits 6:30 AM, and we're off, on schedule. For the first couple hours the road is far from perfect, with large potholes that have been haphazardly filled with sand. As we reach the large commercial town of Garoua though, it becomes perfectly smooth. We stop at a Total gas station, surprising enough in itself- there are actual gas pumps (that work!), people in red uniforms, and a small convenience store; compare this to your average Chadian gas stop, which is usually a guy in a dirty bubu siphoning gas one liter at a time out of a large glass bottle. Again, there's still a definite 'African-ness' to it; as the bus stops, a crowd swarms around, frantically trying to sell anything they can before we take off. Beignets, bread, sheets of homemade spicy beef jerky, hard-boiled eggs, batons of manioc root, grilled mutton kebabs with spicy sauce, and more are balanced on people's heads, in the seemingly impossible display of stability that must be part of the African genetic code. The driver honks, and the bus begins to roll, despite the fact that several people are still ambling around outside- no matter; with dexterity a gymnast would envy, they run and leap for the entrance, scrambling for their seats as we hit the highway.

The next four hours of the trip pass uneventfully as I manage to get some sleep- amazing how easy it is when you're not constantly dodging potholes. For the whole of the trip so far we've never been more than 100km west of the Chadian border- the environment is almost exactly the same, but it feels like a different world otherwise. Maybe that's what makes it so depressing- I keep thinking that this is what Chad could have been, had the focus been more on development, and less on civil war. Now admittedly, Cameroon got a way better deal out of the colonial system than Chad did- it was colonized by both the French and the British, who for all their flaws put in vital infrastructure where it was needed. Cameroon also has the huge advantage of a coastline; the port of Douala is the gateway for almost everything coming into or going out of Central Africa. If N'Djamena had something like that, Chad would undoubtedly be a very different place. On top of that, Cameroon has been, it not exactly a shining beacon of democracy, at least peaceful since independence in 1960. Contrast this with Chad, which has never had a peaceful change of government, and has been at war for most of its history. With my only experience in Africa until this trip having been in Chad, it's encouraging to know that not all African nations are such complete basket cases.

Which isn't to say there's no hope for Chad though- one of the largest reasons for Cameroon's development has been the discovery of oil, and the subsequent flow of money. A billion barrels of oil were recently discovered in Chad, and although the Chadian government did get a pretty lousy deal (less than 15% of the revenue goes to them, with the vast majority ending up in the hands of ExxonMobil), the chance is there for some development money to arrive. In Cameroon, the evidence of money being reasonably well-spent is everywhere; the highway connecting Yaoundé, Douala, and most of the southern portion of the country, the streetlights and power lines strung alongside the road, and the existence of all sorts of infrastructure that seems light-years off in Chad. With the oil money, Chad has a chance- the obvious question is, will it take it?

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