Volunteering week
on Tales from a Mud Hut (Cameroon), 12/Dec/2008 11:19, 34 days ago
Last week was volunteering week inCameroon, a nationwide celebration of the contribution that volunteers make to development efforts.At VSO, we were all invited to attend a meeting in order to coordinate our various planned activities.Perhaps a third of the meeting was, however, taken up with choosing a suitable name for the week.Ideas were presented, written down, accepted rejected, accepted again, until finally some bright spark decided to join all the suggestions together into one long name.Thus, after an hour and a half of fierce debate, "Solidarity and Engagement Week: Together for Development, Together Against AIDS and HIV, Together for Human Rights!" was born.Try fitting that on a banner (although, to their credit, someone actually did).It was at the same meeting that the idea to produce a documentary depicting the work of volunteers in the Far North of Cameroon was conceived.A couple of days later I was asked if I would like to co-produce this documentary, mainly, it seems, because I have a Mac laptop with groovy movie-editing software.Within a week I found myself being chauffeur-driven to various locations in and around Maroua, eating lavish dinners put on by traditional chiefs, visiting schools, watching cultural events andoccasionallyfilming volunteers doing some actual work.I also met the regional representative ofCameroon's version of the BBC, CRTV, who has since taken to stalking me demanding footage.Every time I get on a moto-taxi or walk down a main road he suddenly materialises behind me, wanting to know when I'm free to edit.All this has taken place alongside preparations for Human Rights Week, the busiest time of year at MDDHL.Fortunately most of the events of HRW were film-worthy, so I was able successfully to combine my two responsibilities (as most people reading this blog probably realise, even one responsibility is usually too much for my poor brain to handle).HRW was a truly breathtaking example of Cameroonian event planning in action.On Wednesday, for example, we were scheduled to visit Maroua's detention centres (mainly the prison and the holding cells at the police stations).This was an annual event, the date for which had been set at least a month beforehand.On Wednesday morning, however, it transpired that nobody had actually informed the detention centres that we were going to visit them.You're probably thinking, surely that was the point?Alas, not inCameroon.Here you cannot so much as blow your nose without the official written consent of theProcureur de la République, signed and decorated with three separate but equally meaningless stamps.The acquisition of this sacred document took the entire morning and most of the afternoon, and with only two hours to visit the detention centres, we decided to split into teams.Fortunately, with Emilie on one team and Sarah on the other, each group had one pretty blonde to whom the police chiefs were willing to grant pretty much anything.Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to film inside, or even outside in the street; I had to content myself with capturing people's reactions at the end of the day.Needless to say we weren't that impressed: each police station had only one tiny cell in which men, women and children were held together, despite the assurance of the authorities that this never happened.The next day was a visit to the authorities themselves, for which we also needed, and were granted, written permission.By far my favourite authority was the Lamido.Each town or village inCameroonhas a Lamido, who is a sort of king or traditional chief.As the king of the largest city in theFarNorthProvince, the Lamido of Maroua has more than the usual aura of self-importance about his presence.Everyone entering his palace had to remove their shoes and sit on the floor before the immense Lamido throne, a bizarre contraption that looks like a regurgitated, partially-digested beige sofa.On either side of the throne are wooden elephant tusks, and across the top is painted in wobbly gold letters "His Majesty the Lamido of Maroua".Sarah and I have plans to create our own Lamido thrones in our houses once we've built up a sufficiently large stock of cushions and gold paint.On Monday Muslims in the Far North Province celebrated the "fête de moutons" (literally, sheep festival, although I believe the official name is' Tabaski') an event similar to Christmas in that everyone goes to church in the morning and then stuffs themselves with food in the afternoon.We dressed up in our finest and went to the largest mosque in Maroua to watch the prayers, a truly spectacular event: thousands of Muslims praying and chanting together.In the name of VSO documentary B-roll footage I got to bring the camcorder with me; I'll try to upload the footage to the internet as soon as I'm somewhere with a decent internet connection.That's it for now.I'll be back in theUKon 29th December, hopefully with Fausto if the Visa Gods look upon him favourably.So if anyone's free to meet up between then and 18th January, let me know!