Life in the Village

This is where it gets difficult to explain but Ill give it a try...

Finally last Monday I trekked to the village with no intentions of returning to Kumba until the end of the week. Members had been waiting for us as there was a reception planned to welcome us and commence work. We arrived in the village by 4 and the ceremony began. A generator provided electricity for some music and a microphone. As we entered the village, the man with the mic gave a play-by-play as we "entered the village, greeted the chief, moved to the house, returned to the reception, and took our seats". Everyone from the traditional council and water management committee was introduced and then a welcome from the chief, response from me, and then some food and drinks after. We drank some bottles of beer and then some "white stuff" aka palm wine. The local specialty of the village keeps some members inside one residence in the mornings to take the fresh juice after returning from farms or preparing to go.

The villagers are fishers and farmers for the most part. Barombi fish (talapia) and giant shrimp come from the lake and are tasty. The farmers harvest cocoa, plantains, bananas, palms (for oil, and wine when the tree is finished) and timber. Life is interesting when the sun goes down at 7pm and there are no lights to attract the bugs and keep one awake. Early to bed means early to rise and I wake up every day at 6am, to sleep usually by 10pm. We bath using stream water (buckets) in a brand new outhouse constructed behind the two-room concrete school house we reside in. The outhouse is divided into three parts, has two holes necessary for taking care of business and one side to wash the body to feel fresh. Its funny every time I go for my bath and I shout at using the cold stream water, our friend Julius from Kumba asks,

"Is there a lion in there?"

Kills me every time. Mornings are used to prepare breakfast and some small reading. There is one girl from Kumba as well who stays in the village with us. She helps with most of the cooking because it is no easy task to prepare any meal here in Africa. I have been eating rice, spaghetti, eggs, greens, fish, plantains, potatoes, yams, and fruit: papaya, pineapple, oranges, mangos, bananas, avacados, but have not yet tasted my best fruit (called Monkey Kola because the monkeys love it so much).

Works starts around 9am as most of the villagers have returned from fishing and the farms. It is necessary to work with their own schedules as they provide all of the manual labor. We have been working all week on two objectives: digging for the catchment and tracing and digging the pipeline. The stream has been dammed and nearly half the catchment is excavated. As for the pipeline digging has gone for two days and around 200 meters have been dug (60mm deep and 40mm wide) for the PVC pipes. There is around 800 meters that will need to be dug so we are moving along quite well. Next week we plan to pour the concrete catchment and begin laying the galvanized iron pipe and hopefully PVC the following week. We are disagreeing with the plumbers on the price for the work, but they will still come to the village tomorrow and begin work as the engineer can sort that one out.