Lions and Slaves

Yesterday, I went to a nearby village called Selbederong with the volunteer I’m replacing.  It’s a few kilometers away but well worth the bike ride. There we met the chief and his son, Osmanou, with whom my predecessor has already done some work and recommends highly. We saw his farm and pisticulture project, which was not going well due to some large swimming snakes (we witnessed one) that eat all his fish and also some weird tadpole/minnow looking things that were infesting his pond.  I guess I’m supposed to be able to advise him on this sort of thing even though I really don’t know jack.  Not much different from corporate life after all.

My favorite part of the trip came towards the end when we sat around and talked with the old chief, who was telling us how it used to be back in the day. He said it was all much less developed (there’s a large dirt road now connected the village to other parts of Adamawa) and was all basically jungle and brush. We began talking about the disappointing absence of wildlife in Cameroon due to extensive hunting/poaching. The chief’s son commented on how sad it is that Cameroonians essentially killed off all the exotic wildlife. At this point his father, the old chief, chimed in proudly exclaiming how he has killed 3 lions in his life. The last time he killed a lion was only as far back as 1945 (he’s apparently 96), and he did it because the lion was grubbing on his cows.

After the lion story, he also told us about the time his family brought slaves down from Chad.  They apparently walked up to Chad and kidnapped like 20 Chadians and brought them back to Salbederong as slaves. My predecessor asked if they perhaps sought Chadians because they were darker (as was customary in African slave trade) though I didn’t know how feasible this was since the chief and his son were already quite dark. They said because Chadians are ‘grand et solide’ (big and solid). When the country gained independence in 1960, slavery was outlawed and all slaves in Cameroon were freed. He said some of the former slaves still live in their house to this day and are pretty much like family (awkward?).

That’s all I got for now. I will post my mailing address soon so you can send me things as I know you’ve all been eagerly wanting to.