Day 7: Meet the Fon (Kumbo)

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Day 7: Meet the Fon (Kumbo)

Written by Eric Mathurin

Thursday, 08 November 2007

A shy lady selling beans by the road.

There was a restaurant in town with a pretty wide range of choices — Gill and I both had buns (with a yummy doughtnut-like exterior — fittingly called a beignet here) and, best of all: piping hot Nescafé. (We're pretty sick of rice and beans for breakfast).

We headed out of town on a very rutted, teeth-rattling dirt road for our day trip to Kumbo. Save for the emergency gear and extra water (and pants) we were able to leave everything else in our room.

Thank goodness we hadn't continued on to Kumbo yesterday — only David would have considered today's mountain climbing as "rolling"! It was net ascending, in fact. In any case, the views were still incredible and the people were very friendly.

We arrived after a few hours in Kumbo not too worse for wear. We found the gallery that we were supposed to visit but it was closed. They sent a messenger to retrieve Peter Musa, the owner/curator, and we then went to the palace of the Fon. (This particular Fon has a higher rank than the one we visited earlier and they would pay tribute to him.)

Our three guides of the palace: older brother, nephew and son of the Fon.

One of the Fon's sons (studying architecture in school), an elder brother, and another prince (Julius—a nephew to the Fon) gave us a very interesting tour of the palace. We were also able to meet the Fon himself — although unfortunately we had little to give him as a gift, which is done by tradition. He spoke to us briefly and inquired about our trip before turning his attention to some men who had come to petition him for help — most probably relating to troubles regarding family or property. They gave us a very thorough tour, likely because we asked so many questions.

As an interesting diversion we asked why the water company had their offices in the palace, and they took us up to meet with the director. As it turns out, Pierre Trudeau was friends with a local doctor and asked what they needed. So Canada ended up giving them water tanks and pipes. To honour this gift to Kumbo (through the Fon), the offices were located in the palace. We also then found out that a Canadian volunteer had just arrived two days ago. So we were then introduced to Richard, a retired water engineer who will be spending a month here to consult.

David and Richard outside the water authority office.

Julius took us to a restaurant where we had our meal of choice — rice and jam-mu jam-mu for me. He also talked non-stop about life in Cameroon; from AIDS to politics to his work with youth. He is very knowledgeable (and very much a political activist) and provided a lot of insight into his country and the problems that it faces.

Afterwards we found Peter at his gallery (he has a picture of the museum patron—his mother—on the wall; it's in the basement of her house) and he gave us a guided tour. His father was a wood carver and he learnt the trade from him. As such, many of the pieces on display were their work; he even showed us a piece he carved when he was only eleven. Afterwards we signed the guestbook—we're the first to have visited since August.

Foufou corn and jam-mu jam-mu.

Inside in the courtyard David hired his tour assistants—prince Julius and his friend, Yau. (Yau has never been more than 50 km outside the village, and this will be his first time cycling; he's using one of Julius' bicycles.) David had tried to find an assistant before the trip but had no luck. Julius (being one of the few cyclists in this country) apparently heard of David's offer from Peter but couldn't believe it was true. We left them for our ride back to Jakiri—they would go home, get their gear and tell their families goodbye (Julius' wife is a primary school teacher).

The ride home wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated. Only a few kilometres into the ride, however, Gill and I felt we would bonk soon. As we pulled to the side of the road to eat one of our lone Powerbars we noticed David had stopped a bit ahead to buy some bananas by the side of the road. Good timing! We had a few each of the delicious treats and they were exactly what we needed.

Yileh of Milem-Nso statue. See the resemblance?

Meanwhile, the old man who was selling the bananas had come back from his home with some wood carvings he was selling. They were beautiful and full of Cameroonian significance (and, frankly, the statues also looked like him). Il and I each bought one of the small statues for 25,000 CFA (~$50). The downside, of course, is that I'll have to carry the fellow for the rest of the trip!

David says:
We came to learn that the banana seller is also a farmer with a variety of other crops, including coffee. When asked why he didn't have a sign out announcing his artwork for sale he said then he would have to spend a lot more time carving so he had an inventory and he would have to be there a lot for the occasion that someone might stop to look at his wares. As it was, what started as the sale of less than $1 of bananas ended with sale of a couple of statues that equaled a good months pay for many Cameroonians.

Flush with the excitement of our meaningful roadside purchases and banana fuel we were able to reach Jakiri without much trouble (except Gill lost a water bottle; her cage broke and it must have bounced out on the bumpy road—just like my camera did; fortunately I heard the camera hit the ground behind me).

We had some well-deserved cold showers back at the hotel—by this point everything of ours just oozes red dirt: our bodies, panniers, clothes and bicycle are just covered. Gill did the laundry, although it seemed unlikely anything will actually dry overnight since the temperature gets quite cool after dark.

Our hotel in Jakiri.

In the early, darkening evening we gathered on the hotel patio and had the friendly ladies cook us up some fries, fish and omelets for our dinner. We ate everything in sight and probably could have done the same thing again. It was so much fun to watch the ladies cook up everything so proficiently over their fires all the while chatting, laughing and singing animatedly. When the power went off, I gave them my headlamp so they could continue their business.

David started into another lecture that turned into more of an information gathering / corroboration session with Julius. Although it was only 8:00pm it felt much later so we retired to our room to write in our journals and get ready for tomorrow's long ride.

Today was a great day! Also, no back pain.

One person has commented on this article.

No.1 Director, Mus'Art

This is Peter. I was so glad to welcome your team to the museum last year. It was a pleasure to meet you and your wife.

Our visitors book is not a statistical record of our visitor figures, however. Last year we received over 600 visitors to Mus'Art (this includes school groups).

If you or any of your readers are willing to become a Friend of Mus'Art and to assist us find like minded individuals who can be interested in supporting our museum please contact us at our website.