A few weeks ago I hosted 3 of my other volunteer friends Dan, Ben and Abbie who live in nearby villages to join me for Thanksgiving. We didn’t get to indulge on the typical favorites of cranberries or turkey, but we did make some good homemade mashed potatoes and a random assortment of other Thanksgiving meal creations. Typically back home my family, friends and I would either watch a football game on tv, or go watch a basketball tournament or else I would be playing in a basketball tournament. Here as we ate dinner on my porch we watched the kids play soccer in the path in front of the house. One of my favorite things to do over thanksgiving weekend back home is to spend some good time outdoors with friends and family skiing or hiking. Discussing this with Ben we decided that we should make a hiking trip walking to each others villages, crossing the mountain in between and spending the night halfway at Dan’s post.
So the morning after Thanksgiving, we set off walking out of my village to hike the 20 km up to Dan’s village at the base of Mount Manengumba. Dan’s village is quite isolated having only one route in and out that isn’t always passable during rainy season, but it is a beautifully quaint agriculturally driven village. From his village we set off the next morning to meet two friends of Dan’s who live in the neighboring village along the route up the mountain. The two of them joined us to guide us up through the many paths traversing across the mountain. It wasn’t like climbing mountains back home where the paths lead to the summit, summiting typically isn’t the goal of individuals here. Rather, the paths become a maize leading from one families field to another where everything from café, macabo, taro or medicinal plants are grown. This mountain is well-known in the area for the two stunningly beautiful turquoise crater lakes that rest just below the summit. We sat along one of the lakes and ate our lunch of grilled fish and baton du manioc a typical Cameroonian dish that Dan’s neighbor had packed for us to enjoy along our trek. After leaving the summit we descended down the other side of the mountain passing the huts of the Fulbe cow herders that live atop the mountains raising their cattle. It was The Fete du Mouton an important holiday for the Muslim Fulbes and as we hiked past one of the huts a young boy came out dressed in a suite to chop wood to prepare for the celebration. (I will try to upload a photo of this boy). It was a very contradicting scene standing atop the mountainside regarding the impressive patchwork of the thatched roof and out walks the boy in his suite and tie. That is how life seems to be here though, always contradicting itself and yet I never cease to be surprised and awed.
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