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Lindsay Miseko was a Health Education Volunteer with the US Peace Corps in the Anglophone Northwest Province of Cameroon for nearly two years and wrote about her experiences in a blog. |
Q: First start by describing yourself and your connection to Cameroon. What do you do for work and where are you from? What is your experience with Cameroon? How much time have you spent there? What are some of your interests?
A: I'm from western PA originally, but now I live in the DC metro area. I lived in Cameroon from 2005-2007 (26 months total) when I was posted there as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Northwest Province, not far from the Nigerian border.
Q: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Cameroon?
A: A lot of my associations are personal, like the red roads that I had to trek everyday and the dust I had to scrub off my feet later, friends that I had while I was there and their children, overcrowded bushtaxis, fufu and other foods. They aren't necessarily exclusive to Cameroon but they were all part of my experience.
Q: How is it different from the rest of Africa/it’s surrounding countries?
A: Hard for me to say personally, as I haven't spent an excessive amount of time in the surrounding countries. Cameroon is generally a peaceful nation, though, as opposed to some of its neighbors. (i.e. Nigeria, Chad, DRC)
Q: What is the typical day like for an average family in Cameroon?
A: Depends on the class of family that you're looking at. For people in my village, women and their children would be up before sunrise and they would walk sometimes miles up mountains to get to their "farms" (gardens) where they would plant or harvest depending on the season. They'd be back around 8 a.m., make food, clean the house, wash dishes, bathe, then the kids would go to school. The women would then either go back to the farm and work for the rest of the day or take care of things around the house. They'd come back in the evening and cook and bathe again and be in bed around 9 or 10.
Q: What is the culture like? How is music, art, food, dance, writing, etc incorporated in Cameroon life?
A: All of those are elements of daily life, with the exception of writing. Few people write as a hobby or art form. Otherwise, the art is incorporated into the buildings and the clothing. Dance comes up mostly in church. Food is there everyday. It's not a very westernized nation in terms of food. For the most part they eat what they've been eating for centuries. In some small shops you can buy cookies, but those are considered special treats.
Q: What is the weather/climate like in Cameroon year round and how does this affect life there? What are the major crops and exports?
A: The climate depends on the part of the country. (In your research, you've probably seen that Cameroon is called "Afrique en miniature" because of this.) In the south and east, it's mostly rain forests. In the north, it's Sahel (desert-ish). In the west where I lived, it's humid highlands. Because of this, there is a lot of farming in the west because the land is rich and that's how the people who live there get there food. Contrarily, in the south and east, people don't farm as much because they've always been able to find food in the forests rather than grow it. The bushmeat industry in Cameroon is mainly concentrated in this region. In the Northwest, depending on the season, they eat a lot of cassava, cocoyams and corn. Mangoes, passion fruit, pineapple, papaya, avocados were all plentiful, again, depending on the season. As far as exports go, tea and coffee are grown there but because of corruption in a lot of the plantations, I'm not sure how much is actually exported. In some cases, workers haven't been paid in years. Cameroonians, in general, work for a long time on promises ("I will pay you next week... next week... next week") but eventually they'll stop working and then the plantations are stagnant.
Q: What are some favorite foods? What are some of the main indigenous languages still used in Cameroon?
A:
Fufu and njama-njama was always one of my favorite meals. (Corn meal paste and fried greens.) Cameroon has around 230 indigenous languages that are still spoken, in addition to the more widespread French, English, Pidgin English and Fulfulde. Most Cameroonians I know, including young children, speak at least 3 languages.
Q: How does its colonial history affect the politics and culture within Cameroon?
A: There is a large divide between the Anglophone and Francophone sections of Cameroon, which is borne out of colonialism. Since I lived in an Anglophone region, I was mostly exposed to the Anglophone perception, which is that the largely Francophone government favors its own provinces and will bring development there first. Though, comparatively speaking, many parts of the Northwest and Southwest provinces (the two Anglophone provinces in Cameroon) are much more developed than some of the Francophone regions.
Q: How does religion play a role in Cameroon’s identity?
A: That's really a personal thing. Where I lived, Muslims and Christians cohabitated peacefully, in contrast to what's been happening in neighboring Nigeria. From my observations, they didn't really care what religion you were as long as you had one. If you didn't have one, they weren't confrontational, but they just didn't understand why. Of course, this really varies between rural and urban regions depending on whether westernization or missionaries have had a longer reach.
Q: What do young people typically do for fun in Cameroon?
A: They work a lot. School work, farm work, house work. I didn't see that there was too much time for fun. But they do love football (soccer). Other than that, a lot of hanging out and listening to music, talking to each other. Spending time and discussing is a big pastime in Cameroon.
Q: Describe as best you can what your perception of the media environment is in Cameroon?
A: A lot of the media is imported. (i.e. People listen to BBC or VOA on their radios.) There were some newspapers in provincial capitals, and for the most part, they were written in a very extravagant, dramatic way. I never could tell what was true and what wasn't.
Q: How does media (TV, film, newspapers, internet, computers, broadband, cell phones) affect the country and its people? What are some of the biggest positive and negative impacts?
A: Cell phones are a new addition to Cameroon; within the last 5 years or so they've exploded and most everyone has one. Internet is still slow to reach outlying areas, but there are a lot of internet cafes in provincial capitals and large towns. Positive: greater connectivity to the outside world. Negative: greater permeation of western culture.
Q: What is the most dominant media technology? What is used the most and considered the most popular? What are the most popular newspapers, TV shows and films?
A: Newspapers don't stretch very far. I would see them sometimes in provincial capitals but they don't reach the majority of the population. People listened to news a lot on the radio. I never heard of anyone having a favorite newspaper, TV show or movie. Many people don't have electricity. When they did, it was usually a single bare lightbulb strung over a rafter leading up to a tin roof. So, most people don't have TVs. Any money they have generally goes for essentials. I only ever saw one movie theatre in the country and that was in Yaounde. I don't think I ever met a Cameroonian who had actually been to a movie theatre. They used to think I was nuts when I told them we have 500 channels on TV.
Q: Who controls the media? Is it both public and private? What is the level of censorship? Is there an underlying political/religious/economic bias within the media? Is there freedom of the press?
A: Paul Biya and his government have a long arm, but I don't know who explicitly controls the media. I think that there is a "freedom of the press" to an extent, but if you write something that offends the government, watch out.
Here's an example of Biya's attitude about the press: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8236962.stm
Q: I read in my research that the vernacular press in Cameroon was short-lived because the colonial powers demanded a French language press. Is there any refinance of indigenous language media in Cameroon? Do you believe there has been some level of westernization within the media?
A: Again, most of the widespread news sources in Cameroon are western, so in that way, I'd say that Cameroonian news probably does try to follow suit. Because most people who are literate do speak one of the widespread languages, French or English, I don't think that there'll be a big push to print in the local dialects. The population reading it might be too small to make it worthwhile anyway, and those languages are primarily spoken more than written.
Q: How does media and culture in Cameroon play a role in the global media context? How is Cameroon perceived by the rest of the world?
A: In my experience, most people don't know about Cameroon. Many people don't know where it is or have never heard about it. I think that Africa is very underreported in the western, particularly American, media. We often only hear about Africa when some tragedy happens, which is a shame because there's a lot of good happening every day, and not just due to the western influence.
Q: How does media in Cameroon compare to other African countries?
A: I think that depends on what country you compare it to. Again, I don't have extensive experience in many other African countries, but if you compare Cameroon's media to Sudan's, then Cameroon probably looks pretty sophisticated. If you compare it to South Africa's then we're probably lacking. It depends on the economies.
Q: What is the future for Cameroon in terms of media and culture? How has the country adapted to the development of the media since its independence?
A: I think that Cameroon will continue to develop and produce more quality journalists and learn how to tell their stories in a way that the public can respond to. I can't really speak to how the country has adapted to media since its independence because I wasn't around in 1960 when that happened. I haven't explicitly studied media in Cameroon as an academic. I can only speak to what I observed during my two years there.
19. How do Cameroonians perceive America, President Obama, etc? What they really think of America and what they told me they think of it may be two different things, but for the most part, they have a positive perception of America. I can't really comment on what they think of the president because I was gone by the time he was elected.
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