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Previous: N'Gaoundéré
The N'Gaoundéré suburbs were not miserable shanty towns like those of Yaoundé that attracts many impoverished rural people.
I took many pictures from my seat behind the driver on the shaded side of the bus.
Here is an apparently prosperous family compound at the beginning of a hut village.
These white heaps are freshly harvested cotton waiting to be gathered by the village cotton association to be sold to Sodecotton, a parastatal enterprise that carries out the first processing and markets cleaned fibre and cotton oil for local use and export. In Cameroon, 350 000 small farmers produce 230 000 tons of cotton yearly.
This is the normal habitat of small farmers in northern Cameroon.
And here is another picture of a small village taken from the open bus window.
Entering Garoua, more than half way from N'Gaoundéré to Maroua. Note the bus station on the left.
Markets are always a good place to observe people and to meet some when circumstances are right. Anyway, they are always a good place to take pictures.
Passengers inside and and goods on top are both loaded to the ultimate limit on these minibuses.
Fibre prayer mats find a ready market in the predominately Muslim north.
The water level is obviously lower now than in the wet season (April to September) but this river is not dry yet and it still attracts a lot of people to wash their clothes and themselves.
People on this dry farm have more than two months to wait for the first rains to start in April.
The deep roots of sorghum allow it to grow and survive where corn and wheat would perish in the dry season.
In the north, every village has its Mosque, however modest.
In Maroua I chose Hotel Fety within walking distance from the bus station over Auberge Faric, cheaper and closer but isolated up a dark alley.
I had a clean room with bathroom for 14 $US.
I stopped to have a look at the "Relais de la Porte Mayo", the best hotel in town, on my way to visit the Grande Mosquée on the other side of the Kaliao river.
Guests
of "Relais de la Porte Mayo" have their own thatched roof African "case"
with all the modern conveniences inside.
The Kaliao river was completely dry when I was there in January.
Here is Maroua's old Grande Mosquée. There is another, newer Grande Mosquée in the eastern part of town.
Shortly after taking this picture, I met Bello Hayatou, a young veterinary science graduate who showed me the way to the local Lamido's Palace.
Here is Bello in front of the Lamidat of Maroua.
I could not have found a better guide. He was a veritable encyclopedia on the history of Maroua and its Lamidat. Moreover, he was a distant relative of the Lamido and knew most of the local notables.
Below left, Bello, the Tchamaki (Chief of the Cavalry) and myself and on the right, Bello and his fiancee Djenabou.
Notables of which a few are seen here sitting in the shade, all have traditionnal titles and functions that bring them more honours than they cost them work. Amongst them we can mention:
The Alkali - the Judge
The Kaïgama - the Prime Minister,
The Lamido Tchondé - the Minister of Defense,
The Magdadji - the Minister of the Interior,
The Sarki Saun - the Minister of the Herds
The Sarki Fada - the Lamido's advisor,
The Sarki Jongo - the Host of visitors
The Tchamaki - the Chief of the Cavalry
The Garkonwa - the Chief of the Lamido's spies,
The Kefa - the Lamido's Valet,
and many others.
Bello arranged for me to meet His Magesty Bakary Bouba, the Lamido of Maroua who had a relaxed chat with me on the duties of Lamidos and their place in the structures of the modern state.
I told him how Peter the Great visited most of Europe incognito, disguised as a worker of various trades, and promised that I would gladly receive him in my home and show him around Montreal if he felt like trying such an adventure. (I confirmed by e-mail and am still waiting for his reply)
When I said I would put his picture on the Internet he volunteered to put on his traditional dress if I would come back later. I'm glad I did for the pictures below are striking.
I travelled 15 other people in this red minibus from Maroua to Kousséri on the Cameroon side of the Chari river in front of N'Djamena in Chad.
Stopping here to unload some merchandise gave us all a most welcome occasion to stretch our legs.
I am confident this traditionally dressed villager prefers modern travel by bicycle instead of walking.
These round huts with mud walls and thatched roofs are the standard habitat not only here but also in most of the dry Sahel.
Naturally, the local Mosque is built much more solidly than the peasant's huts.
This reminds me of big masonry churches surrounded by unpainted wooden houses in the poor fishing villages of the Gaspé peninsula in the priest ridden Quebec of fifty years ago!
Village life is allways centred on the road where there is one.
In Kousséri I took a Cameroonian cab to the border where I lost an hour to get through immigration and customs on both sides of the river and then, I took a Chadian cab to N'Djamena.
