the participants had played, but they got pretty good at it.
The seminar went very well. It is designed for people who attended the
first Equipping Seminar and who had already taught at least one Healing
Group. During this week, 24 participants
had the chance to teach in front of peers to get feedback. The participatory learning required by the
program is a big change for most people, but overall, they did well. They also got some additional information
about each of 11 lessons, reflected on the group they led, planned their next
steps, and socialized! Six people
attended, but followed the track of the first course, joining the larger group
for some activities.
The other presenters were Margaret Hill,
one of the authors of the books we use, Trauma: How the Church Can Help who is
based in Nairobi, Kenya. She also works
with SIL, another Bible translation organization. The other facilitator was Frank
Cole, a
retired doctor from Britain who travels a couple of times a year to help
facilitate seminars and works with the program through his home church. I had met both people at the first seminar I
attended last year. I had also met most
of the participants, either at the Bamenda seminar last year or at the
Equipping Workshop I helped lead in Yaoundé in March. (There’s a blog entry about that, too, if
you’re interested.) It was fun seeing
people again. (Hey, Mom, here’s a picture of one of the new dresses I had made
just before this trip.)
About ten of the participants (and three of
the facilitators) came from Yaoundé so we rented a van. This is a van that would generally be used
for bus service, but the driver and his assistant picked us up (at three
locations) instead of us having to get tickets and then getting ourselves to
the bus station. He also dropped us off
at CABTAL instead of the bus station in Bamenda. It was certainly more convenient. The van was older (and a little
uncomfortable) but we got there safely.
The trip takes about eight hours.
Much of the road is paved. First
we were on the road between Yaoundé and Douala; once we turned off toward
Bamenda part of the road had recently been repaved and was great! Then, we got to the section near the town
that is not paved, rutted, and slow.
Hopefully they will work on that soon since the entry road into Bamenda
has been recently paved. The picture
shows the driver’s assistant taking the tarp off the suitcases to unload. (Tarps are essential in the rainy season to
keep this dry, but also in the dry season to keep off some of the dust.) 
One of the favorite foods around Bamenda is
fufu-corn and njama-njama (sp?); we had it a couple of times during the
week. And, when we got back to Yaoundé
Jackie Langdji prepared the same dish!
(There family is from that area.)
She cooked the fufu-corn in banana leaves while the cooks in Bamenda
prepared it and put it in plastic bags.
As you can see in the picture, the dish is made from greens. In the
Yaoundé version, Jackie added chicken; in Bamenda it had beef. Tasty!
On the way back a week later, we had a
different, newer van, but, basically, the same trip in reverse. We made slightly better time, but stopped
several times to buy farm products for sale along the road. We could have had a whole salad! One place they sold avocados, another
green peppers, another carrots, another
tomatoes! The Bamenda grows much of the
food for the country one participant (from that area) said.
When we were in the outskirts of Yaoundé,
we ran out of gas! This is not something
one would expect in the US (well, not in Cameroon either although I think it
might be more common here). Fortunately,
the driver was close to a place to buy enough gas to get us to a station so we
were only delayed ten minutes. We
passengers stretched our legs and chatted.
I got back to Langdjis house about 3:30.
Frank stayed with me for a few hours until he left for the airport and
England. The next morning I got up early
and drove with Garoua Boulai with the Bishop Ngembe and a young man headed for
the Youth Gathering that started yesterday here in GB. There are lots of people around, but not
34,000 as they had in Detroit!
On the way back, I met briefly with a woman
from a church in Bertoua to talk about the possibility of my helping them with
some planning. The bishop also met
someone in another town. Still, the trip
was quick and uneventful – another 8 hours…
We only had rain for the last 10 km.
It was heavy at times and when we got to GB, rivers of water were
running along the sides of the road. I’m
glad we didn’t have that the whole way!
It is the rainy season, but I can be grateful for dry weather for
driving.
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