Rebecca Beran

Hiking and burning…

A few interesting things have happened in the last week. I finally went to Bamenda (the nearest bigger city with a huge market), and I finally got to do some real hiking around here. But first, the fire.

On Friday, I was in the maternity ward when we started hearing this noise. Dr. Thompson commented that it sounded like it was raining, and the nurse said that it was a fire. I’m thinking that fire’s got to be awfully close to be that loud, and I’m starting to wonder if one of the hospital buildings is burning or something. (I may also be slightly more paranoid after that fire in my apartment last May…) So I go outside, and Mbingo Hill is burning. There’s a road separating Mbingo Hill from the hospital, although there are dwellings of hospital employees at the base of the hill, but I was told that the fire would not get down to the houses. I took several pictures, and a few videos. It took about an hour for the fire to spread across the whole hill, and now it is all just black. Just the day before, Scott (American surgical resident here for 1 month) was saying that he wanted to climb that hill and have someone take a picture of him and I was planning to go with him. Well, now it will be easier to climb, without all that thick, tall grass, but we’ll get pretty dirty!

Fire on Mbingo Hill

During the fire

After the fire

Saturday I took a Bush taxi with Kate (Canadian occupational therapist here for 2 months) and did some souvenir shopping. I got a few fun things, and also got completely overwhelmed at the market. I loved the fabric aisle, but everyone is so pushy - “come inside my store! Look at this one! Let me help you pick out a nice one, then I can make a dress for you!” I felt like the more people talked, trying to get me to buy their goods, the more likely I was to leave and go to a different store! I did get a couple pieces of fabric, though we didn’t have time to go to the tailor recommended by Kate (she’s been here before). I think I’ll try and go again soon, now that I have a better idea of what to expect, I won’t be so overwhelmed, hopefully. Next time I go I’ll try to take some pictures, too.

Sunday Scott, Kate, and I went hiking in the opposite direction of where they had burned.  We left around 3:30pm. There’s another rest house on the bluff above the hospital, with a nice gradual incline road up to it at the far end of the hospital. So we decided to save time and go straight up. Mistake #1. I’m ridiculously out of shape, I have no business trying to walk straight up a hill, especially at 7000 ft elevation. About 3/4 of the way up we came across a trail that went gradually up and in the direction we were intending to go, so we started down that, and discovered we were following a pipe. The trail started getting narrower, buggier, and wetter, and we figured out that we were now underneath the ridge we were supposed to be on top of, so we turned around and went back to where we’d started on that trail, then proceeded to go straight up the hill again. After wading through some grasses that were taller than me, we came out on top of the bluff to find ourselves in the backyard of the chaplain’s house (who I had dinner with a week ago). Bet they weren’t expecting to see 3 white people burst out of the grass into their yard. Anyway, we followed the road a little ways, then went a little down the hill following a cleared area of the grass which led us to another area where the only way to go was straight up. I was dying. Scott was running ahead and ended up a good football field’s distance ahead of us. But, eventually we made it to the top and had another section that was fairly even ground along the side of the hill. We followed that for awhile and then came to what seemed to be a dead end. Then we found the trail that went off into the grasses, again mostly straight up.

We finally reached the top of the ridge, then followed it along down to the ravine, then up the other side. At that point, Scott ran ahead again, and we lost him entirely. Kate and I went a slightly different way back to the narrow path through the grass and apparently Scott was waiting for us for like 45 minutes at this waterfall that we must have gone above, because we missed him entirely. At this point it was starting to get dark, so we headed down without him, thinking maybe he’d gone down already and will be waiting at the bottom. He caught up with us at the Ndongnde’s house, and then we went back down the nice gradual sloped path to the hospital, making it back around 6:30, just as it really started to get dark. I was a bit sore yesterday, but not bad. Oh, and that hike left us all filthy dirty. The dirt is exceptionally fine, so it actually gets through your clothes. I could see the dirt on my skin through my jeans, and it went through my shoes, through my socks, to turn my feet black. My hands were disgusting, and I could feel the dust coating the back of my throat. I can’t wait to go again!

The view from the top. Apparently, during rainy season (i.e. without the harmattan haze limiting the view), you can see about 5 peaks of the surrounding hills. I think only about 2 show up in this photo, but I could see 3, barely.

Where we were, as seen from the upper rest house, with arrow pointing to where I was standing when taking the previous photo.  In the foreground you can see the L-shaped school and soccer field.

So, that’s it for now, I’m still working on getting my photos of people and insects, but I should be ready to post them soon!