Bushwacked

OK. Since I last wrote, I have been in the thick of my research on the socio-economic impact of diamond mines in the south-east of Cameroon (copies will be available at bookstores by you in the near future). First I returned to Yaounde and took the neccesary medicines to get over my scare with Cholera-esque diseases. While I was there, I continued to conduct interviews write and explore Yaounde. Before leaving for the East, I went out to a place called the village, which is a musical-rastafarian-jam-festival that occurs occasionally in Yaounde. I listened to drumming, looked at cool african art and had a pretty sweet time.

I then began Bobo and Steven's Fantastic Adventure. My buddy and 5"6 bodyguard, Bobo,
and I took public transportation to Youkadouma, a process which lasted 55 hours. During that time, we had to get out of the bus 9 times to push it out of muddy ditches. We also spent four hours, during the night, watching as truck after truck, including our bus got stuck in a ditch the size of a small whale. We spent a night bromancing in the bush at a little auberge in the middle of nowhere. But we finally arrived in Youkadouma with most of our limbs intact. After arriving, there were some logistical difficulties (including a lack of a supervisor for my trip, an unneccesary day of bush-taxi-ing to the diamond site only having to return to Youkadouma that night). During this time, I also began to experience the real beauty of this isolated city, Youkadouma. When you arrive in Youkadouma, you have been travelling through the dense jungle for two straight days before there is a sudden opening and a little city full of logging trucks, the WWF and every type of trafficker you could consider. During my time in Youkadouma people attempted to sell my: diamonds, uranium, gold, sapphires, guns, cars and sex. Actually the prostitution aspect of the city was the most irritating as I attempted to eat my dinner at the local dining hall and was constantly harrased by drunken prostitutes. Going out to a bar for a drink after work was nearly impossible for the same reason. I did, however, begin to have fun with the repetitive attacks of aggressive prostitutes and came up with quizzes, fun questions and dismissals for them, (one of my favorites was, "you don't look enough like Rihanna for me, sorry.")

Finally, I left with my advisor, Victor, for the village before the diamond site. I spent four nights/five days waking up at 4 am and going to sleep at 11pm as I did interviews, reunions and travelled. We hung out at the chief's house, shared beers and bushmeat with the police commisionner, talked to all sorts of sketchy people and met everyone in town. Then we ventured to the diamond site: a two-hour moto ride through the jungle to miniature deserts where they had begun to explore diamonds. There I took some unauthorized photos, learned about some crazy koreans and watched as the moto broke down with an impending rainstorm (which we later outran, through the bush, going mid 60s--so cool). Also took a quick detour into the Central African Republic, check.

I then returned to Youkadouma to interview the local authorities, companies and NGOs. This lasted another four days. I also met some mercenaries and talked to them about their work over beers and AK47s. Finally I was ready to begin writing and have started at this point. Yesterday I caught a ride back to Yaounde in a 4x4 (you can't imagine the difference) with an american and some ngo workers. I spent the night, briefly in Lomie, saw the headquarters of geovic and then woke up at 1:30 am to catch the public bus back to Yaounde.

Unfortunately, my photos from this are limited for personal safety reasons (I feel like I sacrificed photos for all my organs). Other Highlights.
Saw: Black Mamba, pangulin, monkeys, boa constrictors mating, grey parrot. Lots of corruption.
Ate: Monkey, elephant, mamba and boa constrictor and a few different types of antelope. macaroni and plaintains with each of these things.
No mobile service or internet.

Back from a war zone,
Steven