Eating viper domba (2 of 2)

The following night, we went out for dinner with a local contact who wanted to learn more about upOwa. We had one of the most memorable meals of my life: viper domba.

Bafoussam! Its colors, its sounds, its smells (including pollution) fill the air

Viper in Cameroon is a dish used traditionally in initiatic ceremonies for men. Women were not allowed to eat, touch, or cook viper. Things have changed a little today, but I did not take any pictures out of respect. Interspersed throughout this piece are photos of Bafoussam instead. 

upOwa requires hard physical work...

You might be wondering how the viper goes from life in the forest to your dish. I certainly was. Our contact, Alain, had called up a hunter he knows in Southern Cameroon two days earlier. The hunter went out, laid a trap, and caught a viper, which he then half-killed. Alain then sent a driver to pick him up with an ice cooler, and the driver took hunter and viper up to Bafoussam, where the hunter hand-delivered to viper to Alain after driving over 10 hours.

So it's important to start with a light but hearty breakfast

Whatsapp and Canadian
driving school -- in Douala

In Bafoussam, Alain knew the one restaurant that knows how to prepare viper properly. It takes not only skill, but specific knowledge: a proper domba, the name of the dish, requires traditional herbs from the forest, that aren’t sold in cities. A restaurant needs to have personal connections to someone in a forest village who’ll know the proper herbs (we weren’t allowed to learn the dish’s ingredients) and will gather them for the dish. They have to be fresh, so restaurants can’t even stock these herbs.

Preparing the viper apparently goes beyond cooking the food: in Cameroon, every part of the viper that isn’t eaten is extracted and preserved for medicinal value. Alain swore that rubbing viper oil over his leg healed a bone fracture a year ago.

Bafoussam and its colorful chaos

Alain told us all this as we waited for the dish to be served. My excitement and hunger only grew with each new detail. When the cook brought out the dish, wrapped in special leaves, conversation quickly turned to how to unwrap and eat the snake. We undid the leaves, and uncovered braised snake, carefully cut into serving-size pieces.

I got a haircut -- sneak
preview of a next post!

Viper is truly delicious, and full of meat. Its texture is a mix between fish and chicken. When served in a domba, it is braised with wild forest herbs without using any grease, including the snake’s own which is extracted and saved. We savored the extraordinary meal and the unique opportunity to share such a dish with a Cameroonian friend who’d gone to such lengths to offer us this experience. 

Eating viper and installing solar panels: my first days in Cameroon (1 of 2)

Last night, I ate viper domba. And let me just say, it was delicious, and an extraordinary experience. Let me backtrack first and catch you up a little: I’m now in Cameroon, where I arrived two days ago from Mali by taking two flights and a bus to reach Bafoussam, the largest city in Western Cameroon. Cameroon has by far the worst-maintained, bumpiest roads I’ve ever seen -- Mali’s roads are impeccable in comparison.

The road leading to upOwa's HQ is in far better
condition than the main roads of Bafoussam

Bafoussam is where upOwa is based. upOwa (www.upowa.org) is an award-winning social business started a year ago by Kilien de Renty and Caroline Frontigny, two French friends I met in Washington, DC, that installs small solar panels in houses of off-grid villages that have never had electricity before. On my first day in Bafoussam, we drove several hours into the countryside to reach the home of a small village chief, which upOwa was going to equip with a solar panel. After spending a month in the dusty and sandy Sahel region, the first thing that struck me was the incredible greenery of Cameroon, the gorgeous verdant valleys and lush countryside.

Along the way, we lost several hours when a police officer pulled us over at a control point, and proceeded to look for any excuse to bring us to the station. Since a local businessman had recently used his influence to attempt to undermine upOwa by bribing the police chief, the upOwa team failed to talk their way out of the situation. When we arrived at the police station, the deputy of another security force greeted us with a large smile. He was a friend of a client of upOwa’s, and therefore a friend of upOwa’s. He took over the process, since he was more senior than the cop who had detained us, and after talking for a little bit, he released us. At the police station, I noticed an electoral ad for a political party, inside the offices of a police officer, which suggested a lack of impartiality perhaps of the police. 

I traveled in the trunk of the car, with the solar panels, This was a pretext to pull us over and attempt to extort a bribe

(Corruption is generally speaking more prevalent in Cameroon than in Senegal or Mali. When I landed at the airport in Douala, and a friend of a friend, Romeo, picked me up, the parking lot agent refused to let us exit until he received a small bribe. Romeo explained he had only large bills, and would gladly pay a little extra if he could. The man didn’t demand a large bill of 10,000 FCFA, but wanted only a modest bribe because otherwise Cameroonians would revolt if forced to pay excessive fees. I finally dug up 500 FCFA (approximately 80 cents) in Western African currency, which he snatched out of my hand before lifting the barrier.)

To commemorate the occasion, the chief posed in his finest robe on his throne, which is
decorated with his family's symbols, under a leopard skin -- his spirit animal.

When we finally arrived at our destination, at the end of a bumpy dirt road, the village chief was busy receiving someone from his village who had gotten a fine from the police he felt was excessive, and was asking his chief to intercede on his behalf. Once their meeting concluded, the chief greeted us with a large smile, and introduced his main adviser and his entire family, including his wives and twelve young children. He was eager to benefit from upOwa’s services, and he offered to encourage others in his area to do the same. After going over pricing and number of light bulbs we could install, we began discussing the location of the lights with the chief, while the children and women watched us with evident fascination.

The children begged me to take their picture, and when I turned the lens to them, they spontaneously began doing this. 

Then we began the actual work of installing the solar panel, control box, and five light bulbs. These are modest generators, tailored to fit the most basic needs of families in Cameroon: they can power up to five light bulbs so families can work and study at night without breathing in fumes of kerosene lamps, and provide outlets to charge up cell phones without having to travel several hours to another village and pay large fees to do so. 

The village mosque is right next to the chief's house, as he is the religious and spiritual leader of the community as well. In Cameroon, spiritual and political leadership are closely intertwined.

The intrepid CEO of upOwa, Kilien de Renty, on the roof of the chief's house with a solar panel

After spending several weeks in meetings with government officials, it felt great to be doing manual work in the middle of nowhere. 

Bamako

I struggled to write this post because Bamako is a city that grows on you slowly. It’s also hot. This is worth bearing in mind, because the combination of heat lack of breeze affects every aspect of city life. This is particularly true during Ramadan: the fasting, and no drinking any water, slows down the entire rhythm of Bamako.

A colorful plane, with missing parts -- not sure whether it's intentional or not, but to me this captures Bamako perfectly

America continues to fascinate and attract,
something I experienced repeatedly

Upon arriving in Bamako, the first things that struck me were the heat and the resentment toward the French. On my way to get a cab, and while negotiating the fare, I made small talk with three people who all asked me if I was French. When I replied, ‘No, American,’ they smiled and stated repeatedly that the French aren’t trustworthy. I quickly noticed a relative lack of French cars, which were so dominant throughout Senegal: here, all taxis are old Mercedes, and German cars abound.

"Meat Roaster. Pharmacy of Good Health" reads the sign. Malians use bright
colors and signs to demonstrate their sense of humor and zest for life

Then came the feeling that I wasn’t in a city: rather, and despite a population of 1.8 million, Bamako felt like a village, only with the traffic and pollution of a large city. The side streets were often dirt paths, and where there were paved roads it’s hard to tell which of pavement and potholes is the norm and which is the exception. Moreover, unlike Dakar, sidewalks aren’t colorful places, nor do they function as intersections of sociability. They are functional. Sure, there are still stalls, but they’re much more established – some have display windows, for instance. Sidewalks are either so large the stalls barely register, or so narrow the stalls cover them entirely. In either case, little interaction occurs, and certainly nothing on the scale of Dakar’s busy social life. There are no neon lights except in a few areas, little outdoor lighting that suggests animation.

Moreover, the incessant noise from traffic, especially old motorcycles (three quarters of which function as cheap taxis), and the considerable pollution they emit, make the sidewalks on the whole less attractive areas to congregate than in Dakar. It isn’t rare to see inhabitants of Mali sporting masks over their mouths. Since potholes abound, and certain areas serve as sidewalks for pedestrians and motorcycle lanes simultaneously, you get used to motorbikes swerving around you. The key to understanding their driving patterns is to realize they will zigzag to avoid potholes and rocks as much as possible – these are the areas where you should walk, even when wearing flimsy sandals. You need to be constantly alert in Bamako, despite the absence of crime and even of street hustles, just because of the motorbikes.

   

From left to right: the Bamako market place. Bottles designate stops where motorcycles can get motor oil or gas on the quick. Right: the UN presence is hard to escape in Bamako (here, unsurprisingly: photo taken from MINUSMA HQ)

The Niger River which cuts Bamako in two isn’t just a divider: majestic in length, it is also the sole source of a light breeze in the city. When the heat reached 110 degrees, I would go onto the bridge, despite the busy, noisy, polluting traffic, and stand there to feel the breeze on my face. A police officer once asked me why I didn’t go stay in the shade under a tree, or in a restaurant with air conditioner. I explained that in the shade it would still be over 100 degrees, offering scant relief, and that I wasn’t interested in restaurants that catered to Westerners and were thriving with the large foreign contingent present in Bamako. 

All this made my last day in Bamako such a special moment. After walking through the city for two hours, I took a taxi to the top of a nearby hill, Pointe G, that offered great vistas of Bamako below. There, I walked another hour at the summit of the hill, in the midday heat, down a dirt path, a flock of sheep my only companions until they deserted me, before arriving at a deserted playground, and behind it, a sweeping view of Bamako. I stood in awe for about 20 minutes, enjoying not only the breathtaking view, but the sense of peacefulness – the sounds of the city rose occasionally to my ears, but muted. Not pollution in the air, no motorcycles zigzagging around me, just the city below and the majestic Niger River, and a slight breeze on my face.