Caboose

We stayed in bed until around 9am, to the accompaniment of creaks and groans from the bamboo beds every time one of us moved. The bamboo beds had looked like they might be more comfortable than sleeping on the floor, but after a night on one I wasn’t so sure. Both Dave and I had bruises on our shoulders and hips from contact with the beds.

I made breakfast, having brought porridge oats with me. Unfortunately we had left the sugar and tin of powdered milk back in Jos to save weight. I’d intended to buy a couple of sachets of powdered milk but forgot. So breakfast was plain oats boiled in water, tasty! I’d made plenty, so George helped to finish them off.

We’d planned a relaxing day of strolling around the local area, but as soon as George mentioned that people from Sukur often walked across to Cameroon Dave decided that was what he wanted to do.

Passing terraced fields with many people working in them we walked along another stone-paved path. George explained to us that the most fertile land is all owned by the king, so everyone else has to manage on the hillsides.

The views were beautiful and the heavy cloud cover meant that it wasn’t too hot. In a straight line it would be about 6 km, our route wound up and down and round the hills. Eventually we reached a dirt road that the Cameroonians are building to allow motorbikes to reach the border.

There was no sign of the border, no fence, no guards, not even a marker post. It seems that many of the Cameroonians farm on the Nigerian side and the Nigerians take their produce to the market on the Cameroonian side.

By lunchtime we were approaching the town of Roumzou, passing more people working in their fields and the local graveyard. There were three types of grave, Christian, Muslim and traditional. The traditional graves take the form of a mound covered in concrete, occasionally painted with the details of the deceased. On top of the mound are placed stones, in the shape of a gateway for men, I can’t remember what the symbol was for women.

Our first priority was to get some food after all the walking. George took us to a chop house beside the market. The locals mostly only speak French, Sukur and their own language but one man was keen to practise his English on us. I had fish stew and a kind of pounded maize lump. We then wandered on to a local bar, where I had a bottle of Top Pamplemousse, my favourite drink from my last visit to Cameroon.

George took us round to visit the local priest, a Frenchman, but he was out. As we left the town it started to rain, gently at first but becoming increasingly heavy.

The trek back took about one and a half hours, faster than the walk to Cameroon but much wetter. We were completely drenched by the time we returned to our hut. I didn’t want the inside of the hut to get soaked, so we stripped at the door and George insisted on taking our clothes away to wash them.

Despite the rain there were still many flies annoying us as we changed and then sat in the hut watching the clouds drift past outside. Later on we had some frankfurters and chicken luncheon meat with flat bread for our dinner.

Once the rain stopped the king stopped by for a chat, this time without an interpreter. We occasionally managed to get a vague idea of what he was saying by spotting one of the few Hausa words we knew but it was mostly guesswork.

In the evening we sat outside for a while, George had warmed up yesterday’s burukutu for us, it’s even more disgusting hot.