Good News and Proposing Actual Dates

[Nick wrote by e-mail on Friday, June 23]

I spoke with the Lamido [in Djohong] today, and he is pleased to hear of our proposed plans.

Flight and Airlines Choices

Regarding the flights: Confirming David's research, as of today Air France (and its code share partners) fly Thursday, Saturday, and Monday. AF 940 from Paris, and AF 941 from Yaounde. Swiss (and its code share partners) fly on Sunday only. LX 276 from Zurich, 277 from Yaounde. I strongly encourage all of us to be on the same flight to Yaounde, whichever flight we end up choosing. (David, I have no problem postponing everything a week. Others??? Since your connections are the most complicated/expensive, why not find something reasonable and let us know what you propose. I can easily get to Paris or Zurich any day of the week. I *slightly* prefer Swiss, but have no problem with Air France.)

Trip Itinerary Constraints

I also know the flights arrive in Yaounde after dark, and that it is best to allow two nights in Yaounde, to allow time for visits, unexpected delays and to buy train tickets. The El Panadin Hotel was still good when I was there in January 2005.

The overnight train is still recommended, although we once took the bus because the train derailed. We were told the bus could be dangerous. The bus arrived in N'gaoundere after dark, and we were instructed UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES to leave the station until dawn the next morning. We (and everyone else) slept on our luggage.
It will probably take at least two days to provision in N'gaoundere. I propose we hire a car and driver to facilitate our shopping and the trip to Djohong.

So, that gets us to Djohong. What we will actually be able to do there is unknown. It will NOT be like an Earthwatch expedition because Madame Phyllis isn't there to arrange anything in advance. We can try, but we must be prepared for something different (or indeed for nothing) to happen instead of what we have planed. The hospital may be a sticking point ~ if the Doctors decide they can't or won't permit us to dispense medicines... Or we may not get permission from the Sous-Prefet... Or who knows what might happen. It is impossible to ascertain any of this before we actually arrive in Djohong in spite of the best intentions of Bah-Iya and the Lamido.

One other thing: Having a car is VERY expensive. When we went before, we had Alim drop us off in Djohong and we walked to the small villages and took the bush taxi back to N'gaoundere. I recommend that plan again, assuming everyone is physically fit.

Nick's Proposed Trip Schedule

Just for the sake of discussion, I now propose that if we arrive in country on Sunday 18th, we might consider leaving Djohong on Wednesday 4th April by bush taxi to N'gaoundere. We take the overnight train to Yaounde on Thursday 5th (arriving Friday 6th). We visit Dr Kinny's museum on Saturday 7th, fly to Paris on Sunday 8th (Easter Sunday) arriving Monday 9th. Or we could do the Thursday to Thursday, moving everything back four days, if that suited our plans better. When is Ramadan? Fete de Mouton? Other Cameroonian holidays that might conflict?

Regarding a Community Self Development Conference:
We have no connections to organize this. Hamidou Adama in N'gaoundere or Joe Danjie in Yaounde could perhaps find us a location, but nothing else. Maybe we need to think about this some more... Who would attend? Who would pay them to attend?

Oh, the blog looks great!
Cheers,
Nick

P.S. Nancy, please encourage Jody to contact us after July 15th. (I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow, so will be unavailable until then.) We should buy most medicines locally. I'm hoping we (you) CAN do mini-clinics, ideally with the participation of the local doctor, but that is one thing we'd need to get permission to do and we won't know for sure until we get there