the Not Johnny Clegg Story of Travel In Africa
We climbed quickly into the air and escaped the clutches of Kinshasa below us, with Brazza rapidly fading behind us too as we headed towards Douala and sanity. It’s a relatively short flight, across Congo-Brazza, Gabon, and I would imagine Equatorial Guinea, before getting to Cameroon. There was the odd bit of turbulence as we flew into the darkness of a tropical night, the sun setting very quickly in Africa, no dilly-dallying like in Europe. We were to transfer from the international side to the domestic side and get a flight to Yaoundé from there, with our host Eric, who would provide our visas on arrival. Douala soon appeared on the horizon, lights flickering in the distance, a reassuring sign that we were on track. Then they disappeared. Just for a couple of minutes, then reappeared. If we’re being blocked by mountains, I thought, we’re pretty fucking low to the ground. But the lights were well below us – it was just a normal night of patchy electricity, with generators kicking in whenever the power failed. Which was often.
We landed without problems and soon made our way into the arrivals hall. Rob and his Gabonese business partner rounded us up, including a young woman from South Africa’s tourism board, who spoke fluent French, having grown up in exile in Paris and attended a swanky school there, she told me. Several times. Where was Eric? We needed our visas and clearance to get to the domestic flight. Turns out his flight from Yaoundé had been cancelled due to bad weather. No visas, no entry. No power, no lights. And every time the lights came back on, the South Africans were clear to everyone – diving on their luggage to make sure nobody stole it in the dark. For shame! After a couple of hours of hanging around the humid arrivals desk, our Gabonese colleague arguing with the officials in a combination of French and English, with a few choice Zulu and Afrikaans swearwords thrown in, had managed to get us out of the airport and off to a hotel for the night, our connecting flight having long since departed. Only problem, we had to leave our passports behind.
We headed to the Akwa Palace Hotel, not too far away and close to the Wouri River, where logs were floated down from the interior, destined mainly for China. It was late by now and everything was closed. Our host managed to get a chef and waitress to serve us dinner. “Just remember – everything makes you sick, so stick to overcooked chicken!” Rob hissed in my ear. I looked at the menu, and asked the waitress what she’d recommend. “The ndolé! It’s delicious!” was the immediate, infectious response. I was sold. It’s basically a wild spinach that is cooked in a variety of different ways depending on location and culture. Mine came with chillies, shrimp and peanuts. It was superb. I got lost in the tastes as Rob was demanding sauce to make his overcooked chicken palatable. He lathered it on the leathery fowl and launched into it, before lunging for a beer and gulping it down as the piri-piri sauce caught his throat. Once he’d stopped choking, he shut up for a bit. What a win!
Before dawn the next morning we got into our air-conditioned 4×4 and started the five hour, 230km trip to Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital city. We’d arrived about two weeks before the elections, held faithfully every seven years by incumbent Paul Biya in the solid knowledge that they’re rigged in his favour and France prefers him in power to the unknown*. What it did mean, though, was that as we traversed the countryside, we hit army roadblocks every 20 or 30 kilometres. The process was simple: the driver drove as fast as he could through the winding roads of the forest and open grasslands, overtaking massive logging trucks and petrol hauliers without much thought for what may be coming the other way, at equally breakneck speed; hooting at everything in sight, through small villages with timber houses, some painted brightly, others not, scattering chickens, children and goats as he went. As the rudimentary roadblocks loomed – a plank with nine-inch nails facing upwards and soldiers with AK-47s manning them in case you decide to skip them – he would swear, screech to a halt and put his subservient smiley face on. Because we didn’t have our passports back yet. No sweat, he calmly gave his identity card and a wad of cash at each stop and we were on our way again. In retrospect, we were beyond lucky that we weren’t locked up for days or weeks on end while the issue was sorted out, but yours truly was filled with the bonhomie of a man released from the shame of apartheid, and faith in the humanity of all people. Basically, a naïve idiot. But it was this trip, careening through the rainforests, our driver and minder** regaling stories of Roger Milla and other football heroes, the forests flying by with stunning majesty, smells, sounds and lighting, with Manu Dibango, Salif Keita and Youssou N’Dour for company, that cemented my love for the continent, my people and its music. I can still smell those rainforests whenever I hear that music. I can still recall the arguments about which of the Biyiks was the better footballer. Magical.
We arrived in Yaoundé just before 9 am, so just in time for the start of the main conference to cement ties between South Africa and Cameroon. We sat at the podium, with yours truly to do the introductory speech, much to my horror. We waited patiently for the local dignitaries to arrive. Then took a coffee break at 10am. By 11am, when the local governor and minister of trade had decided which of them would enter last to the greater fanfare, we got underway. Sort of. We had to wait for the TV crews to get back from their own break and then repeat the sweeping entrances and ovations. That done, brief introductory speeches out of the way, it was time for lunch.***
Host Eric was in fine fettle by now, with coverage on national television assured, and took us to an ‘eco-lodge’ for lunch. It was a beautiful wooden house perched on top of a hill looking across tropical forests as far as the eye could see. It was built from the trees that once inhabited the hill and the now lack of vegetation was creating serious erosion, which the owner, who wanted to build another twenty of them on the hills around there, seemed oblivious to. Lunch was great though – donkey, pork and goat meat skewers presented on a grooved wooden platter with different spices in each groove. You rolled your skewer in whichever one you wanted, and they then grilled it for you. Served with deep-fried plantains, now a firm favourite of mine and washed down with a small 33 Export. Back to the hotel just in time for the coffee break.
By this stage, trouble was brewing in paradise, with Rob and his sidekick demanding our passports back and accusing Eric of effectively holding us hostage. Eric was incensed, accusing them of wanting a free trip that they were simply using for their own business. I stayed out of it, figuring that he who holds the passport is king. And he also had my plane ticket. The afternoon flew past, with recriminations replaced by reconciliations and renewed animosity by turn, but I was meeting with great people, many of whom were interested in sending their kids to South African universities. I was happy to oblige, having recently been at one and helped them with entrance requirements on return.
Eric then introduced me to a good friend of his – the CEO of the local branch of one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. We were soon off to his aunt’s fantastic restaurant* for dinner, with a bunch of South African Air Force pilots for company as well. They were training the Cameroon Air Force, but seldom got into the skies because of the weather, so spent most of their time drinking in the hotel. And then being grounded because they weren’t in any condition to fly. Dinner was sublime, again, with a variety of seafood, meats, vegetables and casava concoctions that I can’t remember the names of. The rest of the week followed a fairly similar pattern of torturous Cameroonian hierarchy politics, wasted time, great meetings, better food and excellent company. Time to head back to Douala and the final leg of our journey – still (worryingly) no passports in sight.
*Sorry Flair, that was the distinct impression given to us at the time, and it persists today!
**We imagined he was just there to keep us safe from harm, but was in fact Secret Service assigned to us to make sure we weren’t spying on the elections, we found out much later.
***I think you’re getting to understand that I’m a victim of largesse in all of this and lunches were thrust one me at an early age.
As digested by Deebee7
Onna telly this week
Friday 30th April
| Leicester v Ulster | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| France v England (women) | 20:00 | BBC iPlayer/Red Button |
Saturday 1st May
| Stormers v Sharks | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Toulouse v Bordeaux | 15:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 3 |
| Bulls v Lions | 18:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Bath v Montpellier | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 2nd May
| La Rochelle v Leinster | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Sbt – he’s very tory.
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I quite like gengey though.
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Yes he’s felt the need to share his ignorant opinions of people less well off than himself and is very hard to like as a result, good player that he is. I recommend following UCC in the Prague T10 Cricket League, we’ll never know what any of them think.
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Cmw – actually they’re a bunch of nazis.
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‘A New Zealand man who began drawing very large penises around the potholes in his home city of Auckland in 2018 in the hope of attracting the attention of his local council has been threatened with police action.’
Has Avs moved back to NZ?
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Vinohrady are the only dodgy ones, CMW. This lad’s quite funny, politics aside: https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/zahranici/brexit-povazuji-za-velky-uspech-rika-cesko-britsky-podnikate/r~9689e3863a3011e69d46002590604f2e/
(“Brexit je velky uspech” means “Brexit’ll be a big success”)
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Not saying that Brexit hasn’t been a success for some people.
Meanwhile Starmer’s forensic skills at PMQs getting the love Oop North.
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“However, not only Czechs and Brits living in the Czech Republic, but also Pakistanis, Indians or Australians come to play.”
Hmmm.
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Starmer je velky uspech.
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TomP – I have a mate who wants to try to get into on-line English as a Second Language teaching. Might you have any advice? Thanks!
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Not going to be a fun day for labour overall I feel.
Going all parochial the main question is will the SNP get an outright majority, will Salmond’s bunch of ne’er-do-wells get any representation on the list (hopefully not) and will all the tactical voting encouraged by lab & the cons (FFS get some policies to present rather than just radging around) bear any fruit.
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Chimpie – Labour contracted Long Corbyn and are still recovering.
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Morning all, a slightly overcast and chilly autumnal morning here in Joburg, almost time to get the jerseys out. Not as cold as the reception Sir Keir seems to be getting from the voters, mind.
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@Craigs – Maybe with some people in some places, but Hartlepool results over the last few elections suggest they contracted Long Brexit and may not recover any time soon.
Scotland was long gone before Corbyn so Long Blair?
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Cmw – Labour don’t seem to be able to connect with regular people in the same way a bunch of elitist Etonians do. A big rethink on how to do this is needed imo.
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Think HBH and his old man have been making large splodges of wonga out of the Jersey Jitters?
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I’m not even advocating a more centrist approach than Starmer. There needs to be a clear message and a better pitch for why this is good for voters. I can’t remember Labour doing this since just before Gordon Brown was PM.
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Deebs – the leader of La Resistance went onto a boat and then they all left. HBH and his dad must have been very convincing. If you know what I mean…..
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@craigs
Better PR won’t do it. The people at the top of the party actually has to stop believing that people who live in these towns a) are morally inferior, racist, homophobic etc and b) owe them their votes.
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I don’t think Labour have been very good at presenting why any of their approaches are good for voters for a very long time (including the latter half of the Blair years when to some extent what they were doing was not good (or as good as it should have been) for a lot of voters, just for the ones they concentrated on who weren’t the majority of their base). People (all of us to varying degrees) are not very well educated about the role of government, economics etc and Labour have long needed to spell a lot more out about the country’s problems . Of course once you do that you need to be able to back it up with what you are going to do (and what can realistically be done) about it. I doubt if the current Labour Party or the country have any stomach for it to be honest which is depressing, but there we are.
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@OT – I think a) is more of a PR thing as I don’t believe it’s true anything like to the extent to which it is portrayed as such.
b) is a much bigger problem as they have to not only realise these people don’t owe them their votes (they will be realising as enough of them are not voting for them!), they have to have something to offer them to get them back. And they may not be willing or able to do so.
The changing demographics in a lot of these places are not on Labour’s side of course (same with changes in the world of work) and haven’t been for some time.
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I’m sure there must’ve been at least one General Election recently in which Labour had a fairly clear message and increased their support across the country by, let’s say, at least 9.5%.
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@TomP – There is of course some truth in that. There were of course elements in the Labour Party who were never going to help explain why some of that was good for the country as they don’t want it. I still think the team in charge could have done a better job in terms of not just assuming people understood why they wanted to do (and/or stop) certain things.
Anyway it all got Brexited into touch. We now need to know what Labour having supposedly left that behind want to do in a post-Brexit UK. And so far? Not much.
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thaum, I’m not sure how to get into it as I’m teaching the same people I’ve had on the books for at least 2 years and knew them in the real world.
Has your friend got any experience of teaching ESL? If not, I’d suggest that they get some materials together and do a bit of reading about methodology.
Also, shoot high and make the offer as good as possible – promise good outcomes etc. There’re loads of people who’ll give some chat and some grammar exercises but that’s a bit shit so aim at a specific area – eg IT people . If you offer a specialism, you’ll get more money.
Don’t take every job. Just because one’s a native speaker it doesn’t mean you can give the student what they expect/need. I turn down legal English jobs and just said no to a proofreading job for an IT company cos I don’t have the knowledge/experience.
And when they start the job, don’t talk too much.
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This was a Labour facebook ad apparently:
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That’s fucking pathetic.
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I voted after my dinner.
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Yeah, it’s ‘dinner’ you twats.
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Don’t really know why I voted, didn’t find my own argument for doing so very convincing, but still wandered up there. Ho hum.
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Ol knee
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Tomp – that was 2017 right? Against Theresa May. I don’t seem to remember Labour being very clear on it’s messaging around some big thing that was happening at the time…
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I voted after going to the toilet. They missed a trick there trying to get my vote.
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I went to the toilet after voting. It helped with that if nothing else.
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The Theresa May who increased the Tory vote share on 2015? The Theresa May who went into the election with a double-digit lead in the opinion polls – in every opinion poll bar one (9 points up) since February of that year?
The messaging was pretty clear from Labour as well: accept the result of the referendum.
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@Craigs – Hartlepool results can be found below. Essentially it looks as if the UKIP/Brexit Party voters there were far more ‘Labour’ than ‘Tory’. Brexit Party only stood there in 2019 because they knew this. By-elections are different (lower turnout), but on the face of it with Labour having not accepted Brexit in the voters’ eyes then a significant number have now gone Tory (or Tory-Brexit Party as it now is to an extent).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartlepool_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#:~:text=Hartlepool%20%28UK%20Parliament%20constituency%29%20From%20Wikipedia%2C%20the%20free,covers%20the%20town%20of%20Hartlepool%20plus%20nearby%20settlements.
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If you go back a couple more Hartlepool elections then there is of course also the ‘Where have all the Liberal-Democrat voters gone?’ question. Not easy to tell to be honest.
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Hartlepool sounds very Labour and of course they had held the seat for a very long time, but looking at past results going back to the forties it doesn’t seem to be one of those places that returned huge majorities for them (apart from 1997 really).
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The LibDems focus on bigger things, like the 2019 European Elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom
Should lead to a fundamental re-alignment of British politics, as one of AoD’s self-appointed experts in politics said.
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Tomp – there was still ambiguity around what they represented 2 years later. I can’t remember the exact details but factions within the party were arguing about it up to 2019.
If increasing the voter share but still losing is an example of a clear campaign then fine, I’m not going to argue against that.
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Clone Mandelson.
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Tomp – the Lib Dems were a shower in 2019.
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I think the underlying tragedy of the Hartlepool vote is the turnout: 42.3%. That is down from a pathetic 57.9% in the 2019 G.E.
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Did someone say Mandelson?
Mandy on UK GEs:
‘the last 11 general elections read: lose, lose, lose, lose, Blair, Blair, Blair, lose, lose, lose, lose.’
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TomP – thanks for that, I will pass it on! She has teaching experience, but not sure if actually in EFL.
Part of the problem is that Mandelson has been ‘consulted’ for this election.
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There wasn’t ambiguity in 2017. Don’t shift the goalposts
Well, it is an example of a clear campaign. You can have a clear campaign and raise your share of the votes by 9.5% and still not win. Labour’s vote share has gone down in each successive election since 1997 except that one. Then they changed the strategy to something unclear and got a hammering. It wasn’t smart politics. Luckily, Starmer might just be the man to lead them out of that pit.
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If you offer a specialism, you’ll get more money.
Thauma, my lad teaches English in Vietnam. It’s face to face, but during strict lockdown, the company that he works for had to go online. They’re back to normal classes now, so not sure I’m much help on that score. However, just to add to what TomP said, he gets paid “ridiculous money” in his words for teaching science in English to high school kids who want to be proficient in English and science terminology by the time they leave school so that they’re able to apply to unis in the UK, USA, Australia etc and not face a language barrier. Gets paid less for teaching the wee ‘uns basic English, but they have to do both.
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@Slade – I wouldn’t be too sure that the By-election turnout is a particularly low one.
As for General Elections the last time Hartlepool managed more than 60% was 1997. Was 70% plus pre-Blair. There’s definitely something to be learned there, but it’s not something positive for Blairites.
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And thank you, Deebs! Good advice from both.
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@Chimpie – I guess the question is were those three ‘Blairs’ won at the expense of becoming in the long term a party associated with taking certain parts of the country for granted? I don’t think it’s entirely fair, but it’s true to some extent and results since, not least in Scotland but now also in the North of England and Wales, would seem to bear that out.
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thuam, the teaching experience is good. The EFL stuff isn’t hard to pick up.
There’s a wealth of materials out there – text books are easily available from greyish Russian equivalent of facebook sites and people put stuff online constantly. I would recommend a book by Michael Lewis called The Lexical Approach. It’s an oldie but a goodie.
It’d be better to get either individual classes or very small groups. The most I teach at the moment is 4 people in one class and I don’t like it too much. Zoom etc slow the process down a little bit and the silences seem longer as it’s not easy to give non-verbal cues.
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