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 
Ticht, the girl in charge of the post match interviews for French TV said live that she felt ridiculous when standing next to Skelton. She barely reached his chest. But after all he’s 2.03m and weights 140kg.
Olivier Merle had be nicknamed “L’homme et demi” (by the Springboks, no less, I think) but then Skelton’s nickname should be “Deuxhommes”.
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Flair – it was the Kiwis who named him that. I always remember him being called “Le Massif Central”. In a sign of how things have changed, at 1.98m, he’d be about 8cm shorter that RG Snyman and Lood de Jager, but only an inch or two shorter than Bakkies Botha! I can’t remember the last Bok lock who was under 2m actually. Pretty scary how quickly things have changed.
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Belated thanks Deebee for the two very enjoyable ATLs.
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English player on Lionz ‘Long List’ therefore must be considered as bolter shock…
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/may/03/marcus-smith-emerges-shock-possible-british-irish-lions-pick-south-africa-tour-rugby-union
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I think this is the more significant comment given that each of the four unions has at least one 10 more likely to tour than Smith, promising as he is:
Smith’s form has coincided with a resurgence by his Harlequins half-back partner Danny Care, who is also thought to be in the mix for Gatland’s final squad. The 34-year-old has not featured for England since the 2018 autumn Test win against Japan but his club form has put him in contention for a first Lions tour.
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I suppose as well that an all-French Big Cup final is good for the Lions, having players available earlier? Maybe fresher too.
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Wouldn’t take Care either. I’ve said before I don’t think Ali Price should go (but he should be on the plane before Care) so if I was going to take a scrum half who wasn’t currently in an international squad, I’d take Cooney (and not just to keep on Thaum’s good side!).
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Leicester being in the Challenge Cup final the day before might impact on Matt Scott’s chances of going…
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The finals are on May 21st/22nd so shouldn’t be a hassle.
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Deebee, a couple of generations ago the French were quite short compared to Northern Europeans and someone like Olivier Merle quite an anomaly. The Saffers benefited from the Dutch genes ( aren’t they the tallest people on earth as an average?). We benefited, like most post-war people, from better ( and more) food and better medicine.
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@Flair – I remember the violence from Merle.
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flair, in the 19th Century the Dutch were short as well and most of your Afrikaners are descendants of earlier Dutch (and German and French) emigrants so not sure if that works. The main reason the SA rugby lads were bigger back in the day was that they had better diets – pap en vleis as the cliche goes.
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Large quantities of red meat have always been a part of the diet here, along with carbs (as TomP says, pap en vleis, or porridge and meat in English). The other Afrikaans staple is ‘rys, vleis en aartappels’ or rice, meat and potatoes. Afrikaans kids were always much bigger than us English ones on average at school and it seemed to go back through a few generations at least. Not sure when it started, if the Dutch who first arrived were small. But I have a feeling that generations of largely farm life and good food was probably part of the reason. Put another way, I don’t think I’ve ever met a small farmer in South Africa.
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Pap doesn’t sound very appealing, think I might just go for the vleis.
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@Refit – Was he any worse than other forwards of his time or just bigger so more scary? I know he got sued over a headbutt that ended in injury, but I can think of plenty of others who that could have happened to just as easily.
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“English player on Lionz ‘Long List’ therefore must be considered as bolter shock…”
As far as I can tell from reading the Guardian you have to think about who’s going to be any good in a frenzied orgy.
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“That Ben Youngs has ruled himself out of contention only aids Care’s cause in a position considered to be among the most open. Conor Murray, Tomos Williams and Gareth Davies are also thought to be in the frame.”
Well given the options and the lack of opportunity some others have had who might have been contenders I would take the last three even if with everyone fit I wouldn’t pick two of them for their national sides (GD probably only really behind Williams for Wales to be fair though he hasn’t given much cause for optimism this season). Happy enough for Care or Youngs to start for England mind.
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@cmw
I saw this and thought of you. The Upminster Sunday Friendly XI captain and his occasional leg spin. Proper village cricket
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“It would be a considerable surprise given the strength of fly-half options available to Gatland”
Not convinced about that strength either to be honest, think there are question marks against all of them. I think Russell is the best at this point and would really like to see him get the chance though I realise people don’t think that’s all that likely.
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@OT – It’s a dangerous ball once it’s allowed to bounce! I saw a few go up that high on Sunday, but they weren’t all allowed to come down.
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I’ll have a match report later, I didn’t bother with the week before as we got stuffed by the Penguins. I could have written the report before the game so I certainly couldn’t be bothered to write it afterwards.
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Danny Care? Pfft. He’s no Wigglesworth.
matt dawson is proven lionz performer. Get him in.
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I’ve got a good store of outrage built up ready for Thursday.
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@cmw
Do you like the state of the sightscreen? It’s a gloriously village touch.
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‘As far as I can tell from reading the Guardian you have to think about who’s going to be any good in a frenzied orgy.’
Rugby’s changed a bit since my day.
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@OT – Just like when I’m batting I didn’t notice whether there was one. There’s one like that at our ground that the staff team who share it insisted on picking up from a club that closed down and claimed they were going to get ‘repaired’. We must be about ten years on by now. We can’t use our ground at the moment due to a flooded drain so we’re using a different one at a decent league club so they obviously have better ones. Due to some argument with a local resident one of them has to be moved a long way before and after each game. The noise it makes has been likened to something you might get tortured with at Guantanamo Bay and so far nobody who’s been involved in moving it before a match has been prepared to help with moving it afterwards.
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That sightscreen is actually filled in for Saturday matches, but for some reason they don’t bother for the Sunday friendly. But we’re usually over there on a Saturday morning and we see the heavy roller being applied which the bloke then drives over to the sightscreen to push it into place, just to add further village authenticity.
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CMW, pap’s a little plain on its own but get a zingy tomato sous with it and it’s pretty good.
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“I don’t think I’ve ever met a small farmer in South Africa.”
Guessing, but I would have thought there might be some non-white ones.
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They might also have smaller farms.
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I’ve just discovered that I could spend all day on Crap Cricket.
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Thinking about it I’d be surprised if these days there aren’t some very rich black South Africans who are ‘farmers’ in the sense that some of our Tory MPs are.
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That 10-over-a-side tournament is on again in the Czech Republic. Very windy and cold from the looks of it:
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I was frozen half to death umpiring the first ten overs on Sunday, but it was beautiful by the time we were having a beer at the end of the game. The ten over format doesn’t really give the weather much chance to sort itself out though, not that I can think why anyone can be bothered to play a game that short anyway.
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The standard is not good in that game, I’m sure it was better in the games I watched last season.
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The level our opposition were operating at on Sunday was definitely affected by Ramadan and I guess that might have a role to play in this match too.
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Though the names I’ve seen so far mostly look more Indian than anything and not especially Islamic so maybe not so much.
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@CMW – I was referring to farmers in the context of historical largeness of SA rugby players, which on the global stage, were pretty much white for the first 100 years of rugby in SA. But I take your point. And yes, there are some very wealthy black farmers in South Africa, notably our President, who buys and sells buffaloes for R40m a pop (about 2 million pounds), after flying in to auctions in his private helicopter. But there are also many other black farmers doing a great job putting food on our tables without being politically connected scum. Some of them are large commercial farmers, others working in outgrower schemes with large retailers and food producers, and others small farmers supplying basically into their local communities.
‘Farmers in the Tory sense’ as you put it would include the current speaker of parliament who let hundreds of pigs, sheep, goats and other animals die on her farm a few years, but got off scot free in court because she had appointed a farm manager. But not actually provided money for food, inoculations, vets etc.
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That Sunday Friendly captain is taking the lbw out of the equation bowling round the wicket.
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@Deebee – I was only gently ribbing you in the hope of getting the sort of information you’ve now provided so thanks!
Who owned the land in the ‘homelands’ during Apartheid?
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Speaking of farmers, have been watching the second round games from that schools rugby tournament in Pretoria last week and CJ Stander’s old school Oakdale Agricultural school play good rugby and have three top class players at 7,8 and 9 plus plenty of good kids elsewhere on the field.
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@TomP – I’m pretty sure he has a devastating googly that brings it back into play.
Fielding lessons needed for these Czech teams.
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Of course TomP may well remember the argument I had with MVML about the round the wicket thing.
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The fielding side are going to have to bowl some real shite to lose from here.
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@tomp
If it’s good enough for Shane Warne……
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Baghel looks like he might be able to get something going, not convinced by Joshi yet though.
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CMW, it depended on which homeland/bantustan authority you were in and changed over time as there was a lot of resistance to the authorities. But it was mostly small-scale farming not industrial or commercial and received nothing like the support white farmers got. There wasn’t starvation but the areas were desperately poor.
Also, the designated land was poorer quality and oftentimes not contiguous.
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It’s safe enough hitting the ball in the air in this game though.
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Baghel’s gone to the leg spinner. He’d have missed that whether it turned or not, he wasn’t looking at it.
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@@CMW – gentle ribbing accepted! Land ownership in the homelands during apartheid was quite complex and is still playing itself out today. Much of the land in the Bantustans which comprised only 13% of SA’s total land, was vested in the authority of tribal chiefs, considered to be important pillars for the apartheid government against the liberation movements. The Zulu King, for example, through the Ingonyama Trust controls about 1/3 of that province’s land (about 28,000sq km) and detractors will tell you that the inhabitants live largely in rural poverty and subservience to the king. Much of the land in the old Transkei remains held ‘by the community’ meaning a few chiefs getting rich and dispensing patronage at their will. You can’t buy land in the traditional sense in some parts, although people still do.
PW Botha was a particular fan of using the power of the rural chiefs and their patronage networks to maintain order in the rural areas, something that Jacob Zuma in particular tried to recreate during his abject, corrupt term in office. In both cases, access to land and hence security was used to bully ordinary citizens into silence.
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