... need I say more?
Probably.
As the final weeks of this second largely futile period dedicated to the intellectual furthering of the supposedly more diminutive members of this sand and dust covered society amongst whom I find myself draw to a spluttering, stuttering close, it is probably a reasonable point at which to enlighten you on the delights of the classroom environment.
You've probably already realised that the challenge is somewhat, er, challenging. Class sizes that dwarf even the farenheit temperature readings in these sweat afflicted days; one book for every 18 students; chalk that doesn't work on blackboards that don't either; students who are meant to be between 11 and 14 years old but who in reality are the wrong side of 20 and often only a couple of school years ahead of their own spawn. Teachers who aren't trained and are often younger than their students; a curriculum conceived in the shadier backstreets of Paris' shadier backstreets by a cousin of the minister for Education using a length of rubber tubing, 18 gallons of industrial lubricant and a semi-paralytic Belgian with a speech impediment.
Apart from that it's a walk in the park.
Class 6. The lowest class, which is to say those who have most recently graduated to the lofty heights of secondary education, semi-literate, hopelessly monolingual - invariably in one of either Fulfulde, Guiziga, Moufou, Mafa, Moundang or any other assembly of obscure phonemes purporting to be tribal dialects. By the time they reach such vaulted and dizzying altitudes they are supposed to have at least a smattering, nay a sprinkling, perhaps just a hastily thrown on garnishing of English and be something close to acquainted with French; the language of all other instruction and life in general outside the walls of wherever they happen to call home.
Alas, if only 'twere true. Some can't write their names and see words as little more than a collection of wiggles, regardless of the subject so you can imagine just how futile it is for me, wittering away in English.
With on average 4 students per desk it's generally impossible to deduce exactly whose work is whose and with students ranging in age between x [any number between 11 and 99] and y [any number between 11 and 99]. The older ones are hoarded at the back due to their size, and generally spend their time disturbing not only eachother but anyone within earshot which means pretty much everyone.
Those at the front tend to benefit most from that which spews from this scottish mouth, but for the rest they know that given the size of the following year's intake, passing or failing is neither here nor there: they all have to go up a class as there's no space to allow them to hang back a year. Nothing beats the promotion of meritocratic methods from an early age.
Class 5. That's to say, last years class 6. Which is to say of a level that is a couple of clicks above inept. There are obviously exceptions but most of them are, in the infamous parental refrain, old enough to know better. Know what exactly has yet to be established but 'everything' is assumed to be the answer.
It is a class of students that is notable for, among other things, having the highest female to male ratio (1:4); having some of the most able students in the school; being able to have all heads facing the front of the class yet to have pretty much every corner of the classroom covered due to the number and variety of occular afflictions and last, but by no means least, having the school's ugliest student. Poor chap; it looks as though his facial features were pitched through a thick fog at the place where his head and face are meant to be, promptly set on fire and then beaten out with a rugby boot.
The whole class, having been universally promoted whether or not they passed the previous year's exam, did of course have the 'benefit' of not being totally struck dumb at the nasara leaping around at the front of the classroom and so have possibly made the greatest amount of progress. They're still, to employ a technical term, utterly rubbish and miles behind where the curriculum says they should be but whose fault is that? Blame the parlytic Belgian and his pudgy, pie covered fingers.
Class Four have the honour and privilege of having me as their "Prof. Principale"; this means that I get to spend the last week of every term using the school abacus, quill and stock of scribes to complete their reports; a pleasurable activity in many ways, none of which have anything to do with what most people would describe as pleasure.
In their midst are some of the schools more petulant and angst-ridden youths, most of whom have about as much desire to be at school as I do to fall through the ever-crumbling 'floor' of my latrine. It's that year before the work proper starts and the year when, lucky things, they get to learn yet another language. Worked out today that if you are of the islamic persuasion then by the time you reach Class 4 you are potentially having to deal with 8 languages. If Ma and Pa are from different tribes then you'll have one for each of them. There's then Guiziga for speaking to anyone in the market and Fulfulde for communicating with the rest of extremely northern society. French is the linguafranca for school where they also take on English - promoting bilingualism you see! - and then either Spanish or German. Then, just to keep things fresh, lob in a smattering of Arabic to support your Koranic mumblings. Is it any surprise that arses and elbows remain unlabelled?
And so to Class 3. The brains of the outfit who are being primed for the rigours of the BEPC exam. You can't get far in life without it ... actually that's not entirely true; you can easily buy one for a little more than the cost of one school year, albeit a Chadian one ... not that it matters as it's the same system.
The students themselves range in age from 14 to about 34 and have all the curiosity for the world around them, and interest in their subjects as a three pound bar of lard. Inspirational in many ways. It is for them that I have stayed as I can't desert them in their hour of need ... quite why I bother when only 12 out of 120 turn up is anyone's guess, but even if it's only 1 student who makes an appearance, I have a duty to that one. Damn me and my professionalism!
Not sure how they fare in other subjects and there are some who are actually not bad at English but for the most part they're not interested. There are those who feign interest but who seem to think that they can remember everything just by looking at it and then going to sleep while their classmates furiously scribble down anything that I happen to write on the blackboard. Half a dozen are now the proud owners of the catchy title of this posting ... they know it means nothing and they know to listen to what I'm saying rather than scribbling everything down but they still don't heed the warning.
Hey ho. Ho Hum and all the rest.
So there it is. La Vie Scolaire. Am off galavanting again as of tomorrow so there'll be radio silence for a bit but will be back with more wiffle as soon as I can. Time is ticking away and that's a good thing. Thoroughly looking forward to being back there where green is pleasant and the temperature more condusive to actually living. The molten pool of scottishness that I have become is all very well and good but I don't think it necessarily suits.
The Jungle beckons .... Aaa-a-a-a-aaaa-a-aaa, as Tarzan once so eloquently said.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Mount Cameroon: That's a title, not a request.
Mount Cameroon: Winner of the dubious accolade that is The Bradt Guide to Cameroon's Most Ludicrously Described Natural Feature. Maga's "white sand beaches" come a close second but who could resist the ridiculous phrase "an occasionally active volcano." The average eight year old could expound for days on the redundancy of the adjective 'occasionally' ...
Mount Cameroon: how high is it, exactly? Depending on who you believe it is anything between 4,024 (±16) and 4,100 metres. It is anything between Africa's sixth, ninth and nth highest peak and possibly either the highest mountain in west Africa or just another quite high bit on a continent of some other quite high bits.
Mount Cameroon: Been there. Done that. Didn't get the t-shirt 'cos they didn't have any.
The first sighting of the C word had been from the wrong side of the large bank of cloud that, a couple of days later, we were ourselves wrapped in but just knowing it was there gave it a certain looming ominousnessfulness.
After a day spent languishing on beaches, recovering from flights and preserving energy for the assault on the beast, we hot-footed it north to Buea, provincial capital of the South West province, found the splendidly named and staggeringly proportioned Gwendoline (herself in the throws, as it were, of organising a traditional wrestling tournament; with a centre of gravity as low as hers, she'd have to be pretty short odds), met Samuel our guide for the next three days and then headed off to check-in to our accommodation.
Rumour has it they were expecting us. They weren't expecting the unexpected arrival of the owner's son from Germany but then such unexpected things are expected. Felt slightly guilty as we were put up in the owner's room which had a feeling not dissimilar to the wardrobe department in a small provincial theatre. Resisted the urge to dress up and, instead, laid waste to the luggage in an attempt to streamline. Three days of 'arduous' walking up an 'occasionally active' volcano whose nether regions are equatorial, midrift is tropical and summit is draped in cloud; and not only that but a few hundred metres above those parts where breathable air is readily available. "What do I need to pack?"
From sweatily sticky through mildly pleasant to the wrong side of 'a little fresh' and then naturally back through them all again. I won't bore you with the inventory but it wasn't very long and by the end of the 'walk' neither of us were particularly fragrant in the sense of smelling very nice. There are no doubt billions of buzzing things that thrive on the gastronomic delights of decomposing flesh and/or poo would've thought we were delicious, but not being one of them I can't really vouch for that.
You start climbing at about 1,080 metres. By 1,100 you look and feel like you’ve already scaled the north face of the Eiger as the blood rushes to your face and you make even the most ruddy of beetroots look positively pasty. You do soon however realise that there’s little to be gained from constant altitude checks and so you focus on the task in hand, uphill as it is. The top is a long way off, both physically and temporally and equally invisible in both dimensions.
Strangler figs and giant ferns, themselves small trees, swallow the last vestiges of sunlight, permitting the heat alone to penetrate and raise the humidity levels to just short of uncomfortable. Passing from one zone to another you notice the change in everything from temperature and light to the plants themselves until suddenly you burst through the tree line into open savannah and a partial view of what lies ahead.
Or at least you would have such a view were you not now wrapped in cloud. Having conquered the forestry part, we stopped to give the legs a rest before the serious uphill slog that was the final push of day 1. A traditional dance ensued that was done to appease the god of the mountain. In all my puffing, panting, ruddy-faced iridescent glory it would have been hard to spot the sigh of relief when it was explained that in days of yore (aka the middle of last week), albinos were the chosen sacrifice; nowadays it was usually just something white.
Gulp.
In the form of a sheep or goat.
Phew!
We wiggled, as instructed, and threw bracken at the people behind us and then continued on our merry way. Up towards the magic tree, so called because it never appears to be getting any closer. Less magic, more bastard I’d say. Got there though, despite the near verticality of the climb and then it was all uphill to Hut 2, dinner and bed.
Knackered doesn’t go nearly far enough seeing as fitness had not been high on the agenda before starting this particular mini-adventure. Samuel whistled up a veritable feast of fish and rice that he had lugged up from base-camp and we patted ourselves heartily on the back at having been so shrewd in asking him to play chef for the three days of yomping. While the others chopped, peeled, diced, sliced, lit, blew, burnt, stewed, singed, boiled and scrubbed what was left of the day away, we kicked back and enjoyed being stationary and not having to think.
Hut 2 was about as palatial as anything with the prefix ‘hut’ is ever likely to be, but tired bodies were more than grateful for the shelter it provided. Half of our number was indeed so exhausted from the climb and the peculiar effects of everyone’s favourite anti-malarial, Larium, that they don’t even stir when a hungry mouse decided to indiscreetly raid a packet of biscuits and then, in being shoo-ed away, consider using the aforementioned half’s head as an escape chute into the warm and cosy confines of a sleeping bag. Didn’t so much as stir, despite any amount of thumping and bumping around on my part and numerous shinings of torches into faces.
Day 2 feels like it’s never going to end. You wake up while the sparrows are still wondering whether it really is that time already, and tentatively scratch their sparrowy balls in what is natures equivalent of warming the coil, pre-ignition. A hunk of something purporting to be bread and a plastic mug of coffee did their best to gird still sleeping loins as another day of slogging beckoned.
The still far off promise of the summit provided the motivation that coffee and bread could not and we were soon off; up through what looked, to all intents and purposes, like the Highlands. The fact that it was New Years Eve and we were x,000 metres up in little more than a t-shirt gave the game away slightly but still.
The first part of day 2 is almost vertical, and progress was far from fast. Having got into a rhythm which I guarded as if my life depended on it, I probably slowed things up but hey; they’re my knees and I know what they’re capable of so … nah! We crept ever higher, passing a couple of our erstwhile hut and guest house mates who had decided to do the trip in 2 days as opposed to the usual 3 and were, therefore, already taking a much more gravity oriented path, passing old lava flows and what looked like big flowery artichokes.
Up, up, up with the town of Buea and the rest of Cameroon, concealed behind the ubiquitous blanket of cloud above whose wispy countenance we now walked. Hut three came and went as did the guys who had been given the dubious honour of carrying our reduced luggage, food and water for the journey. The summit was almost visible and so we two, and Samuel the guide, would be continuing on, alone. The porters were to take the low road and were, contrary to that which I had been lead to believe by those doyens of Jock-rock, Runrig, destined to get to the next pit-stop before us.
Steaming craters, fields of pyroclastic material and the Queen of the Mountain* herself adorned our now more gradual ascent to Mount Cameroon’s highest but we’re not sure how highest point.
[*45 years of age; built mostly of Twiglets; has won the biennial jaunt that is running up the mountain, 5 times … and she’s got seven children. Dagenham East doesn’t come close.]
And so there we were. Standing on the roof of Cameroon and possibly west Africa. Three Tangfastics had survived the perils of the journey and were, in the absence of anything more bubbly, consumed, one each, with relish. Not literally obviously; to sully the synthetic tangyness of a red Tangfastic crocodile - and possibly the best tasting red Tangfastic crocodile that ever was – with relish would have condemned me to one of the more pestilential pits of hell, to tend the infernal celery fields for time eternal. And quite right too.
Another lyrical contradiction ensued as Yazz and her Plastic Population had to concede defeat as the only way from where we were standing was definitely down. And what a down it was. The first part was across loose ash and walking just wasn’t an option. A rolling run, relaxed in the knowledge that a tumble wouldn’t result in any breakages, was the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable submission to gravity’s overbearing urges. But, alas, was too soon over and was, in retrospect, scant compensation for the tortuous hours of walking that loomed.
The brocoli fields that were old lava flows seemed to go on forever. And ever. And ever. The thrill of walking on what was once molten rock - the thought of which is something that never fails to amaze me ... Melted. Rock. It doesn't really make sense but it has to ... - as I was saying, the thrill, it soon wears off as you and your sturdiest boots wear out. There's not a lot to look at, except more once-molten* rock.
*A brief, bright red aside: in trying to establish a suitable synonym for 'once-molten' I have to admit to a great deal of disappointment. For 'molten' we have "aqueous, au jus, damp, deliquescent, dissolvable, dissolved, dulcet, flowing, fluent, fluidic, fusible, ichorous, juicy, liquefied, liquescent, liquiform, luscious, mellifluent, mellifluous, mellow, meltable, melted, melting, moist, molten, moving, pulpy, running, runny, sappy, serous, smooth, soft, solvent, splashing, succulent, thawed, thin, uncongealed, viscous, watery, wet".
Antonyms on offer: gaseous, solid. I mean, honestly. Come on people. Petition your ombudsman for a new antonym that can rival 'mellifluous'. Suggestions willingly received; should one tickle my fancy sufficiently I will erase this eye-wrenching redness and replace it with a more sombre, bolder and credited synonym.
Even if there was somewhere to look, you're so busy staring at your own feet so as to not fall headlong onto skin lacerating and bone snaperating rocks that it would be impossible. For all I know there could have been herds of pygmy elephants on horseback performing intricate fertility rites to a twangy rhythm being belted out by a scantily-clad, bouzouki-playing quintet. Just another day on Larium in many ways.
Negotiated it we did and were soon spat out into an altogether more grassy arena, destination craters.
If your buttocks have not yet gone numb, mine have and so I'll draw a line under this for now
there. See? And will give your brains and bums a break. There'll be more to follow as we haven't got off the mountain yet. And just in case you're keeping track: this is day 5 of 16!
Mount Cameroon: how high is it, exactly? Depending on who you believe it is anything between 4,024 (±16) and 4,100 metres. It is anything between Africa's sixth, ninth and nth highest peak and possibly either the highest mountain in west Africa or just another quite high bit on a continent of some other quite high bits.
Mount Cameroon: Been there. Done that. Didn't get the t-shirt 'cos they didn't have any.
The first sighting of the C word had been from the wrong side of the large bank of cloud that, a couple of days later, we were ourselves wrapped in but just knowing it was there gave it a certain looming ominousnessfulness.
After a day spent languishing on beaches, recovering from flights and preserving energy for the assault on the beast, we hot-footed it north to Buea, provincial capital of the South West province, found the splendidly named and staggeringly proportioned Gwendoline (herself in the throws, as it were, of organising a traditional wrestling tournament; with a centre of gravity as low as hers, she'd have to be pretty short odds), met Samuel our guide for the next three days and then headed off to check-in to our accommodation.
Rumour has it they were expecting us. They weren't expecting the unexpected arrival of the owner's son from Germany but then such unexpected things are expected. Felt slightly guilty as we were put up in the owner's room which had a feeling not dissimilar to the wardrobe department in a small provincial theatre. Resisted the urge to dress up and, instead, laid waste to the luggage in an attempt to streamline. Three days of 'arduous' walking up an 'occasionally active' volcano whose nether regions are equatorial, midrift is tropical and summit is draped in cloud; and not only that but a few hundred metres above those parts where breathable air is readily available. "What do I need to pack?"
From sweatily sticky through mildly pleasant to the wrong side of 'a little fresh' and then naturally back through them all again. I won't bore you with the inventory but it wasn't very long and by the end of the 'walk' neither of us were particularly fragrant in the sense of smelling very nice. There are no doubt billions of buzzing things that thrive on the gastronomic delights of decomposing flesh and/or poo would've thought we were delicious, but not being one of them I can't really vouch for that.
You start climbing at about 1,080 metres. By 1,100 you look and feel like you’ve already scaled the north face of the Eiger as the blood rushes to your face and you make even the most ruddy of beetroots look positively pasty. You do soon however realise that there’s little to be gained from constant altitude checks and so you focus on the task in hand, uphill as it is. The top is a long way off, both physically and temporally and equally invisible in both dimensions.
Strangler figs and giant ferns, themselves small trees, swallow the last vestiges of sunlight, permitting the heat alone to penetrate and raise the humidity levels to just short of uncomfortable. Passing from one zone to another you notice the change in everything from temperature and light to the plants themselves until suddenly you burst through the tree line into open savannah and a partial view of what lies ahead.
Or at least you would have such a view were you not now wrapped in cloud. Having conquered the forestry part, we stopped to give the legs a rest before the serious uphill slog that was the final push of day 1. A traditional dance ensued that was done to appease the god of the mountain. In all my puffing, panting, ruddy-faced iridescent glory it would have been hard to spot the sigh of relief when it was explained that in days of yore (aka the middle of last week), albinos were the chosen sacrifice; nowadays it was usually just something white.
Gulp.
In the form of a sheep or goat.
Phew!
We wiggled, as instructed, and threw bracken at the people behind us and then continued on our merry way. Up towards the magic tree, so called because it never appears to be getting any closer. Less magic, more bastard I’d say. Got there though, despite the near verticality of the climb and then it was all uphill to Hut 2, dinner and bed.
Knackered doesn’t go nearly far enough seeing as fitness had not been high on the agenda before starting this particular mini-adventure. Samuel whistled up a veritable feast of fish and rice that he had lugged up from base-camp and we patted ourselves heartily on the back at having been so shrewd in asking him to play chef for the three days of yomping. While the others chopped, peeled, diced, sliced, lit, blew, burnt, stewed, singed, boiled and scrubbed what was left of the day away, we kicked back and enjoyed being stationary and not having to think.
Hut 2 was about as palatial as anything with the prefix ‘hut’ is ever likely to be, but tired bodies were more than grateful for the shelter it provided. Half of our number was indeed so exhausted from the climb and the peculiar effects of everyone’s favourite anti-malarial, Larium, that they don’t even stir when a hungry mouse decided to indiscreetly raid a packet of biscuits and then, in being shoo-ed away, consider using the aforementioned half’s head as an escape chute into the warm and cosy confines of a sleeping bag. Didn’t so much as stir, despite any amount of thumping and bumping around on my part and numerous shinings of torches into faces.
Day 2 feels like it’s never going to end. You wake up while the sparrows are still wondering whether it really is that time already, and tentatively scratch their sparrowy balls in what is natures equivalent of warming the coil, pre-ignition. A hunk of something purporting to be bread and a plastic mug of coffee did their best to gird still sleeping loins as another day of slogging beckoned.
The still far off promise of the summit provided the motivation that coffee and bread could not and we were soon off; up through what looked, to all intents and purposes, like the Highlands. The fact that it was New Years Eve and we were x,000 metres up in little more than a t-shirt gave the game away slightly but still.
The first part of day 2 is almost vertical, and progress was far from fast. Having got into a rhythm which I guarded as if my life depended on it, I probably slowed things up but hey; they’re my knees and I know what they’re capable of so … nah! We crept ever higher, passing a couple of our erstwhile hut and guest house mates who had decided to do the trip in 2 days as opposed to the usual 3 and were, therefore, already taking a much more gravity oriented path, passing old lava flows and what looked like big flowery artichokes.
Up, up, up with the town of Buea and the rest of Cameroon, concealed behind the ubiquitous blanket of cloud above whose wispy countenance we now walked. Hut three came and went as did the guys who had been given the dubious honour of carrying our reduced luggage, food and water for the journey. The summit was almost visible and so we two, and Samuel the guide, would be continuing on, alone. The porters were to take the low road and were, contrary to that which I had been lead to believe by those doyens of Jock-rock, Runrig, destined to get to the next pit-stop before us.
Steaming craters, fields of pyroclastic material and the Queen of the Mountain* herself adorned our now more gradual ascent to Mount Cameroon’s highest but we’re not sure how highest point.
[*45 years of age; built mostly of Twiglets; has won the biennial jaunt that is running up the mountain, 5 times … and she’s got seven children. Dagenham East doesn’t come close.]
And so there we were. Standing on the roof of Cameroon and possibly west Africa. Three Tangfastics had survived the perils of the journey and were, in the absence of anything more bubbly, consumed, one each, with relish. Not literally obviously; to sully the synthetic tangyness of a red Tangfastic crocodile - and possibly the best tasting red Tangfastic crocodile that ever was – with relish would have condemned me to one of the more pestilential pits of hell, to tend the infernal celery fields for time eternal. And quite right too.
Another lyrical contradiction ensued as Yazz and her Plastic Population had to concede defeat as the only way from where we were standing was definitely down. And what a down it was. The first part was across loose ash and walking just wasn’t an option. A rolling run, relaxed in the knowledge that a tumble wouldn’t result in any breakages, was the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable submission to gravity’s overbearing urges. But, alas, was too soon over and was, in retrospect, scant compensation for the tortuous hours of walking that loomed.
The brocoli fields that were old lava flows seemed to go on forever. And ever. And ever. The thrill of walking on what was once molten rock - the thought of which is something that never fails to amaze me ... Melted. Rock. It doesn't really make sense but it has to ... - as I was saying, the thrill, it soon wears off as you and your sturdiest boots wear out. There's not a lot to look at, except more once-molten* rock.
*A brief, bright red aside: in trying to establish a suitable synonym for 'once-molten' I have to admit to a great deal of disappointment. For 'molten' we have "aqueous, au jus, damp, deliquescent, dissolvable, dissolved, dulcet, flowing, fluent, fluidic, fusible, ichorous, juicy, liquefied, liquescent, liquiform, luscious, mellifluent, mellifluous, mellow, meltable, melted, melting, moist, molten, moving, pulpy, running, runny, sappy, serous, smooth, soft, solvent, splashing, succulent, thawed, thin, uncongealed, viscous, watery, wet".
Antonyms on offer: gaseous, solid. I mean, honestly. Come on people. Petition your ombudsman for a new antonym that can rival 'mellifluous'. Suggestions willingly received; should one tickle my fancy sufficiently I will erase this eye-wrenching redness and replace it with a more sombre, bolder and credited synonym.
Even if there was somewhere to look, you're so busy staring at your own feet so as to not fall headlong onto skin lacerating and bone snaperating rocks that it would be impossible. For all I know there could have been herds of pygmy elephants on horseback performing intricate fertility rites to a twangy rhythm being belted out by a scantily-clad, bouzouki-playing quintet. Just another day on Larium in many ways.
Negotiated it we did and were soon spat out into an altogether more grassy arena, destination craters.
If your buttocks have not yet gone numb, mine have and so I'll draw a line under this for now
there. See? And will give your brains and bums a break. There'll be more to follow as we haven't got off the mountain yet. And just in case you're keeping track: this is day 5 of 16!
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