Music Note Friendship Pattern Instructions

by Massimo ... a story to tell a bit 'of Africa ...

Rhumsiki

Jean-Pierre takes tourists who want to walk in the mountains Kapsiki the border between Cameroon and Nigeria. We are in the far north of Cameroon, far from the ocean. More than the mountains, it is a thousand meters on the plateau, traversed by some deep valleys, carved by the rivers that flow in the rainy season, and punctuated by basalt rocks that emerge from the ground and get up to one hundred or one hundred fifty meters, dominating the plain. Tiny villages scattered throughout the floor at random, five or ten families, each with its fence of stone or mud-brick huts that includes, warehouse, barn and shelter for goats, pigs and donkeys. Each fence is a bit 'far from the other, there are no streets or squares, there are public spaces, except the well. In the bottom of the small valley around which the village is growing, in fact, there is a well, sometimes with a pump for raising water. is here that women and girls are in the early morning. Fetch water for the day.

Here it rains from May to October, with more rain strong in August. From December to March, the harmattan blows from the Sahara that dries all in a constant swirl of dust. is the end of February and everything is terribly dry, the streams are dry, withered or burned fields, many trees lost their leaves. Cows and goats wander in the heat of baobabs, acacias and tamarind trees to find some 'grass, but mostly they eat the straw and stubble left in the abandoned fields. From May restart cultivation: especially millet, peanuts, peas and beans. It does not grow more, not even the onions, which are grown in the plains of Maroua and here they cost ten times more than in the city.

Jean-Pierre has twenty-one and working with Nicolas, the guy who approached me while still coming down from the small bus that brought me to Maroua. Nicolas is the tourists, selling them a travel program, contact the local drivers and guides for those who want to trek, a travel agent, in fact. Probably earns quite well. Jean-Pierre, however, is here to Rhumsiki, where he was born. Meet the tourists at the hotel, where Nicolas sends them and carry them around. She says she also their customers and help Nicolas "just because he is a friend," but I do not think that's true. Does the bully. Would have us believe most of those things that are within his reach. is too young to make me angry, but it is irritating. Not has no idea what it means to go trekking with tourists. Walk very strong, both lowland and hill start assist; for stops, it makes no difference between beautiful and scenic places and crap, can not give any indication of the travel times of the various stages, says that will take care of food, but for lunch at 'is just a box of sardines, four ounces of pasta for dinner (or rice) with a tomato sauce and breakfast sandwich bread, stale, with the tea.

I do not take it soon because I understand that for him, this means eating a lot. And Jean-Pierre tries to get busy. His sauce for pasta or rice (the second night he also manages to fix that, I do not know where, four mouthfuls of meat stew) is very good. I also said that he has never met a tourist who walks as fast as me and that there are people who take more than double to do the same path: this makes it much more fun ...

Jean Pierre has a physical beast (especially for someone who basically never eats) and is very poor. Even by the standards of Rhumsiki, I mean. Very poor but not poor: it has a phone and something else that speaks the language kapsiki. The peasants and farmers who meet in the villages are still vastly more poor are malnourished, very thin with swollen bellies, especially children. The infant mortality rate is officially 20% within five years: by eye, the figure sounds underestimated. Jean-Pierre is the third of seven children (six brothers and one sister), his father is a farmer, his mother died a dozen years ago, for a 'sick at the stomach,' he says. You was made after death, from the village blacksmith, who as usual is also a surgeon-dentist. A kind of autopsy. Failure to do so - he explains - evil can affect other family members. I nod. Jean-Pierre is surprised that I did not know such simple things after his wife died, his father had to sell all the goats he had to feed the children have become so poor. .... TO BE CONTINUED