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Home » Television » Our Productions On Demand » Global Energy and Carbon » Following A Trail Of Carbon Footprints » The Anumendem Family (I think)

The Anumendem Family (I think)

A blog update from producer Bob Dambach
June 14-16, 2009

Last names are sometimes a hard thing to get a grip on in Africa. For example our traveling companion Alex’s (from the EERC) last name is Azenkeng, some of his family’s last name is Anumendem and when I sent his brother Nico some money for our trip by moneygram, Tiendem was the last name he used.

While I might be confused by last names, I am sure that they live in the village of Ikata. It is about 10 km NE of Muyuka but the road is made more of boulders than dirt so the ride is a little slow and on the bumpy side. Ikata has just over 1,000 residents and is located on a slope of Mt Cameroon. The whole village just got electricity about 8 months ago, so many TV antennas and DVD players are springing up around the settlement.

Ikata is a farming community. People walk every morning for 15 minutes to over ½ hour to get to their fields. I probably shouldn’t say field because we are talking about a heavily vegetative patch of jungle with many crops intermingled. This is very different than the Amin’s farms that are mostly devoted to a single crop and where herbicides are used to control the vegetation. The work is by hand and hard. 

In Ikata neighbors and relatives help neighbors to cultivate their plots. Each family reaps the rewards of their own piece of land but everyone shares in the work, alternating farms as the season and crops dictate. This is called njange (nun-jay) in the village dialect. We saw a number of people drying coco nuts in their front yards.

For the past few months Alex’s dad has been in the states for medical treatment but the family pulls and works together to get all the chores done.

The Anumendem household is near the entrance of the village at the base of a steep incline that leads to the market. The water supply is a spring at the entry to the village. Most of the day you can see people carrying water containers on their heads up the hill or hitching a ride on the ever-present motorcycles.

Mary (Chamkeng) is the mom. She works everyday in the field wielding a sharp machete. She also makes sure that the family gets fed. Nicodemus who goes by Nico, is a schoolteacher in a nearby village, he is also going to the University studying business and would like to get an advanced degree in the US. Nico set up the travel arrangements for our trip and secured the Amin family’s participation. 

Charlotte is going to Technical school in Buea and Isabela is going to the University in Buea. They both seem to get home often to help the family. Vivian, Canisa, Barbara, Desmund, Rokan-Cliford and Chanel all go to school and help out on the farm plots.

Just like in the Amin household relatives and friends abound. They help to cook and serve the food and anywhere else when needed.

We expected a warm welcome since the family and villagers hadn’t seen Alex in over 5 years. But it went beyond that as person after person came to shake our hands and welcome us to their village. And of course the kids couldn’t get enough of the cameras.

Next time I’ll outline one of our production days from start to finish.

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