Moving from Village to City

September 29th, 2016 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »

While still living in the same country, moving from a village to a town or city can still be a cultural shock for many people. In Cameroon, living in a village is so different from living in a town or city. I interviewed a young man, Cyrille, who is from a village named Yang and moved to Buea to study at University of Buea. Cyrille shares the differences of living in Yang and Buea and the challenges he faced when moving to Buea. Thank you to Peace Corps Volunteer Katy Shawkey who assisted with the interview by introducing me to Cyrille and writing the answers to my questions.

Tell me about growing up in Yang (Njinikom subdivision), village life (i.e. Food, school, health, free time, etc)?

First of all growing up in the village was hard. For me especially, where I only knew my mom who is the only one who has been like my mom and my father. So, like going to school here, I went to government school. Government had made primary education free. It was free but it was still difficult to afford it because just 1,500 CFA was the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) fee, and affording that at that time was still very difficult. However education wise, I still managed to survive, though it was hard, I survived. I did not do all my primary education here. Half here (class 1-3). Then I had to go to Southwest, in another village to finish. I had to skip class 4, continued class 5,6,7 and was done. Came back and started secondary still with the help of my mom, but this time at least my brother, Horatio, came in. So it was like the 2 of them who took me into secondary school. Getting food too was another problem. But my mom exceptionally, has always been the hardest worker. So we’ve never lacked food, like the basics. It’s been hard, but as hardworking as she is, we have never lacked food in our house. Although the food is just basically village food. With my free time, I would go to the farm with mom. We’ll do some farm work. Till together, plant together, and harvest together. Transportation, the same, together. Then also just part of my free time for leisure, I would go play football and maybe just take a walk around because I’m not good at visiting people. I would play around with my friends, play football together. So basically that’s what I did with my free time. On holidays, I would go to the Southwest with my brothers, work with them and that’s also how I got money for my school fees and other school needs. That was the period between, during secondary school.

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Mountains in Njinikom

Why and how did you decided to move to Buea?

So with the “why” first, I decided to go to Buea. It’s first of all a childhood decision, a thing I’ve always looked up to. Because to us, the so-called Anglophone, Buea has been the only university. That is the university that we of the anglophone region most likely went to. Equally because I loved to have a university education. That’s also a reason that motivated me to go to Buea. I think that covers everything for why, because I have no other special reasons for going to Buea. Then how I got to Buea. Getting to Buea was also hard. It was hard because, first of all I was unable to rent a house and it was very difficult for me to get to Buea. I first of all left village to Muenge with my brother. It was getting close to the start of school. And at that time, I was still not sure of having accommodation in Buea. So finally when I had my fees, my school fees, I went to Buea from Muenge. It’s a short distance because they are all in the same division. So I reached Buea on the 13th of October 2014. So with the help of my cousin, whom I had hoped to live with him without question, he directed me on how to pay my fees and it was paid. So from there I moved down to Limbe, still because I had no accommodation in Buea. In Limbe I was with one of my elder brothers, stayed with him for two weeks while still attending school in Buea. Then after the 2 weeks I had to stay with another guy for two weeks in Buea.

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A home in Yang

How was the transition between village life and city life?

I’m sorry but Buea is not even a city. As I was already saying, being in Buea, let me first of all put it in, like normally away from home, so it’s not easy. It’s not been easy. I think its still not going to be easy. In terms of accommodation in Buea, you have to pay your rent out, like I have not survived through rent, I’ve survived through like living with people, from one person to another and then…certainly I’m missing my place and I always want to get back, and I do not hesitate when I have the least time to…like whenever I’m free, I’m home. Whenever I’m free, I come back.

What are the differences between living in village versus Buea?

Yeah so normally, getting food, like getting accommodations too, it’s a difficult thing because Buea is one of those towns in Cameroon where life is expensive. So everything is hard to get if you’re not a native, if you’re not rich enough, you can be going poor in Buea. So, like home, everything is readily available, there is food there is everything. What you need, we buy. We buy just things you can buy like oils and little things like spice, and like every other thing like food stuff, it’s there. So like in Buea, everything is bought. You’re not farming down there. It’s all money. For the first year that I had and half of the second year, I didn’t really have like food problems in Buea because I had one woman and she helps me when I’d talk to her. When there is no food, she can have and give. The worst thing of it all, is that all that difficulty would result in me being like worried and disturbing me in the head and all that. Worrying about money makes it hard to focus on studies and other things. Then also living in an environment where you are not really, which does not really suit you, also affected me. The heat and then the specific house which I was living in, and the distance there from school sometimes you miss classes. Sometimes you miss out on unannounced tests, and sometimes you go late and other things because of the distance. So, if I have to compare between the village and Buea, Buea has its advantages, like you’ve got all the schools there, the higher institutions, which I am out for. [Buea is] more expensive than the village to live in, like more open than the village. There’s another difference, Buea is not only a town. It’s also in a different region. The culture of the Southwest is very different from the culture of the Northwest. So the Southwest is almost like a cultureless people, I mean they do have but like it doesn’t sum up to even, not even a quarter of what I have here. So, it’s different, it got its own things, and then the village is very conservative and Buea is more open, then apart from those few difficulties, I get going in Buea.