The Merchant Marine Express

As Cadet Joshua Writes: “We came into the river leading up to Douala, Cameroon early on the 31st of August. The 3rd Mate called me up to the bridge around 0320 and I did my usual duty of bringing the pilot up to the bridge. The pilot is an individual who knows the rivers and channels about a port area. They come on board ships when ships are coming close to their port and they take command of the ship until the ship is docked.

As we came into Cameroon I was surprised that it had some rather tall buildings. The ships that I saw coming in also looked well kept and in good repair. Once we were moored alongside the pier, the sun had risen and I was able to better see Douala. I quickly made note to myself that things look awfully better in the dark. Cameroon was quite rough looking. Broken windows, rats, and the permeating smell of rot seemed to be the common theme (flip-flops I later found out were the rave amongst the Cameroons).

In port, I made myself as useful as possible: helping put out the gangway, ushering people to the Captains office, getting items for the Captain, etc. Cadets do a lot of go-fetch-this’n-that jobs. I stood about in the Captain’s office though I wasn’t needed; I listening to what was going on so that I could learn. The two Cameroons in the Captain’s office were quiet, polite, and spoke French and English. Their general demeanor made me decide that Cameroon can not be all that bad and made me feel more comfortable on going out.

Once the Chief Mate released me of my duties, I went ashore with AB “Ben”. We both got our own separate two wheeled taxis and rode off to the nearest bank to get some cash. I hung on to my taxi driver and so did Ben. That was by far the best part of Cameroon–the taxi ride on the back of a motorcycle. At the second bank that we stopped at to get money, I drew a picture for our taxi drivers to show them where we were interested in going to buy some trinkets. They only spoke so much English and it made it interesting. Once it was all sorted out, we drove to an area where there were many booth shops. Here I discovered a most aggressive form of salesmanship that could take the skin off an ox. At the first vender I went to, I looked about and decided to go to the next vender. The first vender followed me. Then as I looked about in the second vendor’s shop, the venders who were watching me began to multiply. Soon, I was swarmed by vendors who said, “you don’t have to buy, just…look!” and they pulled their lower right eye-lid down with a finger to emphasize the point.

Imagine being hounded by a hoard of sales-people with their finger in their eye as you’ve decided that shopping was a bad idea after all and all you want to do is just get out of there. “look!” I said, opening my empty wallet, “I have no more money!” They sighed and huzzahed with raised eyebrows knowing I had more. Only I did not. The second and 3rd vendor I met somehow whittled what little out of me and a fourth chased me down the walkway till I dropped my last dime. On top of that, I told vendor negative one (the actual first vendor) that I would most certainly come and buy one of his wares.

After beleaguered from walking through the jungle of salesmen, I sat down in the shade of a building by the street side and felt the eyes of this vendor as I waited for Ben. Because I promised, I ended up borrowing 5 bucks from Ben to buy one of vendor negative one’s wares. The two drivers then took Ben and I back to the ship. Ben was happy because he had a beautiful and highly colorful piece of artwork quilted together with the wings of butterflies. I was dejected. Looking in my bag, the biggest most expensive gift I got was an old powdery mask with bugs crawling on it. My bargaining skills are the stuff of dung. I the dung and sales people the flies, dung beetles, and stray dogs who like to roll in it. So in my dejectedness, I made sure to mention to A.B. Ben of how beautiful his art work that he bought was–at the expense of countless tortured innocent butterflies who had their angelic wings ripped from their helpless petite sweet frames while still alive and TREMBLING!…he wasn’t impressed. Oh well I tried.

Once back at the dock, the two taxi drivers asked for a gift from the ship that we could bring them. Ben suggested a bar of soap (according to Ben, who has been to Africa a few times, soap is a pricy commodity and good for trading). “A new bar of soap?” I asked.
“Well, of course a new bar of soap,” Ben looked at me funny, “It would be rude to give someone a used bar of soap as a gift.”
“All I have is a crummy used bar of soap.”

“Oh.” (Luckily, I found two new bars of soap in my room waiting right by the door and I put them in my backpack for them. Unfortunately, we both forgot to give them to the taxi drivers.) After this conversation, we walked into the pier area which was guarded. The head guard and his supervisor decided that he would play customs and new enough English to ask for a “gift” also since we were bringing items of
Cameroon out of the country. Soap was not his forte’ and fresh cut green Uncle Sams were. I had nothing of course. I was about to hand him my lousy bag of trinkets that I bought so I could get to the ship. Somehow Ben convinced him that 3 dollars was enough and we came to the ship.

Afterward, a gentlemen came up to us as we were walking up our gangway and asked us if we wanted to go to the Seaman’s Club. Ben said that that iswhat we’ve been looking for the whole time. In light of my quick and dirty experience of Cameroon already, I did not feel as wholehearted on going out as I did the first time. However, I decided to go though my gut told me it would serve me better to just stay on the ship.

At the “Seaman’s Center” we sat down, had a taste of the local beer, and watched Cameroon news (which is in French. The Cameroons speak French and English, depending on where they are from in Cameroon). The place we were at was not a Seaman’s Club it was a bar/brothel. What I thought was the door to the restroom turned out to be rooms. This may be the regular place for mariners but it most certainly was not a Seaman’s Club.

Not too much later, a whole crew of us from the MV American Tern were sitting about talking. Most of them came in the last thirty minutes that we had before we had to get back to the ship. We were Sailing at 1400 and were to be back at the ship at 1300. It was about 1220 when the slew of them came. Talk about a quick break from the ship! They had less than 30 minutes!

That was my half a day in Cameroon. There are a little more details to it than this that I feel are important but this will suffice for the moment. A lot happened today and I am still trying to digest it myself.

Hope all is well.” - Joshua

Tags: MV American Tern, Uncategorized