Around midday the next day, we reached Yaounde and went back to the
hostel of the Presbyterian Church. As my friends wanted to travel south,
they were in need for a visa for DRC. So, this was the first place we
went to. The application for the visa was very straight forward here,
but in the middle of this process, there was heavy shouting outside in
the backyard of the embassy. Suddenly, there was a man lying there, who
did not move anymore! The secretary explained, also shattered, that
there were some people, who unloaded this man in the courtyard. He was
dead, apparently without any family, and from Congo. This is Africa;
nobody knew what to do now. So, no one did anything and this poor man
was lying dead in the sun in the backyard of his embassy!
Before we left, Barbara and I covered the man with a sheet, which was
lying next to him anyway. This is probably the least, what one can do
in such a case!
The following day in Yaounde was an extremely bad one also. Nothing
worked out. Barbara and I went to town to accomplish quite a few things.
First, we wanted to print out some photos, which we wanted to send by
post to some new friends along the Ring Road. As this lasted forever, we
decided to go in the meanwhile to the French cultural institute to get
the musical tickets for the same evening – unfortunately, nobody had
heard about this musical, for which Daniel has seen advertisement
somewhere on the street… Next, we went to a sport shop for some t-shirts
for Barbara. Well, there were t-shirts, but neither the color nor the
price matched. Back to the photo shop – the photos still needed time and
were not finished. So, we tried to buy a train ticket for tomorrow
going to N'Gaoundere. Completely unsuccessfully, we gave up after being
sent from one office to the other for about an hour. These are the days I
ask myself honestly, what the hell am I doing here? Finally, the
internet cafe, where it took me 30 minutes to open my account, and then
there was no connection anymore….
As the others also did not have a great day, we decided to go out for
dinner tonight (in the meantime, five tourists). No good idea, as on
the way back to the hostel we were attacked by four men with iron sticks
and machetes. The first man came from the back and bumped into Barbara
and me, apparently trying to bring us to fall. We both knew
instinctively on the spot, that there is something going terribly wrong,
if an African runs in the dark. So, we started to run as well, another
female friend and Daniel did the same. It was maybe another 200 or 300
meters to the hostel. Then, there were another three men jumping out of
the bushes, who went after Marcel, who was the last one and therefore
had to defend himself. They hit him with the iron stick, robbed
everything, he carried. Later, it turned out, that this could have gone
out a lot worse, as these sort of bandits are often completely drugged
and people get killed for the equivalent of 5 euros or less.
For sure, it meant a lot of running around for Marcel, as he lost a
lot of papers, like car documents, driving license, international
vaccination card, mobile phone…. We all had to go to the police station
for a protocol, which we had to pay. Later, it turned out, that Susanna
of the hostel had to pay the police to come at all! But, it was still a
blessing in disguise, as no one was really bad injured!
