Douala

Biggest city, biggest port, hot, humid, trafficky but…

… they have street signs and splendid views (top right our hotel from downhill)

Where to stay in Douala? Good idea, The German Seamen’s Mission, Foyer du Marin. It has a nice garden, a terrace overlooking the harbour and it has got a mission, it advertises the “German Monuments and African Cultures Association”

Go looking for old colonial buildings of what was once called Kamerunstadt. Not easy to find, not always well preserved but still in place and under protection.

Like in Yaoundé tourist attractions are not abounding. The Palace of King Manga Ndumbe Bell is in the city’s administrative center. It was built by the Germans and is commonly called “la Pagode”. (don’t ask me why they didn’t build one of those traditional timber-framed houses). Through the front door you enter an air conditioned French style bistro and in the back there is doual’art, a gallery and exhibition space where you can have a cup of coffee together with artists and magistrates from the court nearby in the shade of big trees.

La Pagode, Place du Government,

Doual’art: modern art, ideas based on cultural heritage and religion

I wanted to visit the tomb of Rudolph Douala Manga Bell another name on the long list of crimes committed by my forbears. Strictly, Rudolph Manga Bell wasn’t even a freedom fighter, he (Rudolph!) came from a Germanophile family, knew and believed in German “Justiz” and had merely dared insist that the promise given by the Germans not to expropriate his people’s land be respected. Tragically, he was “betrayed” by Ibrahim Njoya, the grandfather of the actual Sultan Njoya – the Sultan we “got to know” in Foumban. Bell was accused of treason, and hanged after a quick and superficial trial. Seven weeks later, in September 1914 the Allies captured Douala. Treason wouldn’t have been necessary to make Germany lose Cameroon.

While I was wandering around looking for the tomb an elderly man passing by pointed backwards and said to my surprise:

“It’s over there what you are looking for.”

A few steps around the corner and there they were, the tombs of Rudolph Manga Bell and his son.

Truth is, there are a couple of brave and just men who were made heroes (Héros de la Résistence et Indépendance) at the hands of other European colonialists (for example Ruben Um Nyobé assassinated by the French army shortly before independence was won).

Interesting to visit is the maritime museum, with some technical seafaring equipment, a traditional painting, a few models of ships and some information about the world’s contemporary human tragedy. At the end of your guided tour you get 15 minutes of an animated simulation of the deportation of slaves in a small rocking boat with real water being sprayed in your face (so you see what it was like!)

All this brought into being by the Italian Genius! That’s why with a certain hint of pride I took this foto (and later on I realized that Gènes means actually Genova).

Cheers dears

Gerburg