Cameroon Through New Eyes | 6. Power, Water, and the Art of Enduring
Blackouts, water shortages, unreliable internet
Cameroon Through New Eyes | 5. Douala, Unfiltered
On our first morning, we woke up to a profound discomfort and quickly realized there was no electricity. After living in the West for so long, you begin to take things like power and running water for granted. Yet there we were, starting the day without electricity.
Growing up, electricity and water were generally reliable. I can only recall a few instances when the power or water was cut off. The biggest concern back then came during the dry season, when people worried about the water’s color, feared cholera, and refused to drink water from SNEC, the national provider at the time. Nowadays, however, outages of both water and electricity are constant — sometimes lasting more than 12 hours a day. And why? No one really knows.
People here rely heavily on air conditioning and fans, so when the power goes out (which happened quite a bit during our stay), it becomes a real struggle. You can’t sleep, and all you can think about is your discomfort. During this time of year, the dry season, when river levels are low, power and water outages are frequent, leading locals to adopt a somewhat fatalistic attitude towards it all. Those who can afford it have water wells or generators, although more and more residents who can afford it are making the switch to solar panels. Our visit was shaped by the recurrent power and water outages.
The night before, since we were so exhausted, we had forgotten to charge our phones. With no power, this meant no way to charge our phones, and no internet. So, lesson one: always keep a portable charger at hand, and prior to arriving in a foreign land, ensure you have an alternative internet plan in place. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of my mobile internet with MINT (T-Mobile roaming); it proved to be exceptionally reliable throughout my entire stay.
I knew that internet connectivity in Cameroon was far from satisfactory; however, I did not fully comprehend the extent of the challenges until I encountered them myself. The primary provider, Camtel, delivers excruciatingly slow internet service at home, compelling me to abandon the home connection in favor of my mobile device. With palpable frustration, it became increasingly taxing as I found myself strategizing and trying to figure out the optimal times, when the network was less congested, to access the internet. While people are fatalistically hopeless, they are also resilient and so creative. For instance, it is the norm to see people juggling two phones or SIM cards—one for each mobile provider—so when one network fails, they can switch to the other. It is a constant mental juggling act that many living in the West probably can’t even imagine.
Cameroon Through New Eyes | 7. Becoming an Accidental Environmentalist