Mick, an Irishman in Ndop, NW Cameroon

I wrote a wee while ago about a day out with Mick Toolin during my time in Ndop in February 2009.

Mick gathering information about water supplies in Bafanji

Mick Toolin from the Blackwells’ church in Dublin is here with us at the moment on his second trip, visiting all ten Ndop villages and researching how many people live in each quarter and what water provision exists. Read more

Well, Mick has been back in Ndop for a few weeks in September. He has two new wells being dug and he is setting things up for a future visit when he will be discussing plans for sand filter water purification schemes in some of the ten Ndop villages. Anyway, he recently sent me an e-mail in which he told a few stories and was wrestling with issues that an Irishman, still fairly new to Africa, has to wrestle with.

Still hard to get used to the poverty here especially in the area we are working in. The people here are so resilient. I don’t know how I would cope in their position.

I was with Pastor Edward in the village the other day.

Edward & Prisca with their twins Victor and Victory

He arrived at the house at 7 am and I took him to collect 10 huge bags of corn on the cob from a field in the middle of the bush. Each bag is about 40 kilos. I don’t know why they don’t make the bags smaller. It would be so much easier to carry, at least for this white man. It took about 2 hours, then we came back to house.

Edward went to clean up and later returned to the office in the house that serves as the translation office to work for a few hours. Then he is went off to visit his people and prepare for meetings. It’s a hard life for him.

Mick then told me the story about the capture of a local goat thief outside the Blackwells’ house in Mesaw where Mick is staying…

Last week, early on Monday morning about 1 am there was some commotion on the track outside the house.

It seems that a young man in the quarter stole a goat and was apprehended by two other men who were out looking to see if they could catch the thief, as they had a goat stolen the previous week. They reasoned that the thief would strike again.

They were right and they caught him red handed. They wrestled with him to the ground and then decided they would take him to the town to the police. This is about a 3 hour walk. The young man pleaded for mercy.

His father was summoned to the scene, and he also pleaded for mercy. So they took him to the Quarter head who was not in the humour to sort things out, so suggested they go to the police. The quarter head is supposed to help resolve such matters…

However, next on the scene was Vincent a neighbour, he is wanting to help, but gets a little excited when he discovers that the stolen goat in question actually belongs to him. So Vincent decides that there is only one thing to do, call Pastor Edward. So Edward is brought to the scene, eventually an arrangement is reached— another long story in itself.

While this was all going on, Edward had knocked on my door  to get me to take a photo of the thief and record it all. Of course I was out for the count and did not hear a thing – having driven a 10 hour journey from Yaounde and stopped for some meetings on the way. I could have slept on a barbed wire fence that night.

So all ended at 5 am. Pastor Edward returned to bed for two hours and was then up to work for another long hard day.

And so, Mick continues to support the Ndop Bible translation and literacy project through facilitating improved water supplies in the area… as well as learning a great deal about living and working in a different culture.

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