Mbengwi Travel Sketchbook

I made this sketch from the the kitchen verandah at Joseph's Guest House where we stayed. The hills in the background were always changing. Sometimes you could see the branches of the trees and sometimes the foliage seemed to be floating unconnected to the trees.

Just in front of the kitchen and right next to the dirt road Joseph had his restaurant and bar. This is the end where he had some banana trees, sugar canes, and yams planted.






This sketch was made looking up the road in front of where we lived. The road is hard packed red clay which turns to dust during the dry season. About a quarter kilometer off in the field to the right of the sketch is the prison. Sometimes we could see prisoners working in the fields. On our first morning there one of the wardens came over and welcomed us to Cameroon.

One of Joseph's banana palms. Actually, I got bored drawing the leaves, so it is only a part of one of his trees.











This is another view of Joseph's restaurant and bar. Often, we could hear the football (soccer) game on the TV in French. Joseph didn't understand French, but he understood football!

It was really foggy early one morning, but the sun was trying valiantly to burn through. It was the kind of morning that you just new it would be really hot and humid before too long.










Many families have a small fish pond where they raise tilapia, carp, and catfish to eat or to sell at market. This lady was feeding fish at one of the larger fish farms.






Drums, dancing, and singing are a big part of any social gathering in Cameroon. Maggie, Joseph's wife, told that no one really took lessons; if they "felt the music in their body" then they could play.









This building housed a number of old computers donated by a US university. They were very old and outdated when they were installed a couple of years ago and now only 2-3 work. The broken ones are not worth fixing because of their age. They were trying to teach adults computer skills on the remaining ones.

There were only a couple of buildings in Mbengwi constructed of stone. They dated from the early 1950's. We were told they were the oldest buildings remaining in Mbengwi. I looked at this building every day for about 3 weeks before it occurred to me that it would make a good sketch.

Down the road from Joseph's. I played football in the road with the little kids. They didn't have much and were very shy, but they liked that I played with them. Most were around 8-10 years old. One little kid, about 3 years old, ran around with only a tee shirt on.

Most houses were constructed of handmade red clay bricks like this one. If you could afford it, you put a veneer of cement over the bricks inside and out and maybe a coat of paint or whitewash. We walked by this house in the forest one day on the way to a fish pond.

The Lord Mayor told me that, if we wanted to stay, he would arrange to have bricks made so we could build a house!