Bitter Kola and Mont Febe

Lunches are getting increasingly interesting. They are experimenting with us. On Wednesday, they served us "plums": a sour, stringy, fatty vegetable from some Avocado family which you can smear like butter on your bread.

At lunch yesterday, the ladies served a strange mush of corn and greens with sugar to sprinkle on top. There was also a plate with football shaped pellets that were roughly the size of pecans.

“These are Bitter Kola” our hosts told us. “They are very good for men”

And then, the stories started to come out: they were an aphrodisiac. They helped with lead poisoning and ebola. They were good for the digestion and helped you stay awake. To my left, Felix told me that he could be very sick to his stomach and all he would need to do was eat a bitter kola and drink a bit of water and it made him better.

Sure.

Eve peeled the flaky skin off one and nibbled on the side. Jason ate an entire nut. I took a bite the size of a pea and, after two minutes of chewing and trying to swallow, decided to scrape the pulp off my tongue with a napkin.

Yup. It was bitter. I’d accidentally chewed an advil once to roughly the same effect: nasty bitter flavor and numb tongue.

So off to google when lunch was finished. And, what do you know? The damned things have phytotestosterone. Also, extracts of bitter kola are used in eyedrops used to treat retinal hypertension. The vascular effects, combined with the phytotestosterones may make them the natural equivalent of Viagra. They have also been used to treat lead poisoning. Some epidemiological studies have found that people who ate bitter Kola in villages ravaged by ebola didn’t catch the disease, and they were also anti-listerial – meaning that they combat a certain type of food poisoning.

No kidding. No wonder pharmaceutical companies love their expeditions to exploit third world countries. A decade after we’ve articulated the human genome, we still only have marginal success in rational drug design. Nearly all pharmaceuticals come from natural products. 

The work in the classroom is good. Very good. In the past two days, I seem to be less prone to that hopelessness and sense of meaninglessness that always stands in the corners and embraces me when I stop for even a second. I know that, no matter what I do with my time, no matter how much I do, it will always come back to this. Without Sjors, life is clockwork. Not life. But I keep moving, breathing. Working harder so that it doesn't drown me. 

On Tuesday, the Cameroonian Marine, Patrick, suggested that we run together. So yesterday, when work was complete, we met and ran up a mountain together: Mont Febe. Roger and Leopold were from the BIR and John was a Navy man. All are in top physical form. I reminded myself that this is why I train: I want to be able to run with Special Forces. 

Last year, I started running faster when I thought that some covert Dutch service might come after me. I ran harder, trained harder - somehow believing that the day might come when it would matter somehow.  If I could, and if it could have brought me even a fraction of an inch closer to Sjors, I would gladly do it again and again. But I've never been able to fight them with my fists and body and tear their eyes out.

On days like yesterday, I'm glad that I train. 

Cameroon is one of the most profoundly beautiful places on earth. How do I even begin to describe the landscape when it is the sense of beauty and peace and home that makes this place so deep for me? 

There is a rock on an overlook on Mont Febe that is painted in hearts and bright patterns. We clambered on top. This is the place where young men bring their girlfriends in the hope of getting action. Standing on top of the rock, my heart pounding after the climb, I looked out over Yaoude, and felt the breeze brush my arms and the back of my neck.

Patrick is a Marine through and through. As he does dozens, hundreds, of triangle tricep pushups he shouts, "more! more! please can I have some more?!"

As they run, the Marines and BIR sing a French African song which, according to Eve's translation, sounds something like, "my wife isn't around right now. What would you like from me?"

That run was the first moment of wonderful I've had in a long time. Up the mountain was punishing but, as we came back down again, We ran through the villages and men shouted at us, "Bon Courage!" Children laughed and smiled and waved. A group of five or six-year-old kids were taking a bath in the water that ran off the mountain. A little girl, lathered in soap, jumped up and down and waved at the red-faced white woman. 

"This is the real Cameroon," Patrick told me. "We live very simply here."

Two men pushing a car stopped to look and shout at me. Patrick told me, "They say that you are Cameroonais now."