Finally, we are back in busy Douala. We’ve been out of the air for quite some time, but since we have an Internet connection now we are back in the civilized world.
We left the beautiful hillsides and tropical green surroundings of Fotouni behind and replaced it with the chaotic, dirty, hot and humid climate of Douala. Still, it felt as coming home, when our host families yesterday evening welcomed us.
The last couple of days we were busy in Fotouni performing research, which basically boils down to doing interviews, observations, focus group and lots of visits to various stakeholders.
Since people in Fotouni speak French and Bamilike we were really glad to meet the English teacher Cyriel who was willing to help us during our research as an interpreter. He could arrange to get permission from the principal to get one week off from school. Although we had practiced our French since we arrived in Cameroon this wasn’t enough to gain all important information from our stakeholders.
We’ve met with the villagers, teachers and children of the high-school of Fotouni, Doctor, existing and future entrepreneurs. Days started at 7:00 am and regularly ended at 23:00. This meant we made long days, with a chronic lack of sleep and proper food we were quite exhausted at the end of our Research phase.
All stakeholders mentioned above were fairly easy to find and categorize. However, we soon found out we hardly knew all different formal stakeholders within the region.
It seemed we had to deal with a mayor, a chief and a king. Strangely enough, the last two happened to be one and the same person in the end. Let us not forget, the notables and nobles in the region. It was all too confusing, but near the end it all became clear.
The population of Fotouni is extremely poor. Most of the inhabitants of Fotouni work and live from the agriculture. Some people work to feed themselves and some people do also sell. In the cultivating period, people use the minimum income they generate to buy kerosene for their lamps or to pay their electricity bills. In harvesting time they have some more money to spend.
There runs a power grid through the village of Fotouni, but since it is expensive to connect to the grid many households do not have proper access to electricity. Instead they make use of kerosene lights, firewood and poorly designed Chinese lanterns. During the dry season it often happens that the whole village is disconnected from the power supply. A power cut can easily last for five days, since the main source of energy is a hydropower plant owned by the electricity company AESonel.
During our stay in Fotouni it became more than obvious that there is a real need for a safe and good lighting solution combined with a reliable source of energy. Local villagers are extremely thankful and curious on what we might be offering them. They believe we have come to bring the light in their life. You might even consider this last sentence as a philosophical one. Seeing the dedication of the local community in assisting us with our research strengthens our determination to come up with something good when this is all over.
Groetjes,
Marianne Stigter and Casper van Huisstede
