Ethical Dilemma

Arriving in Cameroon I had one major concern with regards to my research: I did not yet have local ethical approval to proceed. Despite the fact that I had reached out via multiple phone calls and emails more than four months before my arrival, I had yet to get in touch with anyone who could give me the information I needed to actually submit my ethics application in Cameroon. In October, I had (finally) received a return email inviting me to come visit the Vice Dean of research and cooperation once I arrived in Cameroon. Everyone I spoke to seemed sure that I could sort it all out on site, but that didn’t relieve the stress of not being sure if I would get approval in time to carry out my research within the short time frame I had available.

So, of course, once I had my bearings enough to know how to get to the neighbouring town of Buea, I set out. The trek involved two taxis, a “bus” ride and a 15 minute walk, but I found where I was going fairly easily. The Vice Dean, like everyone else I had encountered up to that point, had a slow, lolling demeanor that would be calming if it didn’t first inspire a rage of impatience. He sat me down and began talking to me like old friends shooting the breeze on a Sunday afternoon for a good while before turning the focus to my research topic. A half dozen questions later, he gave me a lopsided smile and said “See, your review is half done”.

He proceeded to try to call another professor, the chair of the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Institutional Review Board, but couldn’t get through. Then, as if fate itself were intervening, that very professor walked into the Vice Dean’s office looking for chalk. We were introduced and he assured me there was an expedited review coming up in just a couple of days and if I could get my application in by then, I could have my review done immediately. So the Vice Dean passed me along to an assistant on the main university campus (going so far as to ensure I had someone to drive me over and take me to the assistant’s door) to get all the documents and remaining information I needed.

Fortunately, from that point it was mainly a matter of revising the application and other materials I had prepared for the uOttawa ethics review and two days later, I was able to travel back to Buea to hand deliver two copies of the application package. Not even a week later, I was relieved/elated/ecstatic/pick your own preferred synonym of the foregoing to travel to Buea (for the 6^th time in less than 2 weeks) to pick up my approval letter. And not a single palm greased in the process!

Officially official, I have ethical approval in Cameroon :)

There was plenty to see, riding back and forth to Buea, even if the cramped conditions weren’t exactly conducive for taking pictures. Leaving Limbe, it is all plantations, big bunches of bananas protected by blue plastic wrapping. Further along, its palm plantations, with intermittent makeshift stalls along the road side selling opaque white liquid in reused water bottles—palm wine. A government school has a big sign out front proclaiming that “Pidgin is a hindrance to technological development.” Towards Mutengene, a butchering house swarms with activity, while the nearby stream is crawling with people washing their clothes. A little further up the road is a shallow pool of water, into which people drive to wash their vehicles, a line of taxis and buses waiting to wash off the grime of the workday. In town, the market is in full operation; wooden stalls bursting with fresh fruit, clothing and shoes in piles, giant buckets of hair extensions. Tubers like cocoyam and cassava lay in large, ugly piles, alongside firm green plantains on the stem in bundles on the ground. Itinerant vendors mill about, selling goods and food from buckets and platters balanced on their heads. Between the market and the road is a solid layer of garbage a foot thick, giving the whole atmosphere a vaguely putrid smell.

Beyond Mutengene, plant and flower vendors add beauty and variety to the roadside. For kilometers, men work, digging trenches for a water line. Their bulging biceps and bare backs glisten with the sweat of their labor. Everything is manual, there is not a single piece of modern machinery in sight. And all along, messages spray painted in red can be spied on the outer walls of the homes and other buildings lining the roadside. Instructions to “replace roof”, “conform to standard” or even “demolish” are accompanied by a date, sometimes with an additional “Final Warning”. Arriving at Mile 17 in Buea, vendors swarm the vehicles. On the weekend, it’s mostly children—often grubby and in tattered clothes—selling peanuts, oranges, smoked snails, tissues, watches and packaged cookies and candies.

The correct way to eat oranges, apparently.

Speaking of oranges… Did you know we’ve been eating them wrong our whole lives? Here, they are “cleaned”—the outer layer of the peel deftly removed with a knife, and a flap cut into the top from which you can suck and squeeze out all the juice. Poppa got quite a laugh out of the fact that I could not clean the oranges myself. When I began peeling with the knife, I kept knicking too deep in the white layer, so that when you squeeze, you end up getting covered in juice. Likewise, Pavel found it pretty funny that I could not pry the coconut out of the shell, even though I said I loved coconut when he gifted me with half of one he had just pulled off the tree.

One of the best gifts ever. Especially when he removed it from the shell for me.