Never the twain shall meet

On the outskirts of the market, by the taxi park in Ekondo Titi, there was a shop selling TVs on one side of the street and a bunch of treadle sewing machines for sale on the other.

Close to Mbouda on the way to Bamenda, I saw mansion after mansion after mansion, with little mud-brick huts scattered between.

Landlines never really became available to the common man in Cameroon, but now everyone has a cellphone equipped with the latest gadgets.

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Electioneering again

Climate anxiety has entered the lexicon. For the last few years, it’s been talked about more and more in news articles, science discussions and even in spiritual care contexts. I shrugged it off as overly sensitive people, but the shoe has dropped for me now too. Extreme weather or one sort another everywhere all at once for the past few years has brought home what I always acknowledged intellectually but didn’t really synthesized emotionally: climate change is actually coming and it will be bad. I feel so angry and impotent in the face of these massive systems working against my small efforts to reduce waste and burn less carbon. So I went to the climate forum for this provincial election. It felt really important just to be in the room to declare “this subject matters!” The room had a remarkable number of grey hairs in it. This brought up terribly mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, good of them to continue to care about these issues, even as they can anticipate it won’t ...

What happened to the pledge?

To the 20 (re-elected) Liberal MPs who signed the Vote Palestine platform. You signed the Vote Palestine platform. The time to fulfill your pledge is now. Gaza is facing mass starvation. This isn’t food scarcity. This is intentional blockage of food as a tool of genocide. Canada’s joint statement with 25 other nations called on all the parties to “uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law.” But Israel has been flagrantly violating multiple obligations of international law almost daily since October 8, 2023 and certain on every day since Canada’s statement was released. There is no need to wait, to give Israel the benefit of the doubt to do the right thing. “We are prepared to take further action”, the statement reads. So do it. Canada must immediately impose a true arms embargo on Israel – a two-way arms embargo – and it must actually put it into force and close all loopholes. Canada must immediately levy sancti...

entering the blog world

I've finally given in to the lure of blogging. Actually, if it weren't for Cameroon, I probably wouldn't be doing this; my excuse for succumbing to the pull of popular culture is that a blog is a very pragmatic way to keep in touch with people at home while I'm gone. Thus the title -- the focus is on my journey to and experience in Cameroon. So you likely shan't see much here till things heat up a bit more.

kar0ling

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