The city Named Bertoua  reportd by Web Master (21-Jan-97)
(A temporary office set up after an evacuation from the Central African Republic)

On December 23rd of last year, I came to this city named Bertoua in Cameroon, and set up a temporary office. Already about one month has passed since then. At first, I was a little nervous because I was a total stranger here. Having lived one month here, however, I came to get the picture of this city. Naturally, this place doesn't match the Camp in Yaloké at all, but I'm coming to like living here.

I have heard about it before coming here, but in Cameroon, prices are much lower than in the Central African Republic. Toughly speaking, food and daily necessities are 30 percent cheaper. Prices are especially low in a country town like Bertoua. If I call this town a "country town", people here may get angry. But this is a country town all the same because this town is located 600 km deep into the backcountry from the port of Douala. If so, however, we must say Bangui is a country town of the country towns, because we must go more than 800 km further into the continent from here to reach Bangui.


< Hotel Mansa >
The best hotel in Bertoua is "Hotel Mansa", a three-star hotel. Its rooms are little bit musty. The water supply is cut off from time to time and sometimes there is no hot water. Apart from that, the hotel is not so bad. The price of a room is US$20 a night and there are a bar, a tennis court and a swimming pool. Incidentally, in the bar a bottle of beer costs US$1.5. There is no water in the swimming pool! But you can say it is lucky in a sense.
As you know, Malaria is very common here. A swimming pool can become a good breeding place for mosquitoes, if it isn't well taken care of.

The local staff members I brought from the Central African Republic are staying at another hotel named " Hotel Garage", a no-star hotel. A room with a double bed costs US$6 a night, that is, US$3 each. With this price, if you think of a shabby hotel, you are wrong. Each room has a bathroom. It is even better than the Camp in a construction site in the past. Japanese staff members have meals three times a day, using the kitchen and a part of the bar in this hotel.


< Open Marcket in Bertoua >
Similar to the Central African Republic
On markets, there are far more farm products and other products than in Yaloké. We can get vegetables, for instance, almost every day. There are four discotheques and local staff members seem to go there from time to time to relax. But Japanese staff members don't want to go.

In the town, there is the electricity and the telephone. This is different from the Central African Republic. In the Central African Republic, the electricity service is available only in the big cities, and there's almost no telephone service except in Bangui.
In Cameroon, we can find telephones in big cities and electricity is supplied in almost all cities. However, your calls often don't go through and the quality of lines is bad. When it comes to international telephone services, if the line is busy, you wait for more than one hour, and yet you don't get a communication. Even so, anything are better than nothing. The telephone service helps us a lot.


< Timber Storage Yard in Bertoua >
What catches our eyes first on arriving at Bertoua is lumber. I see everywhere trailer trucks loaded with lumber. There are raw lumbers with a diameter of more than one meter, and lumber already saw up. All these are transported to Douala and sent abroad for sale by sea. Naturally, Japan in one of the big customers too.


< Timbers Carried to Douala >
The rain forests to the southeast of Cameroon were a source of supply of timber for a long time. The trees in the lucrative places were cut down and the places have been changed into banana plantation and so forth. Bertoua is now a transit town for timber from the neighboring countries like Congo or the Central African Republic.


< Bélabo Station >
Within about 600 km from here to Douala, about 400 km is a good road paved by asphalt. Even though, however, I went back and forth from here to Douala twice already, but I didn't often crossed trailer trucks loaded with timber.
I wondered why, because at the port of Douala there is an enormous accumulation spot of timber. The answer was a railroad! They transport a large amount of timber by rail as well as trailer trucks.


There is a station called Bélabo, 80 km from Bertoua. If you go west from there, you will reach Douala and to north, you will get to the terminal station, Ngaoundere. From that station, stretches an express way as far as near N'Djamena, capital of Chad. The road between Bertoua and Bélabo is also nicely paved by asphalt and trailer trucks with timber and trucks with bananas go back and forth continuously on it.

Bertoua is the first big city on the way from the Central African Republic to Douala, and most of our construction materials are transported through this city as relay center. The people of this city have come to know the name "KAJIMA" recently and some of them sometimes speak to me, so K have come to like the city too. Even so, to tell you the truth, I want to go back to Yaloké as soon as possible.

January 21st 1997


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