The long-awaited visit of the pope
The pope is paying a visit to Cameroon next week - he's arriving Tuesday evening and leaving Friday morning and he's doing a mass in the big stadium of Yaoundé on Thursday. "Great!" I can hear you say. "How nice of him to visit Cameroon." Well yeah...
As a consequence - or should I say precursor - of this visit, some dramatic measures have been taken.
1 All small shops, houses, vendor's stalls that don't look nice enough are being destroyed with a large caterpillar. The truck comes by, looks at your stall/house/whatever and if the driver doesn't like, he just destroys it with all its content. It all started about a week ago in the city centre. Suddenly the streets did not house streetvendors anymore, all the local shops at the post office disappeared etc. Now it's been extended all the way to the airport.
2 The road to the airport has brand new streetlights. But then ONLY the way from the airport to the town centre.
3 Tuesday (for sure, other days to be confirmed) the road between airport and town centre will be blocked. Note: the pope arrives in the evening, but the road needs to be blocked from EARLY MORNING. Hence nobody can get to/from work, school etc.
4 It has been announced on the radio that all shops and houses on the road to the airport etc need to keep all windows and doors closed on Tuesday - police will patrol to make sure orders are followed.
5 As a result of all this, tension has risen in town centre among street vendors and shop owners and riots cannot be ruled out... Keep indoors I would say.
6 As said before, the Pope will do a mass on Thursday in the Stadium. It's open for the public but tickets are 1000 FCFA (almost 2 Euro) and people will have to walk kilometers to get there as the roads will be blocked, obviously.
It's a pity that a major event like this has to become such a disaster for so many people. People struggle so hard to make a living, selling a few papaya's on the side of the road, put all their savings in a little stall and then, wham, a caterpillar passes by and you've lost everything.
Pictures of the destructions can be seen on Sander & Elke's blog.
>To be continued...
As a consequence - or should I say precursor - of this visit, some dramatic measures have been taken.
1 All small shops, houses, vendor's stalls that don't look nice enough are being destroyed with a large caterpillar. The truck comes by, looks at your stall/house/whatever and if the driver doesn't like, he just destroys it with all its content. It all started about a week ago in the city centre. Suddenly the streets did not house streetvendors anymore, all the local shops at the post office disappeared etc. Now it's been extended all the way to the airport.
2 The road to the airport has brand new streetlights. But then ONLY the way from the airport to the town centre.
3 Tuesday (for sure, other days to be confirmed) the road between airport and town centre will be blocked. Note: the pope arrives in the evening, but the road needs to be blocked from EARLY MORNING. Hence nobody can get to/from work, school etc.
4 It has been announced on the radio that all shops and houses on the road to the airport etc need to keep all windows and doors closed on Tuesday - police will patrol to make sure orders are followed.
5 As a result of all this, tension has risen in town centre among street vendors and shop owners and riots cannot be ruled out... Keep indoors I would say.
6 As said before, the Pope will do a mass on Thursday in the Stadium. It's open for the public but tickets are 1000 FCFA (almost 2 Euro) and people will have to walk kilometers to get there as the roads will be blocked, obviously.
It's a pity that a major event like this has to become such a disaster for so many people. People struggle so hard to make a living, selling a few papaya's on the side of the road, put all their savings in a little stall and then, wham, a caterpillar passes by and you've lost everything.
Pictures of the destructions can be seen on Sander & Elke's blog.
>To be continued...
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