Koutaba, Cameroon

Koutaba, 2019-08-30. The monastery and the coffee plantation.

Thursday August 29, 2019.

The Cistercian monastery of Koutaba, our next stop, is not far away from Foumban, about fifteen kilometers as the crow flies.
We should have studied the route a little better to get there. Instead of looking for the most direct track from the national road, we took the first one that we found on the left, 5 kilometers too early. So we find ourselves on a very muddy track with two or three deep water holes. We arrive at the monastery from behind after 6 kilometers, we have to open a barrier, fortunately not padlocked, to reach the access path.

Thierry opens the barrier to access the monastery

A soldier asks us for our ID cards, we show our passports. I feel like this is the first time he's seen one, and he's asking us if we have anything else. He seems us to be a little off the mark, he asks us who we want to see and if we have an appointment, while the monastery also provides accommodation for tourists. You don't necessarily come there to meet someone or by appointment, but quite simply to spend a few days of vacation. He finally shows us the driveway to the accommodation. We weren't asking for more!
We stop a little over 200 meters further on in the accommodation parking lot. We can't find anyone to welcome us and we decide to wait quietly in the car.
A thunderstorm is approaching very threatening and will eventually hit us at 3:45 pm in the form of a heavy downpour.
A monk eventually appears. We can of course camp on the parking lot. They are used to receiving overlanders, he explains. For free ! but we do intend to leave some compensation. Especially since we can have our meals in the small refectory. 

In the parking lot in front of the "accommodation" of the Koutaba monastery

 

The rain does not stop but it has lost in intensity.

The monk comes to tell us that the meal is ready at 6:45 p.m. We are going to have dinner with 3 hosts: an abbot (Boniface) who is retiring here for a few days before leaving for the north and two other Cameroonians including a teacher who has come to relax here before the start of the school year next Monday. He is posted to a village near Mbouda north-west of Bafoussam.
Father Boniface creates and manufactures natural therapeutic products, including a brand new wine that he lets us taste.
A little later another couple of hosts joins us, a brother and a sister, with whom we will philosophize at length about Africa after washing the dishes.

Dinner at the monastery with Abbé Boniface, a teacher and a third guest.

Friday August 30, 2019.

The weather is very nice this morning, the sky is almost uniformly blue. 

Christine in recognition under the sun that is back!

We decide to go for a walk to the monastery church. Originally, it was French Cistercian monks who founded a first monastery in a region south of Yaoundé in the 1950s. They moved a little further east three years later. But the very harsh climatic conditions prompted them to found a new monastery here in the western mountains in 1968. The facilities were very rudimentary and they decided to build a brand new monastery a few hundred meters higher on the same land in 2003.

The Koutaba monastery church.

The round church with its dome 15 meters in diameter is part of this new construction. It was built in bricks made on site by the monks. It is a sober church but the brick dome gives it an extraordinary acoustics like we had never encountered before, neither in European cathedrals, nor in Greek or Roman amphitheatres, which are famous for this.

In the church

 

We don't meet anyone there. It must be said that the monks are only about twenty and they are very busy making their products or other maintenance and management tasks.

A look behind the wall of the monastery (not open to the public).

 

The monk who had greeted us yesterday at the end of the afternoon appears. He was waiting for us! He leads us first to the small shop at the entrance to the site where products from the monastery are offered for sale. We buy a bottle of "therapeutic" liqueur there at 6000 CFA (9.42 €), two jars of jam at 1500 CFA (2.36 €), one of mango and the other multi-fruit as well as a pack of coffee at 1250 CFA (€ 1.96), a mixture of arabica and robusta. 

In the shop

 

The monk takea us for a walk in the coffee plantations. Coffee is the main activity of the monastery, alongside many other agricultural products. Because it was installed on the grounds of an old plantation that they have set themselves the goal of reviving it. The monk shows us the old plants of fifty years which do not give much any more.

The old coffee plantation

Unlike those we have seen in Guinea or among the monks of Togo, these produce arabica. We are a little surprised because the monks of Danyi in Togo had told us that the Arabica needed altitude, at least 2000 m. It's true, the arabica needs altitude but 1200m like here is an ideal altitude, our guide explains. We therefore have the opportunity for the first time to observe Arabica grains. They are a little larger and less numerous than those of Robusta and do not appear in "clusters" like the latter. We'll also take a look at the nursery where the coffee plants are prepared and raised before being transferred to the plantation. The monastery covers a total of 17 ha (if my memory serves me correctly).

Robusta grains.

On the way to the nursery

Coffee plants in the nursery

As the bell rings for lunch we join the same hosts as last night. Mixed salad as a starter, plantain pancakes with fish sauce and papayas for dessert (unfortunately without lemon).
The meal will continue around a long philosophical discussion between Abbé Boniface and Emanuel, an inspector from the Ministry of Regional Planning. It must be said that the abbot has a license in philosophy. They will first philosophize about the Anglophone crisis, the Cameroonian church advocates the federalization of the country to get out of the conflict. The debate automatically leads to the state of democratic institutions in Cameroon and to the longevity of Paul Biya as head of the country ("nature will take care of solving the problem sooner or later", Biya is over 80 years old). They will also debate for a long time on the visits of the popes to Cameroon, from John Paul II to Francis. Are they state visits or pastoral visits? A crucial question to which an urgent answer must be found, of course!
We end up taking our leave.

The sky is clouding over in the afternoon and a few drops are falling, but without really raining.

For the diner we go to the refectory where our five companions will soon join us: Abbé Boniface, Augustin the professor of history and geography, Emanuel and his sister Rosalie as well as a more discreet fifth man.

Christine and Father Boniface

Christine bought a bottle of wine from the Abbé's production (2000 CFA / € 3.14). It is not a wine in the true sense of the word, but a fermented drink made from 5 local fruits whose name he does not want to tell us, a trade secret! It is a therapeutic drink with 5 degrees of alcohol. We share it with the small group to mark our first anniversary on the road.

One year on the road

The meal is as usual simple and hearty: soup, gratin and watermelon. The philosophical discussions resume but a power failure will put it short.
We return home to quietly end the evening.