Street Vendors in Douala

Jobs are impossible to find in Cameroon.  There is a 70% unemployment rate.  People sell anything on the streets to buy food for the day.  These are a bunch of random pictures of different ways people try to make a living.

Before Christmas, we saw this man selling beach balls.  I love his glasses and nose.  He is walking down the middle of the very crowded street.


This is a fish shop.  The man wanted us to pay him to take his picture, but we finally got him to hold up a fish so we could take the picture.


This lady does hair, sells palm oil, phone airtime credits, bananas and many snacks at the one little booth.


This man pulls his flip flop store with him all over town.  He has quite a variety.


This is an outdoor grill where they sell shiskabobs.  We haven’t dare try them, but the look and smell really good.  They are cooked over an open fire.



A popcorn and water vendor


Large avocados for sale.


Potatoes and other vegetables for sale.


More Shiskabobs for sale over an open fire.


Shoes for sale on the side of the road.


Home Depot on a cart.


Fresh fish straight out of the Wouri River.



Our peanut ladies.  They didn’t want us to take the picture, so we told them no more sales unless we could.  They were then eager.  We drive up and roll down our window and 5 of them will be shoving bottles in our faces.  We pay $4 for a bottle of roasted peanuts.


Auto Zone


Fresh pineapple is available all year round.  We eat it until we get sick of it and then wait a few weeks and start eating it again.


This is taken from our truck as we drive through the central market where the locals do all of their shopping.  We pay a lot more in places where you can move.  This road is two way traffic.


This lady sells many different kinds of beans.


This is a little souvenier market by our apartment.


Backpacks and school supplies


Wicker furniture is made from bamboo poles that are stripped into strips.  They along with most other furniture is sold sitting in the dirt on the sides of the road.

Moving people and things in Cameroon

We helped our Elders help one of their investigators move this past week.  She was living in a little two room apartment with out electricity with her boyfriend and he made her move out.  As we drove to her new apartment, we took these pictures to give an idea of the sights we saw along the way.  Everything is very typical of any neighborhood here in Douala.
When we think of Africa, we often  think of people carrying things on their heads.  It is so common here.  They carry everything on their heads and their babies on their backs.


They move a lot of things on these little two wheeled carts that they push called “puse puse”.  We’re not sure how they spell that.



This man was pushing a cart with bags of cement up this hill by himself.  He stopped to rest.  The missionaries often jump our and help them up the hill. 


If we hadn’t helped this sister move, she would have had to try to put it in the back of a Toyota taxi, or on a tricycle like this one who is moving someone else.


This is a close up of the same tricycle.  It drives us crazy to see the Africans with beanies and heavy coats on when we are dripping wet with short sleeves and light weight clothes on.



It is so humbling when we help people move and everything they own fits in the back of our little Toyota truck.  Elders Beutler, Kampoy, Gailey, and Leavitt with the sister’s brother who helped us find the new apartment.  We had 7 of us in the front of the truck.


This is the house that she moved out of.  It is a little deceiving because several different families live in different parts of this house.


We drove up this dirt road for about 15 minutes after leaving the main road.  The hill was pretty steep, and there were large rocks in the road with  ruts and mud, so we parked here and walked about 100 yards up the hill to the place where we left her belongings.


We paid these two young boys 30 cents each to help us carry the stuff.  When we were ready to leave they were eating some candy they had bought on the side of the road.


When we came up the road these ladies were in the middle of the road filling their water containers from a pipe that was broken.  Usually they fill them by dropping a bucket into a hand dug well about 10 feet deep. 


This is looking back down the road we drove up.  They have a pretty view of the valley below.


These next two pictures show the typical homes we drove past on the way.  The sister was moving into a similar home.  We didn’t see inside it.  It was locked, so we just set her things by the door.  She couldn’t fit in our truck, so she was coming in a taxi.



These ladies were out in the yard washing dishes and cooking over charcoal, literally pieces of wood.  We walked past several people as we were carrying the things up the hill.  I think they really thought a bunch of whites were moving into the neighborhood.


This is so typical of the vehicles here in Cameroon.  They never repair anything until it stops going.  This Honda lost it’s front wheel and it did some more damage to the front end.  The wheel didn’t just come off, but the front end broke.  They put tires or weeds in the street to warn drivers that there is a break down ahead.  They won’t tow this car.  Someone will come on a motorcycle taxi with a bag of tools and will tear it apart and repair it right where it sits.