Keepin" it Green in the South by Abby Rose Hyduke

Below is a writeup of Kate's 2009 Environmental Bike Tour of the South by Abby Rose Hyduke

What do a tropical rainforest, Lady Ponce and broken derailers have in common? The 2009 Environmental Bike Tour of the South Region of course! Now is the time to congratulate the 12 successful participants of 191 Km, from Ebolowa to Kribi Environmental Bike Tour.

The EE members conceived the project as a way to raise awareness in the South Region of the awesomeness of their surroundings. Eight Agroforestry and three Health Volunteers and one staff member, Donald Wirsey, participated in the actual execution of the trip, though many more were involved in the planning.

To prepare, Kate Legner & Mengan Conway, proud citizens of the route, worked tirelessly to setup morning programs in primary schools of the five target villages.

The additional volunteers, hailing from the Northwest, West, Littoral and Center Provinces, met in Yaounde Sunday, May 10th, before heading down to Ebolowa together in a van overflowing with trees, market bags of school supplies and bicycles. Along the ride from Yaounde to Ebolowa, we remarked upon the absense of farms and the richness of the thickly forested landscape, and with it the enveloping breath of sweltering humidity. We enjoyed our first meal together at a local restaurant in Ebolow, the delicious traditional dish Sanga, while being serenaded by the erractic beats of the South's own Lady Ponce.

The next day was not spent cycling, but in the classroom for our first day of environmental fun. After preliminary introductions, by the ever professional, Megan Convay, Nura Suleiman proceeded to explain the theme of the tour, "What is a Rainforest."

We were surpised to find that most of the students, aside from some geniuses in Kribi, didn't realize that they were indeed located within a living breathing rainforest.

Caitlin Scholl & Ben Wixson broke out the world map and made sure the students understood where rainforests are found and led a song to help the class remember the continents - even Antarctica and Australia. David Hanson, Danny Quinn & I explained the different levels of a food chain and enhanced comprehension through a predator prey tag game. David Hanson was repeatly tagged and devoured by 10 year old girl predators when he participated. Megan Conway was tagged by the director of the primary school in Bipendi. Jessica Coloy, Emily Haines & Nura Suleium led a sobering game highlighting the competition for natural resources amongst animals with increased human encroachment on dwindling habitat. Seth Shapiro, Megan & Kate held integral roles in keeping time, efficiently guiding groups between work stations and keeping our bikes safe during recess time.

The second portion of the program focused on the effects humans have on rainforests. Danny Quinn arranged a trash sorting contest and explained to students the value of compost; Cailtlin tirelessly demonstrated the importance of keeping our water sources clean; Emily emphasised the concept of recycling and showed the classes one more way we can reused plasltic bags by braiding them into multipurpose ropes.

The program culminated with a reflective activity, in which the students foliated a paper tree with ideas of how they could continue to protect the environment in their daily lives, followed by the presentation of a bag of school supplies, generously donated at the urging of Jessica Colopy's mom and several trees to be planted for shade and beautification at a later date.

In the afternon we introduced ourselves and our misson to the clubs UNESCO and Amies de Nature at the bilingual secondary school and helped them create an action plan for the following school year, as well as create goals for their own futures. The first day of teaching went off as smoothly as we could of hope for, we took it as an omen for good things to come.

The second day was devoted entirely to biking the longest stretch of the trip, 72km from Ebolowa to Lolodorf. We had hired a vehicle to transport supplies and Donald, David & Caitlin had done quick checks on all our bikes the preceding evening. We were invincible as we rolled towards Lolodorf, turning off the paved road onto a decent dirt road. Unfortunately our bikes were not, as the condition of the road degraded and mud created form the previous evenings shower clogged our gears and derailers, mocked the efforts of our aspiring brakes, and coated our wheels to the point of eliminating traction. By 9am, the first of us were arriving at the 30km mark, followed intermittently by disgrunted cyclists and broken bikes. A good three hours was spent removing mud from delicate mechanisms and preliminary reparations by our saviour, Donald Wirsey. Everyone agreed that the second half of the ride was much more agreeable, but we rode into Loldorf much later than anticiapted and exhausted. Donald sedulously worked on the bikes the entire next day and joined by Caitlin and David after a smooth morning program.

The 17km bike ride to Ngouvayang on the fourth day was a breese at a consistent decline through patches of thick forest and past sleepy villages. Ngouvayang was my personal favourite stop of the trip. We stayed at a guest house located at the Catholic Mission Hospital, powered by solar panels and overlooking the breathtaking Ngouvayang Mountains. There was a boarding school on the hospital camps for the children of the forest dwelling "pygmy" tribes who graciously performed traditional dances and songs for the volunteers after the mourning program.

The 33km ride to Bipendi was equally effortless and we setup for the night at another private boarding house, before heading to the school and being surprised at the record turnout for a Saturday program. In the afternoon we split into 2 groups. One group took care of creating a priority needs list at the Lycee and the other group decided to incorporate the boarding school into our program. While the volunteers demonstrated proper technicques for planting a tree next to the preschool, the kids demonstrated that proper way to throw a spear at a rolling ball.
Shown up by the children, the volunteers broke out a Frisbee and educated the population on proper disc throwing. Bipendi might just be the hottest little corner of the South Province, so we headed out as early as possible to complete our final leg of the tour.

Giddy, with the taste of victory, the purported 68km Kribi left us undaunted, despite what I would personally consider more hills than it should take to get to sea level and we all arrived, more or less in one piece before noon.

The final day's program was greatly assisted by the collaborating Ministry of Forestry & unfortunately abbreviated by the schools preparation for the 20th of May. We were unamimously impressed with the level of enthusiasm and engagement from the students at both the elementary and secondary schools and agreed that Kribi is not a bad place to culminate a triumphant, yet physically demanding week of work. Though I personally vowed to never ride a bike again several times during the trip, I have since had a potentially misguided change of heart.

In total, we can estimate that 300 students from Ebolow to Kribi were able to participate in our interactive program and directly benefit from the increased knowledge of their unique ecosystem. Over 200 secondary students participated in afternoon programs and were exposed to community needs and priority ranking techniques, drawn from PACA resources. Teachers and directors of participating schools were present with resources in the form of school supplies and manuals of potential EE activites, and trees, not to mention the numerous conversations with people who were curious as to the meaning behind our traveling spectacle along the way.

Many thanks to all who helped bring about the realization of the epic event:
PC Admin, especially Sylvie Ngoube for her enacious support with PCPP details.
Agroforestry APCD, T. Tkik Manga.
Megan Conway & Kate Legner get the extra props for being stellar cordanatrices and for their indefatigable optimism.
David Hanson & Caitlin Scholl for not only teaching, but also volunteering as bike techs along the way, Caitlin for putting together the resources manual.
Gabe Albin for the spectacular t-shirt design.
Jessica Colopy's mom for donations of school supplies from the states.
All the people who pledged their support through PCPP, especially the Legners.
Our driver and guardian angel, Emmanual, the participants themselves, volunteers and school children included.
Most importantly, Donald Wirsey who not only fixed our bikes tirelessly, but also reminded us all of the countless rewards that follow sucessful conclusion of a good challenge.