Content provided in partnership with

TRAVEL: Warthog a la creme

Independent, The (London), Dec 3, 1995 by Jonathan Gregson reports

IT WAS only when I'd finished my sandwiche jambon de phacocere that I discovered what it was. The fresh baguette, the finely sliced ham, the crisp cornichons were all typically French, as was the response of the waiter when I asked him what meat was in it: "It is good M'sieur," was all he said, "home-cured on the premises."

"But what is phacocere?" I asked.

"Ah, it is a bush animal; its teeth are crossed, and when it runs it holds its tail in the air. That is phacocere," he concluded, before sweeping off magisterially to the next table.

Most Popular Articles in News: The Ten Best Laptop bags; Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market; GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD; Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...; THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY; More »

I didn't need to consult a dictionary to know that what he meant was warthog. I'd seen enough of them in the National Park nearby. For despite its name, the Relais de la Porte-Mayo restaurant is not in some plush Parisian suburb, but in Maroua - the main town in the Extreme Nord province of Cameroon, in West Africa. It owes its French character to the days before 1961, when one half was the French-administered territory of Cameroun (the other was the Cameroons, administered by Britain).

Despite its Gallic flavour, Maroua lies close to the geographical heart of Africa. Lake Chad is just up the road, and the mountains to the west are full of unconverted pagan tribes while the surrounding plains are mainly Muslim. Yet, as I looked down the menu, I found such classics of cuisine bourgeoise as ballotine de dinde and cuisses de grenouilles a la creme. Trust the French to take their passion for frog's legs out into the bush. It was comforting, though, to find these echoes of metropolitan France after a week's wandering the savannah and mountains.

Six days before, we had set out from Maroua with maitre Lambert (as he was respectfuly known), a dignified Fulani-speaking Muslim who always sported his skull cap at the wheel. We were headed for the back of beyond - and if anywhere deserves that title, it is the market town of Pouss, four hours' drive east of Maroua and hard up against the frontier with Chad.

Some frontier. Most people hereabouts take little notice of the borders drawn at random across Africa by the old colonial powers. I saw men, women, livestock and children in their hundreds being ferried across the River Lagone, dividing Cameroon from Chad, without anyone trying to impose border controls.

These people belonged to many tribes: the giant Mousgoum (whose average height I reckoned to be 6ft 10in); the Massa, with decorative scars down their cheeks; even a handful of Tuaregs who had ventured far south from their desert homeland. Some of the characters filing into town looked like they had walked off the set of Mad Max III - and they had all come to trade in salt, dried fish and the other necessities of life in the great open marketplace of Pouss.

Above the heat and dust and clamour of ten thousand bargains being sealed, I noticed the sky was full of marabou storks. I also saw I was the only white man, and the only person not engaged in buying or selling. Even maitre Lambert entered into the spirit of things, returning triumphantly with a huge sack of rice and some salt. "The prices are good here," he declared, loading his bargains into our vehicle.

Lambert was unable to exercise his bargaining skills in the surrounding countryside, where we went hunting for casses obus - the strange, domed clay houses found only in this region. Quite simply, there was nothing here to buy. He complained that the people were too lazy to rebuild their traditional houses, that the old skills were dying out, and many of the inhabitants of this border region were now refugees from the civil war in Chad and "not a good lot". As if to prove the point, an old woman with decorative scars on her cheeks, a red stone embedded in her upper lip and teeth filed down to needlepoints, advanced shouting from her compound and seized my arm in a vice-like grip.

"She says she wants 5,000 francs for you photographing her house," Lambert informed me. "This is more than she earns in a month. She is mad. Now she is saying that she will break your arm. But I do not believe her."

I didn't share maitre Lambert's confidence, but after further remonstrations my arm was released. I'd come closer to the raw intensity of Africa than I cared for. "She's from Chad," said Lambert, as if this explained everything.

There was no bargain-hunting to be had, either, among the elephant grass and acacia forests of Waza National Park, two hours north of Maroua - the best place for spotting big game like elephant (we saw herds 100-strong) and lion in all of Central and West Africa. The isolation had a curious effect on maitre Lambert. Though he seemed pleased enough when we sighted another herd of giraffe or horse antelope, he became more religious and would lay down his prayer mat beside a waterhole to bow towards Mecca, which is almost due east from here across the Sudan.

But when we headed west from there into the Mandara Mountains, his urge to shop got the better of him again. Market day at the village of Tourou had him haggling over sacks of highland millet, while I tried out the refreshing home-made beer brewed from the same stuff. Most of the locals were knocking back gourdsful of this brew, seemingly more interested in socialising than they were in driving a hard bargain.

TRAVEL: Warthog a la creme

Independent, The (London), Dec 3, 1995 by Jonathan Gregson reports

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Business

Most Popular Articles in News

Most Popular Publications in News