Yaoundé

Yaoundé, Cameroon

The hilly centre of Yaoundé at sunset from the Central Market rooftop, with Avenue Kennedy climbing toward the ministries.

Yaoundé is Cameroon's hill capital, a green administrative city of markets, museums and long rains above the coastal heat.

The place

Yaoundé is the capital of Cameroon, a hilly city in the Centre Region. The Mfoundi, a minor river, threads the urban area on a north-south line. The city stands at 764 metres, high enough that equatorial warmth is milder than on the coast, and is home to 2440462 people. Slopes break the street plan, so a short walk from the Central Market toward the government quarter rises and falls more than the distance suggests. The state, more than the port trade, sets the tone. Ministries and the headquarters of the Bank of Central African States occupy the formal avenues, while the presidency sits apart in Etoudi and the market and older commercial streets carry everyday trade. Administration still anchors the economy, alongside plants and workshops in tobacco, dairy goods, beer, clay, glass and timber. The port of Douala handles more commerce; Yaoundé is where the state is run. French fills offices, schools and street signs. Alongside it, Ewondo Populaire, a Beti pidgin, is the ordinary speech of the city, and many families speak Ewondo at home. The skyline mixes colonial blocks, independence-era monuments and later towers such as the CNPS building. From the market roof and from Independence Square the hills close the view on every side. At dusk, people walk the first stretch home as the light goes over the centre. Rain, more than heat, organises the year: wet weather covers a long run of months, with a short lull in the middle, so the slopes stay green and the laterite turns slippery after a shower.

Its story

Yaoundé takes its name from the Yaunde, or Ewondo, the Beti people on whose land the station grew. Before any colonial post, the forests of the south and east were home to Baka communities, and Bantu-speaking groups had long moved out from the Cameroonian highlands. Farther north, Fulani herders, a pastoral Muslim people of the western Sahel, had already brought much of the savanna under their authority, a history that still sits apart from the forest cultures of the centre. The settlement itself begins in 1888. Lieutenant Richard Kund and Hans Tappenbeck, German explorers, chose the ground with the chiefs of Ela Esono. The post, Epsumb or Jeundo — Yaunde Station in English — stood between the Nyong and the Sanaga, where the forest starts to thin. The botanist Georg August Zenker then ran it as a farm research station under the name Jaunde. Rubber and ivory moved through the station, paid for with cloth and iron brought in from outside. Once Major Dominik had posted soldiers there, a Pallottine mission and a school could open at Mvolyé, which is now a suburb of the capital. Belgian forces arriving from the Congo held Jaunde through the later part of the First World War. After Germany's defeat, France took charge of eastern Cameroon and chose Yaoundé as the colonial capital. The port city of Douala kept the commercial lead, while the inland capital continued to spread. Yaoundé kept the government when the colonial territory became a republic.

What to see

Culture

Yaoundé's public life is Beti at its root and national in its institutions. Ewondo is the language of many homes, and Ewondo Populaire, a Beti pidgin, carries everyday talk in markets and on the street. French remains the language of school, church announcements and the civil service. Museums do a lot of the city's cultural hosting: the National Museum in the old presidential palace, the Cameroon Art Museum in a former Benedictine monastery, the Afhemi Museum's court treasury, and smaller houses such as the Blackitude Museum. The Municipal Lake and the Mvog-Betsi Zoo-Botanic Park give the hills a green counterweight to the ministries, and the Congress Centre at Tsinga is where the state puts on its formal gatherings. Time here is looser than in many European capitals. Exact answers about how long a journey will take, or how far a quarter is, are not the local habit. Official street names are a poor guide, because residents direct one another by hills, markets and known buildings. Photography is welcome when it is negotiated. Ask before photographing a person in Yaoundé; people are often glad to be in the picture, and may ask a small fee, but an uninvited shot causes real offence.

What to wear

Yaoundé's ceremonial dress is built on cotton pagne, the wax-print cloth sold in the markets in long lengths. Women wrap it as a skirt or have it tailored into a kaba, a long dress worn for church, weddings and family gatherings; men of the same occasions wear an embroidered boubou or a simpler tunic over trousers. Among the Ewondo and other Beti families of the capital, these clothes appear at funerals, namings and Sunday services, not as daily uniform. On an ordinary weekday the city looks different. Civil servants and bank staff wear suits, collared shirts, knee-length dresses and closed shoes; students and younger workers wear jeans, trainers and football shirts; market traders keep a pagne wrapper with a T-shirt or blouse. Imported fashion and local tailoring sit side by side on the same pavement. Visitors do best in the same practical range. Light cotton or linen handles the humidity, with a layer for cool offices and a compact rain jacket through the long wet months. Closed shoes cope with wet laterite and with formal buildings. In public, and especially around churches and government offices, shorts, flip-flops, sleeveless tops and beachwear look underdressed. Shoulders and knees stay covered at Notre Dame des Victoires and at Mary Queen of the Apostles Basilica.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. The long wet season runs from March to November, with a noticeable lull in July, so the easier months for walking Yaoundé's hills fall before March and after November. The city stays warm all year; altitude keeps the heat short of a coastal equatorial day.

How long. 3-4

Getting there. Most journeys reach Yaoundé via Douala. Domestic flights link the port city with the capital, and buses cover the same inland leg. Camrail runs several daytime passenger trains from Douala and a daily overnight train from Ngaoundéré with couchettes and sleepers.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources