Elections happened this past Sunday in Cameroon. It was
interesting to be able to go to the polls with my aunt and witness how the
process runs here. That morning we were going to go to church, but because of
the rules on Election Day (no assembling in big groups from 8am until 6pm when
the polls close) there was no way any of us were going to church at 6am that
morning. Also, all the businesses were prohibited from opening during voting hours, even though some were secretly open and only let people in when the police weren't patrolling the area....Instead of going to church, we went on a run around a soccer field near the house. On our
way back home we stopped at the polling place in the neighborhood, which
happened to be my cousins’ old elementary school. There were lists in front of
each classroom that were partly divided up alphabetically and partly randomly. Voters
have to have their ID and voter card. I asked my aunt what the significance of
a voter card is if everyone is required to vote with his or her national ID
card also. She said that voter cards used to be relevant but now it’s just
another formality. The problem is that many citizens’ voter cards have typos.
For example, the voter’s first name is spelled wrong, their mother’s maiden
name is wrong, or even their birthday is wrong. Not only does this produce
false information, but in an effort to correct these mistakes, some people have
multiple voter cards and the inaccurate ones are still distributed. So, yes,
people vote multiple times since they actually may have different voter cards
under their name. We asked one of the election officials from ELECAM (Elections
Cameroon, the organization in charge of conducting elections) how they control people
from voting more than once and he said that since they take everyone’s
fingerprint after having voted, the ink left on their thumb is proof that they
have voted. However, my cousin and me discovered that the ink is very easy to
remove…so the system isn’t exactly foolproof. Nevertheless, we came back later
that day and my aunt and her mother-in-law voted. In each room, the voter was
given 23 sheets of paper, one for each candidate in varying colors, and an
envelope. Then the voter goes behind a curtain and places their favorite sheet
in the envelope and then put the sealed envelope in a clear box. Akaila and
Dominique (my cousin) were allowed to take pictures of them putting their
ballots in the clear box (given to ELECAM from the EU to reduce corruption
during voting). Although it should only take 24 hours or less to count all the
ballots, ELECAM announced that results would be announced 15 days from the
election. One of the technicians in the lab said facetiously that the 15-day
period gives them enough time to produce a desirable outcome (aka Paul Biya
remains president). So at this point everyone knows what the result is going to
be, it’s just a matter of officially announcing it.
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| Paul Biya, the incumbent presidential candidate. Every main road has about 4 billboards like this...that's a lot of the same thing, especially downtown. |
On a completely different note…
For those of you who have seen me around bugs, you know that
I DO NOT cope well in their presence. So far, Akaila and I have already have
our fair share of roach and spider attacks (ok, maybe attack isn’t the right
word but if you saw the sizes of these insects, you’d understand). Apparently
roaches fly…and come in mutant-like sizes. Who knew. They also are not really
bothered by intense roach/mosquito/ant/etc. spray unless you spray them for at
least a full minute. No matter how much time I spend here, I don’t think I will
EVER get used to seeing roaches, especially mouse-size roaches (I’m not
joking). On the spider front, we saw a spider (while we were visiting my
grandma in Edea) as big as my palm (again, not joking) and usually I can bring
myself to kill a spider with my shoe, but this one looked like it could eat me.
Akaila was having a panic attack at this point as well. So I called my cousin
to come kill it for us; she laughed at us and killed it like it was nothing.
Slightly embarrassing, but that’s why fear is irrational, right? In our
apartment we have a pretty nice agreement: I (muster up the strength to) kill
the spiders and Akaila tackles the roaches. So far it has been working pretty
well but I’ll keep you posted on any abnormal insect encounters…
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