Yaounde Notebook
Journalists follow proceedings from the Media centre during the African Nations Championships at Palais Polyvalet Des Sports (Paposy) arena on August 20,2023.
What you need to know:
- One of our colleagues here has coined an interesting name Mwangaza often referring to ladies who don’t have hair on their chins because majority of women in our neighbourhood have ‘beards’.
Terrible media centre, slow internet angers journalists
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The ongoing championship is being played at two venues: At Palais polyvalent des sports (Paposy) Arena and Complexe Sportif Mfandena. In both venues, the Wi-FI network provided by organisers is terribly slow and has posed a big challenge to us especially when sending stories and material for editorial use to media houses back home.
While Mfandena has no designated media centre, the one provided at Paposy is just a spectator terrace set aside at one corner.m of the stadia.
There are no tables to place our laptops so you have to type with your back bent in order to access your laptop. It’s a tough working condition for journalists which has greatly contributed to delays in filing stories.
A mere 2.5GB of a TV package took three hours to send via WeTransfer on Friday last week.
With the slow internet a consistent challenge, we have been forced to file stories via messaging app WhatsApp as sometimes emails show they are sent on our end but they are yet to reflect in Nairobi.
It’s during such times that you come to appreciate the fast, reliable and readily available 5G internet available back home in Nairobi.
Diamond most famous here
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Tanzanian star artist Diamond enjoys a big following here in Cameroon partly due to his collabos with West African artists such as Davido and Chike.
It was amazing seeing Cameroonians sing his songs during the Summer Vibe event we attended held last Friday night at the national museum in Yaounde.
Apart from Afrobeats, Cameroonians also have deep love for South Africa’s Amapiano and smooth Rhumba often associated with the Congolese.
Bearded women common sight
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It’s common for a Cameroonian woman to grow a ‘beard’. Due to their genetic make-up, some Cameroonian women have lots of hair on their hands, legs, chest and chin.
While some of them go to barber shops to have the hair on their chins trimmed, or shaved completely, others prefer to let it grow and keep it.
One of our colleagues here has coined an interesting name Mwangaza often referring to ladies who don’t have hair on their chins because majority of women in our neighbourhood have ‘beards’.
Therefore, when we alight our van and our colleague says Huku kuna mwangaza’, we all burst into laughter knowing that he is definitely not referring to sunlight.
