On Trail in Cameroon

The Yaoundé Hash House Harriers completed something like their 680th run last weekend. We paid for it. But we got our money’s worth. 

The YHHH meets Saturdays at 3:30 p.m. or so in front of the Yaoundé Hilton in downtown. The general plan is to pile into cars, drive to the designated start place, get out, and hash. We arrived a little early, and wandered into a newly opened store, Stop & Shop. Intrigued by the use of the Obama “Big O” logo in the banner they stretch across every street in le centre, we had to see what a real-live “American store” sold. 

Lots of things Made in China. 

We returned to find most of the Hash already piled into cars, and waiting impatiently for us. Ideally, we’d like to think they didn’t want us to miss the fun, but we were driving a vehicle that could take at least four more hashers, and space was tight. We squeezed five in, but that left two carloads relegated to hailing taxis and joining in our convoy to Nkalan-Bisson (completely phonetic), a suburb west of the city. 

And we hashed. The ritual is refreshingly familiar around the world: about 30 of us circled for introductions and instructions, and then we took to a trail marked by shredded paper in hopes of finding beer at the end. Markings guide the runners along the trail in hopes of making it to the end where beer awaits. The Yaoundé Hash is officiated in French, which allows me to answer a question I've pondered for sometime: In English, the runners yell "On-on!" when they are on the true trail. Comment dit-on en français?

The answer. "On-on!"

The trail itself was somewhat disastrous. A good trail keeps the faster and slower runners together, but this is best accomplished by design and creativity, not by instilling fear in the pack. And within minutes we were afraid we’d never make it back if we didn’t stick together. We ran up and down every hill in the area, into people’s yards, up the side of a hill on a kilometer-long false trail ... two hours worth of trail. I was impressed, though: the hares hacked through the brush with a machete, clearing a path halfway up a giant hill - all for a false trail. At one point, I found myself clutching a sheer face for rock, while two hashers below encouraged me to keep looking for the trail up there. Huffing my way up another hill, I cursed, “It sucks to be old." I mean, you figure what goes up must come down, right? 

Returning to the starting parking lot, we stretched a little, paid 1,000 francs (just over 2 dollars), and enjoyed a beverage of choice (beer!) as we changed into less smelly clothes and  recapped the day’s run. The sun set on us as we celebrated and sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and parted ways until next time.