The last week has been a little crazy but I’m still here. I’ve learned something new everyday and I have lots of great research ideas. I had never known that some of the people that live in Cameroon’s coastal region (Limbe, Douala, Kribi) are descendants of returned African Americans. I guess I missed that day in class. I did know that American missionaries had settled here. One who visited and kept traveling was Charles Spencer Smith, an interesting character who took a very controversial stand in support of colonization, although he was Black (see the new book by James T. Campbell, Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005, Penguin, 2006, photo on the 4th photo page in the book center). But some of the freed slaves who went to Liberia and Sierra Leone in particular, made their way along the West African coast settling in Calabar (Nigeria), Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) and Limbe (Cameroon), among other locations. They brought with them pidgin English (sounds a lot like Gullah- and now I know why), Cuban-African music, calypso, some foods, some ways of dressing and other traditions that had originated in Africa but had undergone some revision in the Americas. There are even Johnsons and Taylors living in Limbe – these are my family names. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to find out that the reason I am so connected to Cameroon is more than just academic? Culture is truly a living breathing thing, isn’t it? So thanks to Dr. FONGOT Kini-Yen Kinni, I have some wonderful new research to explore. [Another book along these lines is Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty by Cassandra Pybus.]