Steemit Engagement Challenge || Three Reasons Why I Love My Country Cameroon And Three Changes I will Like To See || By @rosita-nkefor

Hello everyone. I hope we are all doing very well. I am very happy to present my entry to this very interesting contest.

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Introduction

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I come from the country Cameroon. It is a bilingual country located in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the West, the Atlantic Ocean to the South West, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo to the South, Central African Republic to the East and Lake Tchad to the North.

_Source

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Three Reasons I Love My Country

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There are many reasons why I love my country. Three of them are as follows.

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1. Biodiversity
My country Cameroon is commonly called ”Africa in miniature”. One of the reasons for this is because of it's biodiversity. The country has several different types of climates and vegetation. And because of this variety, Cameroon is filled with several types of animals and plants.

_{A banana plantation: source}

As a consequence, we have a lot of food and in varieties as well. Food is very important to living and we have a whole lot of it. Our varying food selections are one of my favourite things about Cameroon😅😅.

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2. Varying cultures
Cameroon is a very multicultural country. We have more than 250 different villages and cultures. One who is interested in knowing other cultures does not need to travel long distances because all around us are different cultures.

_{A culture from the West Region: source}

For example, I live in Nkwen village. I am from Awing but I don't live there. Closer to Nkwen are Mankon, Babanki and so many others. Because of this and also people from different villages living together, we get to know the other people's cultures, learn their languages their traditions and even their meals.

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3. Bilingual nature
This is one thing that I really love about my country. Cameroon is a bilingual country, one of the few existing. Our official languages are French and English. And due to this, many Cameroonians grow up learning both languages.

With English and French being official languages of other countries, Cameroonians can easily break the language barriers and enjoy traveling to several countries.

_source

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Three Changes I Wish To See

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As much as I love my country, there are several things I think need to be changed. Few are outlined below.

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1. Discrimination should be stopped
As much as Cameroon is bilingual, it has resulted to two major cultures in the country. The English and the French cultures. Only two out of ten regions are English Speaking zones. Because of this minority, a lot of discrimination is being done against English speaking Cameroonians in all areas of life.

Anglophones are forced to learn French in order to grow or do anything in Cameroon especially withing the public sector. Meanwhile the Francophones do not even want to learn English.

I wish this changes in the future. Because the issue had reached the state such that a sort of civil war was started called the “Anglophone Crisis”which has been going on for more than four years. Many lives have been lost in the process and I wish a solution comes forth.

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2. Reduction in corruption
One other thing that poisons my country to its roots is corruption. It is very difficult to get anywhere or gain anything in this country without bribery and corruption. It is so frequent that it has been normalised and people now refer to it as “connection”.

In order to get a job, pass a concours, do your ID card, certify documents etc, many of them will ask for money as a motivation to process your documents or do what their job normally entails them to do. And when you decide to not join in this acts, you end up wasting a lot of time before ever getting what you want unless you are lucky to meet the honest ones.

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3. Standstill development
We are a country with so many resources from wood, to water, crude oil, cocoa, coffee, banana, timber, cotton, rubber, and so many others including minerals.

One might imagine that with the numerous resources and potential our country has, development is very high. It is rather unfortunate that Cameroon suffers from a lot of embezzlement.

At almost every level of the hierarchical government structure, some people are trying to take their own share of government funds. Because of this, whenever money is given out for a project to be developed, the money hardly reaches the intended destination.

_{Poor roads in the country: source}

As such, there are so many uncompleted projects around the country for which the money has been given out already. So the country is losing money but we are not getting the desired results, causing a standstill in development.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
My country is a very resourceful one filled with a lot of potential. And if innovational ideas and inclusiveness is embraced at every stage and community, we can increase the standards of living, develop quickly and be a place to be.

Fortunately, many youths are growing up now with the revolutionary mindset which is needed to reform our country. I truly believe in the potential Cameroon has and that is why I intend to be a part of the changing and innovative process in any way I am able to.

Thank you for reading.
By
@rosita-nkefor