Charlotte Yonga

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Noun Valley

Cameroun, 2017

I discovered for the first time one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the world : the Valley of Noun, in the region of my father's origin, known as the Grassland or Bamiliké Country, located in the West Region of Cameroon. The valley is about 25 km from Bangangté, the nearest village, and is only accessible by a long dirt track, impassable during rainy weather. Four hundred people live scattered in the bush, dedicated to agriculture, livestock, and fishing. During each of my visits, I document this rural microcosm that has become one of my refuges, and some residents have become my heart family. Life there is gentle, far from everything, without network or urban agitation, punctuated by field work, harvests, and sowing. Time dissolves there in a lush, magnificent, and flourishing nature, reigning in complete bucolic tranquility. Only the sounds of nature can be heard, a pleasure to which we are also constrained, as the rudimentary living conditions compel us. This place, where residents sometimes oscillate between fulfillment and boredom, isolation and serenity, is now threatened with disappearance under the waters due to the imminent construction of a dam by a Chinese company.

Noun Valley

Cameroun, 2017

I discovered for the first time one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the world : the Valley of Noun, in the region of my father's origin, known as the Grassland or Bamiliké Country, located in the West Region of Cameroon. The valley is about 25 km from Bangangté, the nearest village, and is only accessible by a long dirt track, impassable during rainy weather. Four hundred people live scattered in the bush, dedicated to agriculture, livestock, and fishing. During each of my visits, I document this rural microcosm that has become one of my refuges, and some residents have become my heart family. Life there is gentle, far from everything, without network or urban agitation, punctuated by field work, harvests, and sowing. Time dissolves there in a lush, magnificent, and flourishing nature, reigning in complete bucolic tranquility. Only the sounds of nature can be heard, a pleasure to which we are also constrained, as the rudimentary living conditions compel us. This place, where residents sometimes oscillate between fulfillment and boredom, isolation and serenity, is now threatened with disappearance under the waters due to the imminent construction of a dam by a Chinese company.

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