Our path traced the spines of mountains which ran through the north of Cameroon into Nigeria. The terrain is littered with rocks and patches of carefully cultivated green whose age gives one the false impression that the land here cultivates itself: small earthen huts rise up opportunistically here and there, like plants taking advantage of plots of sunlight in a forest. 
After ascending our first steep incline, we found ourselves beside a jagged cliff overlooking the mountain range and valley we had just emerged from. The scene was speckled with similar cliffs, all of which seemed as though they had burst through the earth in a matter of minutes. While we stood looking out over this landscape, tracing the paths of ant-sized individuals on opposite peaks, our pause seemed to attract attention.
What soon came to be expected was how, after standing in any seemingly desolate spot for more than two minutes, individuals would emerge from nowhere and surround you with silent smiles. This repeated phenomenon makes one grasp how these mountains, a seemingly vast and empty plenum of nature in it’s solitude, are actually the busy romping ground for the communities who live here, watching livestock and tending to their fields day after day.
Slowly, tattered clothes and bright curious faces emerged, who’s steady trickle gave one the feeling of an impending surge due to the silent reserve and unexpected nature of their oncoming. They clustered around us without saying a word, looking up to us with eyes firm from want, yet governed by the childishly self-aware implications of their imposition.
These children, like everything in the mountains here, had a mystic countenance found in the greatly contrasting elements of their being. As if they had met it’s acquaintance centuries ago, they carried themselves through their environment with a definite and self-assured presence. However, despite these timeless aspects, their youth was revealed by their uncontrollable curiosity – a territory commonly replaced by fear in adults. They have the same freedom and responsibility as their elders, yet their innocence remaines untarnished. They were between the ages of 1-12. 
We began talking with our guide, asking about the lives of these children: Why were they so poor? Isn’t their any education in this region? Don’t they go to school? and his answers only further extended the vast abyss of culture, tradition, and values that lay between us. Our guide explained that these children are not in fact considered poor by local standards, as the crops and cattle they are minding indicates their family’s wealth. 
We look at their tattered clothes, their dirty faces, a baby on the back of a 6 year old, the work they are laboring at, and all we could see were impoverished lives. However, as our guide explained, this is how life is here. Money did not exist until the miniscule tourism industry began several decades ago, and since then money still holds little importance to daily life, other than the new and ever present desire to want more. 
Everyone in this region is self-sustainable, living off the land they till and the livestock they raise. If there is a surplus of production these goods are taken to the nearest market to sell. However, because everyone farms the same crops everyone usually has a surplus of the same commodity, which yields little demand for these goods that are around. Because of this, though there are markets, they usually serve as more of a social gathering place rather than a place to buy and sell things. Thus, bartering and trading replace any monetary system here. 
And this system is usually how people pay for the largest expense: schooling. Tuition for a year at high school is usually around one cow per child. Because the school is located in Maoura - the nearest city, about 400km away – families must also pay for extra accommodation, transportation, and other amenities, making this small tuition price a hefty sum.
Because of these extra expenses, children usually do not continue past elementary school, and because families tend to have an average of ten children, it is often impossible for families to send children to school at all. Moreover, even for those who do go to school in the city finding a job is nearly impossible due to the economic system, agrarian society, and corrupt political culture. These children then live life much as their parents did, tending to the land in the same manner their ancestors had for centuries. 
As our guide explained all this to us we had since walked a distance up to some large rocks and sat under a tree where we ate our lunch. During this time the children sat silently watching us, taking in the slow profundity of nature, and succumbing to the ability it has to transcend time.
