Initiative Afrique - Tevodai Mambai

Episode Tevodai Mambai 

Recording date: 10.07.2025 

Language: French

Moderator: Djouroukoro Diallo. Production: Patricia Teixidor

Music: Intro and outro: "Yadina" (xylophone duet). CD 1. MBUDI MBUDI NA MHANGA-NYMBO ZA WADODO. The Musical Universe of the Wagogo Children from Tanzania ©PoloVallejo. Musical pauses: Ethnic, by Sneaky Club; Village, by Sneaky Club. Free Music Archive. 

Tevodai Mambai was borned at Mokolo, in Camerun and arrived in Bern in 2022. He has been pursuing his PhD research at the University of Bern at the Institute of Germanic Languages and Literatures. 

He studied German language and literature, education and didactics at the University of Yaoundé and worked for several years as a secondary school teacher of German as a foreign language in Maroua, Cameroon. He completed his master's degree at the University of Maroua with a thesis on the modernization and Christianization of the mountain people of northern Cameroon based on the travelogues of the Swiss travel writer and filmmaker René Gardi. He examines how mountain dwellers in North Cameroon and North-East Nigeria were depicted in Swiss and German-language travel and mission reports from 1940 until 1990. 

There is extensive information about his research in this article by UniAktuelle: https://www.uniaktuell.unibe.ch/2024/berner_reisende_afrika_essay_tevodai/index_eng.html

He feels that African researchers like him have new insights to contribute to the University’s landscape; “we have our own opinions, experiences, beliefs and way of doing things”.

Members of the Initiative Afrique community at the University of Bern (Switzerland) introduce themselves in a series of podcasts.