View of the hills around Yaounde

Yaoundé, Cameroon 2026

Host: CABTAL

Venue: CCC, Yaoundé

Dates: March 17-27, 2026

Trainers: Dan Morgan and David Fetrow

Website Managers trained: 18

Websites created: 10

Welcome to CABTAL

Facilities

The workshop was held at the Chapman Center in Yaoundé, where previous CABTAL workshops have been held.  Internet was provided through a Starlink connection, but our Internet connection was spotty until we ran an Ethernet cable directly to the Matchbook router instead of connecting via WiFi.  We had Matchbook issues on the first day, which we finally figured out was due to our using the wrong cable to connect the backup drive to the Matchbook!  Once we got these issues sorted out, the setup generally worked well, although we noticed that power cuts seemed to break the connection between the router and the Matchbook, despite having the backup power supply connected.  This may be something to investigate for future workshops. 

Training session at CABTAL, March 2026

Participants

A total of 18 participants from 10 language communities attended the workshop.  This was what we had anticipated, although a couple of teams on our initial list were replaced by other languages.  As in many workshops, the skill level of the participants was fairly low, which slowed down the training at times.  One team, however, was very advanced in their technical skills, and had often added things to their site that we hadn't even covered with the group!  We were very thankful that they were willing to share their expertise with other teams that needed additional help.

As in previous workshops, we were assisted by Etienne (IT) and Jacques (translation for David) from CABTAL.  We were also joined by Francis Meyof, a Cameroonian who has previously worked for both SIL Cameroon and Seed Company.  Francis's technical skills were invaluable, and he was able to work with several teams individually, especially those that needed more support in planning and building their websites.  We look forward to working with Francis again in future workshops.

Dan with Etienne, Jacques, and Francis

Dan with Etienne, Jacques, and Francis

Jacques translating for David

Jacques translating for David

Dan and Francis troubleshooting the Matchbook

Dan and Francis troubleshooting the Matchbook

Training Plan

The workshop schedule was condensed for a few different reasons.  First, we started on a Tuesday, as Dan had a family commitment on Sunday and couldn't fly out until Monday.  We thought we would be able to make this up by working on Saturday, but we had to vacate the training room before midday to allow for setup for a church service that uses the space on Sunday.  We also had originally planned to work a full day on Friday of the second week and have the closing ceremony on Saturday morning, but we were informed that the closing would need to be moved up to Friday.  

With all of these schedule changes, we probably lost close to a full day of instruction.  Together with Internet and Matchbook issues on the first day, and the challenge that some teams had with the initial planning and setup of their sites, we had to make adjustments to the teaching plan.  We had to spend more time (and even reteach) some basic topics, and devote less time (or even eliminate) some more advanced topics.  Since several of the teams had limited content to begin with, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  It allowed us to focus on the most important elements of the sites and get them in a position to launch by the end of the workshop.

Launch

We were able to transfer the sites from the Matchbook during the workshop, but not launch them before the closing ceremony.  However, in the days following the workshop, we were able to successfully launch all of the following sites:

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