I didn't come to Cameroon to be healed. I came to work. And somewhere in the gap between those two things — between duty and desperation, between service and survival — something extraordinary has been happening to my body.
The tremors are almost gone.
Not completely. Not without flare-ups. But if you knew what the last few years in America looked like for me — whole-body frequency seizures that made holding a camera impossible, that made sitting in a room with fluorescent lights feel like being struck by invisible lightning — you would understand why I am choosing to stay in Cameroon indefinitely, even as my family urges me to come home and check into a hospital.
The Tremors, the Microphone, and the Truth I'm Sitting With
Since arriving in Bafut and Bamenda, I have had two significant tremor flare-ups. The first was during our live broadcast inside COTECC school — a microphone began feeding back, and my body responded the way it always does to sudden high-pitched frequencies: violently and without warning. The second happened more recently, and I still don't fully understand what triggered it.
The most heartbreaking moment came at a women's conference at a church here in Bamenda. I was doing well — genuinely well, even with the volume of the speakers — right up until the moment a microphone began feeding back through the PA system. It devastated me. I had to remove myself. I sat with that grief for a long time afterward, because it broke something open in me that I want so badly to close: the fear that I may never fully heal.
I would rather die doing what I was created to do than go back to America and let my purpose waste away — living in isolation, or heavily sedated to suppress the tremors.
My family back in the United States has made it clear: if I return without being healed, they want me hospitalized for lengthy testing. I understand where that comes from. I know it comes from love. But I am adamantly against it. The frequencies in America — the cellular networks, the industrial hum, the dense electromagnetic environment of modern cities — are far more intense than what I experience here. Africa, and specifically this corner of Cameroon, is quieter in ways that go beyond decibels. My body knows it. My nervous system is finally exhaling.
This doesn't mean I'm not taking my health seriously. It means I've made a sovereign decision about what healing looks like for me — and it doesn't look like hospital beds and fluorescent lights and being medicated into stillness. It looks like this: waking up in Bafut with purpose, tremor-free most mornings, building things that matter.
Joshua with the AfricChat Media team — new media partnership formed during the Cameroon deployment, April 2026
New Partnerships, New Reach
This past week has been one of the most productive of this entire deployment. We have formalized partnerships with local media companies here in Bamenda that fundamentally change the scope of what we can build. Rather than me being the only set of hands — I can now train other creators to do exactly what I know how to do. We're not importing a model. We're building one from the inside out.
AfricChat Media
One of our new media partners here in Cameroon, AfricChat is helping amplify the mission and connect it to the broader Cameroonian media ecosystem. Their local credibility and reach are exactly the kind of infrastructure that makes long-term impact possible.
See AfricChat's post on Facebook →Fortem Clinton — Blogger & Local Storyteller
A major shoutout to Fortem Clinton, a well-known blogger here in Cameroon who has shown genuine love to this mission and helped amplify what we're doing on the ground. That kind of local solidarity matters more than people realize.
Follow Fortem Clinton on Facebook →
Planning sessions at SPEE Art Gallery, Bamenda — one of Cameroon's most distinctive cultural spaces
Building With What You Have: The Workshops
Talk is easy. Workshops are different. They require materials, teachers, participants, and the courage to believe that people who've been overlooked can build something real. We're doing all of it.
Solar Panel & Windmill Installation
Teaching children how to install solar panels and small windmills to generate electricity — building energy independence from the ground up, one young pair of hands at a time.
Tire Recycling Into Furniture
Turning discarded tires into marketable furniture — a livelihood program addressing waste, unemployment, and entrepreneurship simultaneously. Products will be sold to the public.
Both workshops were built from relationships, not budgets. That's what the Sovereign Franchise model looks like in practice — you don't wait for funding to arrive before you start. You start, and the funding finds the movement.
Speaking at the BDMB General Meeting
▶ Watch the Moment
Last Sunday, I had the honor of addressing the BDMB General Meeting — a gathering of community leaders, elders, and stakeholders in Bafut. I shared the vision that has been driving this entire deployment: 500 media hubs around the world, with Bafut Kingdom as the epicenter.
Not a node. Not a satellite office. The epicenter. The place where the model is proven, the story is told, and the replication begins. I was also interviewed by local press in Bafut shortly after — something I never take for granted, because it means the community is watching and asking questions. That's how trust gets built.
▶ Watch: Local Press Interview — Bafut
Princess Abumbi Prudence, a COTECC student, and Joshua T. Berglan — COTECC Community Technical and Commercial College, Bafut
Stepping inside COTECC — seeing those students on a global platform for the first time — remains one of the defining moments of this deployment. Their voices deserve to be heard far beyond the borders of Bafut Kingdom. The world is just beginning to discover what this community is carrying.
Rooted in Our Culture — Talent Show
If you're in Bamenda and you have a talent — or you know someone who does — this is your moment. This isn't just a talent show. It's a declaration that African culture is not a footnote. It is the headline.
How to Support This Mission
I am not being paid to be here. The consulting and media services I offer to clients around the world are what fund this deployment — every engagement I take on is directly connected to what's being built on the ground in Bafut. If you've ever considered working with me, right now that work carries more weight than it ever has. You can see everything I offer here.
If you'd like to support the youth programs and community work being done by Youths and the Future directly, there are also two GoFundMe campaigns running — one for the organization and one to help keep me on the ground.
Empowering Bafut Youth for a Brighter Future
Directly funds Youths and the Future — the workshops, the talent show, the school programs, and everything Princess Abumbi and her team are building on the ground.
Support the Mission →Keep Joshua on the Ground in Cameroon
Helps cover in-field costs so Joshua can continue the deployment, train local media creators, build hub infrastructure, and see this mission through.
Support Joshua →This Is What the Sovereign Protocol Actually Looks Like
When I first published The Sovereign Protocol, it was a vision document. A map without boots on the ground. Now the boots are muddy, the relationships are real, and the evidence is accumulating daily.
The Bafut Kingdom Field Report documented what we found when we arrived. The Irony of Infrastructure documented what it felt like to finally be heard. And this dispatch documents what happens when you stop making plans and start making things.
Workshops. Partnerships. A talent show. A speech about 500 media hubs. A body that is learning, slowly and stubbornly, how to rest.
▶ Watch: The 500 Media Hubs Vision
Bafut called me Tala — Father of the Land. I'm still learning what that means. But I think it starts with staying.
Thank you for following this mission. Thank you for reading dispatches from a place most news cycles will never visit. If you feel called to support what's being built here — in Bafut, in Bamenda, in the classrooms and galleries and communities of North-West Cameroon — now is the time.
I'll be at SPEE Arts Gallery tomorrow at noon. Come find me if you're in Bamenda.
— Joshua T. Berglan, The World's Mayor
Bamenda, Cameroon · April 3, 2026
