Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: Daniel BELOUMOU OLOMO / AFP
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01:41, July 08, 2023
Welcomed like a real rock star, Kylian Mbappé is currently in Cameroon, the country of birth of his father, Wilfried, for the benefit of charities. This Friday morning, he visited the school for deaf and hard of hearing children of the Foundation for the Education and Promotion of Hearing Impaired People (FEPPDA). In the afternoon, he must participate in a football match against FC Vent d’Etoudi, a Cameroonian D2 club chaired by Yannick Noah.
Because it is in this village of Etoudi, in which the former tennis champion occupies the position of chef, that the star of Paris Saint-Germain and the French team is welcomed during these few days in Africa. equatorial. A small town, located north of the capital, Yaoundé, in which Yannick Noah grew up after being born in Sedan in the Ardennes. The winner of the 1983 edition of Roland-Garros had described the place in the event podcast “Yannick Noah between you and me”.
“The view of the presidential palace, the different hills”
“It’s like an oasis in the middle of the city,” he said at the microphone of Jacques Vendroux. A place that the Noah family has always wanted to preserve so that the nature and greenery that characterizes it are not altered. Stuck in the middle of the hills, Etoudi overlooks Yaoundé and offers a breathtaking view of the Cameroonian capital. “We have a view of the presidential palace, the various hills, Mount Phœbé. And then, in the distance, the whole city that surrounds us and that we see as far as the eye can see”, described Yannick Noah. A panorama surrounded by greenery dear to the family of the former tennis player. “It was dad who planted almost all the trees,” he said.
And the heart of this village in the suburbs of Yaoundé, therefore, is the “Noah village” composed of “twenty huts, large maximum”, according to our journalist Jacques Vendroux, present on the scene last May for the preparation of the podcast . These small dwellings are distinguished by their conical straw roof and the name attached to them. Because each bears the identity of a member of the Noah family.
Credit: Europe 1
Sport holds a special place here.
In the midst of coconut trees, palm trees and mangroves, suddenly appears the sports island of this village run by a former tennis champion, himself the son of a former footballer. There is a swimming pool, a basketball court and, of course, a tennis court. “It’s our mini center court,” says Yannick Noah. “It has a particularity: the folding seats come from Paris, from the former Parc des Princes”, he adds. A gift received from the hands of Alain Roche, former PSG player and French international.
Credit: Europe 1
In Etoudi is also the family vault of the Noah family. “An extremely simple mausoleum. It is a large tombstone with the names of family members. There are portraits of everyone, there are decorations from the Legion of Honor of the great-grand- father. There are plenty of very personal memories”, describes Jacques Vendroux. A village where former basketball player Joachim Noah, son of Yannick, will inherit the status of chief, according to his father’s wishes.