Palapala Magazine

Palapala #12: Noise

 

Living in Bedlam: Invasive, Pervasive, and Perverting Noise In Urban Cameroon

Wirdzerem G Barfee

Can a people think reflect and contemplate profoundly in a culture of noise? If to think, reflect and contemplate is to create and (re)solve, and if to create and (re)solve is to construct and produce, and to produce and construct is to develop; then can a people really develop sustainably in an ambience of deafening noise? Can a society really thrive purposefully in bedlam?
 
These series of logical interrogation seek to address the state of noise in urban Cameroon, a disease that has attained alarming, if not thunderous proportions.

Omoseye Bolaji and the African Detective Genre

Raphael Mokoena

Omoseye Bolaji, the creator of the Tebogo Mystery series, is often asked  how  he churns out the twists and turns in the intriguing plots in the adventures of Tebogo Mokoena, the sleuth protagonist of his books.

But the Nigerian-born Omoseye shrugs off this question with a smile.

“I really don’t know!” he said. 

 “Or simplistically, let’s just say the inspiration for the books just come and go intermittently.”

A Tale of Double Estrangement: A Review of Benjamin Kwakye’s 'The Other Crucifix.'

Peter W. Vakunta

Ben Kwakye’s latest novel, The Other Crucifix, is a captivating tale of double estrangement. Born and raised in Ghana by an indigent but affectionate family, Jojo Badu finds himself obligated to undertake a journey he describes as “the road not taken”(1) in pursuit of Western education. The metaphor of a leap into the dark, as it were, is the thread that holds the multiple facets of this exhilarating narrative intact.

Indigenous Nudity, Viewer Discretion Advised: Desexualized Images of Black and Brown People

Nducu wa Ngugi

I was watching a documentary called “Living with the Kombai”, which aired on the Discovery Channel, an American television station, a few months ago.  While watching this film, I began to ponder how media (perpetuate and) construct ‘Otherness’.
 
The Kombai (c) Discovery Channel

In this documentary two white men leave their “civilized” world (their words not mine) and enter deep into the jungles of New Guinea to live with the Kombai. The idea behind the show was for these two men to immerse themselves fully into the Kombai’s way of life and “become” a part of them for a few weeks after which they will return to the “civilized” world. 

Françafrique, the Media and the Ivorian Crisis

An interview with Terrence B. Wakai - publisher and online editor of TFT Magazine , a multimedia magazine dedicated to news reporting and analysis about English speaking Cameroon and its various communities.

What is Françafrique?

Françafrique is a word initially coined by the former Ivorian dictator, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in 1960 to describe and invoke a special kind of austere, sophisticated and mutually beneficial relationship between metropolitan France and her African periphery.

Three Poems by Hannah Edeki

Out of Zong

“The last ten victims sprang disdainfully from the grasp of their executioners, and leaped into the sea triumphantly embracing death.” 

—F.O.Shyllon

They leapt out of Zong like flying fish
Their pectoral fins
Seized the hands of death

 They serenaded the spume of the sea
And speckled its deep with a scarlet red

Like a throng of messianic angels
Their voices swelled like rippled waves—
A new spiritual conceived
Inside the gullet of the cerulean grave

 Notes

*Zong –a British Slave ship
*Quote taken from Shyllon, F. O. (1974). Black Slaves in Britain. London: Oxford University Press.

Three Poems by FB Omondi Otieno

The Vague six

  At 6 .p.m. he was sworn in as Mr. President
And Six weeks of madness engulfed the nation
Six thousand litres of Blood was shed in death
Six African elders flew in trying to stop this unfolding hell
Six provinces were burning with ethnic gall
Sixty days did they need to talk, to save a people?

Poems By Yemi Soneye

Surgery

Kindergartens stay still.
Pathogenic juices of dense pawpaw
Whacked on your heads
May have seeped into your fontanelles
Corrupting your angelic infancies,
You must stay still!

Let hell arise to carcass form No biscuits until scooped, the rupturing fluids.

(Poetry) The Killer Traffic

James Lisandro Jr.

Blaring horns go sonorous
Overriding the cries of mourning engines
We are frustrated at this snail-like pace
It’s trying my last input of patience
It’s killing the adrenaline of my sporty car!
I look around and we are upset on all four lanes

Just Published - Nest of Stones by Wanjohi wa Makokha

Wanjohi wa Makokha. Nest of Stones: Kenyan Narratives in Verse | 184 pages | 216 x 140 mm | 2010 | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon | Paperback

Wanjohi wa Makokha's Nest of Stones is the second book of poems, since the publication of Sitawa Namwalie's Cut off my Tongue (Storymoja: 2009), devoted in principal to the moment of the 2007-2008 Kenyan Crisis. The crisis is locally known as the Post-Election Violence (PEV). The book collects over sixty pieces of his recent verse chosen on the basis of artistic merit and social relevance. The poems focus sharply on the tumultuous period between the General Elections of 2007 and August 4th Referendum of 2010. Some of the poems relate to events drawn out of earlier moments in Kenyan history but are invoked as contexts of the recent discord.

Farewell

We want to thank our contributors and readers for their support and encouragement.  This is our final issue.

Kangsen Feka Wakai

Palapala #11: On the Road

On the Road

Kangsen Feka Wakai

I had lived in Houston, on and off—but mostly on, for at least nine and a half years.  And for the most part, Texas was spared the worst of the recession, at least in comparison with other states its size [California and Florida being glaring examples]. 

New subdivisions were sprouting along the city’s fringes, lofts and condos—most of them vacant—where now within walking blocks of notorious crack corners in the inner city.  Finding parking in shopping centers or Walmart parking lots was still a hassle.  Texas is unapologetically business friendly, and the Oil and Gas business, Houston’s financial fuel, was not in slump, especially after eight years of Bush and Cheney.   

Bamenda has Changed. It Is Still Changing

Shandie Shing Avwontom

And chances are, Canute’s tearful wail about Bamenda’s scrawny looks reminded “To whom it May Concern” how easily a drop of sweetness can tilt the balance and harness the defiant Bamenda resilience captured so well by Achobang; transform it into a massive developmental machine, driving it decidedly forward.
 Commercial Avenue, Bamenda (c) Our Man in Cameroon via Flicker

For a long time, because Yaounde lent too favourable an ear to bigoted reports by begrudging Administrators too bamboozled by petulant politics to acknowledge the pertinacious endeavours of defiant resilience, Bamenda was denied development-critical facilities and any infrastructure commensurate to its rank and file. So, first some kudos to the brighter and more development oriented of the Administrators including Koumpa Issa erstwhile Governor. Also, one must moderate the brilliance of the new street lighting and the blinking neon billboards, which all said, is only as spectacular as the dimness of two decades of inadequate voltage; accounting for frequent brown, and then black outs of barely glimmering 60 watt bulbs on lonely verandas behind dusty Cypress tree hedges.

There and Back Again

Dzekashu MacViban

Some journeys are more than just journeys. Mine was akin to Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins who embarked on a journey in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, to recover treasure guarded by the dragon, Smaug.
 
 My journey began in Bamenda, and a day before I left for Yaoundé, part of the road collapsed. It had been built across a bridge, and due to age and neglect the road sank.

The Writer’s House

Patrice Nganang

Writers aspire to be ordinary humans although perhaps more than many of them, they know it is an uphill task, especially given the current dispensation and, more specifically, the continent they prefer to talk about, namely Africa. A continent where one country after the other is falling into chaos. The writer aspires to be human by using language; opting for words as his tools. The wordsmith chooses words rather than bricks for instance as that would make him a Mason instead. However, the example of the Mason is telling as the Wordsmith tries to render the words he uses as human as possible. He does so in about the same manner as the Mason would crush gravel into sand, mix the sand to produce mortar and place mortar between bricks to build a wall and construct walls into a house.

On Writing

Dona Forbin

Though Aesop’s fables made quite an impression on my young mind, I don’t think there are any particular books that influenced my decision to write. 

The earliest lines I remember writing, furiously too, were punishments- [I will not play when… / I will be better behaved etc…).

Then there were letters to my childhood and early teen sweetheart (a most treasured gentleman whom I recently had the joy of being reacquainted with, after twenty years of no contact) who swears he has never forgotten those letters that made him go looking up words in the dictionary!

Poems: Hannah Edeki

Settlement Visit

Her lime green Pashmina
Tickles her neck as the mid-day zephyr
Meanders through the settlement
Like the trail of a lizard

Nipping past her ankles as
She passes corrugated shack
Crouched on scabbed stilts
And mud huts
Stacked like cake on a dump.

Randomness [A Poem For P. Njawe]

Kangsen Feka Wakai

Another blurred beam
swallowed in the thicket of darkness.
There is no karma—just a blind, deaf, and cruel
bandit of hope.
Randomness: a cosmic joke that elicits
no laughter.

Pius Njawe, one of Africa’s most celebrated journalists and Cameroon's leading press freedom activist, died in a car accident in Virginia, USA on July 12, 2010.

The Poetry of Zino Asalor

I WILL FORGET YOU

Shove you in the arms
Of One Naira notes and Bazooka
Wrappers rotting away
In trouser pockets
Of my childhood

In a Lexus jeep I will zoom off
Leaving your face fenced in fumes
Racing
To the disco hall of my future
Not "Jemni" or "Eatali" 1

Just Published: New Poetry Collection by Joyce Ashuntantang

Joyce Ashuntantang. A Basket of Flaming Ashes (Poems). 2010 | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon | 78 pages | Paperback. Available from ABC and Amazon. £15.95 (UK)/$19.95 (US)

Reviews

"Ashuntantang is an extraordinary weaver of words who showcases vivid pictures that compete with 3D simulation. Her greatest asset is her use of the beautiful traditional Cameroonian anchor that evokes folk tales with its moonlight romance and glory. You feel, laugh, weep, shiver, wonder, and hail the triumphant spirit of the persona as it navigates African post-colonial and global experiences with the melancholy of an exile who is purposeful, strategic, and a lot of fun."

Chinyere G. Okafor, Professor of English and Women’s Studies, Wichita State University, Kansas

“A Basket of Flaming Ashes may be Joyce Ashuntantang’s debut poetry collection but it already displays the lyricism and craftsmanship of an experienced poet. The poems flow naturally with feminine elegance and course through myriad forms of love. These are poems that the reader will always go back to read because of their enduring freshness and evocation of experiences that one can easily identify with. I find the collection enthralling.”

Tanure Ojaide, Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies, University of North Carolina

Encounters: That Evening at the Booze

Valery Visas

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a little story to tell, so, please I require perfect serenity in this perimeter.   

One evening at the booze with my gang of thieves, call them friends, after much shacking, makossaing and coupéing the decale, I went around the corner to give some booze to the grass.

To my greatest astonishment I saw an angel; you can call her ‘fairy’, if you wish. But all I know is that she was very, very beautiful, I mean more beautiful than a flower that has never existed.

Palapala Magazine # 10: Expectations & Trials

Dante's Corner: Press Freedom in Cameroon

(Book Review) Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Ngugi’s latest publication Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir is a treasure-house of childhood memories.  It is an informative and didactic memoir written with the intent of taking the reader down memory lane.  The story of Ngugi’s travails through life lends credence to the wise saying that epic characters are often associated with humble beginnings. The narrator begins his narrative precisely where stories of epic heroes always begin: with the place, time, and circumstances of his birth: “I was born in 1938, under the shadow of war, the Second World War, to Thiong’o wa Nducu, my father , and Wanjiku wa Ngugi, my mother. I don’t know where I ranked, in terms of years, among the twenty-four children of my father and his four wives, but I was the fifth child of my mother’s house”(9). Having been born in a polygamous family with too many mouths to feed, young Ngugi often suffered pangs of hunger : “I had not had lunch that day, and my tummy had forgotten the porridge I had gobbled that morning before the six-mile run to Kinyogori Intermediate School”(3). Not only did the youngster have to dispense with food on occasion; he had to walk an incredibly long distance each day in quest of the knowledge he so badly needed to improve his lot in life.  Knowing who Ngugi is today, it is shocking to learn that he never owned a pair of shoes until he was admitted into high school: “I had walked barefoot all my life” (245).

Observation: Our Emerging Voices

Oscar C. Labang

Anglophone Cameroon Poetry has been expressed through various channels. Bernard Fonlon’s strictly Western English grammatical convention was followed by John Menget’s Pidgin English style of writing and Tanla Kishani’s adoption of the indigenous language medium.

In recent years, Bate Besong, Nol Alembong, Bole Butake, John N. Nkengasong, Matthew Takwi, Kucha Kucha and a host of others have developed diction that is more violent and “attackist”, especially on the issue of the substandard position of the Anglophone and the manipulation of the Cameroonian citizenry.

It is however necessary to point out that these poets were violent in varying degree, with some opting for raw unadorned vitriol while others employed subtle, though biting attacks. Then there is Shadrach Ambanasom  whose focus is on the romantic—making for the variety of expressions in Anglophone Cameroon Poetry.

(Book Review) The Spirit Machine and other new short stories from Cameroon

Forti Ebenezah

Dawson, Emma. 2009. (ed.). The spirit machine and other new short stories from Cameroon. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press. 142 pages. 

The Spirit Machine and other new short stories from Cameroon is an anthology of nine attention-grabbing short stories. These short stories highlight contemporary issues like graft, marginalization and moral decadence as well as explore the culture, the customs and ways of life of some people in Cameroon.

Babila Mutia’s  The Spirit Machine, the title story of the anthology falls in the last category. It is about a young boy, Gabuma, son of Kebila of Mbelu village. When the story begins, Gabuma has just turned thirteen, and it is time for him to be initiated into adulthood as demanded by the customs of his people. Unlike in the past when initiation into manhood was done through the rite of circumcision, as was the case with his grandfather, Gabuma’s own passage into adulthood entails being left alone with a corpse the entire night until dawn. This ceremony is called the gaze.

Writers and Trials: A Review of Oscar C. Labang’s The Trial of Bate Besong

Dzekashu MacViban

From the publication of This is Bonamoussadi to his  recent work The Meaning of Fame, Oscar Chenyi Labang has proven that he is an irrepressible oasis of creativity. The Trial of Bate Besong (2009) is a modernist play in which the ghost of Bate Besong – an iconoclastic writer who died in a car accident – represented by Voice, is on trial.

Bate Besong, an award-winning playwright and poet, was also a moral crusader who spoke out against Cameroon's socio-political ills. A university lecturer and orator, Besong's  place in the public arena was immense.  In blending of genres—poetry and prose—in his play, Labang reveals a modernist consciousness in his attempt to recast Besong as a defendant.

(Fiction) Great Expectation

JKS Makokha

Memories. Memories.

It is uncanny sometimes how memories, both stale and fresh, keep popping up in one’s mind without an invitation or appointment. Now I remember how many, at home, late last year believed that something terribly great was about to happen in Kenya on New Year’s eve or soon after.

This was the day that the electoral results for the most hotly contested presidential race in our country’s post-colonial history were to be published. The voting itself had taken place on 27th December and normally the results would be out by the 29th. But these were not normal times. No they were not.
In an election of stakes this high, a half of me could understand the sense of foreboding. The other half did not. It chose, rather, to feel the air for meaning.

UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences*

Nomination Form

Family name of nominated candidate: Wakai

First & middle names: Kangsen Feka

Profession and position held currently: Writer/Life Scientist

Nationality:  In question.

Address: You wan kam kill me?

Telephone:  Ah no go givam.

Email:  [email protected]
 
Website:  www.yourgenerationofleadershavefailedus.org

I hereby agree to this nomination
Signature…?$%#&…….

The Poetry of Minna Salami

How I Fit Kill a Good Man
Anoda person ghost dun enta ma bodi
I no know iym name
But I know say na man
For de way I feel dey burn in front of my tighs for night
See e be like say…
For morning wen I wake see light shine for window
Before I go reach my work for oga compound
I look my face inside mirror
My hair wey plait like snail
My teeth wey shine with fine fine gap in middle
My breasts wey flesh soft like pomo
My ynash wey round and come brown like coconut
And I for sure, dat de person in my front is woman

The Poetry of FB Omondi Otieno

Love Lures

The relentless roaring rains rumbled in a storm
Clattering cans, and casting confusion, confounding…
Till the raised remorseful rainbow rescinded the rain

Cassandra’s curls cascaded, caressing the calm, my arm
Touching, temperance tempting, timely, typical, true
Luring of lost luscious love lingered likely

Silhouettes of surreal sunrays surmount
Upon meretricious mellow meadows, miles on
As hanging heavens, hallow the hilly horizon

Poems from Dona Forbin

For Mungo mad Bard.*

True, we may be mad like him!
Our own will not hide behind a beard
Defying razors and glances
A kinky mass and mess
Charging over an innocent shirt
Bewildered chest condemned
to carry promised words
Stark naked and prancing

The Poetry of Valery Ngime Epie

Anthropomorphism

I don’t hate gods for being unpredictable
Slow to punish the wicked
Slow to bless the good.
Poor harvest.
Droughts!
Man proposes
Gods dispose.

I like be niameh! 
Beings that require just cola-nuts
And palm wine to host them.
Yes!
And they serve us well.

(Poetry) I Have a Poem

Walter Keyombe

I have a poem for peace to the world
A poem that’ll spread the message with its fires
Towards the planets with holocausts or killings
A poem that’ll talk about reality amongst the
Communities tortured and marginalized
A poem that’ll be against female mutilations
With sex violation and child abuse
A poem that’ll sail on the oceans, seas
And lakes.

Now Available: Songs for Tomorrow: Cameroon Poetry in English

Barfee, W.G.; P.T. Nkweteyim; E.E. Esambe. (2010). Songs for Tomorrow: Cameroon Poetry in English. Yaounde, Miraclaire Publishing. 204 pages. (Series editor; Oscar C. Labang).

Excerpt (From the Preface by Emmanuel Fru Doh) 

Songs for Tomorrow, as an anthology of poems by Anglophone-Cameroonians, is a welcome effort at further burrowing not only into Anglophone-Cameroon Literature as a whole, but into a genre that is always treated, especially by young students, as anathema. This whole enterprise, therefore, amounts to an effort that reveals poetry as a subject that can be enjoyed, especially in its role as an effective medium for the dissemination of ideological trends which can be entertaining or didactic and thereby effectively broadening the worldview of society.

Palapala Magazine #9: For Haiti

(Poetry) JKS Makokha: Tributes

HAITI: 1.2010

"Preamble":

humanity tense
send condolences as
tears in words console Haiti

Part I:

burp! BURRP!
EarthquUUUAKE!
cosmic constipation!

(Commentary) Writing Back: John Buchan and William Boyd

By Rosemary E. Ekosso

“The question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot.”
Chinua Achebe in An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness

When I was trembling on the cusp of adolescence, one of my sisters procured a dog-eared copy of John Buchan’s Prester John. I loved the entire adventure and quite naturally wanted the protagonist, David Crawfurd to beat the black preacher, Laputa. But we were more interested in the funny bits we could find in the book. For several weeks, to our father’s bemusement, we went around quoting Crawfurd pretending to be drunk.

“Awfly shorry, old man, but I've f'nish'd th' whisky. The bo-o-ottle shempty”.

Recently, I read the book again and I was surprised at the earnestness with which I wished Crawfurd had failed.