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 next day, after a warm goodbye from my mother, Theresia Beibam, I left Bamenda thinking of the road. The bus hadn’t gone for thirty minutes when it stopped — due to congestion— a few kilometers from where the road had crumbled.
We carried our luggage and walked for a ‘few’ kilometers, crossing a bridge then looked for another bus on the other side of the road from the same travelling agency. I was amazed at the overnight development that had occurred in this place. There were tents everywhere, as well as wooden houses, many truck pushers, and of course, call boxes.
The construction of another road was already underway, and the place was crowded. I was carrying a small bag so I didn’t need the services of a truck pusher. Instead, I followed the crowd carrying bags like refugees.
It didn't take long for me to realize that the distance was not as short as I’d imagined, but I kept moving forward.
I hadn't covered half the distance when it started raining— I assure you, Bamenda rain is no small issue. Everybody was running—me included – and looking for shelter which was not available. And as the rain persisted, the road became very muddy. Then, just imagine many people running on a muddy road!
By the time we reached the ‘ground zero’ of the collapse, the rain had abated. We crossed the stream on pieces of wood nailed together—the facsimile of a bridge.
I was carrying my camera, so I started taking many pictures and while I was lost in snaps and shots, someone asked me:
“Da picture dem na for weti?”
I told him they were for the news. But, he was not satisfied, judging from the suspicion on his face. And while I took as many pictures as I could, my person had become a picture in its own right.
My left hand was supporting my bag, which was over my head, serving as a shade against the rain, my right hand held the camera to my face as I took pictures and occasionally tried wiping the camera on my shirt when it was wet with the bag still on my head. When it was all over, I was soaked to the bone. Even though I was unable to shoot this comical rendition of my person, it is an image that will forever be retained in my memory.
When I eventually crossed the bridge, the rain having stopped, and a shy sun looking at me, I walked awhile and at length, and then I saw the car I was supposed to board.
The first thing I did was take off my jacket. There were only a handful of people in the bus so we waited for everybody. Waiting time was basking time for me, and I couldn’t wait to update my Facebook profile. The rest of the journey through Bafoussam, Makenene and the green expanse that separates one city to the next was uneventful.
Once in Yaoundé I updated my Facebook profile and added some of the pictures I’d taken. The journey from Yaoundé to Garoua was intense as I encountered new landscapes and cultures.
I arrived in Garoua in the evening and met my father— Johnnie MacViban. After we had listened to some music, I asked him to play Fela Kuti, which he did, before plunging into a lecture on Fela’s life and music.
Then, he played Richard King— whom I knew but had never heard his songs before now—whose music was so good that I wondered why I’d never heard it before. Then, he dove into 60s and 70s rock and roll— Led Zeppelin, Kiss, AC-DC and Black Sabbath. It would be a lesson that would compliment my contemporaneous interest in Evanescence, U2, Linkin Park, Coldplay and Katy Perry.
The other members of the family were on holidays so it was just the two of us. The next day, we toured Garoua after my father returned from work. The tour was instructive on how the town’s development had come to a standstill after the resignation of Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon's first president, even though it is worth noting that though aspects of the town are developed, almost everything else that is modern looks twenty years old (architecture of buildings, boulevards etc)—bikers flood the city and their recklessness is cause for concern, cyber cafes were few and, there was the occasional disruption of traffic by a herd of cattle.
Nevertheless, Garoua remains a big touristic site in Cameroon. That evening, we settled for a few drinks to shake off the dog-days and I noticed that flies were abundant and that lo and behold they had names.
They were called Buba (plural Bubae). After every sip one has to cover the drink or else it will be a mass grave of Bubae. The bar was full that night and rumour has it that very late every night, the natives—mostly Muslims—take advantage of darkness to go to bars and drink Coca-al hadji (coke mixed with whisky) while devouring pork meat.
The night ended with a discussion of my future.
Anyways, there is something about Garoua that makes the place strange—it is so full of mendicants of which after a close observation I coined the word mendican because of their hidden nature. It is like they are taking part in a begging competition and the more arrogant they are towards others, the more points they get. Some even go to the extent of stalking people. Armed with my muse, I penned a poem titled “The Mendicant of Yeruwa”.
Water is a blessing to this baked earth
Insatiable from birth…
Armed for the feast of the Tabasky
Mark how even the Joshua tree observes
This double-bent figure –
Putchist-turned-mendican
Out of the depths of a threadbare bag
An ever-empty bowl, beseeching.
The seed has been sown
A positive move plunges him into reveries
Of his troubled dawn
Punctuated by showers of Allah’s benediction
The contrary unleashes his forked tongue
Which slices the air, the heart too
He moves on
With his army of flies.
P.S Yeruwa is a quarter in Garoua, Cameroon.
Even though Garoua is a touristic attraction in Cameroon, it has very few good roads. Taking a stroll on one deserted road I happened to come across the former presidency. It was a building which once upon a time soared with splendor but is now abandoned and bushy. In fact, a house that belonged to that Ahidjo had also been burnt. Today, his remains are in Senegal, where h e is buried.
Then, I visited the Benue River, famed for its hippopotamuses, which on occasion, sluggishly pull themselves out for a basking session—a site that conveyed the majesty of nature.
After two weeks of adventure, musing and discovery I had to hit the road because time for school was approaching.
I left Garoua at 7 A.M in the morning and arrived in Ngaoundere at a few minutes after noon. I had to take a train from Ngaoundere to Yaoundé, but the line meandered into infinity with people struggling to infiltrate the line while others tried to con the unsuspecting.
While I was on queue, the sun’s rays were incessant as it caressed my face with brutality. After waiting for about four hours, I bought a ticket and moved into the hall to wait for the train. The hall was so hot, and the heat so unbearable (unbearable being an understatement). It was made worse by the mix of smells: sweat, food, decay, shoes, beverages, and poor ventilation. There were chairs, but not enough to seat half of those waiting. The crowd waited for about an hour and the air got hotter. The train was almost an hour behind schedule and the crowd kept waiting.
Suddenly there was a loud announcement in French through the speakers:
“Le train à destination pour Yaoundé va bientôt entrer dans la gare. Vous êtes priés de procéder avec ordre pendant l’embarquement.”
The voice was flat and unapologetic, it was a female voice. The atmosphere of the waiting crowd was changed by this announcement. They became more impatient, more disorderly. Everybody stood up, anticipating the arrival of the train, waiting as the minutes passed. The hall was so full that some people didn’t know where to put their luggage, so they held it while others carried theirs on their heads. During those last minutes, the air was hottest, almost poisonous.
Finally, the much anticipated siren announcing the arrival of the train was sounded and all hell was let loose. The crowd started running towards the train and those who fell were trampled upon. There were cries from everywhere as children, women, and old people cried out in pain. People were being pushed down, luggage was being trampled upon, and fights broke out while others entered the train through the window.
Among other factors, one of the reasons behind this mad rush is the fact that the rail company (CAMRAIL) often sells tickets bearing the same seat number to more than one person. Once in the train, it is not unusual to see people breathing heavily and others nursing their lacerations.
The train took off at about seven 7pm and was swallowed by the pitch-black darkness of the night. Hawkers sold stuff inside and clandestine passengers were constantly evading controls. Pick pockets got busy, while idle as well as well as restless people went from one end to another of the train. The next morning the train reached Yaoundé and I was happy to have survived the absurdities of the previous day. In less than a week I travelled to Buea where classes in the University were about to resume.
Dzekashu MacViban blogs at www.alternativemuse.blogspot.com
This arresting travel write by McViban is comparable to the variagated expanse of contemporary Cameroon measured with a reel rather than with a tape: a reel cinematographically casts slides that contain time(s), place(s) & people; while a tape will only measure geographical distance...that is what the author sublimely achieves here. here were are fed a mixed diet of geog, socio, anthropo, history, politics, poetry, & what have you...such that by the time you finish the story you are immersed in the rhythms, temperatures & temperaments of huge swathes of the country as you travel with the author in his mouth, lens, laptop & wet bag! There is also interesting contemporaneity in his write up: facebooking, actuality of the broken bridge, callboxes, dereliction of Garoua (a strong symbol that can be largely extended beyond the sahel)...then too there is the sensitive evocation, though couched in sly humour, of religious hypocrisy: sippings of coca-alhadji's & munching of pork by mohammedans...as well as the vile character of some mendicants! i enjoyed the names (buba/bubae)givens to typify flies & how their heady ones die by the beer they can't fly away from...like we die by the diseases we can't live without! the author nevertheless, inspite of his knowing the interplanetary fela anikulapu kuti, his manifest a critical degree of alienation wc can't be explained as cosmopolitanism: he does not know the local & native richard king (sic), (wc his misspelling confesses the more), this is only saved by his lamentation of having been missing sth good...indeed he’s been missing many more of such native treasures & virtues as we see evidently in his trans-oceanic predilection for strictly western rock & pop stars that feed his musical consciousness...in his (and isn’t this a ‘culpable’ initiation by his eponymous genitor & his own very occidental ) sonic repertoire prince afoakom or francis dom are no musical quantities, neither are the likes of talla andre marie, richard bona, richard band, black styl, or even lady ponce...for a piece that reads cameroon this thins out the rhythms!
but that said this is a great piece from an up & coming prodigy of the pen, and like one great metaphysical prophecised: mark this lad...!
Posted by: Wirndzerem | October 28, 2010 at 01:43 PM