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More of my journal from Cameroon a few years ago. Here I am leaving the coast and going a little way northwest, into the mountains.
May 25, on the road to Banjun and Bamenda
On the road I’m terrified. We go over ruts and potholes and seem certain to tip over—on good stretches of road, Christopher speeds up, making close passes around slower cars, missing pedestrians by inches—constantly blowing his horn, blinking his lights at all his friends and admirers (and there are lots, all genders and ages).
Gradually I realize that he road is different here. Most of the vehicles we see are vans like ours, or taxis in town, so we don’t have the amateur drivers. Still, even the professionals make fatal mistakes. Christopher points out accident sites: the bridge where a hundred soldiers were crashed into the rocks below, the pickup still in a ditch where seven people died the night of the parade, the girl selling coconuts she’s gathered from a truck crashed at the bottom of the cliff.
We see cocoa plantations, people drying cocoa beans on blankets in front of their houses, spreading them with rakes. But the chocolate we buy here is awful. Same with coffee. They send the raw stuff to France, and France sends back the low quality finished products the Europeans don’t want. First hand knowledge of economic colonialism. Also the ubiquitous Fanta.
The mountains are low and round, but high enough that it’s a little cool. The green hills look so much like Northern California in the rainy season (it’s just started here, though). Except for the brilliant red of the earth—even the dust that blows on us is red. Crops are planted on impossibly steep hillsides, and tin roofs flash in the sun. At one point I’m sure our rear wheels actually go over the edge of a narrow, washed out road, but we survive.
All along the way we are stopped by police—at least 10 times in less than 100 kilometers, I think. They don’t patrol—they just sit in little huts beside the road and throw down a stick with nails in it when we drive up. Often they’re just curious about a van full of white people, but sometimes they demand to see Mark’s papers and keep us a long time. Liz says this is not a police state, but the press is not free, the roads are not free. It’s not a terrorist police state, and they no longer have the money even to pay for close surveillance of everyone’s life and speech. They just grab whatever is convenient.
At Banjoun, in the Fon’s court. A much bigger wooden and bamboo building, full of beaded statues and thrones (one throne is in the shape of a man covered with cowry shells, and there’s a crown that opens to show a thousand red feathers). A rotting hippo’s head outside. The wives’ houses are along the street leading to the main court, but we see no one.
May 26, Bamenda The Center Market is the best one I’ve seen so far. So many stalls, threaded with narrow alleys, lane after lane, some stall spilling out into the street. The incredible gorgeous array of cloth, so many brilliant patterns. Sold in two meter lengths, just right for a pagne (a sort of wrap around skirt). Used books, clothesline and soap, parts and pieces for anything. Piles of peppers and yams and dried fish. People calling out: “Hello, what you looking for, what you buy with your monee, welcome to our country.” Some walk up and tell me that they’re famous people: the President of Nigeria, soccer stars. I don’t think they expect me to believe it—it’s just something to say to me. When I fall behind Liz and Mark, the market women worry, calling out when I turn the wrong way: “Not so! Not so!” In the dressmaker’s lane everyone has sewing machines, sometimes two or three in a stall. Wish I were here long enough to have a dress made. I tell them I’m just looking, and one young woman says, “You just make eye-shopping?” A man tries to sell me jewelry: “Please look, just look. One glance from you will polish everything.” So I could go home from the market with empty arms and a head full of poetry.
And then a storm comes. The wind is suddenly blowing at almost gale strength. The market people rush to cover things with big plastic bags and then the dust is swirling. The wind is terrifying—a market woman and I hold on to each other to keep from blowing away. And just as suddenly, the wind is gone.
We drive up into the mountains on the Ring Road and come down one hill to see a group of people standing by the roadside waving banana, palm, acacia branches at us, shouting at us that we must go away quickly. Then down the hill comes dancing a strange figure with his head and shoulders enveloped in a big mass of moss so that he looks like a faceless minotaur. He pulls against ropes that other men have tied to him and use to guide or restrain him. When we pass the same spot on the return, there are no people waving us away, and now we see a figure with his face covered with a piece of lace curtain (like the cloth that hangs in the doorway of many houses) and surrounded by leaves. Later Mark tells us that it’s the death celebration of a member of a secret society and that what they’re doing is juju, becoming spirits.
At a small village, we visit a nice Presbyterian man, with four wives. His daughter is a college administrator in the US. Christopher’s father lives in the village too, also in a compound with several wives and their children. Christopher has brought bread for his brothers and sisters. Although they live in what we’d consider the worst kind of poverty, and the children wear nothing, or rags, these people own their own land, and have the dignity and intelligence, the quiet confidence, that we didn’t see in the cities.
On the way back, we pass some people going to gather palm wine. The raffia palms grown low by a stream, in a bunch of slender stalks. They cut one and put a pipe in, as they do for rubber, but taking the palm sap kills that stalk.
Rain. Red dust coats us, then becomes red mud. It’s cold—only two degrees above the equator.
At Oku we see the most beautiful palace yet, built of a special timber and mud that only the royals may use, and painted with wonderful indigo designs. There’s a brilliant mural showing the story of how their ancestors came here—I wonder if it reflects a Bantu migration, or some earlier people. One of the Fon’s wives invites us into her house: it’s very basic. Two foam mattresses along two walls, a rack for pans and dishes made by nailing bamboo poles across another wall, a fire pit in the center of the dirt floor. Everything is neatly arranged by blackened by smoke—there’s no opening visible, just some kind of baffle in the roof. In a way I want to claim a kinship with her because I remember living very much this way in Mendocino County: the fire pit, the bed, the place to hang clothes, the place to keep food, and all of it smoky. But it was only a little piece of my life, that I stepped into and out of at will—and it’s her only life, she has no choice. Still, I see with knowing eyes. I know it’s more important to keep heat in than let smoke out, I know that order and cleaning are essential even though the smoke and dust mean things will never be completely clean, I know how each thing must be kept in its place to be found when darkness comes and there’s no light switch. But I feel very invasive. This is a woman’s private space. But maybe she just appreciates the dash (money) or maybe I’m not a person at all to her, just some kind of Martian.
I feel like a Martian quite often, here.
May 25, on the road to Banjun and Bamenda
On the road I’m terrified. We go over ruts and potholes and seem certain to tip over—on good stretches of road, Christopher speeds up, making close passes around slower cars, missing pedestrians by inches—constantly blowing his horn, blinking his lights at all his friends and admirers (and there are lots, all genders and ages).
Gradually I realize that he road is different here. Most of the vehicles we see are vans like ours, or taxis in town, so we don’t have the amateur drivers. Still, even the professionals make fatal mistakes. Christopher points out accident sites: the bridge where a hundred soldiers were crashed into the rocks below, the pickup still in a ditch where seven people died the night of the parade, the girl selling coconuts she’s gathered from a truck crashed at the bottom of the cliff.
We see cocoa plantations, people drying cocoa beans on blankets in front of their houses, spreading them with rakes. But the chocolate we buy here is awful. Same with coffee. They send the raw stuff to France, and France sends back the low quality finished products the Europeans don’t want. First hand knowledge of economic colonialism. Also the ubiquitous Fanta.
The mountains are low and round, but high enough that it’s a little cool. The green hills look so much like Northern California in the rainy season (it’s just started here, though). Except for the brilliant red of the earth—even the dust that blows on us is red. Crops are planted on impossibly steep hillsides, and tin roofs flash in the sun. At one point I’m sure our rear wheels actually go over the edge of a narrow, washed out road, but we survive.
All along the way we are stopped by police—at least 10 times in less than 100 kilometers, I think. They don’t patrol—they just sit in little huts beside the road and throw down a stick with nails in it when we drive up. Often they’re just curious about a van full of white people, but sometimes they demand to see Mark’s papers and keep us a long time. Liz says this is not a police state, but the press is not free, the roads are not free. It’s not a terrorist police state, and they no longer have the money even to pay for close surveillance of everyone’s life and speech. They just grab whatever is convenient.
At Banjoun, in the Fon’s court. A much bigger wooden and bamboo building, full of beaded statues and thrones (one throne is in the shape of a man covered with cowry shells, and there’s a crown that opens to show a thousand red feathers). A rotting hippo’s head outside. The wives’ houses are along the street leading to the main court, but we see no one.
May 26, Bamenda The Center Market is the best one I’ve seen so far. So many stalls, threaded with narrow alleys, lane after lane, some stall spilling out into the street. The incredible gorgeous array of cloth, so many brilliant patterns. Sold in two meter lengths, just right for a pagne (a sort of wrap around skirt). Used books, clothesline and soap, parts and pieces for anything. Piles of peppers and yams and dried fish. People calling out: “Hello, what you looking for, what you buy with your monee, welcome to our country.” Some walk up and tell me that they’re famous people: the President of Nigeria, soccer stars. I don’t think they expect me to believe it—it’s just something to say to me. When I fall behind Liz and Mark, the market women worry, calling out when I turn the wrong way: “Not so! Not so!” In the dressmaker’s lane everyone has sewing machines, sometimes two or three in a stall. Wish I were here long enough to have a dress made. I tell them I’m just looking, and one young woman says, “You just make eye-shopping?” A man tries to sell me jewelry: “Please look, just look. One glance from you will polish everything.” So I could go home from the market with empty arms and a head full of poetry.
And then a storm comes. The wind is suddenly blowing at almost gale strength. The market people rush to cover things with big plastic bags and then the dust is swirling. The wind is terrifying—a market woman and I hold on to each other to keep from blowing away. And just as suddenly, the wind is gone.
We drive up into the mountains on the Ring Road and come down one hill to see a group of people standing by the roadside waving banana, palm, acacia branches at us, shouting at us that we must go away quickly. Then down the hill comes dancing a strange figure with his head and shoulders enveloped in a big mass of moss so that he looks like a faceless minotaur. He pulls against ropes that other men have tied to him and use to guide or restrain him. When we pass the same spot on the return, there are no people waving us away, and now we see a figure with his face covered with a piece of lace curtain (like the cloth that hangs in the doorway of many houses) and surrounded by leaves. Later Mark tells us that it’s the death celebration of a member of a secret society and that what they’re doing is juju, becoming spirits.
At a small village, we visit a nice Presbyterian man, with four wives. His daughter is a college administrator in the US. Christopher’s father lives in the village too, also in a compound with several wives and their children. Christopher has brought bread for his brothers and sisters. Although they live in what we’d consider the worst kind of poverty, and the children wear nothing, or rags, these people own their own land, and have the dignity and intelligence, the quiet confidence, that we didn’t see in the cities.
On the way back, we pass some people going to gather palm wine. The raffia palms grown low by a stream, in a bunch of slender stalks. They cut one and put a pipe in, as they do for rubber, but taking the palm sap kills that stalk.
Rain. Red dust coats us, then becomes red mud. It’s cold—only two degrees above the equator.
At Oku we see the most beautiful palace yet, built of a special timber and mud that only the royals may use, and painted with wonderful indigo designs. There’s a brilliant mural showing the story of how their ancestors came here—I wonder if it reflects a Bantu migration, or some earlier people. One of the Fon’s wives invites us into her house: it’s very basic. Two foam mattresses along two walls, a rack for pans and dishes made by nailing bamboo poles across another wall, a fire pit in the center of the dirt floor. Everything is neatly arranged by blackened by smoke—there’s no opening visible, just some kind of baffle in the roof. In a way I want to claim a kinship with her because I remember living very much this way in Mendocino County: the fire pit, the bed, the place to hang clothes, the place to keep food, and all of it smoky. But it was only a little piece of my life, that I stepped into and out of at will—and it’s her only life, she has no choice. Still, I see with knowing eyes. I know it’s more important to keep heat in than let smoke out, I know that order and cleaning are essential even though the smoke and dust mean things will never be completely clean, I know how each thing must be kept in its place to be found when darkness comes and there’s no light switch. But I feel very invasive. This is a woman’s private space. But maybe she just appreciates the dash (money) or maybe I’m not a person at all to her, just some kind of Martian.
I feel like a Martian quite often, here.
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