Happy Valentine’s Day to all followers of my Musings! And *coughs* wishing you a great start to the introspective Lenten period. This month, I’m doing a throwback to last year when a piece of flash fiction I wrote was published by Brittle Paper in an anthology titled Love Stories from Africa. This version of the story has been slightly edited, I hope you enjoy! _________________________________________________________________________________ Change of Reaction by Monique Kwachou You step back, admiring the dinner table now set for two with your best dish set. You move to the room to make sure everything you have bought for the romantic weekend is set. It was in Lower-sixth that you first contemplated what you would do if your husband cheated on you. On that sticky afternoon, your classmate, Bessem, had returned from Commercial Avenue with a Nigerian magazine. Even though she had claimed that she hadn’t seen any American magazine your group usually chipped in to buy and pore over, you and your other friends, Sandra, Laura, and Eposi had suspected that Bessem, being the Nollywood addict she was, had bought the magazine because her favourite Nigerian actresses, Stella Damasus, Genevieve Nnaji and Omotola Jalade were on the cover page, advertising a film, Games Men Play. The magazine wasn’t bad. It was just as glossy as the American ones and contained similar information. There were tips on how to lose weight, which you had all heard Bessem read, even as she paused regularly to take a bite from a loaf of bread dripping with chocolate paste. There were glamorous pictures from celebrity events, an advice column on what to do when your love is not of the same faith as you, a quiz to determine what kind of lover you are, based on your favourite colour, and the vox-pop section which asked women to imagine what they would do if they found out their husband was having an affair. You remember it exactly. After reading the responses featured in the magazine, you had each taken turns. Bessem had sighed, she was from a polygamous home and couldn’t be bothered, she claimed. As long as she was financially comfortable, the man could go and live with his mistress, just as her dad had moved to the house he had rented for his second wife. Eposi rebuked it in the exaggerated way of Pentecostal Christians. “That shall not be my portion oooo! Not all men cheat. I’ll give my man all that he needs, what will he go looking for outside?” You all had laughed, aware of the implausibility of satisfying a man completely even at that age. Laura mentioned ‘facing the homewrecker,’ and Sandra reminded her that it was the husband who had made vows and promises. When Laura had turned on her demanding her response, Sandra had said it would depend on how much she felt betrayed. “But I could actually hurt the man, like pour hot water on his genitals”. You had all burst into fits of laughter, clapping your hands as you imagined it. When it was your turn, you had said you would simply divorce the man. Cheating meant he wanted someone else. Why would you hold on to someone who wanted someone else? If you truly loved him, you would let him go. You were undoubtedly high on Harlequin-type love at that time. Here you are now, on a Friday night, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, waiting for your husband to return from his business trip. You have sent the kids to his mother for the weekend. You have cooked his favorite meals and planned a romantic weekend escapade. You bought him a watch similar to the one he had admired on your boss’ wrist at the office party you both attended just after New Year. You are determined to make it his best Valentine weekend ever. You have planned all this, knowing the trip he is returning from wasn’t quite a business trip. Knowing he is cheating, knowing exactly who he is cheating with- she has flaunted pictures of them both on social media. Those Instagram pictures of “boo” where boos features aren’t fully visible to all. But certainly recognizable to the woman who is married to boo. Who has in turns licked him from top to bottom and wiped him down on his sickbed. You look at yourself in the mirror, assessing the way the lingerie you plan to strip out of for him later looks on you. You avoid looking at your face. Lowering your eyes out of shame and fear that your 37 year-old self will see the reflection of what used to be a self-confident 17 year-old Lower-sixth girl mockingly asking: Is this your reaction? _______________________________________________________________ Enjoyed it? Not so much? Drop a comment and let me know what you think! P.S Make sure to read the other stories from this collection HERE. Two more Cameroonian writers have some flash fiction featured (Howard M-B Maximus and Agogho Franklin).
Straight Outta My Bookshelf: Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
I consider myself an avid reader, but I must guiltily confess that I read as means of escape and entertainment than I do for the purpose of learning. For this reason it took me a while to get into literary fiction in general and African literary fiction in particular. Literary fiction is great with its ‘classics’ like Bronte’s Jane Eyre or Sembene’s God’s Bits of Wood, but not what I’d call ‘fun, curl-up-on-the-couch reading’. Though I have read and appreciate aspects of the likes of Oyono’s The Old Man and the Medal and Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow the books I have re-read, the books whose covers are worn from being carried around everywhere are those whose plots were structured to entertain me rather than pass on some satirical message. Pop-fiction is popular for a reason and up till a few years back I couldn’t say there was an African equivalent to the western pop-fiction I binged on as a young reader. Today the story is different, I can list a wide array of contemporary African literature offering a variety of themes to appeal to all sorts of readers. A new wave of Cameroonian writers are contributing to this new era in African literature and I couldn’t be happier. Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers is one of the new additions I’m particularly pleased about. When this book was announced in 2015 with a million dollar book deal my curiosity was piqued but I made a mental note not to expect much as several first-releases are often over-hyped (and in expectation is rooted all disappointment). Upon reading it last month however I was extremely pleased to find myself agreeing with the hype this book has received. Behold the Dreamers takes an honest look at the ‘American Dream’ from the point of view of a Cameroonian immigrant family vis a vis their upper crust employers. The reader navigates the ups and downs of the Jongas’ and Edwards’ lives. With easy-to-relate to characters readers witness how experiences, painful and foreign, mature and change people, how some things remain the same despite differences in class, race and place of birth, but above all how each character defines home and craves fulfillment in different ways. This is a story simply told, poignant yet without heavy didacticism, and obviously written with extreme caution. For the first time I read a book with Cameroonian characters my generation could relate to. I had to stop and appreciate how the author avoided as many generalisations as possible, often specifying an attribute to natives of Limbe rather than Cameroon at large. I felt as though she was aware this book would be picked apart and sought to cover all basis. She cautiously walked a tightrope avoiding poverty porn as much as ‘Afropolitanism’and tried her best to ensure that she wasn’t accused of “writing for a western audience” etc. With African literature something is sure to be over-analysed nonetheless. For me, Mbue makes a laudable attempt at depicting the immigrant struggle hidden in the small things like Jende looking for someone to rejoice with upon landing his job with Mr. Edwards “He needed to rejoice with someone who knew his name and his story” and Neni re-discovering faith and singing gospel choruses far from home where she had learned them but not practiced. What I loved most about the story (aside from how easy it is to curl up with because you’re getting an intriguing plot rather than a sermon/lesson) and what I feel has been overlooked in reviews and discussions is the transformation from aspiring after the American dream to configuring what I perceive to be the ‘Cameroonian Dream’. The former dream entails making it in the US with a middle-class income, ‘papers’, a house with a mortgage and as Neni’s friend Fatou states shopping at “fine white people store like Target”. The latter dream, the ambitions of a majority of Cameroonians which till this time had not been verbalized is, to ‘fall bush’, hustle by all means possible and return home financially able to defy the odds of unemployment, ‘buy’ a better social status and live comfortably where one knows for sure they cannot be treated as alien because they belong. The story reminds us that while it is easy to get trapped abroad either by becoming too used to the comforts or for lack of choice, the majority of us left because we had to rather than because we want to. The Jongas may not have achieved one dream, but they retained their dignity, and left us with a happy ending inspiring hope beyond “bush”. Behold the Dreamers has been compared to Adichie’s Americannah, I am of the opinion that it’s a poor comparison. While Adichie’s third novel is essentially a love story which boldly covers a variety of themes above all an African immigrants perception on race relations in the US, Mbue’s debut novel focuses particularly on exploring immigrant survival, aspirations, adjustments and the universality of human needs, pains and flaws. To compare them would be to compare an apple to a bowl of fruit salad with chopped apples in it. Suffice it to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would encourage all Cameroonians to read it. Before you go, I’m interested in you opinion on “the Cameroonian Dream” do we have one? What do we as individuals and a people envisage? I look forward to your comments!
Murdering Poverty: A review
Ever heard of the ‘development-aid debate’? Well unless you are a follower of politics, news, or a scholar of the humanities, you may not recognize the debate in so many words. While the average African citizen has most likely questioned the motives of international agencies dishing out aid and the method used in dishing out aid to developing countries which constitute most of the continent, the layman wouldn’t necessarily term it the ‘development aid debate’. Terminology aside, it is one and the same thing, and this debate is what Arrey E. Ntui delves into with his inaugural publication Murdering Poverty: How to fix aid. With this book, Ntui sets out to offer a simple, creative rendition of the development aid debate and initiatives for the turnaround of aid for the successful ‘murder of poverty. The author situates his book within the fields of development, development economics and international relations. However there is no definition of these concepts nor is there a guiding theory for his debate within these fields. On the contrary, in certain areas the author proposes his own theories, and creates analogies to better outline his personal opinions on the topic. It is exactly as he states at introduction, his creative take on this long-winding debate. With a mixture of casual language and political jargon Ntui resurrects arguments against donor aid as we know it under the subheading ‘The 24 Sins of Development Aid’. He goes on to assess the possible efficiency of the 0.7% aid target which was set by developed countries (and is yet to met) for donations to the global south. The author makes three main arguments; poor people as a result of their poverty have certain characteristics which contribute to their continued predicament, Africa cannot be developed from the outside, and aid must be a two-way street as the African continent has a lot to contribute to other countries as well. As the work is not written with academic guidelines in mind, there is little in terms of method or evidence to prove the veracity of these arguments. Nonetheless the author’s values (and this is a very value-laden piece of work) are clear; the African continent cannot continue to be a short-sighted recipient of aid. Our dependency on aid as is robs us of our dignity and nothing is worth that. If the reader had yet to comprehend his stance, the author closes off by drawing lessons from a fable, specifically the Churchill-Fleming myth, which illustrates both the power of being charitable as well as the necessity of that charity being given and received with finite principles. Principles which would assure the benefactor as well as the beneficiaries are satisfied and fulfilled at the end of the day, the aid being fully thought out. Frankly, I would have preferred some theoretical background showing what has been covered thus far by scholars and clear outlines of what the author agrees/disagrees with. I would have liked more of a Cameroonian take. The use of Cameroon to illustrate problems with aid and practical suggestion on how Cameroonians need to approach aid. This of course would be the scholarly approach, not what the author had in mind.. This was an attempt at offering the layman a simplistic and creative perspective of this global debate is laudable and the author is commended for it. We definitely need a “Development Aid for Dummies” book; something you can give young people who hunger to know more but are put off by the long string of citations and academic lingo. Necessary though this is, it is far from easy to achieve. It is difficult to simplify and condense arguments on development aid which cut across geo-politics, economics, sociology, history and international relations and in my opinion the author fell short of his laudable goal. In avoiding theoretical jargon the author still used political lingo, analogies to Shakespeare, and made references to theories and schools of thought which are not common knowledge. Midway into the book, I was grateful for background knowledge on development theory and literary devices, they undoubtedly facilitated the read. As such I felt the book should come with a warning: If you have followed the development aid debate and would like the unique opinion of a not-so anti-intellectual Cameroonian, here you go 🙂 In all, Murdering Poverty makes a unique contribution to wider literature on development aid, offering a casual op-ed style to an overly drab and serious topic which concerns us all.
Straight Outta My Bookshelf: Boundless by Kefen Budji
Those who know me, know I love reading. Most however, are unaware of what I consider to be my guilty pleasure; I read more pop-fiction than literary, more of both pop and literary fiction than academic and least of all specific Cameroonian literature. That’s not to say I’ve read few academic works or nearly no Cameroonian authors, I’m simply confessing to putting my own (both academics, and fellow Cameroonian writers) at the bottom of my preference list. It is a pecking order I’d like to rectify. If we’re honest we’d agree it’s easier to lay hands on American pop-fiction than a book by a Cameroonian author. Well, I can’t make more Cameroonian books available, but I can bring more attention to those which I gain access to. I intend to do just that by making book reviews (only Cameroonian books) a regular occurrence on Musings. Deciding which Cameroonian book to review first wasn’t as difficult a decision to make as it could have been. I was practically given a copy of Boundless by a friend of the author and asked to give an honest opinion. After reading I agreed it was definitely worth a critique. Let me know what you think in the comments below and be sure to get a copy of Boundless by Kefen Budji available at Amazon, African Books Collective or ‘a phone call to Bamenda away’ (express your interest in the comments and you’ll get the author’s number). *** Boundless by Kefen Budji – A Review While I may not have read as much of Cameroonian literature as I should have, I’ve read enough. In my experience, like a lot of post-colonial African literature, our stories are essentially satiric or didactic. From Ferdinand Oyono’s Old Man and the Medal to Bate Besong’s The Rape of Sawa– be it poetry, drama or prose our writers have a message to pass which often trumps the aspect of mere literary entertainment. But sometimes a reader just wants to be told a story, to escape to a different time and place, one that doesn’t reflect pressing pains, or read like a sermon. This is what Budji Kefen’s Boundless offered a diverting tale of love found against the odds in Colonial Cameroon (Kamerun). The book tells a story of the life and loves of Samarah, Princess of the Chefwa people, who by all descriptions would be situated in the grass-field region of our country. After a raid by the Germans claiming more land as they penetrated into the hinterland, The Chief of the Chefwa people is killed and Samarah and her mother soon become servants of a British plantation owner- Mr. Wakerman. Samarah having a good mastery of the English language and ways (missionary education) and haven been raised as royalty doesn’t make for a docile slave. But hope of escape and happiness springs when her betrothed, Bintum, joins them on the plantation. This hope is short lived as the First World War breaks out and changes the course of everyone’s path, particularly making it possible for Samara to reconnect with Mayne Patterson, the English man with the radical idea that black Cameroonians are people equally worthy of respect. We follow Samarah as she negotiates her attraction to Mayne vis a vis her hatred and distrust for all things white and colonial, and her loyalty to her childhood sweetheart Bintum. Boundless offers us a rare Cameroonian romantic drama, but more, it attempts to bring the reader to colonial Kamerun, painting an uncommon picture of who we were at the time when our sovereignty was taken from us. What did I love about it? For one, it was refreshing to have a vivid picture of unaffected Cameroonian traditional customs considering the recent trend of adopting Nigerian customs as or own. There was also an enjoyable uncertainty in not knowing who Samarah is destined to be with. Of course I loved the strong female heroine, her dignity and self-determinism, but above this I smiled at the unbelievably open-minded male lead characters. If only we had more Mayne’s, Bintum’s and Chief Kintashe’s. Most unlikely however (and my main issue with the story) is the implausible diction of the characters. Neither the Shakespearean “doths” nor the modern day American slang like “babe”, “player”, and “chick” fit in a colonial setting especially mixed together. The story felt most natural when the mother tongue of the Chefwa people was mixed into conversation, when various languages were showcased as a result of multiple colonial presence or when short fables were used by characters to establish a point. We have our own way of speaking and conversing, our own slang. It would have been lovely to read more of that. In all, Boundless stands out as a contemporary telling of a colonial love story that defied race and as a Cameroonian novel that had only one mission, to entertain the reader and have them believe in love again.