I used to feel it was my mission to explain to people that ‘falling bush’ was not the answer to all problems. Given how much the ‘American Dream’ is set as the ideal in our Cameroonian society, I always felt it necessary to dispel the notion that the place is paradise on earth and to let those I value know that Cameroon needs them, and should they consider traveling, they should do so with plans of returning home. Fortunately, I’m no longer that person. Don’t get me wrong, my stomach still lurches when I have a conversation with a close friend and they tell me they are planning on leaving for good. I still feel frustrated at the people who say “I am marrying a ‘bushfaller’ as if to denote the fact that they are marrying their ticket out. And don’t get me started on the mentees I counsel who are so obvious that their passion is for residing in a particular country, rather than the academic and career plans they claim to want advice for. But I have become more understanding of my privilege over the past years (or so I think). And so I no longer take up that mission with the fervor I used to. If you want to go, go. I know better now that home isn’t meant for everyone. Not all of us have the calling for it, and not all of us can endure it. This came to me as I returned home last month from South Africa in hope of making it base again upon completion of my final degree. As I spoke with a friend who was also returning home from a different country, I realized we were making the same preparations, taking the same precautions as to how different our lives will be. How do you prepare to endure low quality internet back home? Download all the music/videos you streamed without care while away. Make sure you downloaded ALL the academic papers you cited in your work and have them backed up. How do you prepare for regular light failure? Buy the best power bank(s) you can. Like one witty Nigerian put it “charging your partner’s phone in anticipation of the regular power failures be considered a love language”. How do you take precautions to avoid having to deal with our struggling health care system? Use what insurance you have to do medical exams and check what you can before returning home. Buy drugs you know won’t be available because mental health/learning disabilities are not recognized in our part of the world. How do you prepare for possible kidnapping/arbitrary arrest? Get a stun-gun to add to the pepper-spray you carry because you’re already at risk as a woman. Write your last requests in case of sudden death. Let friends know what to do just in case. [Although this last tip likely applies for many across the globe]. As my friend and I discussed, I came to the realization that the bulging bags and extra luggage Africans and African diaspora are known to travel with is merely evidence of our general attempts to endure/adjust to life where we are. That may mean adjusting trying to make a foreign country feel a bit like home by exporting food from home, or it may mean buying what we know is unavailable for sale at home or extremely expensive. In the weeks following that conversation, and since I’ve been home I have also come to realize that we have lost many people for good. Even those who say/believe they are going to come back. They won’t be able to, not because they do not want to, but because they will not be able to endure after being away so long. To leave behind the lives they have known and investments they have made in other countries. If you’re away for too long you adapt to a different system, such that the reality of home hits your worse than it is when you return. Staying away for too long renders you out of touch with how to live in and love home despite its flaws. I was once asked how we cope with the lack of reliable emergency numbers to call in case of need. I responded that here we can simply call for help, the society is not as disconnected. Here it is odd to not know your neighbor’s name (and too many other details). I write this all to say, I am home now. And even though I am happy to be home, I am looking at it from a more realistic perspective. We need more people who love it enough to make it a better place, one which would nourish the dreams our children have; but I appreciate that it isn’t for everyone. I appreciate that the country makes it hard to love it because our government makes us seem so unworthy of basic decency. But then that government is made up of people like us. People we know, and excuse. So if you’re one of many considering leaving for good. Do what is best for you. I’ll just say proceed with caution. Drop me a comment, question or just a kind wish welcoming me home. It’s always a joy to read from readers.
“How is Home?” You Ask
Since returning home early last month, nearly all my conversations begin with the same recurrent question; how is Cameroon/home? Roughly eight weeks later, I still haven’t found a suitable way to reply. I say: “It’s just there”. It’s just there as in; it is how I left it, except where it’s worse As in: home is surviving – barely living, As in: Cameroon has managed to retain just the bare minimum of what makes it home- the familiarity of those who are yet to leave, the humid weather which in turn envelopes you like a sweat-inducing fog and reassures your skin that it will not crack here. I say ‘it’s just there’ because to answer ‘how is home?’ would require several contradictory descriptions: Like the security of never doubting where your next meal will come from because there is an endless list of people waiting for me to stop by for a meal since I returned, but also like the hesitation and insecurity I feel at the thought of leaving home to do any visiting because leaving home means passing through a terrifying military checkpoint akin to what stands at the US/Mexico border. And if I were to describe home what would I share? The laughter of the children in our compound; the toddler next door who calls me ‘Nica’ and giggles like it’s the soundtrack for a Disney classic yet to be made, the preteens playing games like ‘dodging’ and assorted versions of hopscotch after their morning chores on ghost-town days… Or do I tell of this air of apprehension which hangs over us all and leaves me feeling like I’m paranoid in my inability to properly describe it? But I’m not paranoid, it is real. Our laughter, our noisy nature is now somewhat muted. We who used to advertise nearly everything with ‘Papa Promo’ a car with massive speakers attached on its roof, blasting Pidgin-English adverts into the eardrums of pedestrians. That car seems to have stopped going around. And Mutengene which was always busy and loud. A distracting hub to pass through, not stop in with its shops and bars blaring music from loudspeakers competing with each other for the attention of customers…. even here the music is not as loud any longer; only one shopkeeper with a speaker has yet to close down and move away, no more competition. And of course, one can’t play music so loud that they don’t hear if gunshots go off and they need to run. If I were to answer ‘how is home’? Which of the homes shall I speak of? Home feels different depending on the neighborhood. That apprehension that cannot be explained is experienced in varying degrees from one quarter to the next. In Mile 16 and Muea it is heavy in the air with closed shops, vacant businesses and the desolation that is breathed in and out by all who invested in the area, by the few who have stayed despite the very real threat to life. From Mile 17 upward to Molyko the apprehension is a crescendo of feeling; with very little felt between 8am and 5pm- just people on their guard for any sudden alarm. Then the crescendo peaking at dusk as we all rush to go home, grown or not, afraid of the dark. Finally, in Sandpit upwards; here there is life, the shops are all open, and people still sit at makeshift bars to eat and drink. But there is also an awareness that the girls selling akara and beans with that old mami by the roadside are not going to school, they have come to Buea to stay with their aunt because their village was burned by the military. That apprehension here is a shadow at the edges of life, like a silhouette. And in the telling of home do I count even the other regions East of the Mungo where in place of apprehension it is a resignation that hangs in the air along with the weight of dust? *** To properly respond to ‘how is Cameroon’ would demand I tell several stories of Cameroonians: The story of how my godmother’s father who suffered kidney failure would have died because his urologist couldn’t come to work on Monday because of Ghost-town and the general practitioner had more than his share of patients to deal with. Similar to the story of expectant mothers who now have an additional fear of going into labor on the wrong day of the week. To respond properly would entail I tell of the number of families split up, with parents having to send kids off to other regions for school possibly with one spouse going as well and how managing two households has made already the lives of people who were already struggling much more difficult. It would require I tell of the loans my neighbors are paying with bitterness every month because the house they took the loan for is complete but they can’t move into it- the area is now a no-go zone. The bushes not too far from there has a shrine where the Amba Boys are said to congregate so it is regularly attacked by the military. The last time the neighbor visited this house, he remarked with palpable frustration on how a house he had yet to sleep in had already seen bullet holes in the walls, need for repair. I would need to tell of the Faculty of Science lecturer who I used to admire for her fashion sense and how she jumped a foot when I greeted her from behind… I was later told that she had been kidnapped and her family had to pay 5.5 million in ransom… she is still traumatized… And she is not alone. Enjema, the younger sister of my neighbor-friend has nightmares periodically now- since witnessing a man being shot in front of her by gendarmes last September. She recounts that the man had been the driver
An Ode to Those We’ve Lost
Last month I visited the United States briefly. After having spent almost seven years of my childhood there and returning home to Cameroon indefinitely, this trip was my first in fifteen years. Messages from friends spanned from “watch out for the police” to “buy me shoes” to ” we hope you’re coming back”. One particular writer friend wrote me asking how long I was traveling for. When I told her I was just going to be out for just over a week, she had this to say: “Ah okay. I’d been worried that we’ve lost another ???????????? Not that I would have told you if you were moving. I’d just have said congratulations and all the best and stuff like that. Then wished I had all African Presidents on speed dial so I could berate Biya for losing [another] top brain” It is this comment in particular and the experience of the trip which inspired this post. I traveled for a conference, my first academic conference. I was happy, proud of the achievement, but above all proud of the fact that I was going to the US on my own merit and for my own purpose after years of witnessing first-hand the lengths at which people go to leave Cameroon. As happy and proud as I was, I was also nervous. First about the conference, then about meeting family and friends I had not seen in fifteen years. I am not the Monique I had been before, life and various experiences which had come my way had changed me to the complex being I am now. And I am still changing, and metamorphosing to my fulfillment gradually. Would they respect that, I wondered. Or would they look at me with the prejudiced ideas a lot of those abroad have of those back home; that we are all just making do, that we all wish and pray for 1st world lives. I went in prepared to dispel myths, ready to make it clear some of us could ‘choose’ to be in Cameroon, ready to snub those bushfallers who would suggest I stay indefinitely, or laugh at my decision to return home. With this sort of thinking I unwittingly went in with my own prejudice. This prejudice however didn’t last long, it began cracking on my first day in Maryland (a.k.a Cameroon annex). It was a Sunday and we were celebrating my younger brother’s baptism at Silverspring Presbyterian Church. All through the church service I ran a commentary in my mind: Only three white people in this church? The pastor and two elderly… Are the rest Cameroonian then? Oh, there’s an African-American assistant pastor… probably ninety percent Cameroonian… At least ninety Lord this might as well be P.C Bastos, I mean look at the outfits, and look at the faces… the choir is singing in Bakweri or is that Douala…The pastor must be resigned, his church has been colonized. See these kids, most of them 1stgeneration Americans, singing “Everybody blow your trumpet” but without the accompanying gestures. How would they know what gestures to make? It’s close, but it can never be the same as Cameroon… <==={Cameroonian choir singing in at Silverspring Presbyterian Church, Maryland-USA With every thought I felt slight shame and a well of pity deepen within me. It is easy to get derailed by the younger bushfallers on social media who would have you think life is forever better on the other side, easy to feel annoyed when the embassy puts you through a tedious process because others have literally used up all the lies possible to get visas and leave the country for good, it is easy to forget that these people who now generalize about Cameroon as much as western media does, are victims. Yes, victims of the government that did not care for them. Victims aren’t always blameless, they don’t need to be. They are the injured party nonetheless. I was reminded of this as we closed service that morning and I was enveloped by the crowd of Cameroonians welcoming me to the country they were yet to consider their own. Most of them were elderly women, my mom’s friends and senior, each of them hugged me tight as though hugging the place I came from rather than me, they each had the same questions on their lips “How is Cameroon? How is home?” Cross-section of worshipers at Silverspring Presbyterian Church, Maryland If anything, it was obvious that irrespective of better standard of living (based on GDP), despite the guise most would put up about their American life, these were people walking around homesick. These were mothers who longed to retire but cannot do that with others depending on them and never ending bills, these were brothers who missed simple pleasures of a cheap cab ride to a bar where the barman might as well be a family friend. I had hoped the people I met would recognize and respect that I was not the same Monique, but not until that moment did I respect that those people had also changed. While there were still those who could care less, the majority were more up to date on Cameroonian news than those back home. They were not all the eager bushfallers they once had been, a lot of them had left Cameroon by choice but were now trapped out of it by circumstances. They now wondered if their kids would consider Cameroon home as they do, and try not to let it matter even though it does. About ten days ago, after the fatal Eseka train crash rocked the country, several comments bemoaned our having a president who obviously lacks a sense of duty to our country. The nation collectively mourned the lives we had lost to negligence. In a Whatsapp group I’m in, my friends took turns comparing what the worse consequence of our president’s rule has been. The corruption? The tribalism? Embezzlement? Laissez-faire culture? A failing healthcare system? The hazardous transportation system? Unemployment and underemployment?
Returning Home Part Two: The Struggle is Real, Everywhere
I’ve been home exactly a month now. Along with the joyous reunions come the far from joyous realities. I’ve spent as much time correcting my fellow Cameroonians misconceptions of life abroad as I have spent correcting my own expectations of home. Between the time I prepared to come home and my arrival I received three requests for me to buy IPhones, four requests for me to buy human hair and countless requests for particular designers shoes and clothes. Le impossible n’est pas Camerounaise. That statement is the only justification I can find for why people would think as a student on scholarship I could afford to buy any of those things as gifts. Now that I’m back home however I realize how easy it is for Cameroonians to feel like those things are casual easily gotten commodities in the west. Despite our country’s HIPC status the growing middle-class population increasingly sport smart phones, rock imported everything- from clothes to hair. All these bought either second hand in the many “container shops” or brand new but definitely not at the same price and VAT presented to those in more developed countries. So I find myself addressing misconceptions, attempting to make those with lofty expectation understand that the struggle is real everywhere. “Yes iPhones are popular but you just don’t enter a shop and buy one. Most people take contracts to pay for their phones monthly.” “Human hair? I would need to buy at least three packets for you to be able to actually do your hair. If I had that money to give you, why wouldn’t I just help pay your fees? Or rents for three months?” And finally “Honestly, if I gave you 50.000frs today and showed you the dress you asked for, would you buy it for that amount? Why then would you believe I would buy for you what you wouldn’t buy for yourself?” Another misconception that has to be corrected given the idea that the grass is always greener in the West and that one “returns only to visit”. For every new reunion I go through the same process. Acquaintance: How long are you here for? Me: I’ve returned home Acquaintance: Yes but when are you going back? Me: I’m not going “back”, not unless I have a conference or something. I’ve returned home for good. Acquaintance: Why? You get work? (Pidgin English for ‘Do you have a job?’) Me: (Completely ignoring the why) Nope. Not yet. Still looking for work Acquaintance: Hmm you should go back ooh. E dey like sey you like suffa (Loosely translated: You seem to have a penchant for pain) Me: Well I prefer to suffer here than there, suffa dey all side ya (Loosely translated: There’s suffering everywhere) At this point whoever I am talking with either laughs in my face or shakes their head in pity. Correcting the misconception that there is literally no suffering in the West is much more difficult than correcting misconceptions of the returnee being able to afford three rounds of drinks at every reunion.Yet the misconception needs to be corrected and the truth needs to be told; the struggle is real everywhere. You just have to choose what struggles you can cope with. Some people will happily take up the apathy of a foreign land. To them that is preferable to the corruption of Cameroonian police and other government officials, the unemployment or underemployment depending on who you know rather than what you know, the bad roads and careless drives that make up the transport system, the society that while allowing you to be free, never allows you to be all you can be. Others would prefer the feeling of belonging, the possibility (no matter how slim) of achieving certain career aspirations which are only possible in your home country, the Communalism evident with monthly ‘njangi’ meetings, the sure knowledge that no matter what you will never lack a place to sleep or food to eat… They choose this over better health care, more reliable institutions, more accountable and transparent systems. They choose home no matter if home is a thatched roof and elsewhere has marble tiles. We may trade one for the other, but we struggle no matter where we are. I guess the difference is some of us prefer to struggle in the bosom of Family and friends who we can always count on and of course, to struggle for the country that is actually ours. No matter what we choose, C’est la vie.