But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.– Mitch Albom In Cameroon, it is taboo not to love your mother. I have no sources to cite to prove the fact of this. But consider this, if one were to do a survey of songs written by Cameroonian artists, they would no doubt find that there is a tie between songs written in praise octogenarian president and those written in praise of mothers. I was in form three when I realized just how much of a taboo it was to express any disdain for one’s own mother. The only music channel our cable in Bamenda provided was finally airing the video of Eminem’s ‘Cleanin’ out My Closet’ and I was eagerly rapping along to the lyrics in those little M.A.D booklets we bought for five hundred francs during school outings. Pa and Ma, my adopted grandparents were out so I was comfortably sprawled on the carpet, the parlor the doors shut to keep out the dust Bamenda is notorious for. My cousin Stella had her friends visiting and one of them brought up the conversation. She hated Eminem, she said, it was obvious he was a bad person. Only bad people would hate their own mother so openly. If an ‘adult’ had said same I would have ignored it. I already knew they supported what suited them. But my cousin and her friends were different. I looked up to them, university students with their stylish clothes, more educated than their parents they knew how to manipulate things, and I depended on Stella for novels to read and interesting conversations to listen to. So if they agreed- and all three of them did- that only an evil person would not love their mother, then they were likely right. And I who understood Eminem, I who could relate with him as I rapped along, was likely wrong. Or evil for doing so. My cousin’s friend had no clue what she had done. I would think about it over and over again in the weeks and months to come. To reconcile my understanding of Eminem and my admiration for Stella and her friends, I would conclude that it was just one of the differences between Cameroon and the US. In the US, having a bad relationship with one’s mother was generally expected. In fact, it can be seen as a staple of the teenage years, a stage all kids must go through. Is there any family T.V show where a teen has not slammed their bedroom door and shouted: “I hate you”? Definitely something not applicable in Cameroon. First, slamming a bedroom door requires that you have a bedroom of your own, and next, shouting ‘I hate you’ is an invitation for even more things that the child will hate. My conclusion made sense to me. Motherly love was just one of those things the two countries I had lived in saw differently. A loving mother-child relationship in America was what was illustrated by Clare Huxtable and kids on The Cosby Show, or what Tia and Tamera experienced with Lisa on Sister, Sister. It was the regular hugging, the girls nights with popcorn the little talks about everything from peer pressure to boys and yes the scolding but more the makeups after the scolding. In the American version of motherly love, mothers said they were sorry just as much as kids did. And kids are reassured that no matter what they did, their mama was never going to stop loving them. In Cameroon, that definition did not apply. Loving your mother was a different connotation altogether. It was allegiance to taking her side in fights she would have with her siblings, or between her and co-wives. It was promising to build her a house when you grow up and give her a reason to boast that my child is a doctor, engineer, lawyer or banker. It was a duty to be fulfilled and acknowledgment that she is always right irrespective of what may be…and if sorry ever left your mother’s mouth it would likely take the form of “come and take this meat and finish it”. For a while, this differentiation would help me console myself for understanding Eminem, for being like him and not feeling like I loved my mother at that time. For a while, I would think the differences meant one society knew love more than the other. But later on, by the time I was a university student myself, Cameroon would have taught me to measure love by the number of sacrifices made and hardship endured and I would find that no one can top an African mother on that evaluation. And so, I too would come to pledge allegiance to the mother who is always right, and aspire to be the child who will be bragged about at CWF meetings…to love out of mindful duty if not the fullness of heart. I would try to love like that and fail because I am one of those people who needs to know you to love you. One of those who need to be able to reason their love prior to expressing it. And that is why Mothers’ Day stumps me. **** I will know my mother when [god forbid] she dies. I have no recollection of my mother before the age of six. There is evidence of us being together, of course. But I don’t remember it. I recall being tucked to sleep by Aunty Susan. I recall being bathed and dressed by Franka, one of those distant cousins brought into town by relatively better-off family members to serve their households in exchange for their education. I recall there being a house with grey floors of concrete smoothed to a slightly glossy finish and low wooden chairs that formed a semi-circle around the T.V, positioning us as the audience to whatever was playing on TV. But I do not recall my
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.
Self-Trafficking, Modern Slavery or the Wrong sort of Bushfalling
Two years ago around this same month, I had a conversation with a friend. We had only recently met. She had just returned to Cameroon after having been on a cultural exchange program coordinated by the US Embassy in Cameroon. Of six Cameroonians sent to the USA on that exchange program, my friend was the only one to return. Her family and friends in the US could not believe she was returning home. They told her she was being foolish. They, even those living in the US illegally asked her “what are you returning to do?” Others said “I hope you don’t think we’ll continue helping you as you go back again…” They spoke as though it was they who had paid her way rather than this fellowship she applied for and won. Nonetheless she returned home. Two years later she has quit the job she’d had upon arrival. Her knowledge threatened her male counterparts and given the industry she was in, she was the lone woman. She in turn felt threatened. Leaving that job was hard, but she felt she had to do it and was skilled enough to take the risk. She has been job hunting for a while now and wherever she goes to and shows her certificates from here and the training she received from the USA, she gets the question “Why did you come back? You should have stayed na?” My friend’s case is not unique. Even I, on a scholarship that has a pre-requisite clause boldly stating that you MUST return to you home country gets asked “Why you no wan stay for dey?” It is a fact, Bushfalling is the Cameroonian dream just as having capitalism work for you is the American dream. Do we need proof? Here’s some examples: You hear your friend is getting married and ask about her intended who is he, what does he do? The answer you get: He’s a Bushfaller. That is all. He is a Bushfaller. That title is an occupation, like Pastor’s wife or 1st Lady. It comes with prestige and dignity without one ever knowing what exactly the person with that title does. More proof? Well you just need to go see the long lines at Surete Nationale in Yaounde for people making passports, at embassies, and in front of cybercafes when it’s time to play the DV Lottery all in hopes of leaving the country. You can look at the long waiting list for foreign exams like TOEFL or IELTS. But most of all, the most obvious proof of our desperate Bushfalling Cameroonian dream? The fact that in metropoles like Douala, Yaounde, Buea and Bamenda town have “agencies” ever increasing (almost equal in number with bars) offering to sending you “abroad” to countries like Chile, the Philippines, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Vietnam, Thailand, Kuwait and Lebanon. You see our people have gotten tired of going to the American, British and Canadian embassies and losing money in form of visa fees and bank statements to prove they will go and study, not work blab la bla. Our brothers and sisters now want reassurance that they will actually get that visa board that flight and begin working immediately to come home in December as a Bushfaller and show that “God has blessed them” and “they too have arrived”. Some may say I sound a little high handed writing about this because I’m in the UK on a scholarship or had the benefit of traveling before even that. They would be wrong. I have been one of the people who wanted ot leave the country at all costs. I have been rejected for a visa, twice. But I like to think I realized my country wasn’t the worst and learned to take an honest look and appreciate it, thinking how I can fix it rather than run away from it. Again this might not be an option to someone who is desperate because they have dependents. But here’s the thing, is it that they have no options, or is it that they do not like the options they were given? I am writing about this after reading the news/ testimonies of girls enslaved in Kuwait and Lebanon. As I write to you have two friends in Lebanon in similar circumstances. I cannot tell you for sure if they are treated as poorly at the girls who testified are. But I can tell you for sure that they went to that country with their eyes wide open. They had options here, but preferred to “fall bush” because a foreign currency is always higher than ours even in a country that should be constantly in a state of emergency. Today as I read about the women I thought of the countless adverts these agencies put up in school zones right in the midst of the young and impressionable. I admire the agencies though, they aren’t evil. They tell you directly that you are going to be given service jobs. You are going to be a house-help in Saudi Arabia. They tell you they will take your passport upon arrival and you will work and repay the cost of the flight and visa before going on with your life there. You are told bluntly. Heck, it’s even advertised on the national television station- CRTV. But still people go because to them; anywhere is better than Cameroon, they need to go “try” their luck, it can’t be so bad, and finally because even though they know they don’t reason enough o put the knowledge to use. You see someone who puts knowledge to use would ask the agents in these agencies “If bush fine so wetin you di do for here?” Someone who reasons would put two and two together; if women in Saudi Arabia aren’t allowed to drive bared arms etc. how much more oppressed would an imported house-help be? A smart young person would think critically, if house-helps in Cameroon are maltreated regularly in this relatively
Our Identity and Our shame
The Transracial Trend… Please have a look at my picture in the about section of this page. Have a good look, read the bio. Imagine this: I have been reading about Jewish culture, taken a liken to it, truly appreciate the suffering they had to face during the Holocaust, then I decided I feel more Jewish than Cameroonian. So I take up the hairstyle and dressing of Jews. I buy a wig or scarfs for my head. I lie about my background and receive a scholarship from a historically Jewish University to study Jewish History. I graduate and become a spokesperson for the Jewish community. Imagine all this happening, then when caught I feel I did nothing wrong. I “identify as Jewish”. Sounds crazy right? Well, as some writers would be quick to tell you, reality is crazier than fiction. Everything I just described happened except it what an American Caucasian who decided to “identify” as a black American. Lie about her race to the point of having someone claim to be her father. She has received scholarship from a university that was created to give black Americans opportunity in a system that was never created for them. She did all this and when the public went for her, some people abused the term transracial to defend her actions. Transracial is a valid term used to define the unique perspectives of someone who is adopted by a family of a different race, however defenders of Rachel Dolezal now use it to refer to the decision to “identify” as a different race and dress up impersonating people of that race. However this post isn’t so much about Rachel Dolezal and being transracial such as it is about “identifying” as black and what is has meant for me. You see, Dolezal made me wonder about lot of things. For one she made me wonder if she’s crazy. It has been fairly proven that being black in America is not a smooth experience so why did this woman want to switch race so badly? I’m suspicious. We have reasons for everything we do. Stupid reason maybe, but still reasons. Secondly and most pertinent to this post, Dolezal made me wonder what she perceives black to be. You see I’m truly curious about this because I have not always been “black”. Yes, really! On Being black… So, I have not always been black. I have been African, Cameroonian, Bami-Anglo, but not black. Where I come from there are no race arguments because we’re all one color though of various shades. We have better things to classify ourselves by; social class, region of origin, tribe, language group, religion. But my blackness starts and ends when I board a flight and cross the equator. That’s one thing Rachel Dolezal and I have in common; we have not always been black. Given this mutual experience of on and off blackness I wonder when Rachel Dolezal began feeling black. What made her black? Was it watching enough episodes of Moesha and Fresh Prince of Bel Air? Was it the study of black history and being able to narrate/discuss black literature? Was it the moment she fell in love with box braids or the affection she developed for caramelized skin? From Rachel’s appearance and her impersonation, I cannot find more “experience of blackness” from her. And this irks me particularly when I recount the episodes that made me “feel black”. I felt black when a Caucasian lady seated next to me on a flight asked for another seat and was given. She stated her discomfort and asked that she be position elsewhere. The Kenyan seated to my right shook his head as her request was granted. I simply made a black power fist in the air then returned to my novel. I have changed hairstyles from permed hair to dreadlocks all the while in Cameroon. It never made me feel as black as I did when I was stopped in transit my passport and documents checked for over thirty minutes answering questions on where I was going and where I was from because my documents didn’t serve enough as proof. If you don’t get the drift, I have felt black mostly in circumstances of social classification while away from home. In my experience being black IS a social construct as Dolezal and her supporters insist. What I am wondering is when she has ever been boxed into that construct. This seem highly improbable when Ms Dolezal identified as white when police stopped her for a speeding ticket, when she herself identified as white when suing a historically black college. Her identity is her choice I agree. But with certain identities come stereotypes and bias and oppression and shaming. I would like Ms. Dolezal to tell me when she has felt that which is so much a part of the black identity. Has she ever felt jittery when entering a shop, like the security guard was looking particularly at her? Can she relate, truly relate to the #MikeBrowns #TrayvonMartins and that little girl at the McKinney pool party? Where does her blackness stop and where does it start? And the need for shame… As I ponder on this I realize all the times I felt black, I felt immigrant too. Welcome but not quite. And all these times I have felt the shame of being “guilty until proven innocent” and being someone who needed to be helped. Now some god soul might say here “you should not feel ashamed of who you are”. That good soul will be wrong. I do not feel ashamed of who I am, I feel ashamed of who I am perceived to be because I have not done more, my leaders have not done more. Shaming is itself a large part of African and black culture. I clearly remember