Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  As the sun rose we stood bewildered among scores of buses and bush-taxis. Hearing us ask for the Bamenda rank, a kind young man in a dark lounge suit explained that one could get to Bamenda only from outside the Cameroon Hotel, several miles away.

  We shared the next taxi with an adolescent soldier, stationed in Bamenda, who was pertinaciously curious. ‘Why must you walk in the bush? This is strange! What is your reason? Does your government pay for this work? Have you walked in other places?’

  I explained that I walk in many places and then write books about them.

  ‘Aha!’ said the soldier. ‘So it has become a habit!’

  The Cameroon Hotel looked very ‘Unclassified’. Beside it a strip of wasteland – the motopark – was crowded and cheerfully chaotic. A smart white minibus, labelled ‘Bamenda’ on the windscreen, would leave when full and already half the seats were booked. Its ticket-seller-cum-driver (tall, obese, grey-haired) treated all women with hectoring contempt. When I had handed over our fares – 4,000 CFA (almost L9) each – he demanded our passports, then disappeared with them. At once a little knot of tension tied itself inside me: every traveller’s gut-reaction to being even momentarily out of sight of vital documents. Nobody had warned us that all bush-taxi passengers must hand over identity cards or passports when buying tickets; the details are entered on a list which drivers have to show at frequent police check-points. Evidently my anxiety was obvious; a slim young man, with tribal incisions on his cheek-bones, stepped forward to shake my hand. ‘You have no problem,’ he soothed, ‘because this is the custom. Your passports will safely come back with your tickets.’ Which they did – fifty minutes later.

  Cameroon’s public transport is well organised. Notices stating the official fare (so many CFA per kilometre) are displayed in every vehicle and even foreigners are not overcharged. But undercharging can happen when passengers know the driver and all uniformed servants of the State travel free in the best (front) seats. Baggage charges vary. On that minibus we paid 1,000 CFA (L2.25) for both rucksacks. Had they travelled free we would have been given no receipt.

  Rachel returned disgruntled from a breakfast-hunt. ‘No chai-khanas here,’ she complained. But moments later a mobile chai-khana (teahouse) appeared – a ragged, barefooted man carrying two buckets. One contained opaque water, the other a huge kettle and several mugs.

  ‘You can’t get hepatitis twice,’ Rachel reminded me. (That was our viral souvenir from Madagascar.) We chose to ignore the other possibilities in the bucket and when two mugs had been rinsed out and vigorously shaken they were filled with aromatic clove tea, scalding hot and heavily sugared.

  Then a baker’s barrow arrived, wheeled by a stocky youth shouting his wares in Pidgin. To us his prices seemed alarmingly high but soon every tiny fist in sight was clutching a sticky bun or doughnut. We splurged on two baguettes and I produced out of a sock six triangles of hoarded Aeroflot soft cream cheese.

  ‘Why,’ demanded Rachel, ‘is our breakfast in a sock?’

  ‘Because,’ I explained, ‘I’ve been carrying it carefully all morning as hand-luggage. It might have been squashed in a rucksack.’

  ‘You get madder by the minute,’ said Rachel.

  Our water-bottles had not been filled, since between us we were shouldering a horse’s load of gear, and already we felt dehydrated. Opposite the motopark stretched a line of ramshackle lock-up stalls but, unusually, there was no bar in sight. Shelves of expensive bottled drinking water promised relief until I noticed something suspicious; the labels looked soiled, as did the liquid. Turning away, I noticed a small boy lifting off his head a crate of full bottles which he shelved before disappearing with a crate of empties. I followed him. Around a nearby corner he was filling the empties from a wayside tank of murky water, then skilfully replacing the metal caps.

  Even in that smallish motostop crowd the variety of types made our crude European image of Black Africans – ‘primitives’ about whom one may loftily generalise – seem at once laughable and offensive. Observing the different features, skin-shades, body-structures, hairstyles, languages, garments, gestures, jewellery, miens and tribal markings, I felt almost intimidated by this diversity. Technologically Black Africa may be primitive, but already I was sensing more complexities and subtleties than ever an outsider could cope with. Clearly nobody could even begin to understand Cameroon in three months – or, perhaps, three decades. Before travelling in Asia it is possible to establish some rapport with the countries to be visited through translations of their literature – a preparation one can’t make for Africa. Perhaps this is why Cameroon seemed to me immeasurably more mysterious than the ‘Mysterious East’.

  At last loading began. An agile young man leaped onto the minibus roof and received from his muscular colleague six sacks of maize, two enormous woven baskets of rice, ten jerry-cans of palm oil, three rolls of raffia matting, four gigantic aluminium cauldrons serving as suitcases, eight crates of empty bottles, countless plastic hold-alls, several amorphous bundles – and two rucksacks.

  Those passengers who had been sitting on a low wall, coping with innumerable offspring, now stood up expectantly – detaching infants from nipples and toddlers from severely mauled sticky buns. But our hour had not yet come. We were, it transpired, waiting for two wealthy Fulani merchants, dignified and handsome in freshly-ironed pale blue robes, who arrived by taxi at 7.45 a.m. and at once occupied the roomy seats beside the driver. No hanging about with the proles for them!

  When we were given the signal to pack in I found myself in the centre seat of the middle row, ill-placed to observe the landscape. On my right, a puny, heavily-pregnant girl alternately slept and crocheted baby-clothes. On my left, a tall, svelte young woman was being witty in French about the problem of what to do with her very long legs. As we were about to start two elderly steatopygous women, with bosoms to match, slid back the door and squeezed aboard, breathing heavily. Extra seats materialised in the narrow aisle and we all politely tried to make our persons and hand-luggage more compact.

  Compared to Malagasy motor journeys this six-hour drive seemed sybaritic; the new velvet-smooth road was of an excellence rarely found in Britain and never in Ireland. For two hours we remained in the low humid zone, where occasional rubber plantations interrupted miles of dense jungle. Near the villages women and girls hacked rhythmically at the soft red earth – bent low, using short-handled, broad-bladed hoes. Some grannies (probably no older than myself) had grievously curved spines and moved stiffly. Many men sat around talking and drinking and laughing.

  In this comparatively Westernised region most dwellings were breeze-block-built, tin-roofed, shoddy and surrounded by a squalid abundance of ‘consumerist’ litter. It seemed that no one took any pride in their homes or gardens, that here were people suffering from incurable culture-shock Although modern building materials are chosen for convenience or swank, the Cameroonians remain uninterested in using them creatively, or even sensibly.

  The road began to climb near the base of Mount Koupe, which seemed higher than its 6,000 feet after so much flatness. Beyond and above many forested foothills we entered Cameroon’s most densely populated province, an area so fertile that it can support more than one hundred inhabitants per square kilometre – as compared to one per kilometre in the Tchabal Mbabo. Now the air felt blessedly cool and in the near distance, heaving along the horizon, were the sort of chunky mountains that over-stimulate my adrenalin.

  Abruptly Bamenda appeared, sprawling across a red-dust plain 1,000 feet below the edge of an unexpected escarpment. It is a fast-growing town of some 70,000 inhabitants, its buildings mainly one-storeyed, its streets mainly rough, its people – we soon discovered – mainly warmhearted and welcoming.

  From the motopark a taxi took us to a grotty ex-colonial office block where we hoped to find David Hughes in the MIDENO headquarters. Already we looked like vagrants and MIDENO’S well-groomed receptionist viewed us with distaste verging on horror. David was not expecting u
s on any particular day, owing to the vagaries of Cameroon’s postal service, so I sent up a chit: ‘Rachel and Dervla have arrived’. The receptionist looked affronted when we were immediately summoned to her Big Man’s office.

  The Hughes introduced us not only to a reliable horse-dealer but also to Western Cameroon’s history and customs. Unlike many expatriates, they lived not merely in Cameroon but with it: concerned about its problems, affectionately studying its traditions, camping all over the Grassfields (see map on p. viii), while making friends and influencing people, agriculturally, as best they could. They were too experienced to be starry-eyed, too sympathetic to be impatient. Without our four days as their pampered guests and eager pupils, the social nuances of Cameroonian rural life would have greatly perplexed us.

  Jane’s letters had mentioned Doi, a rich young Fulani from whom the Hughes had bought their own horses four years ago, and to whom they had sadly sold them back a few days previously, their departure from Cameroon being imminent. At 7 a.m. on a cool clear morning (all golden light and blue shadows) we set off for Doi’s compound in Jane’s jeep, climbing steeply on a rough red track below a rugged ridge with ‘bite marks’ along its crest – volcanic craters containing sacred lakes. Everyone, recognising the jeep, greeted Jane. And at one point a messenger bearing a letter for David came leaping down a precipice from the local Fon’s invisible hilltop palace.

  This Fon had served twenty-five years in the Cameroonian army and recently retired, on a meagre sergeant-major’s pension, having been selected as ruler after his father’s death. When we met him next day at a Bamenda Hash Harriers’ meet (he was a keen cross-country runner), I observed him overcoming two awkwardnesses with aristocratic aplomb. Fons may not shake hands with anyone, ever – a confusing rule for strangers, who will at once have learned that vigorous handshaking is among Cameroon’s most important courtesies, neglected only by boors. At the meet were two newly-arrived expatriates’ relatives, a frail elderly French lady and a rather solemn little German boy. When the French woman offered her hand the Fon bowed graciously, gently grasped her forearm with both hands and greeted her so charmingly that she could not possibly have resented (or even noticed) her hand being ignored. Again, when the little boy shyly extended his hand he found himself, to his evident delight, being hugged and kissed instead of formally greeted.

  Doi’s isolated compound occupied one of the province’s highest points, an 8,500-foot flat ridge-top overlooking some hundred miles of Grassfields. We were startled to see a shiny red saloon parked amidst the thatched huts and even more startled by the news that Doi was still abed, having just returned from a four-day visit to an international agricultural show in Paris. He was, Jane explained, an atypical Fulani. One of his stepmothers was an Englishwoman who had retired to England on being widowed and with whom he still kept fondly in touch – even visiting her, occasionally, in Surrey.

  Yet in most respects this was a classic Fulani family. Doi’s senior wife (the senior of two: doubtless two more will follow) was tall, lissom, poised – but shy of strangers, for she rarely left the compound. We shook hands, then saw little more of her. She was busy around the kitchen-hut, cooking breakfast for Doi, his adult brothers, an aged uncle and sundry ‘followers’.

  In the men’s living-room we watched them eating mountains of rice, with fried plantain and giant omelettes, while we drank Bournvita imported from Nigeria. The small, dark room was furnished with grubby easy chairs, an unstable sofa and a low table. Several garments and a kerosene lantern hung from nails in the mud wall and an Islamic calendar depicted Mecca. The only other decoration was an enormous wall-chart, new from Paris, illustrating the various parasites – many times enlarged – that infest farm animals all over the world.

  It is a Fulani characteristic to live simply, eating and dressing well but never squandering money on unnecessary possessions. Most other Cameroonians, if they could afford to fly to Paris for a long weekend, would live in an ostentatious villa, garishly furnished and equipped with a plethora of electrical gadgets – mainly ornamental, because of power shortages. And of course their womenfolk would lead easier lives, not cooking on charcoal between three stones and washing-up in the nearest stream.

  While Jane gossiped with Doi, no one else spoke. The purpose of our visit was generally known but not mentioned until a small boy had cleared away the dishes and a slightly larger boy had handed around ewer, basin and towel.

  Then Doi stood up, adjusted his robe with a few fluent flicks and assured me, ‘I will have news in a day or two. It’s hard to find the horse you need but I will search and search – though I am a very busy man. Because you are Jane’s friend I’ll find you a good horse – the best! Don’t have any worry.’

  No one, at that stage, was sordid enough to mention money. Doi said he could also provide a saddle, saddle-blanket and bridle; he looked faintly disappointed on hearing that we had brought our own head-collar and bridle.

  On the way home Jane told us that horses are comparative newcomers to the Grassfields. They were first seen during the 1820s when a band of Ba’ni from the north raided the Bamenda Plateau. The mounted invaders – wearing pantaloons and flowing gowns, making martial music on flutes and armpit drums, attacking with bows and arrows – terrorised the peaceable Grassfields tribes who fled into the roughest mountains where no horse could follow. Ironically, while the Ba’ni were wreaking havoc in the Grassfields the Fulani were doing likewise in the Ba’ni homelands.

  At Jane’s bank she introduced me to one of the staff, then wisely abandoned us; many British-orderly queues stretched away into the middle distance. Because I was twice directed to join an irrelevant queue it took two and a quarter hours to change our French franc travellers’ cheques.

  One thousand pounds in Cameroonian francs is dauntingly bulky. The temptation was to assume the bank clerk had got it right and make way for the next customer. But I told myself to have sense and stood firmly at his glass-enclosed cubby-hole where he could watch my every move as I counted and counted and counted pile after pile after pile of ragged, smelly notes. Out of the corner of my eye I observed his increasing tension. He was prepared for my challenge and without argument handed over what could so easily have been his ‘commission’ – the equivalent of £50.

  Carefully, I packed the notes into two deep double-zipped side pockets of my trekking-slacks. ‘You are a strange shape!’ commented Rachel, surveying my hips. I wasn’t worried about my silhouette but being so well worth robbing did make me feel a trifle uneasy.

  In an earth-floored off-licence (as bars are oddly known in Anglophone Cameroon) we were welcomed by half-a-dozen men of varying ages and types. As we drank our beer – the only alcohol sold in most off-licences – a group of giggling small girls with babies on backs crowded excitedly around the unglazed window just behind us. This surprised me, since Bamenda has a few score expatriate residents; but perhaps not many expatriates drink in off-licences.

  Most of the passers-by looked clean, well fed and well dressed. Only a few were barefooted. The majority carried head-loads: anything from a lone tin of Ovaltine to a colossal bale of cloth. Many women, even young women, were grossly overweight, though one never sees fat pre-puberty girls. Obesity is a sign of beauty – something to be worked (eaten) for – and also of prosperity.

  The locals think of Bamenda not as a town but as a series of villages, known as ‘quarters’. These straggle along the base of the escarpment, extending up the lower slopes where the gradient permits, and each has its quarterchief – a title I at first found slightly disconcerting. The mud-brick, tin-roofed dwellings vary in size but most are surrounded by flowering shrubs, banana plants and mango trees. Short-haired dwarf goats are tethered on patches of scrub. (The rich eat goat-meat; beef is for the hoi polloi and mutton is rare.) Plump dogs lie on shady verandahs beneath laden washing-lines and don’t bark at White strangers. Men lounge around listening to compound-blasters. Women carry loads to and from the market, pound maize for fufu,
sit in doorways making children’s clothes on antique sewing machines, dig or weed in little gardens, fetch water from distant standpipes and firewood from the rapidly dwindling forest far away over the top of the escarpment.

  In pre-colonial days the men of this region warred and slave-raided occasionally, hunted regularly and spent much time repairing or building thatched huts and maintaining local tracks and footbridges. They also smelted a massive amount of iron and made a variety of tools which they traded over long distances, bartering them for goods unavailable in their own area. These occupations have long since been eliminated, while the women’s daily chores remain no less demanding – if not more so, since many men can now afford only one wife.

  Yet the poorest men still work hard. In Bamenda one sees them descending from the blue mountains high above the escarpment, balancing formidable loads of firewood on their heads. Children, too, carry huge loads, their little neck muscles bulging under the strain. One morning I met a barefooted, sweat-soaked father and son hurrying down the rough path. On the steepest stretch the little fellow, aged perhaps seven or eight, slipped and fell, scattering his load over the inaccessible cliff. At once he burst into tears, his chubby face piteously puckered, his eyes fixed despairingly on those precious branches which had cost so much labour to collect and bring thus far. Carefully then his father laid down his long load – not an easy manoeuvre on a narrow path – and knelt to take his son in his arms and cuddle him and stroke his hair.

  That Friday evening everyone rejoiced because there was a violent thunderstorm with torrential rain – the first rain for months. Cameroon’s ‘little rains’ are supposed to start on 15 March and people begin to worry if they are even a few days late. The electricity promptly went off for several hours and we dined by lamplight.