Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  In a spacious compound, surrounded by lush greenery, two wooden chairs were ceremoniously placed outside the main hut for Dave’s guests. After a lengthy lead-in, groundnuts were mentioned. Some time later, a shy young woman brought a sackful for my inspection; groundnuts are the women’s cash-crop. We bought two large buckets of unshelled nuts for 1,200 CFA (about £2.70), a bulky purchase until we had time to shell them.

  This had once been a smithy family, an ancient and honourable profession in Western Cameroon, and we were shown a disused smelting furnace, and the equipment of a primitive forge, in an old hut in the centre of the compound. Archaeologists estimate that iron was first smelted in Africa some 2,000 years ago, by the people of the Grassfields – which was the beginning of the end for the great forests. No one could have cleared them with stone tools; and the development of intensive smelting and smithing industries hastened their clearing by creating a demand for charcoal. During the nineteenth century, in the Banbungo area alone (a small chiefdom near Mount Ocu), approximately one hundred metric tons of pure iron were produced annually. But this ancient industry was killed in the 1920s by imported European iron.

  We were back in Somie by sunset, in time to enjoy a booze-up with thirty or so jolly women not long returned from the fields. They formed a circle – some on stools, some squatting on the ground – in one corner of the village square, a sloping dusty expanse below the palace. These vivacious gatherings – regular events during the planting season – are presided over by the Chief’s senior wife and one of his sisters, the latter a strong personality who in the complicated hierarchy of the Somie Chiefdom holds a significant position ‘at court’. Gourds of potent maize-beer were being filled from a cauldron in the centre of the circle and handed around; we each took a swig before passing the gourd to our neighbour. Wife of course had her personal gourd and sat on a flimsy metal and plastic camp-chair with Sister beside her on a stool. I was given a lower stool, on Wife’s left, and twice she toppled over (whether because of her beer intake or wobbly seat was unclear), falling heavily on me to the delight of all present. Meanwhile Rachel had become embroiled in the gender argument with a group of elderly women. To resolve the matter I took Wife’s hand and placed it on my bosom, a direct approach that caused much hilarity.

  Now the air felt almost cool. Continuous sheet lightning flickered blue over the Nigerian mountains, fireflies darted brightly and a golden sliver of moon was poised above conical roofs. Despite a long day in the fields, many young women danced exuberantly to their own singing and clapping – a performance that recalled Mungo Park’s prim comment: ‘The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the most voluptuous movements imaginable.’

  Later, as we dined with Dave – eating manioc chunks fried in palm oil from a communal bowl – he told us that pre-marital chastity is not de rigueur hereabouts, but fidelity in marriage is. He also advised us that beer would be the dash most appreciated by our Somie hostesses.

  Then the three little girls who had delivered our meal led us to the palace through a tangle of rough alleyways. A shy, speechless junior wife ushered us into the State Apartments by lantern-light. One large room boasted a dining-table, four chairs and several five-foot-high drums. Leading off it was the bedroom, containing only a double-bed (more sweat-inducing foam rubber) and floored with disconcerting mock-parquet plastic tiles, most of which had come loose. I was conducted across the wide, high hallway-cum-audience chamber to our basin of hot washing water in a bathroom no bigger than a shower-cabinet. This was also the latrine and a flat stone covered the hole in the floor. I was about to move the stone when I saw Heteroscodra crassipes low on the wall beside me – or if it wasn’t Heteroscodra crassipes it was his first cousin, very large and black and hairy. Trembling with terror, I fled. Moments later Egbert’s bucket was emptied out of our unglazed bedroom window and we both went unwashed that evening.

  At daybreak, returning to the palace with Egbert, I saw through an archway our three little friends crossing the compound in single file, each bearing a tray. For a moment they looked like a scene from an opera – Aida, perhaps – their gaily patterned frocks glowing vivid against pale mud walls, their dark slender arms curving upwards, steadying the trays. That was a luxury breakfast: six hot crisp maize-flour buns and three cups of Ovaltine each.

  Dave escorted us to the start of what is known locally as ‘the German road’, a sensationally steep track cut through the forest of the escarpment and described on French maps as vestiges d’ ancienne voie. When we said goodbye, on the bank of a swift stream, I would have expressed my admiration were he not an embarrassment-prone Englishman.

  Nigel Barley’s hilarious books on anthropologising in Cameroon have entertained millions (though not the Cameroonian government) and are so funny that one tends to underestimate the heroism such work demanded. Living for years in a mud hut in stifling heat on a pitifully inadequate diet miles from any other European requires awesome professional dedication. And when we met Dave he had been doing it for longer than Nigel Barley – for long enough, indeed, to have produced the first dictionary of the local language. Dr Barley has observed: ‘The best one can probably hope for is to be viewed as a harmless idiot who brings certain advantages to the village.’ Yet we sensed that Dave had achieved considerably more than this. Not of course ‘acceptance’, which couldn’t happen without impossible feats of imagination on the part of the Somie folk; but unmistakably he was valued in the village as a person, not merely as a bringer of ‘advantages’.

  On a strip of level land, between the stream and the foot of the escarpment, we saw our first column of driver ants hurrying across the path. It was about a foot wide and small ‘squaddies’ formed the bulk of the troops, with a few rows of much bigger ‘guardsmen’ on either side. We paused to watch and at first this seemed an unremarkable phenomenon; these looked no different to the ants that swarmed all over us every siesta-time. Then we became aware of their numbers: thousands, tens of thousands – perhaps millions. Leaving Egbert, I walked to the left, where the column was going, and Rachel walked to the right, from whence it was coming. For more than two hundred yards we followed that marching straight line, across flat fields, without seeing its beginning or its ending. Then we understood how these ants can quickly kill a large animal or human being when they unite in a surprise attack.

  The German road has not been repaired since 1915 and, after seventy-two years of erosion, is much harder to walk on than an unpretentious bush-path. Half-way up we had our first clear view of a baboon colony but Rachel, oddly, seemed not very interested. She plodded on, leading Egbert, while I, enthralled, watched eighteen baboons, of all ages, feeding, grooming, playing, scratching, snoozing, flea-hunting and doing rude things with their genitalia. Curiosity is a conspicuous baboon trait; as I stood motionless two hulking males came to within five yards and sat in the grass, their hands on their knees, returning the compliment of my fascination.

  I caught up with the others near the top of the escarpment where they were drinking from a cold, clear spring. Here the resin-tinged air felt exhilaratingly cool yet Rachel, most unusually for her, was dripping sweat as we rounded the last hairpin bend and emerged from the forest – to find ourselves looking directly down on Somie, thousands of feet below.

  For a mile or so the road followed the ridge-top, winding through pine-woods and a new sort of glossy scrub. High mountains – which were Nigeria – rose some four miles away beyond an immensely deep valley. A few tin-roofed huts were visible on their forested slopes and I reflected that the concepts of ‘Nigeria’ and ‘Cameroon’ can mean little to their inhabitants. Since leaving Kumbo, we had been conscious of the locals feeling much closer to the clans across the border than they do to their compatriots in the distant coastal rain-forests or the deserts of the north.

  Near the village of Ribao our ancienne voie joined a motorable (in dry weather) track l
inking Mayo Darle with Nigeria. Here we were to turn right, instead of continuing into Ribao – but at the junction Rachel suddenly sat down and said, ‘Would you like to lead Egbert?’

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘Sort of lethargic,’ admitted Rachel, ‘and my legs are all achey.’

  Maternal concern often manifests itself as irritability. ‘Hah!’ said I. ‘Salt deficiency! I told you this would happen if you didn’t eat your salt!’

  ‘I’ll be ok in a minute,’ said Rachel pathetically, resting her head on her knees.

  My anxiety level soared. Fourteen years of travelling together had taught me that Rachel’s middle name is Stoicism; if she gives in there is something dreadfully wrong.

  ‘You are stupid!’ I ranted. ‘It’s crazy to trek in this heat and not eat salt!’ I produced some, which Rachel meekly consumed. Then she sucked a few glucose tablets. Egbert meanwhile was grazing happily. I mooched off into the scrub, pretending to bird-watch.

  Fifteen minutes later Rachel said, ‘Now I’m OK. Let’s push on.’

  I led Egbert and tried to persuade myself that all was well. For miles we followed the crest of that glorious ridge, Rachel sucking glucose at intervals and seeming quite cheerful. A frolicking breeze pushed small white round clouds across the sky and tempered the sun’s heat. Occasional thatched Fulani compounds were surrounded by high wickerwork fences. Many cattle grazed between low trees but we saw nobody until the day’s one vehicle overtook us: a bush-taxi coming from Ribao.

  It stopped. Two soldiers emerged – one Francophone, one Anglophone – their uniforms without insignia, their faces without smiles. The fat Anglophone unzipped his fly and pee’d almost onto my boots while asking, ‘Where you come from?’

  ‘From Bamenda,’ I replied.

  ‘Not true!’ exclaimed the soldier, shaking his little willy and tucking it away. ‘Bamenda is far, far! You come from Nigeria – give me your passports!’

  I gave them. He stared at the green booklets and enquired, ‘You are German people?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘we are Irish people – from Ireland.’

  ‘Ireland? What is Ireland?’ He glared angrily at me, slapping his left hand with the passports.

  ‘Our country,’ I explained. ‘Where we live – where we have our compound.’

  Meanwhile the Francophone had been surveying Egbert’s load. He said something to his mate who eagerly asked us, ‘What happens you go sick in bush?’

  ‘We have medicines,’ I foolishly replied.

  ‘Show us your medicines!’ demanded the Anglophone, adding frankly, ‘These might be useful for us!’

  Regretfully I pointed out that we couldn’t show them because they were deep inside the load which was very difficult to undo.

  ‘Show us everything!’ ordered the Anglophone. ‘That is normal, you must show! We are border guards and many smuggle from Nigeria – it is normal to show!’

  Here Rachel craftily intervened. ‘You undo the load,’ she suggested. ‘We are too tired and the knots are very difficult.’

  ‘Yes,’ I echoed, 'you undo it. But take care! This dangerous horse, he kick plenty!’

  We sat down, like people not in a hurry, and repeated that we were too tired to attempt the hazardous task of unloading such an evil-tempered brute. But we had no objection to their unloading and examining all our baggage.

  Much argument followed, in an increasingly amiable key. Finally the Anglophone admitted, rather disarmingly, ‘We fear horses – we go!’ And they went.

  We found this confrontation less amusing at the time than in retrospect.

  Soon a brief downpour refreshed us. Where Mayo Darle first came deceptively into view, hours before we got there, cultivated fields replaced forest and scrub. The cultivators – both men and women – were truly black skinned (few Africans are) and regarded us with nervous suspicion. Later we learned that these people are Kwondjas, a tribe who remained enslaved by the Fulanis until the 1950s. Around one corner we came face to face with a leggy Mbororo girl; she emitted a weird wail and bolted into the bushes.

  When Rachel again needed to rest we sat on a grassy bank and I somewhat belatedly expressed sympathy. But my suggestion that we should spend the night at a Fulani compound was rejected and I was accused of ‘fussing’. I warned that Mayo Darle was further than it looked but Rachel – fortunately – remained resolute. As we began the long, gradual descent another brief downpour made the track treacherous and Egbert, perhaps remembering his Lingham fall, slowed down considerably.

  Two hours later there came a repeat performance of our evening on a bare mountain, with the difference that this storm lasted much longer and the sound and lighting effects were not quite so spectacular. When the heavenly damn burst without warning we were about a mile from the town, on a steep hill that within moments became a river.

  Gale-driven sheets of water almost blinded us and I could hear poor Egbert thinking, ‘Not again!’ For his sake we soon took refuge on the wide verandah of a large roadside shuttered house. But he was unnerved by the torrent’s tattooing on the tin roof and would only put his forequarters under shelter, which meant that the waterfall from the gutterless roof streamed directly onto the load.

  We sat shivering on a narrow bench in the macabre twilight created by these tropical storms. I studied Rachel and shouted, ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Fine!’ she shouted back untruthfully. Her eyes seemed to have shrunk and her shivering was much more violent than my own. I put a hand on her forehead and guesstimated that her temperature was not less than 103°F. ‘Nonsense!’ she snapped. ‘Mothers always exaggerate!’

  A smiling woman came tripping down the hill – the only person in sight – her shoes on her head, her wrap-around gown clinging to her portly form. She waved cheerfully and I reflected that Mayo Darle had probably been praying for rain. Yet such deluges are not what the rainmakers try to attract. We could see the water rushing down the steep field opposite, not being absorbed by the earth but sweeping the topsoil into the Mayo Darle – which was rising rapidly as we watched.

  Then our involuntary host – an elderly man – came racing around the corner of his house. On seeing us he stopped as though pole-axed, but quickly recovered himself and beckoned us to follow him inside. Rachel did so. I stayed with Egbert who needed constant soothing, verbal and tactile, as the thunder crackled and boomed – less continuously than on the bare mountain, which for him made it all the more terrifying.

  Thirty chilling minutes later the wind dropped and the rain eased, though only very slightly. I found Rachel slumped dopily in an armchair in a big empty half-dark room. Of our host, or anybody else, there was no sign. By then however we were too demoralised to worry about the finer points of politesse.

  ‘Let’s go!’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get you into a bed somewhere – and fast!’

  We waded down towards the Mayo Darle, by now a wildly swirling red-brown torrent. A man was pushing a hand-cart over the bridge and despair engulfed me. This wasn’t a real bridge but a few loose sheets of warped scrap iron laid over a few flexible tree trunks – the hand-cart’s crossing sounded like a heavy metal band gone berserk. No horse that I have ever known would take on such a contraption. Without altering my pace I looked at Egbert, who was wearing his ‘pained resignation’ expression. (His range of expressions was truly remarkable.) Then suddenly I knew that he would, as always, oblige. Which he did, following me across those rattling metal sheets without any trace of nervousness. On the far side three women in a doorway were diverted to see me embracing my horse.

  When I yelled an inquiry about ‘Africa hotel?’ the women yelled back, ‘No hotel here!’ This, we subsequently discovered, was untrue. Mayo Darle has numerous doss-houses, being on one of Cameroon’s main motorways and a staging-post for trans-continental truckers. But no doubt the good ladies deemed those establishments unfit for Whites.

  We now joined the international motorway – a wider earth track, also conv
erted to a river. At the junction stood a sodden gendarme, wearing no waterproofs; sensibly, the locals don’t even try to defy such storms.

  ‘From Nigeria?’ asked the gendarme.

  ‘From Bamenda,’ I corrected, without stopping.

  ‘Halt!’ cried he. ‘This way not from Bamenda! You cannot walk from Bamenda – nobody walk from Bamenda! You come Customs and Immigration – show passports, show health papers, fill immigration forms, show baggage!’

  I paused, glanced over my shoulder and said through clenched teeth, ‘You must be joking! Look at us! And my daughter has fever – we’re going straight to the Mission.’

  The gendarme waved his arms in the air. ‘This is not your daughter! You tell me lies! This is your wife!’

  ‘Get stuffed!’ growled Rachel from the background.

  I turned and strode purposefully away up the long main street past a row of colossal parked trucks bringing cargoes (and no doubt AIDS) from the Central African Republic to Douala. A hundred yards on we glanced back. The gendarme was still standing at the junction, peering at us through an opacity of rain.

  Reluctant as we were to sorn on the Mission, especially when diseased, there seemed to be no alternative. Two little boys volunteered to guide us through a network of steep laneways – now cataracts. The distance was about two miles but it felt like twenty.

  Mayo Darle’s solitary missionary (Franz, a Dutch Mill Hill priest) was unsurprised to see us; he had just returned from a visit to St Augustine’s. Standing on his wide verandah, he nodded and smiled through the curtain of rain, and shouted something inaudible above the tattoo on the roof, and pointed to the guest room – where Rachel at once collapsed onto the single bed.