‘You can argue later,’ said Joy, ‘when you’re fit again. Right now neither of you can go anywhere.’
I happily endured my second sleepless night; but for the abscess and the ulcers, we would not have returned to Bamenda in time to act on the vet’s letter.
Joy began her ambulance delivery round early next (Monday) morning. By 7.40 a.m. I had been dropped off at the Bamenda General Hospital where a Paris-trained Francophone dentist holds a daily clinic starting, in theory, at 8 a.m. I was too pain-obsessed to snoop around the hospital, but to get to the dental clinic one has to walk between all the wards and I took in enough — through eyes, nose and ears — to rejoice at not being an in-patient.
By 9.45 there was a long queue, including several unfortunates in apparently — even more agony than myself. The dentist arrived at 9.50 and saw me half an hour later. He was tall, elegant, gentle, kind. He x-rayed my jaw and told me to come back early next morning for the result; he would have to develop the plates at his home that evening. He mentioned that a tooth-abscess of such magnitude, if it infects the brain, can be fatal. Then, dismissing our broad-spectrum antibiotics as worse than useless, he wrote a prescription for something more appropriate which I must begin to take at once. And he added a prescription for powerful pain-killers, imported from France and specifically aimed at tooth-abscesses.
Meanwhile Joy had driven the hideously suppurating Rachel to another clinic, miles away in the opposite direction, where she was given a prescription for Ampicillan — not, alas! available in Bamenda. (My capsules were available.) As a second-best, she started a course of Tetracycline.
Early next morning, after a third sleepless night, I was back in the dentist’s queue. He appeared at 9.20 a.m. and looked very taken aback on seeing me; he had forgotten my x-ray. When he at once returned to his home, in some distant salubrious suburb, my fellow-sufferers might have been expected to complain but didn’t. (Do Africans ever complain about delays? Presumably not, for the reasons suggested by Professor Mbiti.)
That x-ray was not a pretty picture. It showed a treble abscess, afflicting three molar roots, and it had to be cured before its cause could be investigated. All now depended on the antibiotics, which were as yet having no effect.
For four days neither of us wrote up our diaries and my recollection of events is somewhat confused; by that Tuesday I was almost delirious with pain. Yet the Egbert news had induced a euphoria that on one level transcended the abscess — so strangely does mind dominate matter.
Rachel’s ulcers were not responding to the Tetracycline and seemed to be worsening hourly. I found them much more worrying than my own condition and was reprimanded for this — ‘I’m grown up! You must control your maternal instinct!’ Yet the reverse syndrome was also operating. That evening Joy put Rachel in a separate bedroom, since I, plainly, was not going to be a soothing companion during the stilly watches. But within an hour she came limping back: ‘I’d prefer to be here to keep an eye on you.’
By then I did look alarming — rather as though I had had a stroke. My face was twisted, with one eye half-closed, and even had I wished to eat I could not have swallowed. The new pain-killers were no more effective than the old. All night I sat up in bed, rocking to and fro nonstop and reading P. D. James’s Death of an Expert Witness. Few authors could have delivered me from madness that night; P. D. James did. I have ever since felt grateful to her for writing that book. Meanwhile Rachel was sleeping — but restlessly. Could our Wum SSP friend have seen her legs, he would certainly have diagnosed leprosy.
That night was the abscess’s climax. At about 7 a.m. the pain began to ease slightly; my antibiotics were winning. But Rachel’s were not. There remained only one thing to do: take a bush-taxi to Yaounde on the morrow (Thursday).
Efficiently the Parkinsons got us organised — exit visas secured, taxi seats booked. In Yaounde we were to stay a night with friends of theirs, then get the train to N’gaoundere, arriving in time for the famous Fulani celebrations of the first day of Id — marking the end of Ramadan. From N’gaoundere we could, we supposed, get bush-taxis to Galim and walk on — presuming our antibiotics had by then done their jobs to Makelele and Egbert.
It seems unfair to comment on a city in which one has spent only thirty-six hours. Yet I cannot resist commenting that thirty-six hours in Yaounde seemed enough; the capital of Cameroon does not tempt one to linger.
We arrived at 2.30 p.m. after a six-hour journey on a velvet-smooth road, recently completed. The hilly green landscape was pleasant but not exciting; we didn’t wish we were trekking.
Antibiotic addiction in urban Cameroon ensures that there are many pharmacies; but unfortunately Ascension Thursday is a Christian public holiday so all Yaounde’s pharmacies were closed. Moreover, they would probably remain closed until the following Monday. For what reason? For because on Sundays pharmacies are, naturally, closed. And this Saturday was a Muslim public holiday (Id). And so this Friday was likely to be a ‘bridging public holiday’. But nobody was sure about that; it would not be decided until the morning. Decided by whom? The government, of course. And could the government not decide today? No, because today was a public holiday and the government wasn’t functioning … Well then, could the government not have decided yesterday? Baffled silence from the young man to whom we were talking.
Possibly a letter from my publisher awaited me in the British Embassy. We asked the young man if all embassies observe all Cameroonian public holidays. Some do, he said, and some don’t …
We soon found the embassy; Yaounde at least has the advantage of being a mini-capital. The front door was shut but the back door was open. The Cameroonian staff were off enjoying their public holiday, the British staff were so busy trying to decide whether they were or were not on duty that they couldn’t find the mail. Thus does Cameroon undermine British phlegm. Subsequently that letter turned up in the British Consulate in Douala, with a kind covering note from the Ambassador.
In Cameroon it is not possible to telephone your friends in the next city to tell them that two diseased Irish vagrants are on the way. But the Farmers gallantly made us feel that diseased vagrants are their favourite sort of overnighters. And in their opulent guest room history was made at 5.50 p.m. when my abscess burst — the physiological equivalent of a hurricane. Suddenly, wondrously, I was free of pain. (Not of course free of soreness, but soreness and pain are two quite different sensations.)
The next day was a bridging public holiday. But Bill, our host — moved to terror and pity by Rachel’s legs — swore there must be an open pharmacy somewhere and spent hours driving us around the city. At noon we found one and on the spot Rachel began her Ampicillan course. We then bought tickets for the 7 p.m. night train to N’gaoundere and were advised by the girl in the booking-office to be back in the railway station by 5.30, if we wanted to be sure of seats.
It is a Cameroonian idiosyncrasy that no road connects the capital to the important town of N’gaoundere. Everything goes by rail, including cars, jeeps, trucks, motor-bicycles, tractors and bulldozers. Apparently this rail-roading of vehicles is worthwhile because a velvet-surfaced highway runs north from N’gaoundere to the big towns of Garoua and Maroua.
Having paid for our train tickets, it seemed that my CFA-padded hips were ominously slim. Sitting in the comfortable ex-Italian (why Italian?) railway carriage, I counted our remaining notes and realised that we were broke. Seriously broke. Almost destitute. Without money for transport to Galim, without money for even the meanest dosshouses, with scarcely enough money for the next fortnight’s food. Suddenly Egbert became financially as well as emotionally important. If the horse awaiting us were not Egbert, or if we couldn’t sell him in Mayo Darlé, we would have to borrow from the Foxes.
‘Why are we broke?’ demanded Rachel.
I did sums on the back of my diary. During the past week we had spent more than 50,000 CFA (about £110) on antibiotics, pain-killers, dental expenses, transport and exit visas — all, excep
t the last, unexpected expenses. (In Cameroon antibiotics are sold at criminally inflated prices.) And those 50,000 CFA made all the difference between having more than enough to get back to Heathrow and not having enough to eat.
‘This is a challenge!’ I said brightly. ‘We’re spoiled First Worlders — it won’t do us any harm to be destitute for a fortnight.’
Rachel grunted unenthusiastically, looking as though she’d recently had enough challenges, and swallowed her second dose of Ampicillan.
Cameroonian rail travel is orderly and dull, compared to its Indian equivalent, but in our debilitated condition that suited us; we needed rest more than local colour. The carriages were clean and without visible livestock, though towards dawn sounds of muffled crowing came from under one seat. When the train pulled out, only half an hour late, it was full but not overcrowded. After so long in the bush, hearing only Pidgin, Foulfouldé and local languages, it seemed odd to hear our fellow-passengers conversing animatedly in French. (The Francophones speak French much more fluently than the Anglophones speak English.) But for once we didn’t become socially involved: soon we were sound asleep.
I awoke at dawn feeling won-der-ful — not only pain-free but unsore. (‘It’s the saliva,’ said Rachel scientifically. ‘Mouth sores always heal quickly.’)
That was a cool, cloudy dawn and through a haze of light rain I gazed across miles of green scrubby hills. The few compounds of small thatched huts looked impoverished and there was little cultivation. Yet the locals seemed sturdy and cheerful. Perhaps they eat a lot of fish; for the rest of the way the track ran close beside the broad brown Vina river.
At 7 a.m. we stopped for an hour at a small station where no one got on or off but much trading took place between hungry travellers and enterprising locals. One of the main items was delicious thick dark honey, sold in large whiskey, gin or vodka bottles at 500 CFA (just over £1) each. As honey is good for convalescents, we invested. The young man beside Rachel was such an addict that he at once ate half his bottle out of the palm of his hand. In between lickings he told us that N’gaoundere’s population is ‘30,000 — or maybe 50,000’.
Whatever its population, the Fulani capital is very much our sort of place. A straggling, friendly pre-colonial town, its old imposing Lamidat and its new less imposing mosque seem far more important than the extensive but decaying colonial district. To have arrived on the first day of Id was the sort of good fortune scatty travellers like the Murphies do not deserve. As we walked the mile or so from the station to the town centre, many groups of children and young people were already out showing off their colourful new Id outfits and exchanging Id gifts. And the streets were dominated by horsemen on extravagantly caparisoned steeds — some of the horsemen, aged eight or ten, having trouble because their steeds were too fiery.
Our food ration for that day consisted of honey on two warm crisp baguettes. We breakfasted near the mosque, an otherwise handsome building spoiled — as is the enormous new Catholic church at Fundong — by peculiarly virulent stained glass windows.
Suddenly the equestrian excitement all around reached a crescendo. Then eight-foot-long copper trumpets were blown by ‘slaves’ in knee-length tunics as the Lamido emerged from his palace at the head of a medieval procession — mounted on a charger and brandishing a spear. Beside him walked an improbably tall retainer, gorgeously robed and twirling a colossal blue and white umbrella above his master’s turbaned head. The horses’ manes were tightly plaited and their bridles lavishly decorated with coloured beads and woollen bobbles. Their warrior riders wore fine old brocade gowns, immensely long cummerbunds (to be taken off later and waved during mock battles) and ancient embossed leather knee-boots. Small boys riding small ponies carried small spears. Everyone chanted vigorously to the sound of war-drums, cymbals and trumpets.
Enthralled, we accompanied this exercise in nostalgia through the town centre to a sandy parade-ground. There a huge crowd had assembled to watch daring feats of horsemanship, processions of ‘slaves’ (old men who may well have been born into slavery), processions of solemnly dancing women singing songs to inspire the warriors, and processions of riderless horses being led by ‘slaves’. After several ritualistic mock battles, the Lamido was fanned with ostrich feathers while holding a Council of War. Then without warning he galloped off, spear poised, leading all his warriors in a charge that raised so much dust we soon lost sight of them. But ten minutes later they were back to report ‘victory’, before twice repeating the performance. Finally, at sunset, there was a public concert of martial music in the Lamidat — to which even we were admitted, on condition we left our boots outside.
Since we could afford neither supper nor ‘33’, we retired early and hungry to a sleeping-place chosen earlier, a small colonial covered grandstand overlooking the parade-ground. The Gendarmerie was nearby and lest vagrants might be unwelcome to sleep on their territory we didn’t switch on our torch while spreading space-blankets as insulation against the chill of concrete. Again we both slept deeply, despite empty bellies.
The dawn revealed a bag of mangoes lying a few yards away: relief supplies delivered by Fate. Slavering, I seized it. Scores of cockroaches rushed out but had left fourteen fat ripe mangoes unscathed. Beside the nearest standpipe, we enjoyed a filling if unbalanced breakfast.
Although Rachel’s sores were improving fast, it seemed advisable to spend that day lazing around in N’gaoundere. Since we couldn’t afford bush-taxis, and hitch-hiking is not on in the Third World, getting to Makelele might involve a lot of leg-work.
The ulcers had to be regularly stuped and squeezed, then painted with mercurachrome and securely plastered against the dust. While scrounging boiling water at the Catholic Mission we heard a rumour that the Norwegian Lutheran Mission jeep just might be going to Galim next day … But our three-mile walk to that Mission (a suburb in itself) was energy wasted. Even had the rumour been true — it wasn’t — we intuited that the jeep’s owners would much prefer not to have us aboard. They were very clean young Americans and Scandinavians.
Beside the road a nausea-inducing municipal dump — stinking hillocks of rotting refuse — extended for a mile or so. People live opposite, scarcely twenty yards away, in dreary slummy shacks. We returned to the town centre by another route, through a hilly district of attractive Fulani compounds — urban compounds, with high blank mud walls as in old Persian villages. Outside an enormous enclosed market, near the Lamidat, we sat watching the afternoon world go by and enviously sniffing kebabs while trying to concentrate on the millions who endure hunger not merely for a few days but for life… Then suddenly it was dark and all the street stall-holders frantically packed up and vanished. This was a Big Un. For two hours we Scrabbled on the wide concrete verandah of an abandoned colonial-type shop while the street in front of us became a river.
The charcoal-grey sky was almost touching the roof tops as we wandered on, feeling chilled and hungry-gloomy. We were not surprised when the storm resumed, driving us onto the balcony of a beat-up chop-house-cum-bar where we were tortured by the sight and smell of two men eating pasta and mince. When a smiling youth came to take our order my self-control snapped. ‘Let’s share a “33”!’ I suggested-and was not opposed. Never have the Murphies drunk a beer so slowly.
This odd establishment, at a road junction on a hilltop, was open on three sides to the elements. As these became ever more ferocious, we huddled in sagging, brown plastic-covered armchairs in the balcony’s one sheltered corner, while an icy gale drove sheets of rain across the few little tables and flooded the floor.
Then Belo appeared, racing up the steps from the street: tall, slim, handsome, kindly. A young Fulani aristocrat, he had just bought this chop-house; he apologised for its beat-up state; soon he would improve it. For eight years he had been working as an interpreter with the Peace Corps and similar organisations: his English, French and German were equally fluent. Moreover, he thought he knew of a jeep, bound for Tignere next day, in which we cou
ld travel free. Obviously, though not brashly, he was a rich man. And by this stage of malnutrition even Rachel was without hang-ups about accepting an invitation from someone for whom we had no dash.
This was our only experience of an urban Fulani home. Belo’s ‘townhouse’, one of many large though jerry-built bungalows in a tree-rich suburb, also accommodated four non-rent paying village students who otherwise could not have afforded to live in the city. He had no servant and himself cooked our supper of noodles and scrambled eggs: an unhappy-sounding combination, but to us, that evening, a food of the gods. It seems Fulani frugality survives city life. Although adequately comfortable, Belo’s bungalow was free (apart from a compound-blaster) of those non-essentials which most rich non-Fulanis find irresistible. Belo vacated his own bedroom for us; he was in any case going to a late-night Id party which we convalescents deemed it prudent to eschew. By 9 p.m. we were asleep on a Dunlopillo double-mattress on the floor. As our host sensibly observed, ‘Soft mattresses don’t need legs.’
Next morning Rachel’s ulcers were no longer painfully inflamed; no wonder Cameroonians see antibiotics as White Man’s magic. While Belo prepared breakfast – clove tea and fresh baguettes – we conversed with four pet rabbits who lived, apparently happily, in a huge raised cage opposite the kitchen window. He had bought them as a novel source of food, then fallen hopelessly in love with them. They had been bred, he told us, in Bamenda – by the Parkinsons.
News came then of the Tignere-bound jeep’s indisposition; it was awaiting a ‘piece’ from Yaounde and would not be travelling for a few days – ‘or it could be a few weeks,’ Belo admitted cheerfully. He urged us to wait for it: ‘I would like you to meet all my friends in N’gaoundere and to stay with my family in our village.’ Sadly we declined this invitation, explaining that our allotted span in Cameroon was running out. At 7.45 a.m. we set off to walk, if necessary, to Tignere, on a virtually traffic-free earth-track. The distance is only eighty miles: at worst, without lifts, a three-day marathon.
Cameroon with Egbert Page 38