African in America

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African in America Page 10

by Wenceslaus Muenyi


  I felt very strange after hearing the story. I didn’t remember looking up to my dad at all. But, it was still nice to hear it before walking into the cold mortuary room.

  My family soon joined me to view the body. Sylvia burst into fanatical crying. She couldn’t hold it in; she had spoken to our father almost every, single day for the past year, and now he wasn’t there anymore. Rather, he was lying there, lifeless and still and cold. She screamed questions at him, asking him why he’d left her; why he hadn’t stayed to see his new granddaughter, Zoey; why he had to get treatment at the same hospital that had almost killed him once before. Why, why, why. It seemed her questions never stopped coming. They were questions no one could answer, and all we could do was listen, and ache, and then comfort her.

  My brothers’ visits were short and involved their own kind of quiet grief:

  Val walked up to the body and said what he had to say in just a few quiet words.

  Francis touched our father’s chest and just walked away.

  I approached, thinking, ‘This is my dad. I don’t remember much about him, and now I‘ll never have the chance to create lasting memories that I can share with my children.’ My dad lay right in front of me, lifeless and gone. I wondered if he could hear my thoughts; if he would touch my hand back if I touched his; if I would ever get the memories back of him that I had most obviously forgotten; and, lastly, if I would ever see him again. All these questions resounded in my head as I cried, lightly touched his hand, and then walked away.

  After we sat down, everyone who had remained behind in the main mortuary waiting area was allowed to come in and look at him. Though I’d seen some intense crying the previous day—and even just minutes before, from Sylvie—I didn’t anticipate the crying which was to follow. As soon as the door opened the room thundered with tears. They cried like they’d just lost everything they had to live for. They cried as if it were their best friend, brother, their sister, their own father, lying there on the table. At first I was surprised, but then I realized the truth: they cried so deeply because that was how much my father had meant to them.

  What was wrong with me? These people were weeping their hearts out and I was barely crying. Why couldn’t I feel the kind of sadness that so many of them felt?

  Then I realized: it was because I didn’t remember my father. I didn’t remember being very close with him. But, as I sat there watching all the others weep and go by, I felt like I had missed my golden opportunity. I would never bask in the light of the great man whom everyone here had loved. I’d missed out on enjoying my father and my chance at any kind of meaningful father-son relationship had vanished.

  I sat there, watching and sulking and grieving in my own way, until, thirty minutes later, we had my father’s body loaded in the main car and were bumping along the roads toward home. Before getting back in the car I caught up with Mr. Fred again. I asked him how he felt, seeing as he had lost his best friend that he had seen every day for the past twenty years. He looked away from me, thinking, tears welling in his eyes. He told me he’d seen this coming, but it didn’t seem to have prepared him any better. It didn’t make a difference, he said, because his best friend was still lying there, unable to say even one word to him.

  That was enough for me to shut up and walk away.

  We arrived safely in Ndop after another brutal three hour drive which, this time, involved a blown tire. The drive also included more stops.

  The first was at the church my dad had attended. We carried Dad to the church and sat through a ceremony. The Father [clergyman] there told us a story about how dedicated to his faith Moh had been, and how weak and how old my father had become toward the end. He talked about the times when Moh couldn’t walk and had to lean almost all his weight on his wife so that he could make it to church on time. He told us about the time my dad went to the Father’s office when he was not accepting visitors and how my dad refused to be dismissed.

  “He came to church every day,” he said, “regardless of his health, and so when he needed to see me and I tried to turn him away, he put his foot down. Moh said he hoped I would make time for him.”

  In response, the Father asked him what he wanted. My dad asked him for his blessing. That is all he wanted, to have the Father’s blessing and prayers. He told the Father that he was not ready to die, that he had a lot more work to do in this world and his time was not now. My dad was a devout Christian and it showed in the way he lived his life; he hoped God would let him live longer so he could help everyone else have a good life. Obviously, I thought, that hadn’t been the plan.

  After the church service we took my dad to the living room of his house and prepared for the town viewing. This goodbye party was huge. The entire town was there. I couldn’t believe it. People even came in from different cities—which was not an easy task—to see this man. He was so big and so important in Cameroon, his influence had reached wider than anyone could have imagined.

  During the service—which was not only about grieving, but about celebrating a good (no, a great) life—I walked around and said hi to everyone who knew me. I even danced for the people who were standing out in front of the house. After dancing for hours I couldn’t do it anymore and went to the back of the house to see who was there. Turned out all the younger kids were hanging out, waiting for food. They came to celebrate my father and, since their whole life he probably helped feed them in one way or another, they were there to eat one last time at his house. Twenty to thirty kids were there, mostly boys, all waiting and eager to talk to me. They made jokes, laughed, and tried to be as strong as possible next to me because they didn’t want to seem needy and weak. I laughed with them, and said they should be getting fed in a short while. Half an hour later the food emerged from the kitchen, plates and all. Even though the day had been full of sadness, watching those kids spring toward the food was one of the saddest things I had ever seen. They rushed their way to the food like they had not eaten anything all day. I asked my cousin why they were rushing like that, hoping for an answer I didn’t already suspect. He said it was probably because they had had only a very small meal that morning and nothing since; he told me people there typically run on one meal a day. I watched them gorge: they were served plates and, after eating what they’d received, came back for seconds and thirds and fourths… until the food was gone. I ate some myself, but spent most of my attention on the kids. It wasn’t long before I called it a day and returned to the hotel for another night of restless sleep.

  Image of the photo given to me by the priest at the mortuary.

  The photo depicts me as a child, wearing my dad’s boots.

  Bye-Bye, Dad.

  The morning rose. Today we would bury my father in the town of Baba, on the road about 14 miles east of Ndop. After that, I would never see his face again.

  My family and I woke up early in the day. Once we were piled into the car, we drove to the church located in the village and waited through another service—so many religious ceremonies happen in the burial process. After the final and lengthy church service, we took my dad to his house in Baba and laid him out for one last showing. People from the town came and saw my dad, said their goodbyes, some longer than others. Sylvie cried a lot.

  Afterward we marched to the burial site down the hill from the house; my father would rest in a plot next to his brother, father, and mother. We all took turns throwing a handful of soil into the grave—first me and my immediate family, then everyone else. We held my sister back as she wept and watched our father as he being was lowered down into the ground. My sister and I stood there holding each other. It was then that it hit me that those moments were the last memories I would have of seeing Moh, my father. I had known it before, but somehow it hadn’t become real. Now, everything was suddenly very real.

  Out of nowhere someone started bawling loudly. Everyone turned their heads to look. I realized quickly that it was Francis. Not only did he stick out like a sore thumb—he was the only person there
above six feet tall and with a Mohawk—but Francis was the last person I’d expect to cry. He was always so tough, so serious. I watched in succession as, after him, Val followed with tears of his own, and then Sylvie really couldn’t help herself. Everyone cried as they watched my dad drop away forever into the loving embrace of Mother Earth.

  After final prayers had been whispered, we walked back up the hill to the house. There was still work to be done. We prepared to serve food and drinks to the people who had attended. We wanted the village king, who was also my mother’s cousin, to come to the funeral reception services, so my family and I went up the road to ask him to come down and mourn with us. Since he was a family relative he was expected to attend, regardless of if we went to fetch him or not.

  As we—Val, Uncle Moh Yenkong and his son, the driver, and myself—drove up the hill toward the king’s home, located on the highest and most scenic peak in the village, we saw a group of people dressed in costumes walking toward the house, people you never wanted to see coming at you: the Juju. They had been sent down by the king to dance and to celebrate the close of the funeral. Though the Juju were generally an unwelcome sight, it was a good thing and a blessing they were going to my father’s house.

  When we arrived we found the king sitting outside his house enjoying a nice conversation with other townspeople. Aside from owning all the land and having control over the people, the village king is a man who isn’t so different from any of the rest of us. Rules dictate that common people are not allowed to talk directly to the king unless he speaks to you first; we certainly don’t shake his hand in greeting, and we just bow and walk away when the conversation is ended. So that’s what we did: we sat down quietly next to his people. He greeted us. We gave him the gifts we’d brought and asked him how he was doing and if he knew we were in town for our father’s funeral. The rest of the conversation was in the traditional language and I do not know it well enough to translate it here. Nevertheless, we talked to him and then after he served us drinks we returned to my father’s house. Our mission was complete: we had gone to invite the king and now we were to wait and see if he would show up.

  The party which both celebrated my father’s life and mourned his passing went on late into the evening. I was already tired by the time we returned to the house from the King’s and there were still many more hours of celebrating and crying and socializing to do. But some other excitement had occurred while I’d been away.

  The Juju I had seen on my way out to the king’s had apparently been told to find my mom and my siblings and I so that they could dance and get money from us. He had been begun searching for us since Val and I had gone to the king’s. In my village if the Juju dances for you and you don’t give him money he has the king’s authority to beat you until he is tired of beating you. Unfortunately, my mom, Sylvie, and Francis didn’t have any money on them, and that meant that if the Juju caught them there was a good chance he would beat them senseless. Well, because they knew they were in for it, when Mom and Francis were walking up to the house from the gravesite area and the Juju spotted both of them my mom broke out running the opposite direction while Francis ran toward the house to safety (they are not allowed to enter into anyone’s house). Since my mom was a slower target and the Juju probably assumed she had more money, he chased her. According to my cousins, the chase went on for half an hour. During that time my mom hid behind trees, behind other people, behind houses. She eventually made it inside, where she was off limits from the Juju. It was all in good fun, and I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard the story.

  The rest of the day was filled with more social obligations, more tears, more stories being told, working to keep everyone at the event happy, and generally just doing everything else required from us. (In my village’s culture there are so many rituals to complete before the funeral process is ended and the dead souls can move on, so we were really hoping everything was going according to tradition.) After we did all we could do for the day, my siblings and I drove back to the hotel. My mom stayed behind and slept on the floor of the village house, and, boy, did I feel for her. The village house had only one bathroom, no beds, no lights, and masses of mosquitos ready to enjoy some imported, fresh-from-America blood. Mom must have been eaten alive while she slept. The only plus was that Mary slept there next to her on the ground and kept her company.

  When bad things happened, it always seemed to be the two of them against the world.

  The decorated vehicle at the front of the funeral procession for Moh Muenyi.

  A line of mourners march and play drums.

  My cousin walks, holding a large portrait of Moh Muenyi.

  An event Juju in costume.

  Preparing Again for America.

  The remainder of our stay in Cameroon was long and uninteresting. I was excited and a bit sad when time came to go back to Minnesota.

  The day following the funeral and reception event had been full of fighting and arguments, with one side of my dad’s family wanting more from us than anyone else and trying to take advantage of us, probably because we were “rich Americans”. They wanted us to give them money (a lot of it), food, drinks, and even chickens. The king never showed up to the celebration; he ended up sending his wife in his place, which was wrong to do considering my mom is his cousin and he should have been there himself. The family was pretty upset over it.

  My sister had to go stay with her extended family for a few days, so I went with her to Bamenda (about ten miles away) to keep her company. Her father-in-law (The Chairman) was one funny and interesting man. I ended up having some very nice conversations with him about Cameroon and about the future of the country in general. I asked him why he still tried so hard to run for president regardless of the fact that he knew the current president-elect would rig the elections to win. He told me the country’s citizens were his children and that he was there to help them all succeed; he told me how he enjoyed his job because he was the hope they needed and they, in return, put a smile on his face. He told me how happy he was to receive the love the people gave to him and that is why he kept doing it: to be the hope they needed. His love for the people warmed my heart. Toward the end of our visit, he was kind enough to write for me in the journal I’d brought along for the trip.

  In the meantime, Mom was on edge because she had been up for over thirty hours organizing and coordinating the event, attending to the questions and inquiries everyone kept going to her for. My mom had coordinated the funeral with only small bits of help from other people. I think she might be one of the best organizers in the world because getting Africans to do something (and do it on time) is a battle very few people can win, especially while running on zero sleep and having to remember every little detail down to what everyone is eating and drinking. To say the least, when it was time to return to America she was very ready to sleep in her own bed again.

  As for Francis and Valery, they were more than ready to return to the States. Thanks to some diplomatic connections and some more well-directed money throwing, Valery had overcome any barriers with his green passport and had received all the documents and permissions he needed in order to return to America.

  We were lucky to have The Chairman lend us his car again. From Ndop, Sylvie, Val, and I headed off to the coast, to Doula, to catch our flight. With nine hours to go until take-off, and with the drive taking about six hours, we were on a bit of a time crunch. We packed our luggage and some bags of food into the three cars and were off. Thanks to the skillfully quick maneuvers and lead foot of The Chairman’s driver, we were in Doula a short four hours later; he’d left the other two cars—one which carried Mom and Francis, and the other with some family members who wanted to see us off—far behind. The driver quickly unloaded us and our belongings. He told us how he had to drive another three hours east to pick someone else up and take that person back to where he came from. The man was a machine! We knew we were lucky to have him drive us. We gave him some Nyquil to take when he returned ho
me, so he could get some serious sleep because we knew he needed it.

  About an hour later the other cars showed up. Though there were stressful moments and awkward encounters, all in all I was sad to say goodbye. Ten years is a long time to be gone and I didn’t know when I’d be back again. My aunt gave me a hug then turned around and walked away, crying. She loved us very much and loved to see her big sister, so she was very, very sad to see us go.

  We went into the airport, got our tickets and bags checked, paid for our Visas, bought a few things, and then were off to go through the security check. Just like coming into the country, bribing seemed to be the only way out. We went to the gate and the American passport holders—my mom, Francis, and I—were deemed “all clear” without hardly a second look (again, being American overseas rocks!). Sylvie and Val, who were still considered Cameroonian with their green passports, ran into the expected road blocks. The airport officials did not want to let them get on the plane to America because their visits back to Cameroon were too few and far between. In addition, the person whom they’d bribed upon their arrival into Africa hadn’t stamped their documents, so they didn’t even have proof of entry! This meant they had to pray to God for some help, and pray we did. Lucky for them, the official who they’d bribed the first time was nearby and they were able to get her attention. After tossing her some more money she walked them past security and Sylvie and Val were free to go to their gates.

 

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