I, Eric Ngalle

by Ngalle, Eric;

  *

  I remember my little goat called Evenya’a Mboli; I loved that goat so much. I fed her and watched her grow into a proper mother. It was my responsibility to release her from the Ewing (a sleeping space for the goats and other small domestic animals) every day when I came home from school and I used to skip along with her. One afternoon, after arriving home from school, I released Evenya’a Mboli and a few minutes later I heard my uncle, Mola (Mola at the beginning of a name is a sign of respect, it means uncle) David, shouting, ‘Eric! Come quick!’ When I came out to meet my uncle, he looked distraught and said, ‘Pa Takesh has killed Evenya’a Mboli!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked and followed my uncle to where my beautiful goat had been slain by a local hunter called Pa Takesh. I burst into tears for Evenya’a Mboli.

  Pa Takesh had hunted all the little rodents in the village into extinction and had been eyeing up my goat, planning his fatal strike. As tradition demanded, I would be required to carry the carcass to the chief’s compound to be divided between Pa Takesh, the villagers and me. I knew all this. I knew the villagers would be waiting for me. I went back home and got a big bowl, came back and bundled the remains of Evenya’a Mboli into it. As I did this, I discovered that she had been pregnant and that Pa Takesh’s machete blow had sliced the kid goat in half.

  I locked myself up in the kitchen and cried. Then I made a huge fire and burnt the hairs from the goat before cutting off pieces from the hind leg and roasting them on a banana leaf with some pepper and salt. Boy that goat tasted good. As I mourned, I ate and the tears made Evenya’a Mboli even tastier. I never took my goat to the elders. I vowed that if they wished to place a curse on my head, then so be it. Yes, they waited and all the while I was consuming bits of the goat. I never forgave Pa Takesh. Even when I heard he died, I only felt a small void because I never forgot he had killed my goat.

  *

  The first time I saw a trolley bus was when we arrived in Stavropol. We climbed on and the conductor smiled and said that we didn’t need tickets. Unbeknown to us the Rector of Stavropol State University had taken out an advert in the Stavropol Gazette in an appeal to the people of the city to welcome new students. The goodwill from the locals continued until some AIDS test came back positive and the results were leaked to the public; overnight we went from being nice, exotic students from Africa to an abomination that needed purging.

  Once on the university campus the students were allocated rooms inside Kulakova Hostel. From the top of the building you had a panoramic view of Stavropol, the birthplace of Mikhail Gorbachev, which is known as the Ring City as it is surrounded by trees.

  The hostel had a communal kitchen, with a balcony that looked out directly towards the university, which was to prove a great vantage point to see if the university administrators were coming. If spotted, those of us who were not legitimate students would have enough time to climb the stairs all the way up to the 14th floor and hide. On arrival we had been asked to present our passports and I was given six months’ residency, however, since I was not a registered student, I was not allowed to stay at the hostel. It became a cat and mouse situation between the authorities and me.

  The Nigerians stayed to the right of the hostel and the Cameroonians to the left. I took refuge in what became known as the notorious room 11, which was home to those who could not pay their university fees, those who had lied about expecting money from their parents and those who did not know what time of the day it was. I was in the latter category. I had nothing; I ate when Rico and his brother ate—I also joined a prayer group, not by choice, but because after such meetings there would be food. Then someone stole my jacket, even though it wasn’t suitable for the Russian winter. I later saw one of the Ibo Nigerians, a huge chap, wearing it but I was terrified of approaching him, because his hands were as big as shovels.

  Corruption was everywhere. A week after we arrived, the liaison officer appointed by the university to work alongside Agatha, mysteriously disappeared. He had collected money to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars from the students who could afford their fees. This guy had been studying medicine at Stavropol Medical Institute and was well trusted by the students. He was like a demigod due to the fact that he spoke fluent Russian. Little did the university, and the students, know he had bigger plans. By the time they realised what he was up to he was in St Petersburg and heading to Germany.

  One heard all kinds of stories; there was one guy who’d been staying at the hostel long before we arrived, he hailed from a town in south west Cameroon called Mutengene, apparently, he had colluded with his friends and they had managed to obtain horse tranquillisers, which they used to sedate a businessman and stole all his money. He had exiled himself to Russia and was enjoying the money. He was rich and had a party every night.

  As new arrivals in Stavropol, students or not, it was mandatory for us to take an AIDS test. We were arranged into small groups, blood was taken and a couple of days after the test, we had the results. I was clear and felt relieved, but a few others were not so fortunate, especially one couple I still remember, and one other girl. The girl mysteriously disappeared but the couple were carried into a police van and to this day I do not know of their fate.

  Soon after arriving, news was brought to the hostel by some of the students, who attended Russian language classes, about celebrations at Lenin Square. Andy, Rico, a few Ibo guys, and myself decided to go to Lenin Square and join in the celebrations. It was beautiful, filled with beaming searchlights, looking as though they’d reached the heavens, and military parades, filled with everyone from young cadets to seasoned soldiers, marching in such harmonious rhythms.

  I recalled one of my brother’s lectures, on how the Russians celebrated Victory Day, and I was in the middle of it, watching history, albeit a reminiscence of it. I was in a state of complete trance, the marching soldiers, their songs, such pride for their country. A photographer asked if we would like our pictures taken as the soldiers marched by. This was my first picture taken in Russia; although a lack of money meant I never saw what it looked like.

  On the return journey the trolley bus was packed. Rico was sat behind Andy and I, when two beautiful Russian girls got on the bus, and one of them approached and sat on my knees. My heart was pounding, Andy and Rico looked in shock, and other Nigerians looked agape. The Russian began touching my hair carefully, touching my jaw, she was saying something but none of us understood a single word; the other Russians around us laughed, mockingly, or so I thought. She talked all the way to the final stop, just across the road from Hostel Kulakova. I pointed towards the hostel gesturing it was where I lived. That night, all the guys thought I had brought juju (witchcraft—they thought I had charmed the girl) from my village.

  The following morning, at around 11 a.m., there was a knock on room 11; when Andy opened it, the girl I had met the previous evening was there along with her friend. Everyone in room 11 was nervous or shocked. The students had been told not to trust the Russians, in fact, the university had explicitly told the students to avoid making friends with Russians. I had broken a golden rule. Fortunately the girl had brought a Russian English dictionary and after many attempts, I finally learned that her name was Helga. She and her friend had come to invite us to a picnic. The Cameroonians clamoured to advise me not to even think about it because it was a dangerous idea, me alone in the forest with a group of Russians. I pointed out the word ‘food’ and she shook her head saying, ‘There is plenty of food.’

  I managed to convince a boy known as Small Joe to accompany me—we had clicked as soon as we had met. Small Joe was kind, softly spoken and we would go around different rooms together and engage in empty conversations with their occupants until food was cooked, we would then share their food and return to room 11 to wait until our stomachs started rumbling again. I cried when a few months after arriving in Stavropol, Small Joe had to return to Cameroon as one of his brothers had died. Although I was wary, the thought of food spu
rred me on. We left through the back of the hostel and went deep into the woods. I had never been on a picnic—why would anyone want to go on picnic in my village? We have dangerous animals, including mambas, in the countryside. We arrived at the picnic area and joined a group of around twenty Russians and ate a combination of salad, roast lamb and some fruits I had never seen before. We also drank vodka and Pivo (beer). I was eating so much I’m sure Helga was concerned; she held the dictionary open and showed me the words African and starving. I laughed, we laughed. That was the best food I had eaten since I left Cameroon.

  After the food, we played games and chased each other around. The last game we played was tug of war but, unfortunately, the rope snapped and Helga fell, banging her head on the hard ground; she was bleeding. I remember reading a novel called Vendetta, about seizing moments. This was my moment. I helped her sit upright and used some tissues to clean her up. Once the bleeding had stopped, we held hands and walked back towards the hostel. She hugged me and kissed me on the lips. We walked across the fields to her bus stop. It took me what felt like ten hours to reach the hostel that evening. That was the first time I kissed a white girl. I had forgotten about my plight; I could not sleep, I was thinking about Helga and her soft lips.

  We spent the next couple of days together, Helga and I, whilst Small Joe was with Helga’s friend. She was a bit concerned that I was not able to buy so much as a bottle of Coke. We went to a beautiful park; it was the first time I had been on a roller coaster ride. Helga was full of laughter all through whilst Small Joe and I were dying—in fact, I felt so poorly, I wanted to jump out. I promised myself never again. They laughed at us, she showed me the word ‘derevnya’, meaning village, implying I was a village boy. I said, ‘Yes,’ and she promised never to take me on the rides again.

  I had made some Russian friends that I met at the football fields. One of them, not much older than me, spoke a tiny bit of English. The first thing he advised me against was the way I used my hands expressly when talking. He said some people would misconstrue it as me being rude and it might get me into conflicts. I also met a guy who turned out to be one of the biggest mafia types in Stavropol. He had lent me one hundred and fifty dollars on the promise that I was travelling to Moscow to retrieve money sent to me by my father. When I could not afford to repay him, he and his humongous henchmen came and locked down the hostel for four hours. He promised to put my body parts on every bus stop in Stavropol if I did not give his money back. Fortunately for me an emergency collection was held in the hostel that came up with the money to bail me out; otherwise I would have been vaporised.

  One Sunday Helga came to the hostel and said we should go for another picnic, only this time it would be just the two of us. I felt so excited. We crossed the fields and went into a shop not far from the hostel, where we bought some drinks. We found a clear patch and sat down and kissed. She removed my shirt and gradually I removed hers. Our lips never left each other’s. I was thinking to myself, ‘What would my brother make of this scenario?’

  I had spent the last two weeks in Cameroon with my brother in his house in Douala; we spoke at length and patched up our differences—he then took me shopping and bought most of the clothes I wore to Russia.As I thought about my brother, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand reaching and grabbing Helga’s handbag. I looked up and there was a little dude running away with it. I jumped to my feet and gave chase—he must have panicked at the sight of me, almost naked, chasing him through the woods. He dropped the bag but made away with Helga’s purse. By the time, I got back Helga was fully clothed, and try as I might, I could not rekindle the mood and she insisted on going home.

  As we walked across the fields towards the hostel, she was called over by one of the university’s sports instructors. She spoke with him for a few minutes then, instead of coming towards me, Helga ran away. I was confused as to what that gentleman had said to Helga. I would soon guess, however, as when I came back to the hostel, I was shown a newspaper headline which said, ‘African students have brought AIDS into Stavropol!’ I never heard from Helga again.

  Life moved on. We had discovered a bakery not far from the hostel and at the back of it was a small outhouse inside of which were kept tinned food. This became our food source for a few weeks until most of the students were taken ill; it was later discovered that the tinned food we had been consuming had long since passed its ‘use by’ date. They were stored in that outhouse to be used as feed for pigs.

  *

  I never knew hunger growing up as, on my way home from school, I would stop at my grandfather’s compound where Mbombo (my grandfather’s first wife) would have cooked Kwacoco and Mbanga soup. It is one of the delicacies of the Bakweri people that are readily available on all occasions from weddings to funerals. There was one old guy who attended funerals not because he knew the deceased but because of the aroma of Kwacoco, he always sat in the corner with his plate full, licking his fingers and crying at the same time. One could not decipher if he was crying for the deceased or the pure bliss from the food. It is even rumoured that the men of the Bakweri tribe ran away from military conscription because of this food, some men ran into the mountains to escape conscription but followed the smoke back into their mother’s kitchen.

  We would eat at Mbombo’s kitchen, then move to Aunty Molisa’s side of the compound where we would eat Vhembe (a kind of beans soup). Boy, Aunty Molisa was an expert at cooking Vhembe; it was either Vhembe or she also had another delicacy called Ngonya Weembe (a soup cooked using young coco yam leaves). Mbombo and aunty Molisa are both resting with my ancestors; I never said goodbye. I loved visiting my grandfather’s compound not only because there was food at each of his wives’ houses but because I was fascinated by his collection of old newspapers. I was an ardent reader of news, albeit posthumously.

  It was in my grandfather’s study that I first read about Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings; it was here that I learned of the Congo Crisis of 1961 and the emergence of Colonel Joseph Mobutu of the Congolese National Army and how he had orchestrated a coup d’état and ordered the Soviets out of the country; it was here I first learned the phrase conspiracy theory as one newspaper article was suggesting that Britain and Belgium conspired to murder the second United Nations Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, as both countries had a vested interest in keeping the rich diamonds and Copperfield of Zaire under their sphere of influence. It was here that I researched and attempted to answer the history question at A-levels, ‘The Arab-Israeli question is a hard nut to crack, discuss.’ It was here that I first read about the great Thomas Sankara, it was here that I learned of the whereabouts of President Ahmadou Ahidjo,whose corpse was abandoned in Senegal somewhere, and how Mr Biya has been the president since 1982. It was here that I read about South Africa and the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, it was here that I learned about The Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa of 21 March 1960. For a long time I hated white South Africa. It was here that I read about Steve Biko and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela—it all sounded so fictitious and farfetched, for how can a visitor come and impose such draconian, inhumane policies upon the natives? I was naïve.

  It was here in my grandfather’s study that I first heard about Winnie Mandela, the exile of Lucky Dube and the beautiful voice of Miriam Makeba, and, most importantly, it was here that I learned and read at length about the Rwandan genocide. After being accused of witchcraft my grandfather was abandoned by his family, but I only have fond memories of him. The last time I visited before I left Cameroon he said, ‘Ngalle come here.’ Holding a bowl of water, my grandfather washed my hands, my feet, and my face and performed what we call a zromelelele, an invitation and incantation to the gods of my ancestors. He called on the god of heaven to protect me as I crossed many seas, oceans and mountains. He said I should be aware of the various ndondondume (a mythical beast that lures humans into catastrophic demise) that would try and entice me with the beautiful things in life. Then he bid me farewell and a safe j
ourney. I would never attest to what others have said about the late Mosre Mo Ngwa Kange being a witch, for if he was truly a witch, this would have been his perfect time to initiate me.

  *

  I was always outside the hostel grounds. It was getting warmer and I was making some Russian friends, most of whom were interested in teaching me the Russian language. At other times we played football with a local Armenian team, most of them being students at the university. One of the Armenians, a guy called Aaron, visited the hostel and told us about a city called Sochi. It was on the coast and he said that he owned several yachts and that he could take us for excursions to Turkey and back via the Black Sea. This caused great excitement in the hostel and I thought, ‘This is my perfect opportunity to leave Russia.’

  In order to confirm that Aaron indeed had a yacht in Sochi, a delegation was formed to investigate and three Ibo Nigerians and I were to travel to Sochi on a fact-finding mission. One of the Nigerians was the huge-handed chap who had stolen my jacket; he even wore it during our trip to Sochi.

  Travelling the near five hundred miles from Stavropol to Sochi was an eight-hour drive by bus; I could understand why people preferred to stay in the same place. Despite the arduous journey our first trip to Sochi proved futile; yes there was a yacht club and we could go to Turkey, as often as we would have wanted but there was one slight problem—in order to leave Russia, we needed an exit visa.

  There was worse to come as on our way back to Stavropol we missed our train. We jumped onto another train but went via a town called Mineralnye Vody, and after getting off to stretch our legs, we found ourselves stranded in this town. I heard the sound of harsh voices shouting, ‘Stop! Hands in the air!’ I turned around to see some Russian soldiers—I had never seen such humongous men. Their faces were covered with black cloth and they didn’t wear helmets but some military style khaki caps. My large Nigerian companion began crying and I thought, ‘That’s what you get for stealing my jacket.’