by Nigel Barley
Flushed with triumph and armed with my ticket, I returned to the Embassy. The gentleman was still not back but I would be permitted to fill in a form in triplicate. I did so and was surprised to note that the top copy which I had laboriously completed was thrown away. I waited about an hour. Nothing happened. Meanwhile various people were drifting in and out, mostly speaking French. It is perhaps necessary to point out that Cameroon was an old German colony taken over by the British and French during the First World War and subsequently given independence as a federal republic, later replaced by a unified republic. Although Cameroon is theoretically bilingual in French and English, it is a bold man who hopes to get far on English alone. Eventually, a huge African woman entered and I was the subject of a long conversation in a language unknown to me. I suspect now that it was English. If anyone approaches you in old British territory speaking a totally unintelligible tongue of which even the basic sounds are quite unfamiliar, it is probably English. I was led into another office where numerous volumes were ranged around the walls. I noted with interest that these contained the photographs and details of prohibited persons. It is still astonishing to me that it is possible for such a young country to have prohibited so many people. Having sought me in vain for some considerable time, the woman lay aside the volumes with what appeared to be a deep sense of disappointment. The next problem lay in my having produced two passport photographs which were joined together. They should have been separate and I was rebuked for presenting them in this condition. There began a protracted search for the scissors. Many people were involved in this, furniture was moved, the volumes of prohibited persons were shaken. Trying to show willing, I looked half-heartedly on the floor. Again I was rebuked. This was an embassy and I was to touch and look at nothing. Finally, the scissors were traced to a man in the basement who, it appeared, was not authorized to possess them. This was explained at great length. We were all required to show our outrage. The next problem was whether the visa should be paid for or not. In my innocence I gladly offered to pay for it, not realizing that this was a major issue. The head of the section would have to decide. Back to the waiting room, where finally another Cameroonian appeared who perused my documents with great attention and required me to explain myself yet again, looking the whole time extremely suspicious of my motives. The basic difficulty here, as in other areas, is explaining why the British government should find it worth while to pay its young people fairly large sums of money to go off to desolate parts of the world purportedly to study peoples who are locally notorious for their ignorance and backwardness. How could anyone make money out of such studies? Clearly some sort of hidden purpose is involved. Spying, mineral prospecting or smuggling must be the real motive. The only hope is to pass oneself off as a harmless idiot who knows no better. I succeeded in this. Finally I was given my visa, a huge rubber-stamped confection with what was clearly a heavily Africanized version of Marianne, the French revolutionary heroine. As I left, I felt strangely tired with a lingering sense of humiliation and disbelief. It was a feeling I was to grow to know well.
I now had something like a week to put my affairs in order and complete my arrangements. Vaccinations had played quite a large role in my life for some months and there remained only a final yellow fever shot before I was fully proofed. Unfortunately, this gave me a fever and vomiting attacks that rather diminished my enjoyment of farewells. I was issued with an intimidating box of drugs and a list of the symptoms they would cure, almost all of which I already had from the inoculations.
It was the moment for final words of advice. My immediate family, who were entirely innocent of anthropological expertise, knew only that I was mad enough to go to savage lands where I would live in the jungle, constantly menaced by lions and snakes, and might be lucky enough to escape the cooking pot. It came as some comfort to me when I was about to leave Dowayoland that the chief of my village said that he would gladly accompany me back to my English village but that he feared a country where it was always cold, where there were savage beasts like the European dogs at the mission and where it was known there were cannibals.
A book should doubtless be compiled of ‘sayings to young ethnographers about to go into the field’. It is rumoured that the eminent anthropologist Evans-Pritchard would simply tell his protégés, ‘Get yourself a decent hamper from Fortnum and Mason’s and keep away from the native women.’ Another West Africanist would reveal that the secret of successful fieldwork lay in the possession of a good string vest. In my own case I was told to complete my will (which I did), to take nail varnish for the local dandies (which I didn’t) and to buy myself a good penknife (which broke). A lady anthropologist revealed to me the address of a London shop where I could buy shorts with locust-proof pocket-flaps. I felt these to be an unnecessary luxury.
The ethnographer is faced with a basic decision at the outset if he needs a vehicle. Either he can buy one here, fill it with all the goods he will need to survive and ship it out, or he can arrive unencumbered at his destination and buy what he needs from scratch. The advantage of the former method lies in cheapness and the certainty of finding what you want. Its disadvantage lies simply in the frustration of the extra contact with customs officials and other bureaucrats who will blandly impound it, charge duty on it, stand it in the monsoon till it rots, allow it to be rifled, insist on minute certified lists in quadruplicate, countersigned and stamped by other officials hundreds of miles away and otherwise gleefully harass and persecute the newcomer. Many of these difficulties will magically melt away in the face of a well-placed bribe, but the calculation of the appropriate sum and the point at which the bribe should be offered requires a fineness of touch that the newcomer will lack. He may well end up in serious trouble if he attempts this proceeding incautiously.
The difficulty of the second method, of simply arriving and buying what is necessary, is that it is extremely expensive. Cars cost at least double what they do over here and choice is very limited. The newcomer, unless he is very lucky, is unlikely to strike a good bargain.
In my innocence, I opted for the second alternative, partly because I had no time to prepare myself lavishly and was eager to be off.
3
To the Hills
As the plane landed on the darkened airfield at Duala a unique smell invaded the cabin. It was musky and sultry, aromatic and coarse – the smell of West Africa. Warm rain was falling; it felt like blood trickling down our sweaty faces as we hiked across the tarmac. Inside the airport was the most amazing chaos I have ever witnessed. Crowds of Europeans were huddled in desperate groups or screaming at Africans. Africans were screaming at Africans. A lone Arab was floating disconsolately from one desk to another. In front of each was the mad, jostling throng I recognized as a French queue. Here I had my second lesson in Cameroonian bureaucracy. It seemed that we had to collect three pieces of paper relating to our visas, health certificates and immigration arrangements. Numerous forms had to be filled in. There was a heavy trade in ballpoint pens. When the French had elbowed their way through to have the privilege of waiting in the rain for their luggage, the rest of us were attended to. Several of us made the mistake of being unable to supply exact addresses to which we were going and the names of business contacts. A large official sat at his desk reading the newspaper and ignoring us. Having established to his satisfaction our relative hierarchy, he interviewed us with an air of one not to be trifled with. Seeing the way things were going, I relented and supplied a wholly fictitious address, which was the recourse adopted by several others. In future I was always studiously precise in filling in all forms which were doubtless eaten by termites or thrown away unread. We all went back round the three desks again and through customs, where a drama was being enacted. A Frenchman’s luggage had been opened and found to contain certain aromatic substances. In vain the man claimed that these were herbs to cook the sauces of French cuisine. The official was convinced he had captured a major trader in marijuana, even though it was common know
ledge that a trade existed growing it inside Cameroon and smuggling it out. The French jostlers were back in operation and seemed to be doing quite well until the huge form of an immaculate African who had got on the first-class section at Nice sailed through. With a click of his gold-adorned fingers he indicated his luggage, which was promptly seized by porters. Luckily for me, my own luggage impeded the removal of his and so I was waved through and out into Africa.
First impressions count for a lot. The man whose knees are not brown will be marked down by all manner of people. At all events, my camera case was promptly seized by what I took to be an enthusiastic porter. I revised my ideas when he swiftly made off into the distance. I set off in pursuit, using all manner of phrases uncommon in everyday speech. ‘Au secours! Au voleur!’ I cried. Fortunately, he was delayed by traffic, I caught up, and we began to struggle. It ended with a swift blow that laid open the side of my face and the case was abandoned to me. A solicitous taxi driver took me to my hotel for only five times the normal fare.
The next day I tore myself away from the charms of Duala and flew on to the capital without incident, noting that I had adopted the loud, hostile manner of the other passengers towards porters and taxi drivers. In Yaounde I suffered a long bout of bureaucracy; as it took about three weeks to have my documents processed there was nothing to do but play tourist.
My first impression of the city was that it had few charms. It is unpleasantly dusty in the dry season, a vast morass in the wet season. Its main monuments have all the appeal of motorway café architecture. Collapsed gratings in the pavements offer the unwary visitor a direct route to the town sewers. Newcomers seldom survive long without wrenching at least one limb. The life of expatriates centres around two or three cafés where they sit in deep boredom, staring at the passing yellow cabs and fighting off the attentions of souvenir sellers. These are gentlemen of the greatest charm who have learnt that white men will buy absolutely anything as long as it is overpriced. They offer for sale a blend of perfectly acceptable carvings and absolute rubbish as ‘genuine antiques’. The whole trade is practised with something of the air of a game. Asked prices are something like twenty times what is reasonable. Should a client protest that he is being robbed, they giggle and agree, cutting their price to five times the going rate. Many enjoy something like a client/patron relationship with jaded Europeans, fully aware that the more outrageous their lies the greater will be the amusement they cause.
The saddest cases are the diplomats who seem to pursue a policy of minimal contact with the locals, fleeing from locked office to locked compound via the café. For reasons that will become apparent later, I occasioned the British community some inconvenience.
Far more interesting were the young French community of co-opérants, people doing foreign service as an alternative to national service in the army. They had somehow managed to set up a replica of provincial French social life incorporating factors such as barbecues, motor rallies and parties with minimal regard to the fact that they were in West Africa. I rapidly established links with one ménage, one girl and two boys who were variously engaged in professional teaching and later proved invaluable. Unlike the diplomatic community, they actually left the capital and had information about the state of roads, the vehicle market, etc., and spoke to Africans who were not their servants. It came as a great surprise to me after the officials with whom I had to deal, how extremely friendly and pleasant the people were; I had by no means expected this. After the political resentments of West Indians and Indians I had known in England, it struck me as ridiculous that it should be in Africa that people of different races should be able to meet on easy, uncomplicated terms. Of course it turned out not to be quite as simple as that. Relations between Europeans and Africans are complicated by all kinds of factors. Often the Africans concerned have learnt to conform so well that they are little other than black Frenchmen. On the other hand, Europeans resident in Africa tend to be rather weird people. Their conspicuous ordinariness is perhaps the reason the diplomatic community fare so badly; madmen – and I met several of them – fare very well despite the havoc they leave behind them.
As an Englishman I was perhaps unreasonably impressed by the fact that complete strangers would greet me and smile at me in the street, apparently without ulterior motive.
Time was passing and African cities are by no means cheap; Yaounde is classed as one of the most expensive places on earth for a foreigner. While I was living in no great style, money was going fast and I simply had to get out; I would have to make a scene. Steeling my nerve, I went to the Bureau of Immigration. Behind the desk sat the supercilious inspector I had dealt with on previous visits. He looked up from the documents he was reading and began an intricate process involving a cigarette and lighter, ignoring my greeting, and threw my passport on the desk. Instead of the two years I had asked for, I had been mysteriously given nine months in the country. Thankful for small mercies, I left.
It was at this point that I made two blunders that reveal how very little I knew about the world I was moving in. First, I went to the post office to send a telegram to N’gaoundere, my next staging post up the railway line, warning them of my imminent arrival. It got there a fortnight later, which was considered about average by old hands. It also acquainted me with a very odd Australian who, despairing of arrogant officials and locals who had learnt their jostling from the French, was reduced to standing in the middle of the floor shouting to everybody’s surprise, ‘I’ve understood. I’m the wrong bleedin’ colour in’ I?’ He thereupon declared in good round terms that he never intended to write to his mother again from Cameroonian territory. Luckily, I was able to sell him one of my own stamps at which point he exploded in maudlin Commonwealth affection and insisted I take beer with him. After several of these he revealed that he had been travelling for more than two years and never spent more than fifty pence a day. I was suitably impressed until he took his leave without paying for the beer.
It was then I made my most serious error so far. Hitherto, I had kept the major part of my research grant in the form of a certified international cheque which I carried on me at all times. It seemed to me prudent to deposit this in a bank, which only took me about an hour of the jostling and arrogance treatment. I was blandly assured by a plausible young man that a cheque book would be sent to me at N’gaoundere within twenty-four hours and that I would thus be able to draw on the account as necessary. Incredibly, I believed him. In fact it took some five months to gain access to the money I had so lightly deposited. However, at the time it seemed a victory for reason in view of the many stories of crime circulating in ever more horrific versions among the white community. Many of the men have adopted the fashion of carrying small handbags, after the effete Continental manner, in which to keep the documents they are obliged to carry. It appears that gangs of huge African women roam the streets after dark snatching the purses of lone males, beating up those bold enough to resist. This is quite feasible. Africa is the home of the most astonishing physiques, both male and female, the result of lives of continuous hard physical labour and a diet low in protein. A willowy Westerner feels initially dwarfed by the pectoral developments of Southern Cameroonians.
It was with a certain sense of relief that I checked out of the hotel, mentally saying goodbye to the piped African guitar music that raged night and day, and running the gauntlet of the whores for the last time. These ladies are perhaps the least subtle members of their trade I have ever seen. A perfectly accepted mode of approach is to walk straight up to the intended male and simply grasp him between the legs in a vice-like grip; one should always avoid being closeted in the lift in such circumstances.
Soon afterwards I was safely at the station, becoming increasingly sceptical about the delights of the air-conditioned train described to me by the airlines girl in London. It consisted of First World War rolling stock, hailing by some mysterious process from Italy. It was lavishly embellished with exhortations in Italian about what to do
and not to do with the water supply and toilet facilities. Problems of translation had been solved at a stroke by simply discontinuing them.
A little more jostling sufficed to buy a ticket, with about the same amount of form filling as one needs to buy life insurance.
Travelling in West Africa seems to have much in common with travel by stage in early Westerns. There is a fairly standard cast. It seems much the same whether one is travelling by train or bush-taxi; the latter plays a major role in getting about inside the country. Bush-taxis are big Toyota or Saviem vans built to accommodate from twelve to twenty persons into which the proprietors seek to introduce between thirty and fifty. Should the vehicle give the false impression of bursting at the seams, a popular expedient is to drive off at speed and apply the brakes, which always makes room for one or two more at the back. It seems to be required that each vehicle shall contain a couple of army corporals or lieutenants. Gendarmes normally find themselves the best seats, beside the driver, and blandly refuse to pay for them. A couple of southern schoolteachers resentful at being sent to the Muslim North are standard. With but little prompting, they entertain the company with tales of their sufferings in that benighted area, denouncing the lack of entrepreneurial spirit, the savagery of the pagan inhabitants, the inedibility of the food. Then there will be a pagan woman in blue plastic shoes suckling a child, an operation that seems to involve most of the women full time. A couple of gaunt Muslims from the semi-desert of the North, swathed in Arab robes and clutching prayer mats and kettles of water, complete the assembly.
