Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  Like all the (fortunately few) towns on our route, Mayo Darle seemed to signify a strong African disinclination to come to terms with having been dragged into the Modern Age. These places look like wounds inflicted on the country by some alien force. The contrast with bush villages, away from ‘motorable’ tracks, could not be more striking; many villages still retain that simple, orderly beauty so much admired by early travellers in West Africa. Nor is this comparison just one more symptom of silly White romanticism. The towns do not provide a more comfortable or convenient way of life than the villages – rather the reverse. If they have an electricity generator (usually they don’t) its unreliability means that it is not a mod. con. but a source of dismay and confusion. A post office may occasionally exist but it can take letters a month or two to travel a hundred miles. A health centre may also exist in theory (the French maps are peppered with them), but it will be so under-staffed and ill-equipped that it is better to stick with the medicine-men, as most people do. A water source may be closer to each compound, but it will almost certainly be more polluted than rural supplies. And health is further endangered by a hazard (now a deadly hazard) unknown in the villages – prostitution.

  Often prostitution is someone’s problem exported from a village to a town, as on every continent. Mayo Darle has a colony of more than two hundred prostitutes to serve passing truckers and while bar-crawling I met dozens (many bars are also brothels). Once I was invited to the two-roomed hut of an articulate Anglophone quartet; all were barren and had been rejected by their husbands, leaving prostitution as the only alternative to starvation.

  This was the dark side to the Ntem Chief’s moving love for – reverence for – children. According to traditional beliefs, a barren woman is a non-person. Her husband will not necessarily reject her, demanding a refund of the bridewealth, because she may still be useful as a field worker. But the extended family and the local community will make her feel so inadequate – almost wicked – that it is often easier to run away. She sees herself as excluded from the tribe/family/clan. When she dies there will be no one to remember her, to maintain contact with her spirit, so she cannot join the living-dead. It will be as though she had never lived. Barrenness has removed her from the river that flows from birth through life to afterlife; it flows on without her. And even while she lives she is non-existent because unfruitful.

  All four women in that sad little hut were believing Christians – two Baptists, one Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian – yet none took comfort from their faith. If anything, having been brought up on the ideal of Christian marriage sharpened their grief. Not only had they failed as women, in their traditional role, but they had also failed as Christian partners in a monogamous life-long union. Belonging to ‘Mission Christian’, as distinct from ‘Black Church’, families can make rejection even more humiliating; often the barren wife is blamed for leaving her husband with no choice but to sin. These women’s reliance on children – especially sons – to confer immortality had remained undiminished by their exposure to the Christian doctrine of individual posthumous rewards or punishments. None could sufficiently comprehend ‘the Beatific Vision’ to regard it as an adequate consolation prize for childless women. Not myself believing in the Christian afterlife, I shared their gut-reaction to ‘Heaven’ and became aware of an ironic closing of a circle. We five women were agreed that immortality has more to do with child-bearing than with ‘Heaven’ but we had travelled to that meeting-point by different – and opposite – roads.

  On another level our conversation was one more reminder of the gulf between individualistic Westerners and most of the rest of mankind. In their own estimation these women had no value as individuals; they saw themselves only as part of a community to which, being female, they should contribute young. Instinctively they were concerned with the survival of the species, to an extent and with an intensity that is no longer necessary. The fulfilment of the individual was not on their agenda.

  When I asked what they knew about AIDS the women giggled. There was no problem in Cameroon, only in other places … It would have been pointless to remind them that most of their clients came from the ‘other places’ in question. There was nothing they could do to protect themselves, even had it been possible to convince them that protection was necessary. Cameroon is not in the main danger zone (yet) but the virus has of course arrived and we heard of several deaths in the Kumbo region.

  As we talked in that shadowy little room – becoming increasingly uninhibited on ‘33’ and Guinness (they preferred Guinness) – I wondered what would happen to my unfortunate friends, and their many colleagues, when their bodies are no longer saleable. Like most African countries, Cameroon has no social security system; family members are supposed to care for one another and usually do, at least in rural areas. All four women were in their mid-forties and their prices had dropped to 100 CFA (about 20p): the price of a hand of bananas. Many teenagers, they said, could charge 500 CFA and even up to 1,000 CFA (just over £2) if they were very fat. I asked why teenagers chose this job and was startled to learn that some are earning their brothers’ school fees. Prostitution does not of course carry the same stigma in Africa as in Europe. If times are hard – a crop failure, an expensive illness, storm damage to a compound – it may make economic sense to send a daughter out to earn for a few years, before marriage, even if this leads to her husband paying somewhat reduced bridewealth. Being by then on my third ‘33’ I got lost in the maze of clans and groups now mentioned. Some are openly tolerant of pre-marital sex and see prostitution as nothing more; others condone it, but furtively; others condemn it and would consider a daughter on the streets the ultimate family disgrace. Yet even from among that last group many modern girls now defy their families and come to the bright (lamp) lights of Mayo Darle because they want to find ‘educated’ husbands and graduate to the brilliant (electric) lights of Douala or Yaounde.

  Thirty-six miles of hilly motor-road link Mayo Darle to Banyo, a bigger town, with a post office, a hospital and two Missions (Catholic and Protestant). There are no cut-shorts; the French (or was it German?) road-builders took the shortest cut. However, we decided to look for bush-paths, even if they added miles. By Cameroonian standards the traffic is considerable on this comically circuitous but only transcontinental route from Yaounde to the Central African Republic and Mombasa. Every hour or so a menacing giant container or oil-tanker goes rattling and roaring and hooting over the calamitous surface, creating clouds of blinding, stifling dust.

  While drifting around Mayo Darle I repeatedly enquired about bush-paths going north. Most people said there was no such thing but at last I met Jackson, a worried-looking Anglophone, who showed me the start of a path which would take us through high hills to Yoli, on the motor-road, where we could ask again. This path began near an unused hospital, completed a few years ago but as yet unopened for lack of trained staff willing to work in ‘primitive’ Mayo Darle.

  Jackson looked worried because his brown and white in-kid nanny had broken her tether and strayed. She and her young represented all his savings: he had been seeking her since dawn. I joined in the search and roamed the sides of a deep wooded glen. Then a distant figure appeared on the skyline – a woman gesticulating and shouting. We hastened to the road; the nanny had been found in someone’s depleted maize-field and could be redeemed on payment of compensation. Jackson looked at me expectantly; he had after all gone out of his way to show me that path to Yoli. We set out to retrieve the goat, inspect the not very extensive damage and palaver with an eloquently angry Francophone woman who seemed to detest all Anglophones. After half an hour damages were settled at 1,000 CFA and muggins paid up.

  Mayo Darlé had more than its share of predatory folk, no doubt a result of the permanent White presence. Several of my bar companions – eminently respectable men and women, highly regarded in their local community – were delighted to hear that in the middle of June we would again be stopping off at the Mission. Urgently they begg
ed me to bring them gifts from N’gaoundere: a sack of rice, a pair of ‘smart shoes’, a length of ‘cloth with many colours’ for a new frock, and so on and on and on. When I protested, ‘We’re not rich!’ they took that to be my little joke. All Whites are rich and as I seemed an amiable drinking partner, willing to dispense beer within reason, was it not natural that our reunion should be celebrated with gifts?

  Malaria prophylactics may not work too well nowadays, as preventatives, but they do mean milder attacks when the virus strikes. On 5 April Rachel felt fit enough to accompany Yaya and me to the Sunday market where we hoped to buy two strong holdalls to replace the bulky sacks, thereby leaving room on the saddle for a convalescent.

  This weekly market was disappointing, though it draws villagers from near and far. The only foods available were maize-flour, jammu-jammu greenery, manioc, bananas, avocados, mangoes and a tall pyramid of expensive tins of Ovaltine newly smuggled from Nigeria. In the butchers’ corner hunks of beef swarmed with flies and were already smelly. The two zebu heads concerned stood on a trestle-table like noisome hairy sculptures and behind them little boys were doing arcane things with piles of offal. (One day we would discover to our cost exactly what they were doing …) Dogs lurked profitably and a strangely mottled mother cat defied them to make off with an intestine prize longer than herself.

  All the little stalls – mostly Fulani and Hausa – are open on Sundays, lining rough narrow laneways, but the local cash scarcity limits their range and quality of goods. Many tall, bearded, commanding figures were striding around in flowing pastel robes and embroidered caps, looking as though they owned the place – which once they did, before the White man came. Yaya knew everyone and because of his malloum status was obviously much respected, despite his youth. He saw to it that fair prices were mentioned and after much deliberation – nothing on offer looked very substantial – we paid 5,000 CFA for two large ‘airline’ holdalls of tawdry plastic and cardboard, with zipped outer pockets. Yaya suggested reinforcing them on his uncle’s sewing-machine and for twenty minutes we sat in a minute tailor’s cubby-hole watching him deftly at work; he is a man of many parts. When I made a shocking – insulting – mistake by trying to dash him, he forgave me with one of his most charming smiles.

  Next day Rachel seemed stronger still and we went for a ‘test-run’ stroll on the hills above the tin-mine. Although she claimed to feel ‘95 per cent’ – quite fit enough to walk to Banyo – I insisted on her riding and quoted Mungo Park: ‘My recovery was very slow; but I embraced every short interval of convalescence to walk out, and make myself acquainted with the products of the country. In one of those excursions, having rambled further than usual in a hot day, I brought on a return of my fever, and on the 10th of September I was again confined to my bed.’

  The bush-path to Yoni crossed steep wooded mountains, separated by spectacular ravines from which baboons abused us. Our compact holdalls left ample room for a rider but Egbert at once made it plain that he abhorred his new role. Nor could we blame him. The load was light: your average Cameroonian donkey would think nothing of carrying twice that weight for twenty miles non-stop. Rachel however is not light and, within moments of her mounting, Egbert reminded us that carrying a hefty rider was not part of his contract. He conveyed this message by walking at a steady one m.p.h. and looking reproachfully aggrieved when two m.p.h. were suggested.

  Rachel had to dismount for the hazardous descent from those mountains. Soon after, we came upon our first milk-bar: two very small Fulanis milking three very large cows in the middle of nowhere. They were bewildered when I paid them for an enormous gourd brimming with warm frothing milk. Near Yoni we joined the hot, stony, dusty motor-road and at 11.15 a.m. took refuge under a generously shady tree surrounded by lush grass. The convalescent slept deeply while I conversed with two Bamenda truck-drivers whose vehicle had broken down nearby; they expected to have to spend two or three nights in their cab while awaiting ‘a piece’ from Douala.

  A frisky breeze tempered the afternoon heat and Egbert consented to speed up as we turned off the ‘international highway’ onto another bush-path. But soon Rachel announced that she would have to walk; folded sacks on a wooden saddle don’t do much for the bum. (My suggestion that we should camp immediately was derided.) Our path crossed a series of forested hills – unpeopled and bird-rich – before dropping into a broad, serene, cultivated valley. This was Fulani territory and several prosperous compounds glowed golden amidst acres of young maize. By a cool sandy stream we performed our river ritual: water Egbert, fill and pill bottles, wash selves, brush teeth.

  At sunset fortune favoured us with a tranquil tree-encircled campsite on a flat high hilltop where Egbert was turned loose to make the most of scant grazing. Then darkness revealed an awesome bush-fire to the north; sheets of crimson flame steadily widening on a hillside, below swirling clouds of orange-tinted smoke. Our inexperienced eyes couldn’t judge how far away it might be and momentarily it seemed threatening. We had seen evidence enough that some bush-fires spread and spread, devouring many miles. Would we be safe all night in our tent? This instant of animal fear was absurd yet powerful: one of those atavistic reactions that remind Western (wo)man how very recently s/he became ‘civilised’.

  As we struck camp at dawn Rachel mutinied. ‘Today I’m 100 per cent fit, so there’s no need to ride.’ By noon she had proved her point, having effortlessly walked twelve miles. We were then in a newish, partly Anglophone village where the friendliness level seemed markedly lower than usual. While Egbert grazed outside the unwelcoming bar – some way from the road, behind empty market-stalls – both sacks were stolen off the saddle. This was our only Cameroonian experience of pilfering.

  Back on the shadeless dusty motor-road we prayed for clouds that never came. Then a cattle-track appeared, accompanying the road but some little distance from it, winding through comparatively cool bush – much of it so dense that often we had to hold back saplings to make way for Egbert.

  Near a group of Fulani compounds the track and road amalgamated where a still-solid colonial bridge spanned a wide brown river. I had just finished washing when a herd of migrating cattle came pouring over the crest of a high ridge beyond the river. There is something mysteriously exciting about such a sight; the last time we witnessed it was in Madagascar. I moved slightly to get a better view. Some four hundred glossy, lean, wide-horned beasts – including dozens of small calves, to the rear – came swiftly down the slope, eager for water. They were flanked by slim, nimble donkeys carrying household goods: rolled-up hides for sleeping on, gourds of every size, battered and blackened kettles and pots (just like our own), bags of manioc or maize-flour, a storm-lantern, a rusty tin of kerosene – and, topping one load, a pair of yellow and pink plastic sandals. Only four men were herding: lithe, muscular nomads wearing dusty rags, brandishing long sticks and chanting weirdly. This method of giving directions is perfectly understood by cattle but not, it seems, by sheep. Those inferior animals – about fifty of them, including lambs – came far behind in the charge of two small boys. Men and boys alike glanced at us with indifference (or was it contempt?) before returning all their attention to their animals. Fulani nomads on the move – we were to meet many others – have a strong aura of exclusiveness and independence. One senses a people completely absorbed in their own demanding yet fulfilling way of life, as they have been for millennia but may not be for much longer.

  We followed the cattle-track up that ridge and into a deep, densely forested valley. When brilliant feathers flashed through the foliage I made to lift my binoculars – but they weren’t there. Only their empty case hung around my neck.

  Stricken, I turned to Rachel. ‘My binocs! I’ve left them by the river!’

  We stared at one another in silence. Then, ‘Shall I go back?’ I asked. ‘You could wait here.’

  ‘What’s the point? All those cattle have been across the bank.’

  We continued through the cool evening shadows beneath
the trees, then crossed the muddy bed of a dried-up stream and climbed a steep, tunnel-like path bizarrely eroded out of a shiny dark red cliff. Our campsite was far from compounds and cultivation so again we turned Egbert loose. Below this high crest another bush-fire leaped and quivered, sending wavelets of flame to lap at the feet of mighty trees; it was so close that we caught occasional whiffs of incense-like smoke. Having developed a local weather sense, we rightly judged it unnecessary to put up the tent and Rachel spread our flea-bags on the saddle-blanket on an open patch of ground. Soon she was asleep, but I lay grieving over my loss and miserably reviewing, as one does, every detail of ‘how it happened’. Objectively I recognised this misfortune as just punishment for having broken a basic Travellers’ Rule: CHECK EVERYTHING BEFORE MOVING ON. Subjectively, however, I found my punishment hard to take because bird-watching had been contributing so much, every day, to my enjoyment of Cameroon.