‘So,’ said Rachel, ‘you believe “when in Rome …”?’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied, rather doubtfully. ‘And yet, I wouldn’t give in to Doi about antibiotics for Egbert – then I did assert myself
‘But that’s different,’ said Rachel swiftly. ‘That’s not the African way of doing things – it’s Africa messed up by Europe misunderstood.’
On our second ‘33’ we agreed that in practice one can’t be selectively adaptable.
‘If you’re going to live in the bush,’ I said, ‘you take the rough with the smooth. You don’t expect “special treatment” because you’re White and you don’t expect the locals to treat each other differently because you’re around. In theory perhaps we should have maintained White liberal standards in Makelele – which would have upset and bewildered and hurt the chief. And deprived Ibi of an obviously welcome fistful of CFA.’
‘You’d have been a rotten DC,’ said Rachel. ‘You’d have left your district as you found it, complete with human sacrifices!’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘probably I would.’
We then planned our future: next day a bush-taxi from Banyo to Bamenda, where our load would be reduced to what could be carried in one rucksack – the carrying to be shared on alternate days as we trekked north through the high Grassfields.
Viewing the landscape between Sambolabbo and Banyo, from the top of the beer-truck, we had identical thoughts. All the rivers and streams we remembered crossing a few weeks earlier were now dried up. Had we been trekking as planned, just to the west of this area, the drought would almost certainly have defeated us. ‘Perhaps,’ said Rachel, ‘Egbert’s loss is a blessing in disguise – for him and for us.’
Subjectively I couldn’t agree; objectively I had to agree.
10
Fun Among the Fons
IN BAMENDA JOY and John Parkinson lavishly provided support of every sort: moral, sartorial, alcoholic and cartographic. They advised on our new route and John lent us detailed though rather elderly French maps – Second Impression 1972, the most up-to-date available. He warned that within fifteen years some villages change their names and/or locations. Some mountain paths also change, as the rains sweep them away and replacements are devised. But despite these limitations the Parkinson sheets, at 1:200 000, were a huge improvement on our USAF charts.
From Bafut, fifteen miles east of Bamenda, we planned to go up the Metchum valley, wander through the Aghem highland to Wum, cross a few mountains to Bafmeng (also called Mme), turn north-east and cross many more mountains to the Mbembe Forest Reserve. Five days after leaving Sambolabbo we were driven to Bafut by Ralph, a warmhearted and keen-witted friend of the Parkinsons who is a native of that town and filled us in on the local Fon scene.
The last Fon had 250 wives (a suspicious number of Big Men are said to have ‘250’ wives) and children beyond reckoning. The present Fon, born in 1955, has been ruling since he was sixteen and is a man of many talents, both traditional and Western. Being ‘modern’ he has only three wives, one of whom is a senior government official. When in residence he occupies not his inherited palace but a colonial Rest House that might have strayed from Simla and overlooks the palace compound. He is ‘very, very rich, owning many miles of fertile land and receiving tribute from dozens of villages’. As Bafut’s Fons are chosen from among the only sons of mothers, it is every wife’s unusual ambition to have no more than one son and, in the past, it was not unknown for surplus male infants to disappear and be reared elsewhere.
Only in Bafut did our path cross Cameroon’s tourist trail – not that there were any tourists around. But those few who do the 240-mile Ring-Road Tour (‘Leaving Bamenda’s Skyline Hotel at 9 a.m.’) are shown around the Fon’s palace at 1,000 CFA per head and already the place feels like a ‘tourist attraction’, or at least like a place that has lost its meaning. As Ralph sadly observed, ‘The Fon and all Bafut’s Big Men are now in the Western economic system and have not much time left over for the traditional life.’ This was by far the most imposing palace we had seen and gloriously surrounded by tall forest trees laden with dark pink blossoms. There were surprisingly few children in evidence but many elderly unsmiling women, presumably the residue of the last Fon’s collection. When our arrival was observed a few brightly dyed raffia bags, woven by the womenfolk for sale to tourists, were hastily displayed outside one hut. Each large square hut had four rooms with separate doors and not so long ago each room was occupied by a wife. In the inner compound we were shown a few rooms once reserved for the incarceration of junior wives who had misbehaved. The most important and interesting looking buildings were of course taboo to us, as they are to all but the chiefdom’s elite. Ralph pointed out an ancient boulder on which the Fon still regularly grinds camwood to make an oily paste with which to anoint supplicants. However involved he may be in the modern economic life of Bamenda, he remains religiously important to his followers.
Ralph – a teacher at Bamenda’s Catholic boarding-school for boys – escorted us to the beginning of our cut-short while being informative on the wing. In the 1890s Bafut had a population of about 5,000, the nearby Mankon Confederation the same, the Bali chiefdom about 4,000 and most other Grassfields chiefdoms between a few hundred and a thousand. By African standards the area’s population density was then extraordinarily high – about ninety per square mile – and probably had been so for centuries because of the local yam/ palm oil agricultural base. This, the oldest and most efficient crop-mix in Africa, led to high population densities wherever it was found. Also, the Grassfields enjoyed a healthy altitude, fertile soil, remoteness from slave-trading harbours and a strong matrilineal tradition among many of the local chiefdoms.
Among the Bantu clans – the majority – in this region women and children rather than cattle have always been the measure of a man’s wealth. Much fertile land requires many women and children; in times past, the more they produced for the market, to feed local craftsmen and traders, the richer a chiefdom became. During the second half of the nineteenth century the Metchum valley was drastically depopulated by raids from Bafut; only those who fled into the most rugged mountains escaped capture. Before that the valley people had been otherwise exploited, not only by Bafut and the chiefdom of Kom but, most systematically, by the rich and well-organised federation of Wum or Aghem, in the mountains north of the valley.
The eight independent Metchum clans spoke mutually unintelligible languages (with two exceptions) and did not have chiefs. Each village was run by consensus politics, decisions taken at public moots. This lack of a formal hierarchy and disciplined warriors left these clans particularly vulnerable to the Aghem raiders who often kidnapped young men and women, releasing them only when the Aghem oil-drums had been filled. Nor were the young women always released. Some were sold in Isu market where for some reason (probably an epidemic) there was an acute woman-shortage during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Others were married off to Aghem men – an excellent source of revenue for their kidnappers, who pocketed the brideprice having had no production costs.
By noon we had regretfully said goodbye to Ralph and were climbing cultivated hillsides on a narrow, muddy path. This region was having an adequate though below normal rainfall and after the drought-threatened Adamawa weeks we felt an atavistic relief at the sight of its generous fertility. Intercropping is popular here; acres of maize, groundnuts, beans, yams, cocayams, cassava and coffee are skilfully mingled on rich slopes of dark red earth from which pointed grey rocks protrude like the battlements of buried castles. And far below, in a deep cleft, we saw oil-palms, raffia-palms, bananas and plantains flourishing by a hidden, singing stream.
Here most huts are square, thatched, bigger on average than the round variety and all of red mud; they seem to glow amidst their surrounding groves of glossy greenery. Our track followed the shaded crest of a high ridge, overlooking miles of jungly hills. This is a strongly Presbyterian area and where the descent began a large mud church bo
re witness to that community’s prosperity, as did an even larger school, with three shiny motor-bicycles parked outside.
In a palm-wine shebeen at the junction with the motor-road a surprising typewritten notice on the wall stated the controlled price of mimbu: 175 CFA (about 40p) per litre. An elderly couple – the proprietors – were drinking from a plastic Johnson’s Baby Powder container, with the top cut off, and a baby’s feeding bottle similarly modified.
Two silent women with shaven heads – one middle-aged, the other youngish – were introduced by a young man as ‘my mothers’. His father had recently died, hence their shaven heads (a mark of mourning) and their need for mimbu which ‘makes them feel happy again’. A teacher arrived then, parking his machine in the doorway. He was disillusioned to find that we had no views on the comparative virtues of various breeds of motor-bicycle.
Everybody looked at us strangely when we asked about the cut-short to Ndung.
‘It is better you people stay on this road,’ said the young man. ‘Sometimes there is bush-taxi and you can buy seats – you have money for seats?’ When we explained that we prefer walking he insisted, ‘It is too difficult!’ Then, under pressure, he indicated the relevant path.
Soon our new acquisition was tested. In Bamenda we had been presented with an umbrella by the headmaster (Brother John from Scotland) of Ralph’s school. It was one of those gaily striped jobs now common all over the world but used with special zeal in Cameroon where, during the rains, nobody will cross their compound without a brolly – if they can afford one. Setting out from Bafut I had felt a bit foolish; umbrellas and rucksacks don’t somehow go together. But when we came through that afternoon’s downpour unsodden we blessed Brother John.
A long easy climb took us to a recently settled area of tin-roofed mud-brick dwellings and thriving eucalyptus plantations. Here Mr Joseph Ndango invited us to be his guests: ‘You will reach my place by sunset.’ He was returning on his motor-bicycle from the school twenty miles away where he taught – an impractical arrangement, he admitted, given the price and scarcity of petrol in Cameroon. We wondered why he didn’t teach in the local school, a long low building complete with level playing-field. Although playing-fields are officially regarded as essential, terrain permitting, we never saw anyone using them. This may be partly owing to teachers’ laziness and partly to the many domestic demands made on rural pupils’ physical energy.
On the outskirts of Acu, a hamlet between fertile hills, Mr Ndango’s bungalow looked displaced. A large suburban construction, Western-furnished, it had wrought-iron grills protecting glazed windows and a garage which housed not only the motor-bicycle but an electricity generator. Supper (rice and stewed chicken) came in thermos food-flasks, accompanied by knives, forks and spoons. When I absent-mindedly picked up a handful of rice Mr Ndango looked scandalised. Several lively children roved around but none spoke recognisable English, despite having a teacher father.
The generator’s gratings, rumblings and whinings woke us often as we lay on the concrete floor of an empty storeroom. Our host had offered us a bed, but somewhat half-heartedly. Although only thirty-three, he had nine children, several resident followers and a second wife. (The first died in childbirth.)
By 6 a.m. Mr Ndango was breakfasting. ‘Every morning I must be gone at 6.30. On this bad road it takes me one hour for twenty miles and my school must open at 7. Otherwise pupils won’t come – at this season they must get home early to work in the fields.’
We were urged to make our own Ovaltine and Mr Ndango apologised for the lack of bread. ‘Here we are too far from shops and at this season no flour is left because Acu’s new settlers are bad farmers. They know nothing about storage, they leave animals to eat the grain.’ He was enjoying more rice and chicken; a shy small daughter brought the guests a dish of fried yam.
On the previous evening, a young MIDENO woman worker had invited us to her home and given us a giant pineapple, a fruit best carried interiorly. Not far from Acu we paused to eat it and soon juice was running down our forearms. After a night of heavy rain the morning colours were wondrous – royal blue mountains filling the middle distance, with dark green hills nearby and the red line of our track climbing a slope all pale green under young crops.
We startled many barefooted pupils, clad in Cameroon’s compulsory blue school uniform: skirts and blouses for the girls, shorts and shirts for the boys. Unless loaded with plantains, they carried writing-boards on their heads. Many were in their mid- or late teens. The older children of a family often start primary school at eleven or twelve, having previously been busy caring for younger siblings.
An hour later we were between two high grass mountains on which only horizontal cattle-grooves were visible. We had met no one since leaving Acu but now a very pregnant young woman, carrying wet laundry, emerged from the bushes lining a nearby stream and beckoned us to follow her. Climbing steeply from groove to groove, we speculated about her load’s weight; it plus pregnancy did not slow her ascent as much as the rucksack was slowing mine. In a little compound, half-hidden by mango trees and banana plants, she dumped her basket and we asked, ‘Ndung?’
She stared at us as though we were mad. ‘Ndung?‘ she repeated.
We nodded. She frowned – then laughed, beckoned again and led us upwards for half an hour.
On a wide level ledge stood a new bungalow – an extension to an old Fulani compound – where we were invited to rest in a posh two-windowed living-room with cushioned easy-chairs and Nigerian nylon mats on the white-washed walls. Scores of vividly patterned enamel dishes, of every size and shape, were displayed on three tables; among with-it Fulani women the collecting of enamelware is the thin edge of the consumerist wedge.
Our hostess looked pure Fulani, her husband pure Bantu. Both spoke basic English and their easy personal relationship seemed as modern as their home; our pints of boiled milk were served in sparkling glasses imported from France. Husband was aged twenty-two, wife twenty; they had three sons, all in appearance like their mother, and 115 cattle. They hoped to send all their sons to Brother John’s college, ‘the best in Western Cameroon’. It would not be necessary to send daughters to school. In their view the path to Ndung was ‘too difficult’, but then most Cameroonians considered whatever we might be about to do ‘too difficult’.
Soon we were above 7,000 feet (the USAF said) amidst a bright vastness of grassland. From an isolated compound a young woman led us to a clarifying – in her estimation – vantage point. She too, though speaking only Foulfoulde, conveyed some unease about the Ndung path. We were beginning to suspect that when people said ‘too difficult’ they meant ‘too elusive’. Despite all our guide’s elaborate gesturing, we remained unclear about where the descent to Ndung began.
We lunched under noble trees, by a swift shallow stream, watching scores of dark chestnut cattle being watered – their midday routine. One sociable bull wandered curiously towards us, sniffed at my boots, nuzzled my hair and then began enthusiastically to lick my sweat-salty arm. The sensation was akin to being sandpapered.
A tough climb took us to the highest point of the range where we followed a tenuous path along the edge of the mountain wall, overlooking the Metchum valley 4,000 feet below. Tin roofs glinted among trees near the river: Ndung, we presumed. Another range of bulky blue mountains, as high as our own, filled the western sky – tomorrow’s goal.
Soon the path descended slightly to a long forested spur, then expired in leaf mould.
‘We’re lost again,’ I observed. ‘There’s no way down these mountains for miles in either direction – they’re sheer walls.’
Rachel however insisted on continuing, through a shadowy tangle of undergrowth, and we came out on level grassland-cum-jungle. Here the spur was perhaps half a mile wide and a mile long, with 3,000-foot drops on either side. Even in bright sunshine those ravines looked dark and three species of monkey were already protesting at our intrusion.
‘That path must go on,’ said Ra
chel, with what seemed to me a tiresome lack of logic. ‘It was clear enough till we got to the forest.’
‘Only because Fulanis collect firewood here,’ said I in my let’s-be-reasonable voice.
Foolishly we split up, to look for that hypothetical continuation, and soon had lost each other. Time passed and I found myself becoming slightly agitated: there were lots of edges to be fallen over … Our whistle-system had broken down because of the sound-distorting topography. But half an hour later it reunited us – and Rachel announced that she had found the path.
We were then standing on the edge of a precipice. ‘Where is it?’ I asked, bewildered.
Rachel pointed over the edge of the precipice.
‘Don’t be so bloody silly!’ I snapped. ‘That’s not a people path, it’s a baboon path!’
‘It’s the path to Ndung,’ said Rachel doggedly. ‘There isn’t any other.’
I peered over the precipice and felt queasy; it was a precipice – I am not using the word loosely. But, surveying the surrounding peaks, ridges, ravines and spurs, I had reluctantly to agree with Rachel. This wasn’t, in my view, a path. Yet there couldn’t be any other route down. Our advisers had been right. The path to Ndung was much too difficult.
‘Looks like we’ll have to go back to the motor-track at Acu,’ I said. ‘That path’s more than difficult – it’s impossible. Especially with an unbalancing rucksack.’
Cameroon with Egbert Page 27
