Passing Through the World: A Story of Childhood, Curiosity and Perplexity

By Amin George Forji

Forji has the magical knack of showing the world as it appears through the eyes of a young person. His words first introduce the reader to Cameroons diverse society as an infant sees it; and then we peer with him through the anxious lens of adolescence. Forjis is an authentic Cameroonian voice that helps the reader understand how things were for a youngster in his country in the 1980s and 1990s.

Claire George PhD


Stunning and unique not just for the unconventional storyline but also the ingenuity with which Forji tells it. an interesting read that chronicles life in a typical African setting as well as the complexities of polygamous family circles.

Dr. Edinam K. Glover, University of Helsinki


A prosaic masterpiece packed with memorable events. an illuminating African story.

Tchoumi Leopold, Author of Des Amours Sans Papiers


A story of a childhood with many highs, many lows and many challenges in between, a type of childhood many of us experience. This is Forji's story of how these highs, lows and challenges helped shape him into the man he is today.

Michael Clough, Australian radio commentator, broadcaster

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467882736

Amin George Forji

Amin George Forji (Licence en Droit, Maîtrise en Droit (Dschang); LL.M, LL.Lic-D.uir(Helsinki), LL.D Candidate (Helsinki) is a Researcher in International Law (Department of Public Law) at the Univ. of Helsinki. He was born in 1980 at Ndungated (Cameroon). He has published elaborately on areas such as Colonisation/Imperialism and International Law, Legal philosophy and Bilateral investment treaties...

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Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Part Two

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Part Three

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

PREFACE

From humble beginnings as a boy in rural Cameroon, Amin George Forji has become a man of the world despite a childhood and an adolescence experiencing the many facets of his multilingual and multicultural homeland. Forji can take pride that the successes he has enjoyed are because of his own self-determination, his own hard work, his natural thirst for knowledge as well as his skilful use of the written word.

What we have here in this tale is Forji’s developing years in Cameroon, from early childhood through his schooling years. This is not a rose coloured story where everything and everyone is perfect and happy, nor is it a story of never-ending hardships. It is a story of a childhood with many highs, many lows and many challenges in between, a type of childhood many of us experience. This is Forji’s story of how these highs, lows and challenges helped shape him into the man he is today.

While this story and its setting are unique to Cameroon and central-west Africa in general, one thing that this story impressed on me as someone who grew up a world away, in both culture and geography is the universality of the boyhood experience, being young and wide-eyed, the desire to impress your elders, the distractions of the teenage years and the search for your own identity.

Amin George Forji is a man with a great story to tell and while this is his first memoir, I certainly hope it is not his last.

Michael Clough

Australian Ice Hockey commentator, broadcaster and former colleague at OhmyNews International.

Melbourne, 1 February 2012

INTRODUCTION

I met Amin George Forji when I was an assistant editor for OhmyNews International and he was a reporter. In these pages Forji tells the story of his childhood in a traditional village society and teenage years in an urban household.

Forji has the magical knack of showing the world as it appears through the eyes of a young person. His words first introduce the reader to Cameroon’s diverse society as an infant sees it; and then we peer with him through the anxious lens of adolescence. Forji’s is an authentic Cameroonian voice that helps the reader understand how things were for a youngster in his country in the 1980s and 1990s.

Those with an interest in African spirituality and folk belief will find this book particularly useful as a primary source. Forji has a good memory for conversations and brings to life many interesting incidents. This book is also a valuable insight into polygamous households and extended family structure.

I hope that we will see more from Amin George Forji’s pen. It is still relatively rare for readers in Europe and the West in general to hear genuine grassroots accounts of African childhood. This memoir reminds me a little of Ben Okri’s great novel The Famished Road. Forji clearly has the potential for a similar success.

How this exciting new voice chooses to develop is up to its owner. Forji has already come a long way (and as many would-be writers know, a first book is a great achievement because it is the first test of endurance). I wish him the best of luck. I am sure the reader will too after getting to know him through these pages. Amin George Forji is a name to look out for.

Claire George PhD

London 23 January 2012

Part One

Village Life

Chapter One

Emahlah School

I come from a polygamous family. My father, Ambrose Efuetanjoh Morfaw, had seven official wives and twenty-three legitimate children—at least those that survived. With Hor-Amin, he bore Mary Atabongafac (called Ndoh-Atabongafac); with Hor-Hor, he bore Patricia Ajabtendong (also called Ndega-Ajab), Fonya Felix (Ndofuo), Emmanuel Ndifor (Ndoh-Ndifor), Joseph Nguasong (Ndoh-Nguasong), and Thecla Njingu (Ndoh-Njingu); with Hor-Ma, he bore Cecilia Anyika (Ndoh-Anyi), Robert Nchianze (Ndoh-Robot), Stephen Atemkeng (Ndoh-Atemkeng), and William Asongna (Ndoh-Wilem); with Nambo, he bore Joseph Asongafac (Ndoh-Asongafac), Anastasia Awungkeng (Nata), Christopher Alambeh (Ndoh-Alambeh), Elizabeth Nkafu (Ndoh-Nkafu), and Ivo Zinkeng (Ndoh-Zinkeng); with Ndoh-Ajab, he bore Aloysius Anubewoh (Ndoh-Anubewoh); with Ndama, he bore Theresia Anventendong (Ndega-Anven) and Esther Akaseng (Ndoh-Akaseng); with Nda-Awung, he bore Theresia Ajabawung; and finally, with my mother, Nata, he bore Canisia Mbohwoh (Ndoh-Mbohwoh), Emilia Akongwa (Ndoh-Akongwa), Sylvanus Njinkeng (Ndoh-Njinkeng), Victor Achakeng, and myself. He married all his wives according to customary law with the exception of Ndoh-Ajab, whom he kept as a mistress.

My father died on 2 February 1981 after a brief illness. He did not know his exact date of birth. His death certificate stated that he was ‘born around 1890’. He lived most of his life in Victoria as it used to be called in those days (the name has since changed to Limbe), returning to Ndungated later in his prime to settle down as a family man. I have heard from several stories that when he was about fifteen or so, the German colonialists invaded the Bangwa land, and although our people put up a fierce resistance, the Germans ultimately won—thanks to their sophisticated guns and killing ability—and renamed the land as Fontemdorf. They went on to institute a reign of terror, forcing everyone, big and small, to dance to their whims and caprices. My father escaped into the wilderness for safety rather than submit himself to the brutal white regime. The Germans were defeated in Kamerun during the First World War by the French and the British. While the French colonial regime administered the lion’s share of the country, the British contained themselves with just 20 per cent of the former German colony, including the Bangwa land. The change in the white power structure was more cosmetic than substantial, as the brutality on the villagers remained basically the same. That probably explains why my father never bothered to return to Ndungated until a decade or so prior to Cameroon attaining independence.

On arriving at Ndungated, my father acquired a large, isolated parcel of land on the next to the last hill at the foot of the village (the Bangwa land is in fact probably one of the hilliest regions of Cameroon). It is here that he constructed four broad roofs with sun-dry bricks, facing one another in a semicircle. The mightiest of them all, facing the mouth of the compound, contained the ndindi (parlour) and Dad’s two private rooms. It is in this area that he conducted all business and entertained his guests. It is also here that his wives took routines on various days to comfort and take care of him. At either end of the ndindi building were two of his wives’ houses—Hor-Hor’s to the left and Nata’s to the right.

Like the ndindi building, the other buildings each contained two women—one to the left and another to the right. Every household had two rooms each, connected to one another—the front functioning both as a kitchen and sleeping place for any male children, and the rear for the mother of the house and all the girls. Bushes, trees, tangled thorns, and hills surrounded the whole place as far as the eye could see, with the skies dropping down at the end of the horizons to shade us from the rest of the world. The only visible house from our courtyard was Mbeh-Aben’s lone roof that stood one kilometre on the hills, from the shoulder of our compound. By virtue of our location at the middle of the hills, we could from our ndindi backyard see Lewoh village spread out on the plateaus, as from ten kilometres or so down the hills.

Victor—whom I normally stayed in the compound with when Ndoh-Mbohwoh, Ndoh-Akongwa, Ndoh-Njinkeng, Ndoh-Njingu, Ndoh-Nkafu, and Ndoh-Zinkeng had gone to the school—also began school in 1982, and I was bound to begin following Nata to the farmlands, where i sat and waited for her in a specific spot all day until she finished at dusk, whereupon we would return home. It wasn’t always fun. Five of my siblings (Ndoh-Atabongafac, Ndoh-Anyi, Nata, Ndega-Anven, and Ndoh-Akaseng) were married at various Ndungated neighbourhoods. The rest of my siblings lived in various towns across the country and visited our compound only intermittently—mostly at holidays.

Nata soon became heavy with child. After months of struggling around with a big stomach, she finally gave birth to a bouncing baby girl, thus sparking an avalanche of merrymaking in our compound. A bevy of women who came to fela (nurse) Nata literally transformed our house into a small paradise. Nata no longer had to worry about going to the farm, cooking, or any of her habitual chores. Instead, the women collectively stepped into her shoes, including lightening our compound with cheerful songs and dancing. My four stepmothers still lived in the compound: Hor-Amin, Hor-Hor, Hor-Ma, and Nambo (two of my stepmothers, Ndama and Nda-Awung, had since left our compound to live elsewhere, and Ndoh-Ajab died soon after my dad) were constantly part and parcel of the fela duties. My biggest joy was the fact that there was always more food than people could consume. While women coming to see my new sister chiefly brought food in both cooked and raw form, the men on their part came in with kola nuts and jugs of palm wine.

There was always a big bunch of plantains beside the hearth, as was required by tradition. This was akindon wonh (the child’s plantain). In fact, akindon wonh was known to be the child’s first present for anyone who happily welcomed it to the world. Roasted akindons were naturally offered with bleached palm oil, for oil was the water that dragged the plantain into the stomach. Although each guest was entitled to at least a roasted finger of plantain together with palm oil, this could not be served except when the said guest performed a brief traditional ritual called sah lesong (laughter bang), that is, the akindon te mevat (plantain and palm oil) song. The song served as a dual opportunity for the guest to appreciate the nursing mother, as well as shower his or her blessings on the newborn. The child was told not to worry, for he or she was going to live a life of plenty. Then came the rhetorical question to close the song: ‘akindon te mevat, ma woy fat azo oya?’ That is, what kind of persons can eat plantains without oil? The song then ended the same way it started, with a sah lesong, after which the guest was then given a bowl of akindon bu mevat (plantain and palm oil). The guest could also be served with something else after akindon bu mevat but definitely not before.

I would have loved this ritual to continue forever, but it was unfortunately not the case. Nata was fela for about two weeks, although a handful of people still sporadically brought baskets of food or jugs of palm wine to our house. Even this too disappeared within days, and life was back to normal. In fact, it was not so long before Nata resumed the basic farm duties of collecting food and wood, leaving the baby in my lap on a mat. Unlike previously, she now mostly went to farmlands in close proximity, some of them actually so near to the extent that I was able to shout to her each time the baby got irrepressible.

Nineteen-eighty-three! Less than a year after my mother was freed from her heavy stomach, our compound was once more dense with people. It seemed like the whole village had descended into our compound. In direct contradistinction to the cheerfully relaxed outlook that everyone exhibited following my younger sister’s birth, it was a weeping mob this time around, with all and sundry looking deeply disturbed and distressed. Every newcomer announced his or her arrival at the mouth of our compound with an ear-splitting cry, and the rest of the compound rose and responded with a sorrowful melody, bemoaned in such a way that the newcomer could clearly be in the lead. It was the newcomer’s moment to pay some kind of expected tribute. This naturally involved the recounting of vague biographies and endless testimonies. Once the sobbing faded away, he or she was given a seat and then served with some food and palm wine.

Initially, I was more than confused about what this ritual was all about. No one bothered to give me any sensible explanation. What was at stake? What was the meaning of loincloths around the waists of all my relatives? Why was Nata crying more than everyone else? Why was there a ring of women, including my stepmothers, constantly around her? Was she in trouble?

I later learnt that my sister Ndoh-Mbohwoh was dead. Her name was recurrent on every lip. But what did they actually mean by saying she was dead? I had heard of people dying before and my mothers going to death celebrations, but it never meant anything to me, probably because I had never experienced any myself. I used to think it was fun because my mothers often brought us salted pork from these occasions, but now that it had come to our compound with all the gloominess, I was beginning to reconsider my belief. What had happened to Ndoh-Mbohwoh? Did she invite the whole village into our compound? I doubted it, for if she did, they would have been cheerful, not crying all the time. Despite the obvious grief, people still complimented her in bemoaned songs. This only made for an even more confusing paradox.

I kept digging deeper and deeper into what was transpiring until I was told that Ndoh-Mbohwoh had gone on an everlasting sleep and that no one was ever going to see her again. This was perplexing news. Why would she do that, leaving everybody so uncomfortable? Was it a deliberate act or a mere accident? No wonder Nata was uncontrollable. I also became disturbed that I was never again going to see Ndoh-Mbohwoh. She was always such a sweet sister. I told myself that it was way better to go to nchain (town) than go into an everlasting sleep, because everyone who went to the coast always came back to the village from time to time and in fact with some good bread for everyone. She herself had just recently gone to nchain. What went wrong with her own nchain, and how could it have been so brief? I could not imagine what life would be like without me ever seeing my sister again. On the second day, people continued to wait in our compound. But what were they actually waiting for? Why would the village continue to wait if Ndoh-Mbohwoh was never going to come back to us? Could it be that people still kind of nursed some hopes for her return but were just not sure of a potential return date?

‘Can we by any chance visit her wherever she is?’ I once asked Ndoh-Njinkeng and Ndoh-Zinkeng.

‘No, never!’ they replied, laughing. ‘Except you die yourself.’

‘No, I don’t want to die—to ever die,’ I replied.

‘Very good. Nice that you know that.’

Several cocks crowed in quick succession even before daylight fully chased away darkness to announce the dawn of the third day since people first descended to our compound. People had begun waking up as early as the first cock crowed. This was very graspable. With the few beds in our compound unable to contain the whole village, people had clustered into small groups and spread their mats just anywhere that they could find the least space. Dawn thus came as great relief to all and sundry who spent the night on rough and bumpy surfaces. Many people yawned aloud, threw their hands apart, and repeatedly stretched their bodies from west to east, as though to recharge themselves for the rest of the day. Before long, our compound once more became as noisy as a marketplace, with everyone busy in one way or another.

Some voices roared from a distance, but their howling was not exactly similar to the pattern of newcomer crying we had become accustomed to. The compound did not seem ready to reply as they would normally do. Instead, people just stood akimbo, gazing around. Before anyone knew what was going on, a group of armed men stormed the compound from the east end, provoking total pandemonium, as people shouted, running amok. In a twinkle of an eye, I had been rescued together with other children and locked up in Hor-Amin’s room. I could feel the manly strife outside. Even the ground was shaking as though there was going to be an earthquake. What was going on? I wondered. There was unfortunately not even a pinhole to peep outside. The tension soon appeared to be boiling down, and we could hear even women now speaking from the bottoms of their voices. It implied safety. My guess turned out to be true, as we were soon released from our temporary small jail.

I found out from our release from the temporary small jail that the troublemakers were actually my uncles from Mbeh-Lewoh. The people of Ndungated quickly subdued them, forcing them into submission. I could not tell why Nata’s brothers chose to behave the way they did. Could it be that Ndungated people were somehow responsible for my sister’s death? Despite the strife and obvious animosity, my uncles nevertheless accepted wine and kola nuts offered by our people. A semicircle was formed around the former, with the Ndungateds in their capacity as Victor dictated a truce. Despite my uncles’ defeat, the sad episode nevertheless compelled Ndungated elites to abruptly call the funeral to a close. This was followed by the mooning of heads by all family members and the mandatory wearing of black clothes.

Life in our compound became more boring than at any time before. Pockets of people still continued to visit us, especially to pay some kind of tribute to Nata. I had the impression that everyone in our compound had become twice as old as they were before the funeral. Everyone looked frozen, and there was no indication that things were ever going to open up again. It became clearer to me by the day that Ndoh-Mbohwoh was, truly speaking, no longer going to come back to us. Her clothes and belongings, which throughout the funeral were on open display, on the last day of the funeral were all burned out in public. I missed her so much and would occasionally cry to myself, making sure that no one noticed me.

Despite the dull mood of all and sundry, Ndoh-Mbohwoh still dominated every conversation. From various bits and pieces that I secretly captured from the ear-kissing stories, I came to have a vivid picture behind the bone of contention that transpired on the last day of the funeral. Ndoh-Mbohwoh had been taken to nchain against the wishes of my maternal family, who strongly suspected that my paternal family had orchestrated the plan. It was a long story, its origin tracing to the day I was born. On that blessed day—16 February 1980, as i understood, the Fonkem’s family came to our compound and publicly burned a piece of wood on Nata’s hearth on behalf of their son, George Amingwa. It was understood by everyone as tacitly asking the hand in marriage of Nata’s first daughter, as firewood was naturally burned first for eldest daughters before the younger ones.

Our compound allowed the firewood to burn from its head to toe, implying that they had happily accepted the betrothal of Ndoh-Mbohwoh to George Amingwa. But since she was not considered to be fully grown at the time, Fonkem’s family naturally had to wait until such a time when she had attained full maturity. Both sides concurred. Everything was supposed to be concretised in about four planting seasons, during which time Ndoh-Mbohwoh would have completed her schooling, as well. As a firewall against any potential suitors, my family accepted to give my sister’s suitor’s name to me. (I took the shorter form of his name, Amin. In the Bangwa country, it is optional to assume someone’s name either in its long or short form.) Time began to fly like wind with Ndoh-Mbohwoh growing as expected. The transformations were obvious to every naked eye. Someone from nchain quickly noticed her as time went by, and without much ado began making behind-the-scenes findings with the intent of proposing to her. Upon finding out that she was already betrothed, he became restless and would not give up. He eventually managed to kidnap her to the city. My anxious family became mystified about her whereabouts, only to discover in the end that she had been kidnapped to the city and had fallen seriously ill, almost upon arrival. The story quickly fragmented into several conflicting versions, with the only authentic account being that my sister was dying on the coast. To cut the long story short, she was returned back to Ndungated as a corpse. That is how my beloved sister tragically became a victim of her own beauty, the reason why my uncles could not take it.

Our dull moments continued, one day angrily chasing away another in about the same way that we were driving tears out of our eyes. It increasingly appeared to me as though our compound had grown sevenfold in size. One day, after Nata had gone to the farm and my younger sister (now called Victorine Asongacha) fell asleep, I threw my eyes about the compound and could not help but ponder the very nature of our compound: did the three sun-dry-brick buildings facing me used to be as mighty and aggressive as they were presently? Was the main path stretching into our compound always so steep and hilly? Had birds always sung mocking and provoking melodies as they were now doing in trees around the compound? Did my mothers always stay so late into dusk before returning from the farmlands? And so on and so forth. The more I tried to reason these questions out, the more my head became filled with clouds. Confused, I could do nothing else except flip my right hand across my face, purposelessly wiping it from head to cheek. A zigzag lightning kind of speedily flashed across my body as though to awaken me from my slumber. I shook my head repeatedly as though I was obeying a new command until I rediscovered myself. I became convinced that I had actually temporarily lost my memory, drowning myself so deep into paranoia. It was actually midday, not dusk as per my crazy imagination. How could I frankly be expecting anyone to show up at midday from the farm? Was I not just being silly? Of course, our compound was still intact, and the birds were actually stress free with their singing. I surely missed company. Victorine burst into tears as I woke up from limbo, and I rushed to the bed to bring her down.

The world continued to roll, and before I realised it, it was already another big holiday for my siblings. I learnt that my three sisters, Ndoh-Njingu, Ndoh-Nkafu, and Ndoh-Akongwa, all finished their schooling and were bound for Kumba town to attend college. Coincidentally about the same time, Ndega-Ajab asked for Victor to come and live with her in Kumba. In fact, they all left Ndungated on the same market day and with the same cosy bus.

‘I envy them,’ I told Nata one day.

‘Who? And why would you envy anyone?’ she asked.

‘Everyone who has gone to the coast.’

‘Never mind. You will also go to the coast when you grow up.’

‘In that case, I will grow up very fast.’

A few weeks later, Nata asked me to accompany her to a tailor because I was soon going to start school at Emahlah. This came to me as a positive surprise. I burst into tears of joy as soon as the words fell from her lips. I jumped and danced all over the place like a mad dog. I could already see myself in a colourful uniform and talking a new kind of language. I could picture myself looking into books and telling strange stories just like my brothers often did with their colourful books.

‘Nata, what am I going to do at school? Will they give me food when I am hungry?’ I asked.

‘There is no food over there. School is not a place for eating and playing. You will learn how to write and count.’

My siblings had taught me some things from their books, but I was not sure if the school at Emahlah was going to teach the same things as Catholic Mission School which my siblings attended.

‘What exactly will I write and count?’

‘Hey, stop disturbing me,’ she roared. ‘You will see it for yourself when you get there.’

Her response reminded me that she was in fact the wrong person from whom to make such findings. Not many girls went to school in the days of her youth. It was widely alleged that only stubborn girls were sent to school for the sole reason that their parents wanted teachers to help discipline them. I could tell that Nata was certainly not of that type, as she herself habitually boasted her submissiveness to my grandparents while growing up. Ironically, stubborn girls of her day got such disciplinary and knowledgeable training that, far from being any sidekicks, they grew up to become the pillars of our society, occupying the most beautiful professions anyone could ever dream of. They were the teachers and nurses; they were the ones who could go and live at nchain; and even in the village, they were always the first to be given seats wherever they went. They wore the best dresses and had more money than anyone else; they could do everything that no one else could do.

Nata and my stepmothers, I was told, actually enrolled at adult school, which used to take place at our ndindi. But that was before I was born. My siblings had, however, confided in me that there was currently nothing in any of them to justify that they had ever seen the four walls of anything related to school. The adult school itself lasted for less than five years and most likely closed down because it produced very little or no remarkable results. My mothers sometimes made light of the situation by claiming that their heads quickly got clouded with smoke as soon as they got married, thus blocking all latent book paths.

On the historic school day, Nata woke me and Victorine from bed as early as the disappearance of the last dark cloud and then bathed and clothed us in our Crismos (Christmas) dresses, which she pulled out from her wooden box only on that momentous morning. The dresses were full of their natural camphor smell. We were, in all respects, a fresh people. My school uniform from the tailor, I was told,