The Life of an African Peace Corps Child: The Life and Experiences of a Peace Corps Child of Kom, Cameroon

By Chia Tasah

My autobiography recounts my life from 1980 as an African Peace Corps child until I became a US citizen in 2012. I lived a full life as a needy child from a poverty-stricken nuclear family of nine and believe I have something fascinating to share with the world. Despite my pennilessness, I made great strides in my endeavors and thrived. I call myself a Peace Corps child of Africa because American Peace Corps volunteers, with benevolent and philanthropic gestures, encouraged my growth into an authentic adult. Mr. Alan Lakomski whisked me away from my job as bartender and manager of a confidential decadent brothel at Club 185 Njinikom at age fourteen and sent me to secondary school. He returned to the United States when his term expired. Bill Strassberger replaced Dan Hunter and supported my education. Christine Swanson advised me to apply to the master-of-education program in human resource development at the University of Minnesota in 2003. I graduated in 2005 with an MEd and now work as an independent team-building and cultural-diversity consultant at All World Languages and Cultures, Inc., in Kansas City, Missouri.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491771570

Chia Tasah

Chia Alphonse Tasah is a team-building and cultural-diversity consultant at All World Languages and Cultures, Inc., in Kansas City, Missouri. He was educated by Peace Corps volunteers and later earned his master of education (MEd) in human resource development at the University of Minnesota. He is a presenter in conferences, seminars, churches, and schools.

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Copyright © 2015 Chia Tasah.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-7158-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7157-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015910555

iUniverse rev. date: 09/21/2016

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Bibliography

Dedica

tion:

To my wife, Pamela B. Tawa, without whose caring support this book wouldn’t have been published, and to Mr. Alan Lakomski and Mr. Bill Strassberger for their benevolence in having facilitated my efforts to recreate my history.

Preface

Be amazed as I share the story of my life with you! My autobiography recounts my journey from early life as an African Peace Corps child until I became a US citizen in 2012. I believe that I had lived a full life as a needy child from a poverty-stricken nuclear family and thought that I had something fascinating to share with the world. Despite my pennilessness, I made great strides in my endeavors and thrived. I call myself a Peace Corps child of Africa because American Peace Corps volunteers Alan Lakomski and Bill Strassberger tossed me into the gray zone of secondary school. That initiated the privilege of pursuing my educational goals on the same platform as any well-to-do student.

My original intention for writing the story of my life was to inspire needy and poverty-stricken kids in Africa, especially in Cameroon, showing that there is the possibility for making great strides in life if one is humble, hardworking, responsible, determined and resilient. I hope to motivate helpless kids who languish in abject poverty (and share my family status and age) and whose situations have been impacted by the same or similar tribulations I endured. Those readers would be able to empathize with my early childhood transition into adulthood, learn lessons from my experiences, and maybe adopt my values to achieve their utmost goals.

I strongly believe that these qualities earned me the admiration of US Peace Corps volunteers and fed their zeal to educate me, a decision that made me a better me. Alan Lakomski, who worked as a Peace Corp volunteer in my village, Njinikom, sponsored my secondary education at Kom Secondary Grammar School Njinikom, an endeavor was unable to undertake because he was he was poor. He intimated that by continually tantalizing him to act beyond means was tantamount to squeezing water out of a rock. Alan Lakomski set precedence with benevolent gestures and allowed destiny to take its course.

Though I lost contact with him, another compassionate Peace Corps Mr. Bill Strassberger, came to replace Danny Hunter, and offered to help. He inculcated self-reliant skills and encouraged me to work holiday jobs to support my education within the Cameroon context of child labor, in which children work for the family. I sustained my education with support and advice from my Peace Corps friends of Cameroon. I was able to continue school, and I won a scholarship that paid my school fees for the three academic years between 1983 and 1986. To qualify for the Kom Bum Development Union scholarship, all applicants needed to be modest and responsible. The disciplinary department of my school provided the disciplinary records of all applicants from the past years as requested by the union scholarship board. I didn’t envisage any impending scholarship program lunch and did not prepare in advance. The program took me by surprise, but I was morally and academically qualified and got it. The scholarship eased the considerable financial distress I endured as a helpless African child.

I made negotiations for sponsorship with relatives and friends as I progressed academically. When I encountered setbacks, I worked menial jobs for minimal pay. I picked coffee, harvested pineapples, harvested and planted coffee, and molded bricks and carried them by head loads to and from construction sites.

When I reported to the United States with a student visa, I had only eighty-five dollars and nothing more. I dwelled temporarily under Christine Swanson’s supervision as described by the protocol before my departure from Cameroon. The mindboggling uncertainty, where to go next, what to eat was worrisome. She had declared that I was supposed to live under her supervision for a couple of weeks and not longer. My stay with her was fateful because I reconnected with Alan and Bill. Incidentally, I got the same care I received from 1980, twenty-two years ago when they met me at age 14 in Cameroon. I feel that fate connected me to philanthropists who were strangers to me in the beginning and later became my sponsors. To me, the best way to appreciate their endeavors to enhance my selfhood was to document and dedicate a memento for posterity on behalf of my wife and my kids. Alan Lakomski was my curtain-raiser sponsor, and destiny directed me to my other benevolent benefactors. Without his intervention and help, I would be lost in my village now, or maybe still serving people from all walks of life at the bar where he met me. His action was a springboard that helped to make me a better me. I drafted a tentative plan and picked up from there after I was spurred into action.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to all who encouraged me to put my fascinating stories in writing. I am also grateful for the encouragement and comfort of my wife, Pamela Tawa, and my children, Kaemia and Alan, who fought tooth and nail during my illness to get me back to my normal self. I am grateful for the Cameroonian community in Minnesota, especially the Kom and Nkambe tribal meetings, for all their support through prayer.

I would like to express my gratitude to Lambert Kubei and Kenneth Mbah for making their computer expertise available and helping me with the computer processes that facilitated the completion of this book.

All my appreciation goes to Mr. Alan Lakomski, Mr. Bill Strassberger, and Dr. Christine Swanson for reading through my manuscript. I would like to thank Dr. Christine Swanson for editing in detail the first twenty pages of the manuscript and for making recommendations for corrections and adjustments and to Dr. Emmanuel Tata Mentan for restructuring my book title to align with my story.

Last but not least, I beg the forgiveness of all those who have been with me over the course of the years whose names I have failed to mention.

Introduction

My childhood influenced my adult life, and I explain my adulthood by alluding to a poem from my high-school English literature books, Wordsworth’s My Heart Leaps Up.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

and I could wish my days to be

bound each to each by natural piety.

—William Wordsworth, 1888

In the famous poem My Heart Leaps Up, William Wordsworth uses the expression The child is father of the man. This expression means that the positive and life-nurturing impressions that get deeply etched in our minds when we are small children remain with us for the rest of our adult lives. In other words, the inner child of the adult comes from the earliest experiences. Good behavior models a good childhood and later a good adulthood.

When I reflected on the topic of my autobiography, I recalled the Psychology of Education class in my undergraduate program at the University of Buea, Cameroon. In one of our classes, we had a heated debate on nature versus nurture. Our Psychology of Education instructor, Reverend Sr. Euphrasia Yuh of the aforementioned department, invited some biology and psychology students to debate. Biology students upheld the notion that one’s personality is based on one’s genetic predispositions (nature); some psychology students thought that not only heredity (nature) influences who we are, because our environment (nurture) impacts human psychological development of social attributes like behavior, habits, intelligence, personality, love, and belligerence. The debate became intense and resulted in diabolic rage that almost ignited into an altercation. In the end, there was no definite conclusion about which one does what it does best. I came away with the feeling that my personality had been influenced partly by the reaction of the genetic constitution of my being from both parents and my environment. To succeed in life, I discarded the mind-bending experience of managing a brothel. I watched sex workers on duty but despised all distracting attributes. It was all about whom I wanted to become. I was the first son in line and the third child in a family of nine. I didn’t want to disappoint myself, my siblings, my parents, and society at large along the way. This required fortitude and resilience, and I snubbed all unwonted distractions and prospered heroically.

Introducing My Family

I am the third child in a nuclear family of nine; eight are alive, the first sister Bridget dead and gone. When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. My family languished in abject poverty, and I worked menial jobs for the family, and my school needs. I moved bricks and blocks in neighborhood construction sites and helped my mom and other family members plant their crops during the planting season. Frugality was commonplace, and family became very frugal for sustenance.

Below are the people who shaped my personality and made me a better version of myself. They are benefactors who exhibited their philanthropic endeavors not to organizations but to help the neediest son of Kom, Cameroon, now a US citizen.

Mr. Alan Lakomski

He worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon to reorganize the credit union structure in Kom and lived in Njinikom, my village. He is chief operating officer and founder at Global Medical Staffing. He studied international business at the University of Utah and lives in Salt Lake City. He is married to Pam Pierce Lakomski. He was disgusted by the nature of my work at the brothel and suggested that I quit the job because of its arduousness. He led me into a gray zone in secondary school, and that led to the privilege of pursuing my educational goals on the same platform as any well-to-do student.

Bobe Bill Strassberger worked as a Peace Corps volunteer at the Kom Area Cooperative Union LTD in Njinikom Kom (my tribe). He studied international education at American University and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is married to Emade Strassberger. He took over payment of my school fees. He encouraged me to be self-reliant, considering my needy background, according to the cultural standpoint at that moment.

Dr. Christine Swanson

She was my instructor at the University of Buea in the year 2000 when I rounded off studies at the University of Buea, Cameroon. She supervised my end-of-course project. She works as academic advisor at the School of Nursing. She worked at the International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS), College of Liberal Arts. She supported me in my application process for the University of Minnesota and followed up my visa process until it was granted.

Mr. Chia Kiyam Barth

He is a Kom notable and renowned elite who inspired and motivated me toward my education and well-being. He was the president of Kom Bum Development Union and encouraged me to apply for the Kom Bum Development Union full scholarship that paid all my fees from 1983 to 1986.

Chapter 1

Cameroon, My Place of Origin: The Background

Location of Cameroon

The Central African country is located north of the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean). The country is bordered to the west by Nigeria, to the south by Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, to the east by the Central African Republic and northeast by Chad, and the north by Lake Chad.

—http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/cameroon.htm

The Location of Kom Fondom (My Tribe)

The Fondom (fondom means chieftain) of Kom is located in the Bamenda Grasslands in the present-day northwest region of Cameroon and ruled by a fon. It is the second largest fondom, after Nso, in the Grasslands (Chilver and Kaberry 1967, 33). Kom shares its eastern boundary with the kingdoms of Oku and Nso and the southern frontier with Kedjom Keku, or Big Babanki, and the Ndop plain. Bafut is on the western border, while to the north are Bum and Mmen. The capital of Kom is Laikom, the seat of the ruler, the fon, The fon is assisted in his administrative duties by his advisors, the Kwifon (supreme traditional council).

Chapter 2

My Family

Dad (Born 1924, Died 1998)

My father was an uneducated business man, who didn’t qualify for any public service job. He’d dropped out of school during elementary education for family imperatives. As a young adult, he started a clandestine international business, making perilous trips with a group of smugglers, on foot to and from the Onitsha market in Nigeria (and back), tautology to sell kolanuts and buy female clothes and whisky. He gave up the smuggling, and stopped the business because of his age. He started a small coffee farm in our homestead that could only give the entire family a yearly income of FRS CFA 200.00—about US$400 a year. This very minimal income for a family up keep for a family of nine. He managed his little coffee farm and a beehive until he died.

My Dad As a Rural Man

In Cameroon, a rural man in most communities relies on cash crops for survival. In precolonial, colonial, and most postcolonial times, the father was the main person in charge of the farms. Today it is same, which doesn’t mean that the woman and the children do not participate. They assist the man in the cleaning, pruning, and harvesting of the cash crops. The woman mostly takes care of the food crops, and after the family has harvested enough of the food crops, the remaining crops are sold in the local market. The main cash crop in the northwest region of Cameroon is Arabica coffee, as opposed to the Robusta coffee in the southwestern region.

The man is the owner of all property and owns all the farms crops and wives. At the end of the harvest season, he sells all the cash crops and has total ownership of the money. He gives money to his wife discretionarily, unchallenged by the wife. Women may be involved in small businesses to earn basic income for daily transactions on behalf of the whole family, but sometimes, the husband collects her meager earnings from the business and uses it all for himself. At the end of the harvest season, he does not give an account of his earnings to the wife. Some of the men spend lavishly in bars, get home relaxed and in a happy mood, poised for sex. While in bed, he keeps himself emotionally ready for a sex deal, sometimes with or without without the consent of the wife. This allegation from the cultural stand point in some circles upholds the understanding that the wife cannot refuse sex as she is the property of the man. In the United States, such husbands would be termed sex predators, rapists, or sex abusers. I do not presume that my mother was subjected to such mean requests. I overheard quarrels over food, money and nonchalance about work not sex so it is sacred and private and best known to mom and dad. Kids don’t need to discern their operational scale pertaining to procreation procedures. I grew up to discover mine. I have two kids and know exactly how reproduction in adults and other wise takes place.

My Mom

My mom was born in 1941 and died in 1992. She was called Juliana Nkumi. She was uneducated but was very intuitive in the way she disciplined and counseled her children. My mom advised us to uphold the values, to be humble, truthful, resilient, and hardworking. She intimated that if I steadfastly clung to the aforementioned values, I would overcome challenges and temptations that might hanmper other or derail my zeal and ability to accomplish my personal goals. She intimated that if I followed her advice, I would accomplish my education and other goals and be able to land decent jobs and make good career choices. She abhorred dishonesty and all truancy, which was a deterrent to smoking. I do not smoke today because she outsmarted me with a trick that created negative feelings about smoking and neutralized my propensity to smoke. She frequently reminded me that cigarette smokers smoked marijuana, which had adverse effects, like disorientation and lack of physical coordination, and that I a hopped on the smoking wagon I would get demented. One of my neighbors dropped a cigarette stub nearby, and I picked it up and smoked. I also got corncob silk and wrapped it like marijuana and smoked. She watched me closely from a nearby farm and immediately called me up. She said I’d just practiced how to smoke marijuana because I saw some of my neighbors who smoked tobacco leaves and I just copied. When I went up to her, she whipped me with a switch from a tree branch and ordered me to kneel, and I did. She shoved me under a big coffee basket used for collecting coffee products during the harvesting season. She poured calabashes of water over my head, pulled me out after a while, and took me to a traditional medicine man called Bobe Tim of Yang a kilometer across from my village who treated insanity. She showed me insane patients whose toes had been chewed up and deformed by jiggers. My mom asked if I wanted to look like them, and I stated NO. I assured and reassured her that I would never in my entire life. She frightened me into submission, by confirming the notion that insanity was caused by cigarettes and marijuana. That was the last time I attempted smoking. The exposure completely killed my urge to smoke. I have never habituated myself with it, and wouldn’t want it. You same?

My Mom as a Rural Woman

Being raised in a nuclear family, I came to accept the fact that a rural woman in Cameroon is very hard working; she works from sunrise to sunset. She is engaged in the cultivation of food crops for home consumption and for the local market. Childbearing and housekeeping are paramount to her. The woman gets up as early five in the morning, while men are still in bed. She begins preparing food for the family using firewood. Gas and electric cookers are expensive and to some families rarely available. Food is cooked on three supportive stones arranged in a triangular form. She lights the fire under the pots with dry grass and /or dry branches (eucalyptus branches in my village). Because electricity is rare, she uses the bush lamp (lantern) for lighting the home, prepares children for school, serves food to the family, and gets ready for the farm. Usually, it takes a minimum of an hour or more of continuous trekking to reach the distant farms.

The woman carries on her head a basket full of seeds, a hoe, food, and necessities for the baby. In the case of a nursing mother, the child is snugly tied to her back. Many women trek to the farms in groups, especially if they have neighboring farms, as this is a very important form of socialization. While on the farm, the nursing mother places the baby in a loincloth or basket and begins her main activities for the day. She cuts the grass with a machete, tills