A Game of Fons

Shiddon for here, my pikins, and I will tell you a tale; a tale of kings and kingdoms, of regents and betrayal, of politics and peril, of lobstered steel and boiled leather. I will tell you the tale of the Great Ashong Schism.

A few years back, perhaps in 2012, no one really knows and it adds to the mystique, His Royal Highness the Fon of Ashong embarked on an extended sojourn away from his lands. Some say he went to Yaoundé, some say he went to America or Europe, no one really knows and it adds to the mystique. A fon is a traditional ruler, somewhere between chief and king, that is responsible for the wellbeing of the people in his village. They exist outside the modern governmental structure of Cameroon while still nominally subjects of the Republic. They were here long before Cameroon and will probably be here long after. Referred to  as “Royal Highness” in the English fashion, “Excellency” in the French fashion, “Sultan” in the Muslim fashion, and “Mbeh” in the African, fons wield a sizeable amount of power and autonomy. It is their responsibility to dispense justice, keep tradition alive, and represent the village as its patriarch.

Being the Father of the Ashongese, His Royal Highness could not leave his flock without a shepherd in his time of absence. Without reserve, His Utmost Confidence officially gave the regency to the lead kingsman who also happened to be his brother. A kingsman or kingmaker is one of a number of village notables that serve as the king’s small council and are often quarterheads, leaders of a quarter within the village. Kingsmen are expected to uphold strict protocol, show loyalty to the Fon, and implement the Fon’s will throughout the village. In a most ancient form of legislation, they represent the people of their various quarters and present their needs to the Fon. For this reason, notables may act as a buffer between the Fon and his people, they interact more closlier with the people of their village.

The Fon’s brother was and is, by all accounts, a gregarious fellow. Beloved by many for his positive disposition and affable nature, people often questioned why the Late Fon had not bestowed his titles on this extroverted son. It must be noted that royal families adhere to the traditional marriage structure and are therefore polygamous. Their many wives produce many sons. Traditional rights of succession call for the fon’s discretion, His Discerning Selectiveness may choose any one of his sons to succeed him regardless of age or social standing. For whatever reason, some say he was more humble and temperate, others say he was a better administrator, the current Fon of Ashong assumed his father’s throne, no one really knows why and it adds to the mystique. Despite lacking his brother’s charisma, His Indubitable Worthiness was regarded as a good choice, serving his people through priority rather than passion.

The royal seals and titles of office were transferred, the District Officer was notified, protocol was observed and the regency of Ashong began. His Impeccable Promptness left for his pilgrimage or sojurn or business trip or vacation and the Fon-In-Residence took the seat of Ashong, long may he reign. His Royal Vicar soon began ingratiating himself to the community. Through lavish parties and more lavishlier gifts, the new regent was celebrated as the joy of Ashong Village. No doubt adjusting well to the trappings of power, His Resplendent Freshness could see that the people loved him and there was much rejoicing.

In the months that followed Ashong seemed as though it were in a dream, intoxicated in its love affair with its new Fon, though love affairs are often silly, fleeting things than end abruptly causing heartbreak and controversy. Word had already reached the village that His Impending Previousness was preparing to return forthwith. Already an idea had been planted in the regent’s mind; that Ashong was better with him at its ruler. The people were grateful for his reign; happiness and prosperity had blessed Ashong in the old Fon’s absence. If the people so clearly wanted him as their Fon, who was he to deny them? No one knows who planted the idea in the would-be usurper’s mind. Some say its genesis lay with the regent himself, fostered by a lust for power or a compulsion to do what he believed was the right thing. Other say a fork-tongued adviser seduced the regent. No one really knows and it adds to the mystique.

There is to be no doubt that the two factions knew of each other’s intentions preceding the calamity that would ensue upon The Return of the King. As in any good story of court intrigue, we can be sure that both parties had the means to obtain information. His Supremely Surprisedness returned to Batibo subdivision most likely expecting the worst. The District Officer advised the Republic of Cameroon that the regency was over, the rightful Fon had returned to his lands and his natural powers were once again bestowed upon him. The transfer of power would not be as easy in fact as it was on paper.

Upon arrival at Ashong palace the royal seal was gone. The Fon’s brother had stolen off to a far quarter of Ashong village, taking the traditional mandate for rule with him. There he built a palace and proclaimed himself to be the Fon of Lower Ashong, while conferring his brother as the Fon of Upper Ashong. Many people moved to Lower Ashong to express solidarity with the self-made Fon, and it is said that the population of Lower Ashong continues to grow as the population of Upper Ashong dwindles.

Thus things became as they are now. The Fon of All (Not Just Upper) Ashong is supported by the Republic of Cameroon and the vast majority of North West Fons. The Fon of Lower Ashong finds his legitimacy in the Lower Ashongese socialites, the royal seal, and several notables. Ashong is one of the largest villages of Moghamo and some say the current situation is preferable to reunification, some think the government will force the usurper out, and some even say the original sovereign should step aside. No one is sure what is going to happen and that adds to the mystique, but the two will surely meet in court if the situation is not resolved personally.

The Great Ashong Schism is hugely divisive, not just for Ashong but more Moghamo as a whole. A few months back I attended a traditional dance in Upper Ashong, invited by the Fon of Guzang who is a “loyalist”. With all the speeches it was constantly and subtly suggested that the Fon in our presence was the true Fon of Ashong, saying things like “This community has 22 villages and always will have 22 villages.” My German friends teach at a school in Lower Ashong and were invited to the counter-dance there, where they claimed they heard similar propaganda in support of the usurper. The whole of Moghamo is anxious for a resolution, and so am I, because this story is great and I want to write “A Tale of Two Fons” next. It’s great to know that stories exist like in reality and that one has to look no more closlier than modern times to find them.

All Roads Lead to China

 There’s a guy that’s pretty famous in Batibo, I pass him almost every time I’m moving along the rough and hilly dirt roads that connect the various villages. Every morning he grabs a wheelbarrow and a shovel and goes to work filling in potholes. Initially he was doing this without compensation as a response to the lack of road maintenance; his indispensable services have since been contracted by the council. Some days he has help, most days I see him alone. I shudder to think of the amount of red dirt this guy has moved over the course of his career, but he seems content to do it. I think he feels secure in the knowledge that his job is hugely important, more so because he’s mainly the only one doing it.

 Elsewhere in Cameroon there are other road projects underway. The past decades have been witness to a remarkable amount of road and infrastructure development throughout Cameroon and the entirety of Africa, unprecedented relative to the decades preceding them. Modern African nations have spent most of their histories in isolation. Colonial superpowers were quick to build railways to transport soldiers and export goods, but these did little to help the local’s freedom of movement. After 20^th century movements for independence, many newly emerged African states opted to tighten their borders as a way to promote internal trade, often creating in-country boundaries to increase opportunities for corruption. While these policies that have stifled infrastructure development are still evident in Cameroon today, it seem like nothing will stop the advance of the tarred road.

 With road development being underfunded throughout most of Cameroon’s history, many stakeholders are desperate to play catch-up. Sub-Saharan Africa currently spends about $7 billion a year paving roads, many economists and nearly all lobbyists say this is not nearly enough. The cost of moving goods in Africa is, on average, two to three times higher than the cost of transporting them in developed countries. All PCVs in Cameroon have seen huge trucks in ditches alongside unpaved roads, if you’re lucky it may have even been a Brasseries truck, that’s a prime example of why shipping costs are so ridiculous in Africa. The World Bank estimated that accidents on Uganda’s terrible roads costed the country 2.7% of its GDP in 2015. To scale it down a bit, everybody knows the okada guy is going to charge you twice as much to go up the rocky hill of death than he is to go twice the distance on a nice paved road. Heavy risk, long wait times, and inconsistency in delivery are throttling Cameroon’s ability to export its goods to a demanding market. Up until recently, Cameroon lacked the equipment and capital to handle its road situation, so what’s changing?

 Enter the People’s Republic of China on the back of an asphalt spewing dragon with bulldozer claws. From Durban to Algiers, Chinese engineers, workers, and equipment are now familiar fixtures of the African landscape and we know that Cameroon is not an exception. China’s need to internationalize its job growth and investments coupled with Cameroon’s need for affordable development of its infrastructure seems like a match made in heaven, but a convenient pairing isn’t always the best. China’s foreign direct investment has been skyrocketing in Cameroon since the mid-2000s and beyond, with funding coming from both the Chinese government and a multitude of Chinese investment banks. Much of this money, diverted through the Cameroonian government, goes straight into the accounts of Chinese construction firms. Although these construction projects create jobs for Cameroonians, most of them are labor oriented, favoring Chinese engineers and technicians over perfectly abled Cameroonians. In many instances this pushes the Cameroonian government into the unsustainable position of creating jobs for skilled Chinese workers building roads with borrowed Chinese money to get to resources that will be shipped to China. It’s easy to see that this relationship is pretty one-sided.

 “The increasing environmental footprint of China in natural resources in Cameroon is due to both direct and indirect investments. Most Chinese activities are as a result of government’s applied funding from China into public projects, others are due to private direct investment from China…Cameroon’s debt to China is fast growing and it is a major cause for concern because the state doesn’t really have the power to decide on the outcomes of Sino-Cameroon cooperation,” - Samule Nguifo, Executive Secretary of Center for Environmental Development Cameroon (CED).

 Cameroon is fertile investment ground for China and with every investment there is a reason and a return. The East region has experienced a proportionately large amount of construction projects due to the timber and mining industries. The roadways connecting the East to Douala harbor and the recently constructed (by China) deep water port at Kribi have also received a lot of Chinese attention. The pattern that emerges should leave no doubt as to China’s aims in Cameroon. Many African economists have been have been weary of China’s role in development on the continent, rightfully so. Short-sightedness will be the biggest weakness to Cameroon as its relationship with China develops.

 I don’t mean to bash on China. Chinese manufactured goods have opened up commercial markets in Cameroon that no one thought could exist before, and even if they have their own agenda in Cameroonian road construction at least someone is doing it. The Anglophone regions have the least amount of tarred road in Cameroon, but most PCVs in those regions will tell you how fast that’s changing. The Trans-African highway is every Batibro’s best friend, and the Kumba-Mamfe road is going to make it easier for everybody in the South West. These roads are making it far easier for farm-to-market transportation on every level; from large organizations now having access to Nigerian markets to smallholder farmers who now have an easier time accessing their local ones. 

A particularly bad day on the Bamenda-Bafoussam Highway in rainy season.

            It’s evident how information technology and electronics are changing the way Cameroonians live, but I think the technology having the most impact on the nation is straight out of the Iron Age. Paved roads are turning geographically isolated parts of the country into major players in the national economy. I’m hopeful that Cameroon’s precarious gamble with China will pay off in the end, with increased access to resources and lower costs of transportation offsetting the debt it has incurred, but it’s too soon to tell. While the economic partnership has been mostly beneficial thus far, Cameroon will have to remain vigilant. With any luck, as time goes on, Cameroon will be more like that guy in Batibo shoveling red dirt; taking initiative and bettering their infrastructure with their own resources.

Living In a Farmer's Paradise

Let’s talk about how great agriculture is for a second. It’s really great. You can put a seed in dirt and with minimal effort food will come out. You can get the best seeds from the harvest and propagate them so that you’re next harvest can be bigger and then just keep doing that until your species conquers every known region of the planet and develops religion, poetry, skyscrapers, and porn. You can clone a plant just by cutting off a section of it and putting it in dirt, making infinite plants because plants are basically immortal. You can plant a tree tomorrow that will feed your great-great-great grandchildren. You can use plants to make other plants better. You can make food grow on food. You can make your food make the soil better so that you can make even more food. You can use the parts of the plants that aren’t food to make more food for your food. You can give your plants to animals to make a whole new type of food.

Speaking of animal husbandry, you can get on the back of one animal and hunt down other animals on top of it. You can train an animal to protect and herd your other animals. You can feed animals plants and use the animals waste to feed the plants that feed the animal. Strap a plow on the back of an animal and it tills the farm for you while fertilizing it. There’s a bird that does nothing but make eggs. You can raise birds from those eggs to make more eggs. It’s unlimited protein. You can use pig waste to make the gas you use to cook a pig. When animals get pregnant, you can milk them.

Agriculture is dirt cheap, we’ve been doing it for millennia, and we’re really good at it. All of human history has been propelled by agriculture. Civilization was built with blades of wheat on the back of a chicken. Danish Vikings wanted a place where their seeds wouldn’t freeze in the ground. Portugal and Spain needed to find a better way to get to Asian spices and accidentally found half the world. The British and the Chinese fought entire wars over a flower that made you feel good. Agriculture is the greatest human asset and will continue to shape the fate of our species to come. The only problem is that nobody wants to do it anymore.

Before coming here my knowledge of agriculture was limited to say the least. Growing up in a suburban environment, the only thing I ever planted was the little tree we got at school on Earth Day. Now my knowledge of agriculture has hit exponential growth. There’s no going back, I’m addicted to how easy and useful this stuff is. So much of my life is now centered on agriculture it would be hard not to appreciate it. I love the way a group of women can tear up a plot of land in an instant and make it a garden. I notice how green corn looks after it rains. I think about how lucrative pepper is right now.

The reason I had never appreciated agriculture is because I’ve never lived in an agricultural environment. That sounds like a stupid thing to say growing up in Ohio where I could walk to my nearest farm, but I think it’s true. In the States, most agriculture is all or nothing. There are a lot of righteous examples of everyday people participating in agricultural activities on the side, but they are few. Most farms are large scale contract farms, plantations, and ranches (or the less nice “cattle facilities”) designed to produce as much food as possible while using minimal labor. There isn’t a lot of room for the old school farmers. With around one percent of the US population involved in agriculture, the vast majority of us don’t participate unless we choose to do so for novelty. I think we should choose to do that more.

I could get into the practical reasons for having a home garden or keeping some animals. Mainly it’s healthier, cuts down on transportation, and you’re sticking it to the man. But the most important reason is that it’s fun and feels great. It feels like you’re tapping into your human potential, mastering the landscape by coaxing the earth into making food for you. You keep some chicken friends and give them nice, happy, fat lives before nature takes its course. You eat that meal with pride knowing that you stand at the pinnacle of the known universe as a self-reliant being with control over its surroundings. Man, agriculture is great.

I’ve seen people here take a plot of land no bigger than the average US lawn and make it their sole source of income for the year. Fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, honey, and milk can all be produced in a space the size of a suburban plot of land and for a cost that’s insignificant to the average American salary. Nobody goes in for these things though and I find it really strange. I appreciate a nice green lawn as much as the next guy. And if I get off an eight hour shift I don’t want to go feed pigs. But I also think a suburban neighborhood fitted with full scale gardens would look nicer than lawns. And I submit that it’s easier to take care of pigs than it is dogs, but not many Americans have a problem doing that.

Here in Cameroon, with eighty percent of the population involved in agriculture, nearly every village has a Ministry of Agriculture representative. This is a guy that any farmer can go to, for free, and solicit advice. He or she is obliged to go to that farmer’s land for consultation, inform them of government support programs, and help mitigate any factors that might lead to a bad harvest. The Ministry of Livestock has a post in almost every village as well, offering free and low cost veterinary services to farmers as well as purveying veterinary drugs and donating them when they can. Of course it’s customary to tip these guys, but these resources are tax-payer funded and can be pretty indispensable to families whose livelihoods are dependent on good yields.

How cool would a service like that be in the States? I know we have extension agents but not on the level that the Cameroonian government has. Our government puts a sad amount of emphasis on agriculture. I bet you can’t even name the Secretary of Agriculture, you filthy commie. I think the Minister of Agriculture of Cameroon is in the same political weight class as the Secretaries of State or Defense are to America. It would be great if the Department of Agriculture got an influx of funding to promote home gardening. Ideally we’d have some guy walk around with the mailman inspecting all these front lawn gardens saying “Blight’s coming around, Marge. I’ll bring some fungicide by tomorrow if you want.”

That won’t happen anytime soon but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have something like it. I’m a realist. I’ve gotten used to my Cameroonian neighbor’s pigs but if I had my own I don’t think my American neighbors would appreciate it. However there should be no reason why I can’t tear up my lawn to start planting corn and quinoa, and I shouldn’t be worried about how it looks or ruining the neighborhood aesthetic. Roosters are noisy but hens are quiet, easy to take care of, and delicious. Greenhouses are pretty easy to construct. There’s a lot of things people in suburban environments can do that aren’t going to disturb their own lives or their neighbors, so why not? You’ll feel really good about yourself.

Gardens improve United State food security and help to liberate you from a dependence on a globalized society. They increase our commercial agricultural surplus to be exported to other countries and reduce the food burdens of cities. Some gardening programs give new skill sets to ex-offenders and others offer chances for inner city families to help improve food security for their neighborhoods. The reintroduction of native crops can be beneficial to local ecology. You can just grow stuff for fun and donate it to a homeless shelter. Either way, you’re just the greatest and America will thank you.  Growing food is like fighting terrorism and nursing a bald eagle. Just like Cuba did after the embargo, and Britain did during the war, by home gardening you’re showing the world that America is a strong independent woman who don’t need no food imports.

I never would have been this jazzed about agriculture had I not come to Cameroon, which shows that the whole development thing is a two way street. There are lessons America can learn from Cameroon and this is one of them. So come now America, help fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a shining republic helmed by strong and rational farmers participating in a vibrant agrarian economy.  I know the next lawn I own shall not be a lawn for long.

Bonus Annoying American Agricultural Thing (BAAAT): If you live in a desert, don’t have a lawn. We should all be cool with using what water sources you guys have to grow food but if it’s just to have a nice green lawn then what the hell are you thinking? Then you use gasoline refined from shit we took out of the ground to cut the damn thing down every week like some sick god creating a creature where it shouldn’t exist and then tormenting it ritually. You can drain the Colorado River if you want to grow onions or something but not so your dog has a toilet. Besides, sandscapes are awesome and it really brings out your neighborhood's regional southwest flavor.

A Day Without Rain

I wanted to make a blog post about what I do here on a regular basis but realized that is impossible because there is no regular basis. The first thing to note is that everything I do here is pretty much dictated by the weather. In the dry season, I had to constantly memorize the fluctuating water schedule so I could be back at my house in time to fill my buckets. Now that it is rainy season, water is still the limiting factor.

When it rains, everything shuts down. Rain comes without warning and screams its sudden arrival thunderously on corrugated metal roofing. It could last for two minutes, two hours, and apparently even two days, but it is almost always intense. If it didn’t rain yesterday, you can be pretty sure it’s going to rain today. If the last rain was comparatively light, you can be sure this one is going to be heavy. Other than that, there is no rhyme or reason to when the rains will come. This is either the best place to be a TV weather man or the absolute worst. When the rains do come, you can gauge fairly accurately how long that particular storm will last. If you’re awoken to what sounds like machine gun fire and the sky looks like East Cleveland in February, you probably aren’t going out that day.

If it’s raining, especially in the field of agriculture, you really can’t do anything. Most farmers will feed their pigs and hurry back inside for a cup of white mimbo. It really is a “rainy day” in the oldest sense of the term: when it’s raining in America you know it will end soon and even during you can still hop in your car and go about your business. In Cameroon a rainy day just shuts down society, much like it has for most of human history in the tropics. You get a lot of vacation days as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but if you factor in rainy days it gets pretty crazy. Ashia, American tax payer, what else can we do? I make up for it on the days without rain.

Unlike more regimented Peace Corps programs, mine leaves me free to develop my own schedule. I usually try to do one solid agricultural thing per day and one solid regular cultural thing per day. I wake up around six in the morning, oddly enough of my own volition. Sleeping in isn’t a common practice here, mainly because it’s almost impossible to do. Pigs, roosters, goats, pikins, and mamas will all ensure that your sleep cycle is tuned to the rhythm of Mother Africa. Half passed seven is considered well into the day and it isn’t uncommon to be receiving visitors at that time. Many times I’ve thankfully managed to eke out one more hour of precious sleep only to be woken to canon-fire on my metal front door accompanied by some guy yelling “Mr. Shan! Mr. Shan!” I still stay up late. I will always be a night owl but now I’m an early bird as well, it’s a precarious balance that’s working alright so far.

If today is a day where my counterpart is in town he will usually pick me up at my house and we’ll bike around doing various things. Mainly we will visit farmers that are part of our ongoing projects on honey bees, soil fertility, and poultry. Different farming groups meet on different days and there are so many that there are several every day. We often do follow-ups with these groups that we’re working with together, though I’ve done them alone sometimes too. While I’m working with my individual farmers for the Peace Corps Small Holder Integrated Agriculture stuff, it’s nice to have my counterpart there for communication purposes but I usually do this myself. We’ll break for lunch somewhere in the market square if someone hasn’t already fed us by then, maybe discuss some programming for later on, do some activities related to the tree nursery or demo farm then go our separate ways. My counterpart is the greatest, but he lives in Bamenda and is the Chief of Post for agriculture in another village up the road so scheduling is always difficult. Most of the time I’m left to my own devices.

If my counterpart isn’t there I’ll make it a slow morning; make eggs, check news on phone, maybe read something. Around eight I’ll either head down to the market square to see who’s there or I’ll call up one of the farmer’s I’m working with. By eight most of the farmer’s routine chores are done and they have some time to talk or do some cool stuff with me. We usually discuss the farmer’s situation and farm management plans, but also just shoot the shit. Cool stuff can comprise of mixing pig feed, spraying tomato fields, building a new poultry, or making a compost. Sometimes I’ll wake up super early and go do some regular farm chores with a farmer just to be friendly and “grow closer”. It also gives me a good idea of what the life is like and that’s one of the big points of the Peace Corps.

Some days I finish at noon with no other things to do, those are nice days. Other days I’m dragged about helplessly for fifteen hours attending farmer’s meetings and cry-dies. Some people like to program things in the morning, some like to program them in the afternoon. Either way I usually have a big chunk of free time during the day for movies, Pokémon, Crusader Kings 2, and delicious, delicious books. This is a very normal Cameroonian thing (minus the video games), it’s almost like a siesta. It gets really hot during the middle of the day, especially during the dry season. Most farmers are done with all their work by noon and most people in general don’t want to be outside at that time. It’s a pretty decent schedule, in my opinion kind of optimized for humans. Short hours, decent pay off, plenty of free time to pursue other endeavors.

Most people will drink palm wine throughout the day and while there are unacceptable times to be drunk there is never an unacceptable time to have a beer. My primary means of socializing in the community are walking down the street until someone calls me over to share a drink with them. It happens every time, especially when you don’t want it to happen. A morning trip to the market can easily turn into a 7:30AM beer and that’s just fine here in Cameroon. You drink to give you strength for the day ahead, you drink to relax and have a respite, and you drink to enjoy at the end of the day and celebrate a job well done. There’s obviously a negative and a positive way to look at this but regardless life’s been this way for a while. Even the guy that complains about how everyone is drunk and lazy will still pound one at the end of the day, or in the middle. With the amount of palm wine in Batibo and its ritual consumption at every meeting, the average Cameroonian farmer spends most days mixing business and pleasure.

Some of my projects take me out to places around my village, like the fish farming cooperative I’m currently working with. It’s great to work with dynamic groups because they expand your portfolio of serious farmers really fast, it’s pretty much ensured that I will always have something to do. While working with farmers we work together to identify what resources they have and how we can use those resources to move forward with their agricultural enterprises. We try to find solutions to problems that the farmer might not even think are problems. If a guy is buying chemical fertilizer because his pig farm and tomato farm are too far apart, you might want to try and develop a green manure or on-site compost thing with him. You save him money on fertilizer and now he knows this cheap, environmentally friendly way to increase his soil fertility. I’m working with three farmers now to develop bio-gas systems to attach to their piggeries, saving the farmer a shit ton of money, the forest a shit ton of trees, and the earth a shit ton of natural gas. Seriously, if every household in America just had two pigs this whole fracking thing wouldn’t even be an issue and we would have pigs! It’s pretty simple. But more on that in the next blog post.

So that is basically what I do when I try to discuss/work with farmers. We’re just looking for magic bullets that improve the sustainability and profitability of their systems. Having an American walk around an African village counseling farmers sounds weird, but I think it’s actually working and that this project will be successful. If you have some annoying whiteman hounding you all the time reminding you that you still have to buy the bamboo for the new poultry, and that the government’s having a fish farmers meeting tomorrow, and that the fertility of this manure would skyrocket if you got those micro-organisms going, you tend to do all those things.

I’ve got some regularly patterned off days too: once a month I’ll clean the hell out of the apartment, once every two weeks I’ll go to Bamenda for banking and good food, and I hang out with other PCVs often. Those days are a really nice break from the slowness and monotony of village life, but I’m finding village life to be very agreeable with me. It feels like the slower time moves the less anxiety you have. That is a very important lesson I will take from the Peace Corps, a simple life is a pretty good deal. There’s an attitude that things can be done tomorrow so anything that doesn’t get done is still fair game, it doesn’t matter when it will get done because it will get done. So enjoy life with whatever is happening in it, be proud of what you did, and look forward to what you’ll do tomorrow.

The Flaming Lips

There are an estimated 237 languages in Cameroon. The original Bantu Expansion began on the border of Nigeria and Cameroon, placing me pretty much at the linguistic epicenter of Africa. Bantoid groups have been migrating across the country continuously for millennia, settling in small isolated fondoms. With a surplus of mountains and a shortage of roads these different tongues diverged from each other rapidly, creating a patchwork of similar sounding dialects in different pockets of the nation. The language my people speak, Moghamo, is really similar to Meta; the language people speak in the neighboring community of Mbengwi. If you go just down the road, even closer to me then Mbengwi, you get to Bali which speaks a language completely different from the two. Through different periods of migration, displacement, warfare, and trade, the various peoples of Cameroon have created a linguistic quilt that seemingly has no distinct pattern. Unless you attempt to study the migration histories which are very poorly recorded, why couldn’t you damn Bantus have had a written language? Cameroon has the second most number of languages of any country. The country with the most languages, Papua New Guinea, beats them by miles with over 1,000 languages that were developed in a similar fashion and for similar reasons.

There are an estimated 237 languages in Cameroon and I feel like I can’t speak any of them. I remember writing in an older post about how happy I was to be going to an Anglophone region, one of the few places in the world where a Peace Corps Volunteer can speak English. I think I even used the term “King’s English”. What a fool I was, I take everything back. The word “English” doesn’t really describe what’s going on here well enough. I sometimes think that I would have been able to communicate more effectively in a Francophone region.

Any Frenchman will tell you that French is the greatest language humanity has ever devised. They may or may not be right, who’s to say? Regardless, France loved French (and being French for that matter) so much it wanted to export it to all the people it happened to be sovereign over. Especially in Africa, certainly in Cameroon, there seems to have been a more concentrated effort on behalf of the French to sew their language into the fabric of the nation. The best way to alter a people’s culture or a person’s outlook is to change the way they communicate about life and the world, the French seemed to take this to heart. People in all 8 Francophone regions speak their local dialects also, and Cameroonian French is not the same as French French, but I’ve never heard of Pidgin French. France used their language as a means to knit its African colonial subjects together and the result is the pretty unadulterated version spoken in Cameroon today. The emphasis on language is also presently evident in the names of the “ghosts of empire” international associations; whereas the British have the Commonwealth of Nations, the French have Le Francophonie.

While the French liked making Frenchmen, the British liked making money. The British Empire was always more like the British Empire, Inc. and instead of exporting the culture of their homeland they wanted to import the wealth of their colonies. (Not like the French didn’t but the British seemed to be more overt and direct about what they wanted from the whole colonial situation.) Instead of developing the infrastructure for regimented teaching of English to the populace in once clean sweep, English was grafted on to existing linguistic structures in many places over a stretched out period of time. Why teach everybody English when that one guy speaks it well enough? The others can pick up as we go along. If the French sewed themselves into that linguistic quilt I was talking about, the British just kind of embroidered over it. British association with its Cameroonian holdings was so indirect that the colony was governed from Nigeria, a colony itself passively ruled by the British and far away from the Southern and Eastern nucleus of British colonialism in Africa. Being the “colony of a colony” probably curbed the dissemination of English in Cameroon too, but who knows?

Pidgin started developing as soon as the Portuguese arrived along the coasts of West Africa; it was developed as a trading language and is still used as such today. Coastal tribes would barter with Europeans for weapons and goods in exchange for slaves they had taken from interior tribes. Coastal languages began to adopt foreign words over time and the languages learned directly by foreigners were augmented with local words and flavor. Eventually this developed into the strange lingua franca I speak regularly, Pidgin.

Pidgin technically isn’t a patua of English; it’s an African language with African structure that has gradually adopted words from different languages. Even so, English has had the largest influence on Pidgin by far and to any average listener it sounds like broken English. Looking at some words though, it’s easy to see the living history that pidgin represents, and I think that’s pretty awesome:

Pikin – means “child”, from the Portuguese “pequeno” meaning small. [Small pikin yi cutlass na sharp for morning time.]

Sabi – means “to know”, from Portuguese “saber” meaning to know. [My name na Sean. You sabi me, no?]

Shwine – means “pig”, from the German “schwein” meaning pig. The Germans were here for a while and basically invented Cameroon. So far this is the only word I know that they left behind. [Pa yi di build small small house for shwine.]

Massa – means “husband” or “my dude”, from the English “master”. This is probably the most evident example of Pidgin’s origins in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. [Massa, I tell you, it’s not easy.]

Okada – means “motorcycle”, from I don’t know where meaning I don’t know what. [Okada! I want reach market square, two-two hundred!]

Mbanga – means dried fish, marijuana, at least two dishes, a village, and I’m pretty sure a type of fence. Mbanga means like twenty different things in Pidgin. [Dat man yi comot Mbanga fit smoke plenty mbanga so yi go for chop plenty mbanga dem.]

Dey – means the conditional “do” and “there” from English. [How you dey? I dey fine! Wuside Pa dey? Pa dey for house.]

Chop – means “food” and “to eat”. From English, not sure why. [Tonight we go chop fine]

Comot – means “from” or to go someplace, literally “come out”. [Wuside you comot? I comot Guzang. I comot for Bamenda.]

Wuside – means “where”, literally “what side?” [Wuside wuna go for mimbo?]

Jesus, these sentences keep making me think of more words.

Wuna – means “y’all”. [Wuna, good afternoon.}

Mimbo – means “booze” (generally palm wine) but can also mean soda. [Dat man yi di tap fine white mimbo]

My personal favorite word, and I think that of many other volunteers, is “ashia”. Literally “I share”, it’s used as a greeting, as a way of saying sorry, and just as a form of acknowledgment. I’m pretty sure it’s the most empathetic word in the world, no wonder it’s in an African language. I use ashia sarcastically a lot but I try to think about how cool the word is regularly and take stock when I hear and say it.

By now I’m really getting the hang of Pidgin. I understand it perfectly if it’s annunciated well. I’m sure most westerners would say I speak it well, but most Cameroonians would say I don’t. Just like every language there’s a level of understanding you just aren’t going to obtain unless you were born into it. There’s the added factor of embarrassment; it’s a variation of English so my tongue is really shy to change words, structures, and inflections. My brain keeps detecting “wrongness”; it recognizes it as me speaking English poorly rather than me speaking Pidgin. To tell you the truth I hope that doesn’t go away, my English is starting to suffer as it is. Either way, I try to speak pidgin when I can. I definitely speak pidgin when I have to. For everything else, there’s “special English”.

Special English is probably the most popular way for non-West Africans to communicate with West Africans in English. Basically you avoid contractions, simplify your language, and add an African accent. In a lot of ways it sounds more proper than American English. There are also a lot of grammar changes and focusing on different subject pronouns; “What do you want?” becomes “I should give what?”  “Do you want more?” becomes “Should I add?” It might sound irregular to an American because African English is derived from British English. Actually in the countryside they always add “-o” to every greeting (e.g. Morning-o! Afternoon-o! I salute-o! Ashia-o!) and it always reminds me of “Cheerio!”

Picture a big ol’ Nigerian guy speaking to you in English. Better yet get on YouTube and watch a Nigerian film. That’s special English, to me at least. It’s more aptly called West African English.

I try to avoid special English whenever I can, I feel condescending using it. You wouldn’t go to Australia and start speaking in an Australian accent so people would understand you better. If you had a Japanese friend learning English you aren’t going to speak English in a Japanese accent so he feels more comfortable. You’ll slow down your speech and annunciate clearly, sure, but not change inflection. Alas, it actually helps and most Cameroonians seem to encourage you to talk in their accent. But if I say “water” and not “wata” you should be able to understand me, right? Come on, guys.

Which brings me to the predominant linguistic predicament for any Anglophone volunteer: you have three types of English, when do you use which? I actually haven’t talked about this much with other PCVs but I think its nightmare. Most people in the country and the city speak Pidgin; if they’re talking to their friends they’re talking Pidgin. The people who only speak Pidgin will only speak to you in Pidgin so you must speak to them in Pidgin. No problem there, I get to practice a new language and they get a kick out of it because whitemen don’t speak Pidgin. Those are usually really young kids and really old adults. People who speak Pidgin and English will also know that whitemen don’t speak Pidgin and will speak to you in English, facilitating the need to speak in special English so the everyman can understand you well. That’s fine, I get the benefit of speaking Pidgin sometimes, you get the benefit of speaking English sometimes, but I can still tell a lot of people would rather just speak Pidgin to me. And they can because I understand it. But they don’t know I know. Or they want to make me feel more comfortable. So I don’t get the practice I need with Pidgin to speak more effectively to the people that only speak Pidgin.

The third group, and I think the worst of all, are the people that can understand you perfectly in your American accent. People that have been abroad living in the US or UK, the Middle East or Europe, people that have a high level of education or have worked with Western English speakers extensively, public officials. People like my counterpart, a few friends I have in the city, and a few friends I have in village I know can understand me well so there’s no problem. So why is it the worst of all? You never know who is going to take offense to you speaking to them in Pidgin or special English. I’ve met a few people like this and as soon as I picked up a hint that they felt insulted I switched to speaking normally, one lady called me out on it too.

Dealing with languages in Cameroon is weird, but it isn’t necessarily bad. I just think that these are really unique problems that pretty much only exist here so I have to learn as I go. It’s hard to complain so much when I realize that Cameroonians also have to deal with these unique linguistic problems, and for a lot longer than two years. Being an officially bilingual nation looks great on paper. In theory you should have an entire citizenry able to communicate more effectively, by default, than that of the majority of other nations. Sadly, that’s almost never the de facto situation. It looks pretty good in countries like Canada and Switzerland, but in Cameroon bilingualism is more like a novelty title that gives a neat historical head nod to its split colonial past. “The country is bilingual, but the people are not bilingual” is a phrase heard commonly. There are a very large amount of bilingual schools at every level of study, and the government continually places emphasis on the importance of bilingualism. Even so, Cameroon mainly exists as a nation with two provinces that speak “English”, eight that speak French, and a central government that uses English and French letterhead. With holidays like Reunification Day and Bilingual Day, there is no doubt that each region of Cameroon identifies with the national structure as a whole, but the national linguistic divide still remains largely unsurpassed. This has probably been the primary cause for political strife within the nation throughout its independent history, especially owing to the fact that a far greater majority of Cameroonians speak French. There is no doubt that the government is overwhelmingly dominated by the French speakers, leaving an Anglophone minority feeling historically underrepresented. Still, relatively recent gestures towards liberalizing the political structure seem to be good steps towards fair representation. And with a push on bilingualism that never really lets up, maybe one day the people of Cameroon can be as bilingual as their country.

And the really crazy thing about Cameroon is that everybody really is bilingual! They just don’t speak two western languages. One thing that certainly accounts for the variations in Cameroonian English and French is that they are almost always learned as second languages. Unless you live in a big city, and your parents grew up in that big city too, the first words you will learn will be in your local dialect. I can’t have a post on language without a little bit on Moghamo, the name of the people in my area and their language. It’s a Bantoid language and sounds African in every sense of the word. Accents on so many different parts of words, vowels flying everywhere, random breaks and pauses, intonations that are so strange you can’t follow the sound of the voice to follow the sentence structure (i.e. what sounds like a definitive statement could be a question or a bitter tone could be sympathetic). It sounds really cool though. I kind of mentally file it under Asiatic languages because it sounds as foreign and unattainable. Still, I’m making progress. I can at least give em’ the old “Hey, how are you?” (Ano, masaiagoh?) People in the community seem to have this crazy unrealistic expectation that I’m going to be fluent in Moghamo by the time I leave. As nice as that would be, I think if I’m ever actually fluent in another language it will be something more…relevant. I broaden my Moghamo when I can, try to learn a new phrase when I have the opportunity, and I have a nice spreadsheet with a ridiculous amount of translations that I use to brush up with or surprise someone by saying something new. They’ll have to be content with that for now.

Moghamo is by far the most widely used language in my village. I think that’s great. No country ever went through the same style of colonialism and sadly some were a lot harsher than others. Whereas the British were content to make money off their African holdings, for some reason they really wanted to wipe Aboriginal Austrailian culture and language off the map. In the Americas as well, both the English, Spanish, and later Americans went out of their way to destroy the languages of the people they conquered. Today, most indigenous groups in the Americas have to actively work towards remembering their native languages. The vast majority certainly do not speak their native languages on a day to day basis. For some reason, maybe it was a weird European attitude towards Africa as being a more familiar part of the “Old World”, the intentional destruction of indigenous language and culture never really took hold in West Africa. Sure, they took people and individually destroyed their languages and cultures, but for the most part left the homeland intact. It’s sad to go to places like the Blackfeet Reservation and see that the native language is not widely known and almost never used on a day to day basis among the general population; it’s really nice to hear the streets of this village constantly alive and teeming with an African babble I can’t understand.

There are an estimated 237 languages in Cameroon. The Bible says that when man was banished from Eden, Satan (or God, I forget, they had similar personalities back then) separated man with different tongues as a way to confuse him. If that’s the case then I’m glad he did, it may be confusing but it’s a lot more interesting. Africa is the real Eden, if there are this many languages here it’s probably the natural condition.

Bonus Linguistic Coolness (BLC): The word for “elder brother” in the dialect is “ni”. In pidgin, when you want to ask how someone is doing, you just say “how?” So whether I’m in Guzang or Beijing I can greet you the same.