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Memories of the Southern Cameroons Police (1)
Readers (and writers) are encouraged to submit pieces about their personal experiences that relate to the Southern Cameroons, and which enable the reader to be transported. Such is the following autobiographical piece forwarded to me by one of our readers:
=========================================================================================
Enough early readers advised me to attach this clarifying NOTE: The boy comes from a country where citizens and the police collaborated; the police officer expects the boy to fear him, run away, do whatever except trust him and actually run up to him. Those who lived in Southern Cameroons before 1972 will confirm this reciprocal trust--minus the usual bad cocoyams. Those too young to have experienced our police force, and who were not taught it cannot confirm this. They may even mistrust my testimony.
Mbuulih TN
===========
POLICE OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS
Late August 1968. More ASPAU students from Southern Cameroons landed Bradley International airport, destined for American campuses. We immediately began to learn useful unfamiliar names for familiar things: 'quizzes' (= examinations), 'papers' (= essays). Weekends held the most interesting novelties, the keyword being 'fun'. You sought fun on weekends so that, come Monday, you too would have something to 'show and tell' (= boast about). Fun included travel, parties, 'gadgets' (= labour savers?), stereo systems (= to cope with Viet Nam), 'dating' (= no real equivalents; the best we could manage were negative: oin, or bad woman, or njumba, or... See?). By my third weekend, I felt daring and ventured alone by bus to Greenfield, Massachusetts. When Sunday came, I headed back to school by bus, but fell into a misadventure on the way: police!
I had changed buses in Hartford in Connecticut, but barely minutes afterwards, dumped me on 'interstate highway 95' (= trunk road 95). Why? When our bus passed the exit to Middletown in Connecticut, it alarmed me, so I rushed to the driver: 'Sir, aren't you taking me to Middletown?!'
'Nope, next stop's New Haven'. Then, after checking my ticket: 'Just catch another bus back to Middletown. Or you can get off here and hitch hike'. So I got off the bus.
It was Sunday afternoon early in a still warm September. This was my chance to practice hitch hiking as Bill S., my favourite Wesleyan classmate, had taught me. "Just stand at 37 degrees from the vertical, thumb pointing in the direction you're going. Soon enough, someone will pick you up and drop you wherever you were going. Easy". So, Addidas duffel bag in hand, I darted across interstate 95 (at least 4! lanes wide each side) to a spot near the exit to Middletown.
Cars, 'trucks' (= lorries, mammy wagons, danfos), vans, and mini-vehicles shot by. Wind gusts from some almost blew me over. Some drivers may have wondered why a boy twice the size of his hand bag was contorting himself, but I was struggling to keep my balance while leaning 37 degrees towards where I was going. When my back and arm hurt, I would straighten up and stretch before resuming the Bill S. hitch hiking posture. O, for a loooong time, no one bothered to pick this idiot hitch hiker.
Then it happened. A police car with flashing coloured lights passed me, slowed down, and pulled to a stop ahead. Of course I picked up my black Addidas duffel bag and darted towards the car. If you too traveled in Southern Cameroons in the 1960s, then you understand the relief I felt on seeing that police car...
A police officer emerged and walked towards me, tall, straight, with blue eyes in his face. Steady, steady, steady, he walked, striking his left palm with the truncheon in his right hand. He walked; I ran; we stopped face to face. "Young man, what are you doing here?" he asked with authority.
'Hitch hiking, sir', I said panting. then I noticed that something about me was puzzling him. I must have looked relieved to see him, but surely my relief couldn't confuse him? Or could it? A bit confused by his hesitation, I waited until he mumbled something that sounded like "And he's got the nerve to admit it'. Incredible, but perhaps I'd misheard him, so 'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Nothing', and then he added: 'And where are you hitch hiking to?'
'Middletown... to the university... Wesleyan'.
'A student?'
'Yes, sir. Exchange student from Southern Cameroons; on the J-1 visitor visa', and I told him my full name.
'Can I see your ID?... to identify you'.
'But I just told you who I am', I protested, 'so no need for a student ID'. But he insisted, so I knelt down to unzip my duffel bag and hand him my student ID. Then looking up at him, I said: 'Unfortunately, I see it in sharp relief, lying on the desk by my dormitory door: I forgot to take it when I left for this weekend'.
Again he mumbled in very rapid American English something that sounded like Didn't think you'd find it before saying aloud: 'Now, get in the car'. So he, marched me to car and opened its back door.
Looking inside, I saw the hard benches along the windows, and said 'Officer, I see that the front seat is vacant; these benches are hard, and it's quite a distance to Middletown. Why can't I sit in the front?'
'Get in the car!'
Dropping to my knees, once again, I said 'No, I shan't: I'll wait for another ride' (= lift) and busied myself trying to re-zip the duffel bag. Duffel bag zippers stretch past the edge of the opening and dangle like a pig's tail. Clumsy for new users. As I shook the thing, out popped my passport from an inner side pocket. So I shot up straight and asked: 'Did you say you needed an ID to identify me?'
'Yes'.
'Then this should do, shouldn't it? It's identified me all the way from Southern Cameroons through Nigeria, Ghana, New York, and Connecticut to Vermont'.
'Passport?!' and I though he was roaring. And he froze like one in a trance. He turned the pages, reading aloud all information, bravely butchering especially any French or French-looking words: 'Repooblikweh dew Cameron...' (Republique du Cameroun).
'I told you that, sir', I said, and...
'Visa graytis... exchange programme..' (Visa gratis... exchange programme [English]).
"I told you that too", I protested, but I noticed that he did not hear me; he could not hear me now. Through my passport, he was peering into another world where, apparently, his impossibilities were possibilities. Completely detached now, he was gone from my reality on interstate 95. So I waited. And then, standing by that back door, he took my duffel bag and tossed it into the back, but I protested again: 'I'm waiting for another car; I'm not sitting on those...'
'...but there isn't enough room for both you and your bag in the front" he interrupted.
'O,' said I, excited, 'you're taking me to Middletown, after all?'
'Yes', and he shut the cage door. He rushed around me to the passenger side in front. He opened the door and waited till I sat. He instructed me to fasten my seat belt. He ran around the car to his side. He opened that door and sat down. He started the car, and we headed towards Middletown.
Moments into the exit, he asked: 'Did you know hitch hiking is illegal on highways?'
'No, but why is it illegal? It's travelers helping each other, isn't it?'
'Some hitch hikers have hurt their rides, and some have picked up and then hurt hitch hikers'. That surprised and saddened and disappointed me--and frightened me. I said 'How terrible!' Fearing what he might say next, I asked: 'Why would either traveler do that?'
'People...', he said... 'people are like that everywhere'.
Because he was older, I held my peace. He asked me the usual questions, yes, including the one new arrivals say most Americans ask: 'How do you like it here?' and we were off into the regular casual interview every visitor-tourist experiences. However, what he had said earlier about people troubled and preoccupied me...
You see, it would have been dishonest to agree with this elder. I would have been lying about everything I already knew about people, the ones who characterise places, the ones you expect to meet, especially in police uniforms. I knew I had come (only six weeks earlier) from a place where a night cry for help brought villagers outside faster than 911 does, some clothed, others barely... a place where people shared everything: their troubles as automatically as their belongings--oil and salt, pots and pans, shirts and skirts... a place where the police officer attracted lost travelers, instead of frightening them away or disgusting them... a place where confident dependence on each other kept going a social security all villagers felt and enjoyed for life, a social security system which never failed anybody, yet one which nobody anywhere could buy because it was simply that complete. These, then, were some of the features of my country which I expected to return to after my first foreign certificate...
The police officer and I were now on campus. I directed him towards East College and felt some relief. Relief because, given more time, this police officer might ask (and I would not know how to tell him) what I was thinking about. He probably could not have guessed that I had come from such a place in Southern Cameroons--and, of all lands, in Merita!
Today, nearly 40 years later, Southern Cameroons is a nightmare, not the home running through my mind when that police officer brought back to school in Connecticut. It is not that southern Cameroons has changed, no: someone changed it. It is not entirely honest to say that someone has changed it, either: someone changed it for the worse! Yes, that is the current reality of our country, but as someone worsened it, someone else can heal it, wake it up from its nightmare into day light. Actually, it took very many someones to re-colonise our country and to replace our police with the rogues, devils and monsters running the nightmare in southern Cameroons... To our good fortune, all it takes is a few dedicated someones to wake our country up from its nightmare. Every Southern Cameroonian is looking for these dedicated someones. Perhaps you know one. Perhaps you yourself are one of the willing and fortunate few.
=========================================================================================
Enough early readers advised me to attach this clarifying NOTE: The boy comes from a country where citizens and the police collaborated; the police officer expects the boy to fear him, run away, do whatever except trust him and actually run up to him. Those who lived in Southern Cameroons before 1972 will confirm this reciprocal trust--minus the usual bad cocoyams. Those too young to have experienced our police force, and who were not taught it cannot confirm this. They may even mistrust my testimony.
Mbuulih TN
===========
POLICE OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS
Late August 1968. More ASPAU students from Southern Cameroons landed Bradley International airport, destined for American campuses. We immediately began to learn useful unfamiliar names for familiar things: 'quizzes' (= examinations), 'papers' (= essays). Weekends held the most interesting novelties, the keyword being 'fun'. You sought fun on weekends so that, come Monday, you too would have something to 'show and tell' (= boast about). Fun included travel, parties, 'gadgets' (= labour savers?), stereo systems (= to cope with Viet Nam), 'dating' (= no real equivalents; the best we could manage were negative: oin, or bad woman, or njumba, or... See?). By my third weekend, I felt daring and ventured alone by bus to Greenfield, Massachusetts. When Sunday came, I headed back to school by bus, but fell into a misadventure on the way: police!
I had changed buses in Hartford in Connecticut, but barely minutes afterwards, dumped me on 'interstate highway 95' (= trunk road 95). Why? When our bus passed the exit to Middletown in Connecticut, it alarmed me, so I rushed to the driver: 'Sir, aren't you taking me to Middletown?!'
'Nope, next stop's New Haven'. Then, after checking my ticket: 'Just catch another bus back to Middletown. Or you can get off here and hitch hike'. So I got off the bus.
It was Sunday afternoon early in a still warm September. This was my chance to practice hitch hiking as Bill S., my favourite Wesleyan classmate, had taught me. "Just stand at 37 degrees from the vertical, thumb pointing in the direction you're going. Soon enough, someone will pick you up and drop you wherever you were going. Easy". So, Addidas duffel bag in hand, I darted across interstate 95 (at least 4! lanes wide each side) to a spot near the exit to Middletown.
Cars, 'trucks' (= lorries, mammy wagons, danfos), vans, and mini-vehicles shot by. Wind gusts from some almost blew me over. Some drivers may have wondered why a boy twice the size of his hand bag was contorting himself, but I was struggling to keep my balance while leaning 37 degrees towards where I was going. When my back and arm hurt, I would straighten up and stretch before resuming the Bill S. hitch hiking posture. O, for a loooong time, no one bothered to pick this idiot hitch hiker.
Then it happened. A police car with flashing coloured lights passed me, slowed down, and pulled to a stop ahead. Of course I picked up my black Addidas duffel bag and darted towards the car. If you too traveled in Southern Cameroons in the 1960s, then you understand the relief I felt on seeing that police car...
A police officer emerged and walked towards me, tall, straight, with blue eyes in his face. Steady, steady, steady, he walked, striking his left palm with the truncheon in his right hand. He walked; I ran; we stopped face to face. "Young man, what are you doing here?" he asked with authority.
'Hitch hiking, sir', I said panting. then I noticed that something about me was puzzling him. I must have looked relieved to see him, but surely my relief couldn't confuse him? Or could it? A bit confused by his hesitation, I waited until he mumbled something that sounded like "And he's got the nerve to admit it'. Incredible, but perhaps I'd misheard him, so 'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Nothing', and then he added: 'And where are you hitch hiking to?'
'Middletown... to the university... Wesleyan'.
'A student?'
'Yes, sir. Exchange student from Southern Cameroons; on the J-1 visitor visa', and I told him my full name.
'Can I see your ID?... to identify you'.
'But I just told you who I am', I protested, 'so no need for a student ID'. But he insisted, so I knelt down to unzip my duffel bag and hand him my student ID. Then looking up at him, I said: 'Unfortunately, I see it in sharp relief, lying on the desk by my dormitory door: I forgot to take it when I left for this weekend'.
Again he mumbled in very rapid American English something that sounded like Didn't think you'd find it before saying aloud: 'Now, get in the car'. So he, marched me to car and opened its back door.
Looking inside, I saw the hard benches along the windows, and said 'Officer, I see that the front seat is vacant; these benches are hard, and it's quite a distance to Middletown. Why can't I sit in the front?'
'Get in the car!'
Dropping to my knees, once again, I said 'No, I shan't: I'll wait for another ride' (= lift) and busied myself trying to re-zip the duffel bag. Duffel bag zippers stretch past the edge of the opening and dangle like a pig's tail. Clumsy for new users. As I shook the thing, out popped my passport from an inner side pocket. So I shot up straight and asked: 'Did you say you needed an ID to identify me?'
'Yes'.
'Then this should do, shouldn't it? It's identified me all the way from Southern Cameroons through Nigeria, Ghana, New York, and Connecticut to Vermont'.
'Passport?!' and I though he was roaring. And he froze like one in a trance. He turned the pages, reading aloud all information, bravely butchering especially any French or French-looking words: 'Repooblikweh dew Cameron...' (Republique du Cameroun).
'I told you that, sir', I said, and...
'Visa graytis... exchange programme..' (Visa gratis... exchange programme [English]).
"I told you that too", I protested, but I noticed that he did not hear me; he could not hear me now. Through my passport, he was peering into another world where, apparently, his impossibilities were possibilities. Completely detached now, he was gone from my reality on interstate 95. So I waited. And then, standing by that back door, he took my duffel bag and tossed it into the back, but I protested again: 'I'm waiting for another car; I'm not sitting on those...'
'...but there isn't enough room for both you and your bag in the front" he interrupted.
'O,' said I, excited, 'you're taking me to Middletown, after all?'
'Yes', and he shut the cage door. He rushed around me to the passenger side in front. He opened the door and waited till I sat. He instructed me to fasten my seat belt. He ran around the car to his side. He opened that door and sat down. He started the car, and we headed towards Middletown.
Moments into the exit, he asked: 'Did you know hitch hiking is illegal on highways?'
'No, but why is it illegal? It's travelers helping each other, isn't it?'
'Some hitch hikers have hurt their rides, and some have picked up and then hurt hitch hikers'. That surprised and saddened and disappointed me--and frightened me. I said 'How terrible!' Fearing what he might say next, I asked: 'Why would either traveler do that?'
'People...', he said... 'people are like that everywhere'.
Because he was older, I held my peace. He asked me the usual questions, yes, including the one new arrivals say most Americans ask: 'How do you like it here?' and we were off into the regular casual interview every visitor-tourist experiences. However, what he had said earlier about people troubled and preoccupied me...
You see, it would have been dishonest to agree with this elder. I would have been lying about everything I already knew about people, the ones who characterise places, the ones you expect to meet, especially in police uniforms. I knew I had come (only six weeks earlier) from a place where a night cry for help brought villagers outside faster than 911 does, some clothed, others barely... a place where people shared everything: their troubles as automatically as their belongings--oil and salt, pots and pans, shirts and skirts... a place where the police officer attracted lost travelers, instead of frightening them away or disgusting them... a place where confident dependence on each other kept going a social security all villagers felt and enjoyed for life, a social security system which never failed anybody, yet one which nobody anywhere could buy because it was simply that complete. These, then, were some of the features of my country which I expected to return to after my first foreign certificate...
The police officer and I were now on campus. I directed him towards East College and felt some relief. Relief because, given more time, this police officer might ask (and I would not know how to tell him) what I was thinking about. He probably could not have guessed that I had come from such a place in Southern Cameroons--and, of all lands, in Merita!
Today, nearly 40 years later, Southern Cameroons is a nightmare, not the home running through my mind when that police officer brought back to school in Connecticut. It is not that southern Cameroons has changed, no: someone changed it. It is not entirely honest to say that someone has changed it, either: someone changed it for the worse! Yes, that is the current reality of our country, but as someone worsened it, someone else can heal it, wake it up from its nightmare into day light. Actually, it took very many someones to re-colonise our country and to replace our police with the rogues, devils and monsters running the nightmare in southern Cameroons... To our good fortune, all it takes is a few dedicated someones to wake our country up from its nightmare. Every Southern Cameroonian is looking for these dedicated someones. Perhaps you know one. Perhaps you yourself are one of the willing and fortunate few.
MaMary |
Latest page update: made by MaMary
, Jan 24 2007, 9:32 PM EST
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