One final Maga adventure
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 31/May/2011 08:41, 34 days ago
This blogpost was going to be about saying goodbye to Maga (which I did yesterday), but then last Wednesday I had a crazy adventure in the rice fields that made me think about all the things I’ve loved most about living here.It was 8.30am in the morning, and I was on my way back from a cancelled meeting at one of my tiny bush schools in the village of Sirlawe. Apparently there had been a funeral in the next village two days before and so it had been difficult to contact people to tell them about the meeting… My national volunteer was ill, so I was on my own on my bike and eager to get back to Maga quickly, as the sun had been peeking through the clouds and I wanted to get home before it got too hot.I was almost half way between Sirlawe and Maga (a distance of about five km), cycling along a dirt path with rice fields stretching out on either side. Suddenly, in the space of minutes, a high wind sprung up, a vast black-grey cloud rolled in over the horizon, and the sky went dark. As the first drops of rain started to fall I started to pedal as fast as I could, but within a hundred metres the dusty soil had turned to clay and the wheels of my Chinese-imported mountain bike (unsuited in every way to the Maga terrain) had clogged up with so much mud that I could no longer move.By this point it was pouring with rain and I was already soaked to the skin. I climbed off my bike and started trying to pull fistfuls of mud from the wheels. This would let me move forwards for about five metres before the wheels seized up again. My flip-flops each accumulated several kilos of mud, and then promptly broke, which didn’t make much difference anyway, as it was too wet for them to stay on my feet.I realised I was completely stuck. I couldn’t go backwards or forwards, I was ankle deep in mud, and lightening was striking directly overhead. I started thinking about all the people who died after being caught out in the fields inthe massive rainstorm last year. In most difficult situations in Cameroon being a white expatriate has several advantages- we have things like emergency contact numbers and insurance policies. The mud of Maga had a curiously democratising power- my skin and British passport could do nothing for me.The women of Sirlawe coming to help meSeveral men jogged or cycled past (on vastly superior Nigerian bikes), waving and saying“Bonjour Madame. Comment ca va?” It was clear that no help could be expected from them. I was about to abandon my bike under a bush (or just by the side of the road, if I couldn’t get it as far as the nearest bush), when a group of women hailed me from the rice fields on the other side of thecanal. They were members of my mothers’ group at Sirlawe, and were heading home after being caught out by the storm in the fields. They plunged neck deep into the canal, and waded over to join me.One of them had been to school and spoke some French.“Give us your bike,” she said. “We can take it back to Sirlawe, and then you can get back to Maga on foot.” I protested that it was almost impossible to move the bicycle- it would slow them down. “We are many and you are on your own,” she replied. And so they took the bike, allowing me to slip and slither on through the mud on foot.I was now mobile again, but it was almost impossible to get a foothold in the slippery clay. I’d never have made it back to Maga without falling headlong several times in the mud (along with my phone, camera, and folder of soggy documents), if three sisters hadn’t emerged from their rice field, also trying to hurry back to Maga.They didn’t know me, although the youngest recognised me and knew my name from my visits to the primary school. We went on together, jogging through water that was now almost knee deep where the ground was more solid, and staggering through ankle deep mud where it wasn’t. When it became clear I could nolonger keep my balance one of them grabbed my arm and yanked me upright whenever I skidded.Rescued and dryingIt took us an hour to walk the three km to Maga, and my house was still at the opposite end of them village (which now resembled a mud bath).“Come to our house,” my new friends insisted. I didn’t hesitate.We arrived at their concession and I was ushered into a mud brick house. I stripped to my underwear in front of half a dozen small children and pulled on apagne(a printed wrap skirt) and a Cameroonian football t-shirt. We chatted for about half an hour and then, since it was dark and cold and we were all exhausted, we unrolled mats, pulled sparepagnesover ourselves, and went to sleep on the floor.The storm lasted forfive hoursand Mariette, Julienne, and their seven younger siblings insisted I didn’t leave until at least two hours after the rain had stopped and the ground had had a chance to harden a bit. They fed me a huge plate of rice and some very sweet tea, cooked on a very smoky fire of soggy wood, and we talked all afternoon. Julienne, the second sister, was twenty-one, a year younger than me, and was living at home after the break up of her marriage. She really wanted to go back to school. It was only when they were showing me their battered stack of family photos that we realised I knew their father- he works at the primary school Inspection- and he was vastly amused when hearrived home and found me in his house in his daughters’ clothes.So thank you to the women of Maga, who went out of their way to help me in a situation that would have been impossible on my own. During the afternoon Mariette had remarked“L’homme africain est mauvais”. She was referring to African people in general- Cameroonians often have a very negative opinion of themselves, especially when compared to Europeans. I agreed that thehomme africainis oftenmauvais, as is thehomme European. Thefemme africaine, on the other hand, is someone I have come to admire very much.