Saying goodbye in Maga, and trying to jettison thirty kilos of food without hurting anyone's feelings
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 07/Jun/2011 09:16, 34 days ago
My favourite goodbye present from Maga was actually the first I was given. We’ve been struggling to get the mothers’ group in Malka off the ground for a year and a half- they turned up to the meetings we called last year and would ask repetitively for a well, whilst we explained just as repetitively that we couldn’t give them one. At the beginning of this year a few ofthem showed up to a meeting we called and explained that they didn’t really see the point in working with us any more, as it was clear we were not about to buy a well.At the dance in my honour at MalkaWe gave up. You call us, we won’t call you, we told them. But then in April we ran a training for more successful mothers’ groups, and decided to invite the women of Malka in one last ditch attempt to inspire them. And it worked. Two months later they’re having regular meetings, they’re working half a field of rice to make money for the school, and have established a fund for a well, which all the village women are contributing to. They have become so active that they’ve attracted the attention of the village marabout (Muslim holy man), who has started warning the men of the village to keep their women in check.When I came for my final meeting at Malka more than sixty women showed up, making the President of the (male-run) parents’ association grumble that he wished he was the President of the mothers’ association instead. At the end of the meeting the women announced that they were naming a baby girl just born in the village after me and they would perform a dance in my honour. An empty petrol container was brought outas a drum and we all danced and sang and ululated in a circle. This, I felt, was a perfect goodbye. I hoped the others would go as well.With the second baby MischaHowever things soon started to spiral out of control, mainly because people in Maga don’t have much a concept of baggage limits on airlines. My mothers’ group in Sirlawe set the ball rolling by giving me eight kilograms of peanuts. I hauled them all back to Maga on my bike and promptly repackaged them and gave them out as goodbye presents to my neighbours, my colleagues and my tailor. Problem solved.But then the day before I left my national volunteer came round with eighty sesame seed biscuits, and an apology that she hadn’t brought very many. One neighbour brought me several more kilos of peanuts, (the first) baby Mischa’s mother brought me ten kilos of rice, some friends brought me some giant mangoes, another gave a local delicacy of a jelly like sugary substance made with animal fat. All of them apologised forthe smallness of their gifts.And it wasn’t only food. One neighbour gave me matching green and orange stripy headscarves for me and my sister (sorry, Imogen, for ruining the surprise). My school directors had clubbed together to buy me a greenpagne(a six yard length of printed cloth) decorated with red and yellow lizards. There was a myriad other things I can’t even remember.My bags, which had been neatly packed, were straining at the seams and I could no longer lift them. I couldn’t repeat my trick with the peanuts from Sirlawe and give out the gifts from one person as a goodbye present to another, because all my friends and neighbours in Maga know each other and would smell a rat. Finally I took everything to Maroua, gave out some things to people there, and have left a trail of unwanted gifts in hotel rooms throughout Cameroon.It took me a while to figure out why people were giving me so much and then apologising for giving me so little, but eventually I understood. In the Far North of Cameroon when someone returns from a big trip their whole extended family, all of their friends, all of their neighbours, and several complete strangers, will come to their concession to welcome them home. It is expected that the returning traveller will provide enough food to feed all of these people.The friends bringing me food were not trying to feed only me. They were not even trying to feed only my family. They were trying to provide enough food for me to feed my village. I’ll be back in London tomorrow. Let the village descend.