Spot the Fool
on Notes from Quite Far (Cameroon), 20/Jan/2010 05:54, 34 days ago
This time last year we had a big celebration at the ENIEG because the student clubs had all elected their presidents. Many important guests came, all of whom made speeches, there was lots of marching (the health club carrying hygiene products, the IT club carrying computers, the culture club playing music and doing traditional dancing, etc). Well, exactly the same thing happened last Friday, so as much as I love writing this blog, it would save us all a lot of time and bother if you just look back to this time last year and I can go back to watching NCIS.That’s not true of course. Actually, this year was better than last for several reasons, which I will now elaborate on for about 800 words…Firstly our new director makes much shorter speeches than the old one, and tends to turn up on time to things. Secondly, over the Christmas holidays the scrubland around the back of the college was cleared to make way for a new football pitch, and this provided a new venue for the festivities, which everyone was very excited about. The new pitch is of course a massive expanse of sand with two goalposts at either end, so when the students played football against the teachers later on, we couldn’t see the game for dust, and I still have no idea what the score was or how the players managed to breathe. However, even professional footballers practice on dusty pitches here, so it wasn’t a problem in the slightest, and the new sports ground has been the rightful cause of much celebration.But the biggest and by far the best difference between this year and last was the transformation of Monsieur Kagalang. A kind, gentle and highly respected professor, Monsieur Kagalang was once a regional inspector (i.e. very important man), retired several years ago in order to work part-time as a teacher trainer, and was recently voted the best teacher in the college. He has a serene and almost saintly air about him, and never, ever needs to raise his voice.It was surprising, to say the least, to discover that the unassuming Mr Kagalang has a whole other side to his personality– namely his alter ego “Grand Ka” (Big K), who is loud, aggressive, and a comedy genius. Colleagues and students addressed him only as Big K for the entire day, and he didn’t once break character. For much of the time, shouting random nonsense - most notably “Her over there! She makes good boule." and “Grand K is getting stronger! It’s a good system!”... (By the end of the day, students had adopted the phrase “it’s a good system” as their own, and were shouting it to Big K and each other at every opportunity.)The most interesting part of any local celebration from my own point of view is always the dancing. And on Friday the dancing went on non-stop. Students separated into their three main tribal groups (Massa, Toupouri and Musgum) and took it in turns to dance their traditional dances. Two or three students would play drums, while the rest danced in a circle around them. All three tribes danced holding sticks, shuffling with very precise co-ordination of feet and bodies. The Musgum dance was more aggressive than the other two, the men occasionally jumping at each other and posturing as if ready to fight. (Pictures to follow I promise!)Big K, though, did not select a tribe. Instead, he danced with every group all day, never stopping to rest. He spent his time either standing stock still and waving at the crowds, or chasing after the Massa and Toupouri students and running away from the Musgum men when they jumped at him with their sticks. And all the while he shouted nonsense at the important guests and dignitaries (“Hey, Délégué! Délégué! Watch, I’m a great dancer!” “Hey Your Eminence, Grand K is getting stronger. It’s a good system.”), which invariably got him the biggest laugh of all.After having known Monsieur Kagalang for 15 months, I have to say that Grand Ka was something of a revelation. He was every bit the drunken madman you would cross the street to get away from under normal circumstances. But in the context of the celebrations, he was the perfect antidote to the speeches, marches, pomp and ceremony with which the day had begun, and as such he was a complete hit. At the end of the day he received the prize (1000 francs) for best dancer, and gave the following acceptance speech:“Prize for best teacher! Prize for best dancer! It’s a good system!”And I remembered reading somewhere how at medieval carnivals, the court jester played a role similar to that of Big K, poking fun at all the important people and not allowing anyone to take the proceedings, or themselves, too seriously. It meant that the high-and-mighty had to take a bit of a ribbing while idiots were revered - but just for one day. In this way a lot of the tensions within a community could be dispelled through humour. It was, in the words of my French literature tutor, a“catharsis”. And it was also, in the words of Grand K, a “good system”. So I figured that something similar was going on at the ENIEG, and that Monsieur Kagalang had been selected (or perhaps even taken it upon himself) to fulfil a similar traditional role, to turn the normal order of thingson its head - to play the fool, in every sense. I marvelled at quite how brilliantly he was able to do this, and what a good sport he was to throw himself so wholeheartedly into the part…Erm...Wrong again, Gurevitch. No, I am afraid the truth was far more obvious and (perhaps ironically) nowhere near as pretentious. You no doubt guessed it about three paragraphs ago, but the only reason Monsieur Kagalang was able to play the drunken madman with such conviction was that he was - well, a drunken madman. Apparently he arrived at the ENIEG straight from a local bar where he had been drinking all morning, and he spent the entire afternoon out of his tree on bil bil.And so it turns out that the metamorphosis from Mr K to Big K stems not from the ancient spirit of the carnival, but rather from a bucket of fermented millet.It’s a good system…