L'Américaine au Cameroun

We’ve got this saying going around stage: “Sometimes Africa wins, and sometimes you do.”

Today I wake up, eat breakfast and walk toward Bandjoun Central, where the taxis wait for passengers. As I walk, the sun is just beginning to get strong and the mist is beginning to rise over the Bandjoun hills. I see a taxi on my road; the driver slows as he passes me and I shout out my destination: “Mbo!” “Yes, yes. Get in. We will let others off first but you will get there. It will be like tourism for you.” So I get in the front seat and we drive off to Bandjoun Central, turning right on Avenue Paul Biya instead of the usual left. Past the Presbyterian church, we stop to let out the other front-seat passenger and I get the seat to myself for the next ten minutes as we finish the long way to the training site. The taxi lets me off in front of the training site as my friend Kathryn walks up. We chat on the way down the hill and get seats just as training starts.

During lunch, I set off back to Bandjoun Central because I have to run some errands. I’ve got to stop by the tailors to pick up a dress I am having fitted and head to the garre (taxi park) to find a driver to take me and all my stuff to post on Thursday. I get out of the taxi across the street from the seamstress’ shop. I chat with Mary the tailor for a few minutes before grabbing my dress and walking downtown. Waving to the Ibrahim of Chez Ibrahim, I walk down from Avenue Paul Biya to the garre.

I tell the charger (the guy calling out destinations and matching passengers with drivers) that I am looking for a ride to Bangou on Thursday. He takes me off to another charger and goes back to looking for today’s paying customers. I tell the next guy that I am looking for a ride to Bangou on Thursday and he starts leading the way to a guy standing in front of a taxi. I tell him again: “I do not want to go to Bangou today, I want to go Thursday.” “I understand you. I am finding you a driver now.” We walk up to a few different drivers and finally find one who is interested in talking about Thursday’s business. I tell the driver I want a car to Bangou for two passengers, one fridge, one bike and three big bags. He and the charger discuss the route for a while and after hearing “Bangouville” I correct them that I want to go to Bangou Carrefour. The driver decides he will do it and I ask him how much. “Cinq mill.” Five thousand CFA, or about ten dollars. That’s a good price, so I agree. “Ok,” he says, “I charge here everyday, so come find me Thursday and we will go to Bangou.” “No, no, no. You will meet me here at ten a.m., we will drive to my neighborhood, pick up my stuff and go to Bangou. I want your phone number in case you aren’t here. And it’s 5 mill for everything, including the two passengers.” “Ok, ok. Ten o’clock. Five mill. And I don’t have a phone but my friend does so you can call him.” “Good. Deal.”

That accomplished, I head off searching for some lunch. Kathryn is supposed to be meeting me in Bandjoun but she hasn’t shown up yet so I go across the street to get some soya. The soya is grilled beef on kabob sticks, with onions grilled along side and peanuts crushed on top, all brushed with spicy piedmont-pepper oil. After finishing the soya off while sitting on the steps of the bakery, I head back across the street to see if I can find any pineapple. I walk by the fruit mommies, who tell me that there’s no pineapple today. “Whoa-oh. You are looking for pineapple,” a big market mommy calls to me. She tells me to wait there, disappears into a shack behind the row of fruit mommies and comes out with four pineapples. I tell her I only want one, but I want to eat it now. So she sits down, gets out her knife and starts peeling my pineapple for me, slicing it into quarters length-wise with the stem for handles. I pay her CFA 200 ($0.35) and walk back up to the road to catch a taxi, having given up that Kathryn will make it in time.

As a taxi is just pulling over, Kathryn walks over. I wave the taxi on and we head across the street to the porc bar. (Nobody knows if the porc bar has an official name. But it’s a bar and there is a guy who sells grilled porc and plantains outside.) I say “M’gak-ka” to the owner and the woman who works there. “Ah-lueta,” they say back to me, laughing and shaking my hand. People here love it when we greet them in their patois, or their local language. Kayt and I have a beer and eat some pineapple. We grab a taxi back to the training site for the rest of the sessions today, which is the last day of training.

Our taxi stops a few hundred meters before the police check point. There are police or gendarme checkpoints along most roads – or sometimes just checkpoint by locals who get together and make blue-coat uniforms – and cars are stopped with a board with nails sticking out pulled across the road with a rope. They look for ‘infractions,’ which are usually solved with CFA 500. This particular checkpoint has become much worse in the past few weeks, since the government announced that, for public safety, all taxis should have only one passenger in the front seat and no more than four in the back. But of course, gas prices (and checkpoint fees) are too high for chauffeurs to make a living this way. Thus, taxis often stop before the checkpoint, one or two people get out of the car and walk across the checkpoint, then the taxi waits for them on the other side. So when our taxi stops, a young man gets out of the backseat, Kayt gets out of the front (where she has been sitting with me) and into the back. Then the young man starts running toward the checkpoint. The whole cabs laughs at him. (Camerounians don’t run much; there aren’t many things to rush for around here.) “Why is he running?,” I ask the chauffer. “I think he must be in a big hurry to get to Baffousam.” He runs all the way to the other side of the checkpoint; this is the only time I’ve not waited at least five minutes to pick up our passenger.

After training is over, my taxi home is stopped by the gendarmes. I am in the backseat this time, with one young mom with a baby on her lap and one older mom with a child of maybe seven on her lap. We have only one person in the front seat. All of the passengers can hear the chauffeur discussing with the gendarme outside. The gendarme claims that we have five people in the backseat; the chauffeur claims the children don’t count. All of the passengers, including me, start sucking their teeth and complaining about the gendarmes. “The children don’t count!” “They are small and on their mothers’ laps!” “He is just looking for money.” “We are only three here!” “They dérange.*” Nous sommes ensembles.** Our chauffer finally comes back, maybe having paid and maybe not, and we head back out on the road again. The taxi drops me off at the Carrefour de Lycee, and I head home for dinner with my family: Pork in peanut sauce over rice.

Today could have gone like this: I could have woken up to find that their was no gas in the bottle for the stove, and had water and bread for breakfast but no coffee. Then, I could have slipped in the mud walking up through the corn fields, and not found a taxi on my road. Maybe, I would get to downtown Bandjoun and had to wait for a taxi there. By then, I would have been late for training. During lunch, my dress would not have been ready at the tailors’ yet, even though she told me it would be ready today, and I would not have been able to find the French words I needed to hire a taxi to go to post. The chauffeur could have given me a high price, or I could have forgotten to say it was 5 mill for everything. The mommies could have told me the pineapple was finished and offered me plantains instead. I could have forgotten “M’gak-ka.” Letting someone out to cross the checkpoint could have been upsetting and demoralizing, instead of hilarious. I may have been late again, had the young man not sprinted across the checkpoint. We could have not been ensembles in the taxi, and the other passengers could have looked at me like I was crazy complaining with them. Or they could have sucked their teeth at me. The chauffeur could have refused to go to my intersection. We could have had plantains for supper. It could not be the last day of training. All of these things have happened. But not today. Sometimes Africa wins, and sometimes you do.


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*To disturb or bother. Used to describe strict mothers, little brothers, dogs, crazy people, gendarmes, police and little children who follow me yelling “Le blanc, le blanc! Doc!”
** We are together, a popular Cameroonian saying.