There's something about Douala

I have always been surprised and sometimes offended by the deep attachment of my Douala – based friends and acquaintances to their city - big old Douala. Being a loyal resident of calm and comparatively SMALL Buea, I have always wandered as to what accounts for this attachment. Is it a no-place-like-home thing or does this spring from a less subjective well-spring of facts and data? But in shuffling through the mental residue from conversions with my Douala-based friends and acquaintances, I discover that their love for their city comes from a somewhat sentimental place. It is the outcome of their comparing the economic capital of the central African giant with the darling of ousted German colonial masters. This is not a fair game.( It is almost like pitting Lebron James against Michael Jordon; Jordan is a legend but in a 7 game series he won’t be able to keep up with fiery young King James.) Dissatisfied with this discovery and inexplicably convinced that there was something more objective, quantifiable and poetic about this metropolis, I have been on the lookout each time I am in Douala (like now), looking for meaning in every foible or eccentricity encountered. But before I proceed I must unapologetically say this: when compared with Buea, Douala is a hell hole; that sweltering dry season, the stench spewing from the various factories and the insalubrious conditions in inner city neighbourhoods. Now that I’ve gotten that load off my chest, let’s get back to business.

Eureka, eureka, I found it. I think I found a cogent, air and water-tide explanation for Douala’s magnetic hold on its residents. It is neither the skyscrapers nor the economic opportunities. It is neither the supposedly-faster internet nor the savvy and courageous day-light operating pick-pockets. It’s the more acute awareness of the need to survive that pushes the common man and woman to think out of the box and retail spaghetti in plastic bags for 100 CFAF, to slice a large bulb of onion into four halves to sell it faster, to bottle yellowish water, fridge it and sell, not forgetting filling empty cement bags with sand for sale during the rainy season in marshland-set neighbourhoods. It is true that these realities aren’t the sole preserve of Douala but from where I stand it is more prevalent in Douala to the point where you can perceive it with all your senses. With this, if you have drive and motivation like most of my Douala-based friends and acquaintances you'll surely be attached to Douala. This reality is inspiring, overwhelming and above all comforting since it reveals the uncelebrated ingenuity of the real Africans, hardly ever or never portrayed on TV. This is the something, I think, that should enlist the undying loyalty and trigger the most pride from Doualans. This is one thing about Douala that should be copied by all other Cameroonian and African cities.

Disclaimer: During the season in Douala, this writer hereby rejects any ownership of the ideas expressed above. Lol.