VIP travel to Bamenda is a nightmare come true

               

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s a fact but I sincerely believe words mean something. Each word captures a distinct construct. In fact I believe words have odours. They are not just idle creations but nets with which we capture our reality. Words conjure images. As the natural offspring of letters, they trigger a particular ensemble of expectations that must be met by their users? So pardon me for having a problem and maybe more with the so- called “VIP” travel offer of some transport agencies.

              Just like I have been accustomed to lately, I had to travel (from Yaounde to Bamenda) and so found myself at a travel agency. After inquiring about the most recent fare (I take nothing for granted, so I always ask), I was told CFAF 5650 for the standard bus and CFAF 6000 for the VIP bus offer. The latter was mouthwatering (or is it mindwatering?) as it brought back images of the comfort and serenity enjoyed while travelling VIP with agencies plying the Yaounde-Douala route. With this in mind, I decided to offer myself a treat and so I bought the VIP ticket. In retrospect, I think naivety and curiosity motivated my decision in almost equal measure. What else besides naivety can make you expect a VIP trip for extra CFAF 350? I was curious to know what a VIP trip to Bamenda felt and looked like (I wasn’t curious about how it sounded like because VIP trips don’t make or aren’t supposed to make any sound because they are so peaceful, I supposed].

               After paying, the dreary-looking car lot area, with no VIP-looking bus, that greeted my glance should have been the first indication that I should lower my expectations but I was too optimistic [or deluded in actual fact] to be my own journey pooper. What did I do? I overlooked this detail. It is only upon returning in the evening that my hopes started diminishing. Upon entering the agency grounds, something – a detail hit me – there was still no VIP-looking bus in the car lot, there were just standard untidy old buses stationed around. This is what hit me though: VIP-looking bus or not, weren’t both buses going to travel the same inconsistently comfortable road? Upon arrival at the untarred, potholed, scarred and deteriorated patch between Babadjou in the West Region and Akum in the North-West Region, was the standard bus going to trudge on painstakingly through the potholes while the VIP-looking bus develops wings, spreads them and soars over the rusty stretch, only landing to reconnect with the road and the standard bus where the road is hitchless? Opps, there goes a dent into my VIP treat. Eternal optimistic that I am, I put on a smile and hoped this realization would just be an aside in my trip. But the best was yet to come.

             Remember me telling you words conjure up images and expectations? A word like VIP brings along with it images of crisp cleanliness, calm, soothing silence and peace, a setting marked by politeness and courtesy. The preceding description has nothing to do with the mayhem that greeted me. The VIP bus I discovered when a luggage handler belched the boarding call was ... (how do I put it fairly; standard, mundane, uneventful ? [crappy sounds accurate]) crap. Inside I stumbled on greasy walls, mold-infested cushion seats, and rusty-aluminum edges here and there. Did I forget to mention the noise and my irksome co-passengers? I would be remit of my disappointment if I fail to mention “bush-meat feet” who added his smelly contribution to the edifice called my disappointment. He was the passenger seated directly behind me. Immediately after he boarded, a fowl pestilent rotting-meat odour stormed my nostrils. Shaken by this pungent onslaught  on my being,  I sniffed around for a plausible explanation only to stumble on this conversation between the bush-meat feet and his immediate neighbour:

“It seems like somebody has brought bush meat inside the bus” said the immediate neighbour looking around inquiringly.

“Eh eh, eh. No, it’s me. I have taken off my shoes,” Bush-meat feet replied in a hushed tone.

“Ah,” his immediate neighbour said with a tint of surprise as he tried to sneak peak at the guilty feet its owner was trying to hide by hurriedly rewearing his shoes.

“I think I will …… Let me wear them back” said Bush meat feet murmuringly.

“Yes, you should wear them and remove them when the car is moving. When the air will be passing,” added the immediate nieghbour. 

               This incident only helped to muddy my VIP experience. Fortunately, things only got worse. When I was about to relish some quiet time, a steady stream of hawkers started trickling in and out of the bus, taking turns in soliciting our attention. First came a young man who brandingly called himself "Pa Ngola" as he tried to dump his strange sweets with his standard refrain, “One packet 200, 3 packet 500. If you no get money nah, borrow  am time way you dee kam back so that you fee buy bonbon”. Hot on his heels came a bread seller, a toothbrush seller, and a merchant of salvation who ended on a high note, collecting an unsolicited impromptu offering. When they were done and the bus took off, I knew my VIP experience was in tatters but somehow I still found enough naivety in me to hope to salvage something. But the driver of the bus wasn’t going to have any of that with his rash and, let’s call a spade a spade, dangerously reckless driving, speeding along open stretches, flying over rugged patches, curving around bends, twisting and turning past potholes without the slightest reverence for road safety, passenger welfare or caution. If only this was the last beating my VIP trip had received, I won’t give up on VIP trips to Bamenda but there was more to come as upon arriving Santa, a voice raced into my ears and upon looking up I saw a man standing, apologizing for bordering us, sympathizing with us for the tedious trip and asking us to spare 5 to 10 minutes of our time so that he could share with us before delivering the standard pitch of African-herbal medicine selling sales men. This did it for me. This eroded any lingering hopes I had reserved that a VIP trip was possible from Yaounde to Bamenda, and even Douala-Bamenda now that I think of it. 

There is no and cannot be any VIP trip between Yaounde and Bamenda unless the Babadjou and Akum stretch is tarred, hawkers are prohibited from harassing passengers with their tangible and intangible wares, buses are sparkling clean and pimped [with working air-conditioning, TV sets and audio,] and safety-conscious drivers man these buses. Until all this is done then travelling VIP travel by road to Bamenda will always be dream or a nightmare come true. Sure you can accuse me of being unnecessarily demanding for giving just CFAF 6000 and yet expecting the world. But do not accuse me of raising my expectations when I see the word VIP. When one pays a little extra, one is entitled to a little extra and I am still wondering what is the little extra I got for paying a little extra. It certainly cannot be me arriving too early or in one piece. This is a given. Maybe the little extra was travelling in a bus with just two rows of seats on both sides of the bus instead of the bus with three and two rows respectively. If this is the case then it begs the question of whether or not we should revisit the notion of VIP in general or accept that there exists other subsets. VIP means something specific and should not be a word bus agencies use to exact [or is it extort] more money, no matter how small, from unsuspecting passengers like myself? “Les choses à verifier” someone would say.To put it more clearly, a VIP trip entails a safe, quiet, peaceful and bump-free ride but as things stand, this is not possible with the current state of the road entering Bamenda from the West Region. Even if one pays twice the standard fare, the VIP experience will be crushed the moment the cleanest air-conditioned, spacious and what-have-you bus hits the stretch in question.


*Pidgin for "One packet costs CFAF 200 and three packets cost CFAF 500. If you do not have any money now, borrow on your return trip so that can buy sweets."

One Indomitable Lion makes it into the AFCON 2015 Dream Team

Despite another disappointing outing on the world stage, the Indomitable Lions and their following can find solace in this: one of theirs, defender Henri Bedimo, has been selected in the AFCON 2015 Dream Team. Bedimo who plays for French side Olympique Lyonnais is the only Cameroonian player to have made the cut after another uneventful outing from the Indomitable Lions.

                      CAF’s Technical committee made the selection on Monday February 09, 2015. Henri Bedimo  Five players from AFCON 2015 winners Cote d’Ivoire, amongst whom the Toure brothers, Gervinho and Wilfred Bony, are in the team, alongside Ghana’s Andre Ayew and Jonathan Mensah. Three players from Tunisia, Algeria, and South Africa respectively make up the rest of the team. Surprisingly however Ghana’s forward Christian Atsu who was named player of the tournament failed to make the cut despite finishing the tournament with two goals and the individual accolade of Nissan’s Goal of the Tournament for his superb strike during the Black Star’s 3-0 demolition of Guinea during the group stages.

Souffrez que je sois Charlie

 By Cameroonian cartoonist Dante

Le 13 janvier 2013, la France a essuyé l’une des attaques terroristes les plus meurtrières sur son territoire. En effet, une fratrie islamiste a fait éruption dans les locaux du journal satirique Charlie Hebdo et a fait douze victimes. Elle a au passage laissé non seulement un pays, mais le monde tout entier sous le choc. De Paris à Washington en passant par Londres, Lomé, et Rio de Janeiro, les réactions ont été unanimes et témoignent toutes de l’indignation générale que cet attentat terroriste a provoquée. Dans la foulée, le monde s’est mobilisé pour dire toute sa solidarité avec le peuple français et par-dessus tout, pour réaffirmer son soutien aux valeurs que le journal ciblé représente. L’expression ’Je suis Charlie‘ est devenue le point de ralliement de tous ceux qui adhèrent à la liberté d’expression et s’oppose de manière catégorique au terrorisme. À travers des marches, les Français de tous les horizons politiques, de toutes les obédiences religieuses et de toutes les races se sont réunis pour déclarer d’une seule voix ‘Je suis Charlie‘. 

           Dans ce moment de solidarité internationale, l’Afrique n’a pas été en reste. En effet, elle a également joint sa voix à ce cri mondial par le biais des chefs d’état africains qui ont fermement condamné ces attentats et pris position contre toute tentative de museler la presse.

              Instinctivement, par solidarité et comme le veut nos mœurs virtuelles, certains d’entre nous, Africains et Camerounais, qui sont à mille lieues  de Paris, ont pu être Charlie soit en cliquant sur l’option “Aimer” que nous propose Facebook ou en partageant les nombreuses photos qui ont fleuries sur la toile en hommage aux victimes de cet acte de barbarie incroyable. Malheureusement notre soutien quoique principalement virtuel à cet élan mondial d’humanisme a été salué par des critiques ô combien acerbes sur notre soi-disant participation dans une tendance occidentale qui consiste à  sur-considérer la vie de blancs aux dépens de celle des noirs qui meurent quotidiennement au Nord Kivu en RDC, au nord du Nigeria et au Cameroun pour ne citer que ceux-ci. Dans une sorte de contremanifestation, les partisans de ce courant de pensée ont conçu et partagé des photos disant ‘Je suis Afrika’, ’Je suis le Nord Kivu ‘ ou ’Je suis Kolofata‘, inspirés par la photo ’Je suis Charlie‘ omniprésente sur la toile.

Toutefois

            Pour appuyer leurs points de vue, les’anti-Je suis Charlie‘ ont eu recours a maintes arguments, mais le plus récurrent semble être le suivant. 

             Les  pertes en vie humaine enregistrées par exemple au Cameroun dans la croisade contre la nébuleuse Boko Haram ne suscitent pas une mobilisation égale à celle de Paris et ne bénéficient pas de la même couverture médiatique. Par conséquent, toute implication dans le mouvement ’Je suis Charlie‘ est synonyme d’une certaine complicité dans la dévalorisation continue par l’Occident des questions et des vies noires.  Pourquoi n’a-t-on pas assisté a une mobilisation internationale aussi grande autour des victimes du Boko Haram au Nord Nigeria par exemple, ont-ils demandé. Selon eux, vraisemblablement, tout alignement par les Africains avec ce mouvement est une trahison des leurs.

            Tout en traduisant un sentiment d’injustice crédible, cet argument provoque plutôt des interrogations. Le ton accusateur des propos avancés par les anti-Je suis Charlie‘, m’a inspiré le chapelet d’interrogations suivant : où sont les mouvements indigènes, populaires ou pas, soulignant les défis conjoncturels du continent ? Qui est responsable de l’absence d’un élan fédérateur autour de la question de la guerre contre Boko Haram – les Africains, leurs dirigeants ou l’Occident ? Est-ce que l’Occident s’est désisté d’un mouvement indigène populaire contre Boko Haram ? Est-ce le peuple qui définit l’action publique ? Est-ce le peuple qui construit et forge une conscience collective autour d’une question nationale ou continentale ? De plus, quel mal y aurait-il à partager la douleur d’un peuple  ? Où est passée la légendaire solidarité africaine, se serait-elle volatilisée et serait-elle devenue raciste parce que consciente des frontières ? Devrais-je, en tant qu’individu, payer les frais de la stérilité visionnaire de mes dirigeants qui sont incapables de mobiliser leurs peuples respectifs pour soutenir lors d’une marche des valeurs telles que la liberté ? Sommes-nous individus obligés de taire l’expression de nos opinions socio-politiques par notre non-appartenance à un continent historiquement exploité et négligé avec l’aval de ces dirigeants ? Comment sommes-nous citoyens du village planétaire censés affirmer notre présence dans ce village si ce n’est pas en se prononçant sur des questions de l’heure ?

Pour conclure

               En voulant comprendre le fond de la pensée de ceux qui critiquent la participation même virtuelle dans le mouvement ‘Je suis Charlie’, j’ai fait deux constats. Premièrement, les ‘anti-Je suis Charlie’ font une mauvaise lecture sinon biaisée de la participation de certains Africains  à ce mouvement. Cette participation n’est pas un soutien  à la France mais un soutien a une valeur démocratique – celle de la liberté d’expression- dont il jouisse sinon il ne serait pas en train d’exprimer aussi librement leurs mécontentement envers les choix personnels de certains. Deuxièmement, les critiques provenant des ‘anti-Je suis Charlie’ se nourissent en partie des griefs historiques qu’ils portent contre l’Occident pour les injustices qu’il a fait subir a l’Afrique. Cette situation explique pourquoi ils sont incapables ou ne veulent pas faire une distinction entre la France/l’Occident et les valeurs comme la liberté d’expression. Elle explique aussi pourquoi ils confondent action civile et engagement politique. Les deux sont guère des synonymes. Donc souffrez que je sois Charlie, une fois de plus.