ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SEVENTEEN-YEAR OLD HAWKER IN DOUALA

By Canute Tangwa

Today, it rained heavily all-through the night and late in the day at Makepe-Missoke and elsewhere in Douala. When it rains, there is some respite from the oppressive heat. Our abode, like most houses, is built on marshy reptile cum mosquito infested land; quite close to the sooty smelly green-black rubbish-filled N’gongue stream that snakes and meanders laboriously across the city and empties its contents into the Wouri River.

We use plank boards as makeshift bridges to move from one dwelling to another or out of the neighbourhood. There is water everywhere but we do not have clean sparkling potable water. Electricity supply is intermittent so we make do with bush lamps or candles; though clandestine electricity supply is prevalent.

When any of my sibling falls ill, we buy drugs from a local drug vendor or hawker. The most common drugs for all ailments are Efferalgan and Paracetamol. Going to high school is a game of chance. Daddy virtually throws lots, irrespective of gender, on who goes to high school or not for an academic year while the others, holder of the General Certificate of Education Examination Ordinary Level like myself, get up early enough to start hawking groundnuts popularly known as arachide du village or kola nuts comprising bitter kola, kola de lion and kola bamileke, in the streets of Moussadi and as far as Bonapriso where the rich and powerful live.

Our two-room dwelling houses ten of us; yes, ten of us excluding mum and dad! Some of us sleep on the floor and others on bunk beds. It is difficult for me to make a difference between my brothers and sisters and our cousins from the village. We share the same bed, eat from the same bowls, play and hawk together. However, my cousins were not with us from the beginning; they are casualties of a war that is raging for over six years in the Anglophone Region of Cameroon resulting in thousands internally displaced and more than a thousand dead. They left Djottin-Noni for Douala!

As you would second guess, my parents hail from Djottin-Noni. I still have a fleeting fond memory of my stay in the village during the funeral of my maternal grandfather. Indeed, I can still recall how we arrived Njavnyuy motor park in Kumbo as the first glowing-yellowish sun rays pierced the dry pitch-cold morning air. Luckily, my parents had made provision for warm clothing.

On that day, Njavnyuy motor park and the modern market were scanty. There was no vehicle for Djottin-Noni but there were two for Elak-Oku. We whiled away the time moving around the well-built and fenced market. All the stalls were padlocked. It was quite dusty but clean! The red clay earth was not too friendly to a Sawa boy like me. On a metal plate at the entrance to the market was inscribed: God Bless Kumbo!

As an epicentre of the violent bloody conflict that is destroying life and property, I wonder whether God is still alive to bless Kumbo or asleep giving room for the devil to blindside Kumbo leaving in its wake internal refugees, like my cousins, chaos, guns, death and fear!

A motor boy approached us and said there were three bikes locally called achabas bound for Djottin-Noni. For his pains, my dad gave him one hundred francs.

Then we began a picturesque journey, in a convoy, from Kumbo right down to the brownish grazing fields of Tadu then to Buh; leaving behind the road that branches off to Oku where the fear of the merecine man is the beginning of insight, home to the enchanting bewitching lake and labelised spicy white honey unto the luxuriant farmlands of Mbiim tucked between high-rise hills with the Kilum hill towering above all, passing through majestic granite hills that stand out defiantly against the surrounding environment leaving the beholder breathless. As we rode on towards Djottin-Noni, I had the impression that we were inspecting a guard of honour mounted by the hills on both sides of the un-tarred, limestone, stony and chalky road.

Djottin-Noni located in an alternating hilly cavernous landform, chiselled over the years by rivulets, streams and rivers, interspersed with lush valleys and fertile soils that produce foodstuff and fruits like bananas, beans, corn, cabbage, huckleberry, oranges, mangoes, groundnuts and cowpea that I relished greatly. I used to especially enjoy huckleberry, locally called kontri jamajama, eaten with corn fufu, as my granny prepared it in a small clay pot locally called kilang that she keeps jealously on a barn just above a three-stone fireplace.

During the day, my cousins would teach me how to play shang in the Noni dialect or songo in Ekang parlance which is a game based on mathematics and strategy. It comprises the following: two players, fourteen holes with each player having seven holes and two empty holes at the sides, each hole has five stones, the players sit facing each other. The two players move the stones deftly from one hole to another while making immeasurable permutations in their minds on how to outmanoeuvre the other and the player who at the end has the greatest number of stones emerges the winner. ?

I did not only enjoy the game of shang but spent time playing with my age mates. However, there was one fellow, a village bully, that everyone steered clear of. He was older than most of us and physically stronger. My village mates called him P. Kikai. I can still recall vividly how my mother blocked the door and told me not to run but face the bully who was after me. I turned back and my teeth did the rest leaving the bully reeling and crying in pain.

Inevitably, the rugged village terrain and the long distances I covered to visit my uncles and aunties contributed enormously in building my stamina as a hawker. The game of shang honed my tactical and strategic skills as I rack my brain on where to hawk, how to hawk and how to approach, attract and outsmart my customers. My encounter with P. Kikai instilled in me courage, determination and a certain fearlessness.

As a seventeen-year-old hawker when I narrate my experiences you might think I have come of age. However, I now know that life is a constant battle and each day I arm myself to face whatever circumstances; from the drug traffickers at Quartier Makea, violent-razor blade wielding street urchins, petty and hardened thieves to the child traffickers lurking everywhere. Now I am streetwise.

But hawking can be exciting; when I am tired I pose my wares on a table at a joint and watch television and get the feel of an air-conditioner. I like watching football but I cannot remember when Dad bought us the last ball. But as I move around I hear people say Samuel Eto'o Fils or Lionel Messi were once lads like me. I wonder!

My customers are varied, from the rich to the dirt poor. However, I must admit that I have a problem with a certain category of customers who always ask for ‘la boite de Bepanda.’ I move around with two small groundnut measuring tins of equal but unequal sizes, depends on the eyes of the beholder; the large size for poor neighbourhoods like Bepanda and the seemingly large but smaller size for rich neighbourhoods. You have to be smart, quite smart you know.

Though I have never read The Road To Hiala by Fotso, I hear that most of our rich businessmen or captains of industry began by selling groundnuts. I wonder!

Indeed, the rain drummed all night on our roof. When I heard utensils knocking against each other, I knew the water level has attained a dreadful level and we were in for another flood. Floods per se are not the preserve of my neighbourhood because I was surprised to be caught up in one at Bonapriso-Bonanjo of all places! The flip side is that on that day the flood waters enabled the population to lay hands on a notorious thief who on fleeing on a bike got stuck in the muddy flood waters! Assuredly, Water No Get Enemy as black legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, once belted out.

Our two-room house is completely flooded so we have to remove furniture, utensils, and mattresses and place them on our rooftop until the water level drops. This is routine because year-in-year-out we have to save the little property we have this way. However, there is another routine that always make me cry; the sound of women wailing for the loss of a dear one who has been swept away by a flash flood. Yes, I always cry and shudder because I recently lost my bosom friend in this manner.

Really, my friend was one of the lucky few in our neighbourhood who attended a public high school at Moussadi where most functionaries and nouveau riche live. His dad was well-to-do by our standards. In the morning, I would also get up quite early like school going kids not for school going purposes though but to say hello to and exchange a few words with my friend who usually passes in front of our house on his way to school.

I would then watch him in his sky blue shirt and khaki brown trousers and sneakers walk carefully right up to the main road until he disappeared from sight. As he walked, he looked behind from time to time and when he was about getting out of sight he would wave and I would do same but rather with a heavy heart. However, I always look forward to Sundays when I don’t hawk to read voraciously the high school novels he gladly put at my disposal.

As soon as he was out of sight, I would dash back into the house. By then, my mother would have finished preparing the groundnuts that I would hawk from one quarter to another. I often begin with my immediate environs then I move to the main road unto other neighbourhoods.

Walking on the potholed roads littered with piles and piles of dirt on the pavement throughout the day under the scorching sun with a tray full of groundnuts on my head is quite exacting and fascinating.

As I walked towards Moussadi, I decided to pass, first of all, through the street that harbours the public primary school, not far from my friend’s school. A good decision because it was midday and there are striving businesses along that street. As I approached the school, I was hit by a very offensive odour; the mount of dirt in front of the public school was quite revolting. I could see rats that could pass for rat moles serving themselves on the filth and playing hide and seek with cats. I recalled that an uncle was once told me that in Yaounde the rats are so huge that even cats are afraid of them. I had laughed and laughed!

I crossed to the other side of the road when two persons called for groundnuts. As I was measuring the amount of groundnuts, they asked for, I heard them complaining bitterly about the poor services of the refuse disposal company and the indifference of the school and council authorities. I thought about the pupils in class and the foul stench that must have enveloped them.

Though the stench from pit latrines in our neighbourhood can make you throw up, at least we make an effort to keep our immediate surroundings clean. But can this be compared to the attitude of persons in plush neighbourhoods that open their septic tanks at night during rains in order to release sewage into culverts next to their apartments or villas thus filling the atmosphere with a permanent fecal perfume? I wonder! ?

I have heard about people taking pictures in order to share on Facebook but this time I saw it first hand as one of my customers took out his cellphone, or is it an iPhone? I don’t know because such gadgets are luxury to me and my parents, and began filming the heaps of dirt in front of the school. He cursed and said something like ‘we are going to expose these fellows by raising awareness through the social media.’ His colleague went further to say ‘these guys don’t know that the social media is a formidable weapon.’? I think it works at times because I heard one of them say that they raised such awareness when the government organized the African Cup of Nations some time ago; the dirt on the sidewalks of Moussadi disappeared when it went viral on the social media. I don’t wonder because I now know that it works going by what my customers said!

However, does raising awareness always produce results? I wonder! When I started hawking groundnuts or kolanuts some time ago, Moussadi could still boast of its green spaces, manicured lawns, trees that provided shade, tarred roads and decent low cost apartments. Hawkers like myself also get tired, you know, so the green spaces and shade-providing trees provide perfect areas for us to take a nap and get up refreshed to continue hawking. Under trees passing for canopies that serve as shield from the burning sun rays, I discuss with other hawkers of my age; we inevitably exchange views on how to go about the hawking business and areas to avoid.

Today, as I left the public primary school for the next neighbourhood, I realised that the green spaces have been taken up by stores! Who authorized the construction of stores on these green spaces? The local authorities? Unscrupulous businessmen? I wonder! Since the sun was overhead, I looked for somewhere to catnap. The canopy-like trees were all gone! Who authorized the cutting down of these trees? The local authorities? Yaounde? I wonder! I took a look at the once decent apartments meant for the middle class but now occupied or owned by parvenus and wondered when these apartments last received a coat of paint!

As I walk from one street to another at Moussadi and beyond, I often do a delicate balancing act with a tray on my head; making sure the tray does not tilt thus spilling groundnuts or kolanuts as I sidestep small and yawning potholes on the road as well as making sure that I do not bump into bike drivers or vehicles manoeuvring to avoid potholes. In Moussadi and everywhere in Douala, potholes on road surfaces begin as small holes then grow into bigger holes and into deep clefts. Why do authorities leave small potholes to grow into huge potholes thus making pedestrian, vehicle and bike circulation extremely difficult? I wonder!

I am now always alert because I once lost everything and got in return a good thrashing at home! ??

However, is there a glimmer of hope in this morass? I wonder! ?But as I walk from Bonatone towards Deido, I make a stopover at the famous bar, Mbanga-Jo, to get some rest and I overhear Sango Mboa talking about the entry into the prestigious school that trains administrators and magistrates of a bike taxi driver, locally called bendskinneur. He rattles off some names of young innovators like Arthur Zang of the Cardiopath fame or Alain Nteff of GiftedMom renown.

I step out and move to the barber's hard by and as I serve him groundnuts I look at the reflection of myself on his huge mirror and wonder!

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