to the hillside

i climb the hill with 8kg sack jasmine rice i bought for my consolation to console myself for the pork i took my 200francs (mme. caroline agreed that i'd owe her this time) to the octodiurnal shah house. elders greet me glow ever so much see me greet in ngwe. bruno comes claims that elders accuse him selling out culture. i had mentioned that the dead man was nkxa ngwú', the case was tried in 1951, though fotabong was absolved of murder, it was actually lebang to gain territory as a result of the dispute. now we have mbéh'-fotabong and mbéh'-lebang. then the suspicion. bruno vows he never told this to me. nor that he told me how to identify the tro' ndi. i confirm that it was ndinkemasong and ajong, respectively, who told me. the very nkemasong being an alleged critic. yambe, another outsider, asks if tradition should be hidden, making it clear he only feels otherwise.
-pikin dem dey di come for my class weh ah di teach book for history, dey ask me se weti fit happen time weh fon i die ah tell i but how i pa no fit tell i tradition na ì di die me cep na outsider i fit sabi past all wuna pikin dem
elder responds that tradition is secret he would only tell his successor son (a great man has many sons by many women but the successor is generally named in a sealed envelope, together with the will)
robert brain (see the bangwa of west cameroon) mentions an incident where a traditional carving was sold to a white man for some hundred pounds. the seller was disciplined and ordered to replace it, which he does at a cost of fifteen pounds. brain notes (this in the 60's) that such a statue could easily fetch ten thousand pounds in a new york auction house. this incident was fictionalized and popularized in asong linus' book "crown of thorns"
all the same no matter how conservative the elder, they all congratulate me if they see me eating abe ntchi with ngúng a tieh

ngwe update

a publication by a certain elizabeth dunstan, from 1967, has given some information about conjugation. dunstan confirms my suspicion that the phonemes [d], [r], and [l] are interchangeable in many situations.

here are the five different meanings of the phrase "a ze," depending on the tone. kill, know, sense, reproduce, that, his/her

it seems that the words corresponding to and, until, or, much (adjective) and not are all homophones, as are the words corresponding to them, much (adverb), and a morpheme used in certain negative constructions. much also the verb corresponding to 'to be' seems to only exist in the subjunctive mood or in cases where something must be contradicted or confirmed

grikatagrika

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

children generally don't talk to me in the dialect, because it would be disrespectful: implying that there's something that they can do better than me. something that boys do for sport, if they have a dog, is to rustle around in the bush with a machete and a dog, looking for cane rats and porcupines. in pidgin they are cutting grass and chuggehchuggeh, ngwe they are ndung and ngung a tie.
if you catch the rat, then you have to look for someone to buy it. they always come to my house because i'm rich and will pay a good price, or they think i deserve the first chance to eat it, as fresh as it is. whenever i tell them that i don't know how to prepare it, they sell it to the woman in the market that cuts it into individual servings. then i go to the market and eat one of the servings with abe eru, towards which i recently developed a taste. it eru is two different kinds of wild greens cooked together with palm oil and other spices. abe is water fufu, not to be confused with the western province couscous de manioc. the former is fermented.

ku'u tie ngung

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

that's the name of a locally famous pa, recently dead. he had several magical powers, but he was most famous for his ability to drink a lot of beer, then make someone else have to be constantly urinating

ndole, ntchi, bekang, djap

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

exiting, we meet a canadian with a camera, watching a woman preparing gari, some associated children eating gari. we discuss the case of the man who allegedly ambushed his uncle on the road, about a mile from scanwater quarter. his alibi claimed that he had been peeling kola nuts in scanwater quarter, twenty minutes before.

dschang-douala

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

-now, say that someone accuses me of an ambush, and they say it happened at ... what time is it now?
-walking to bellua market, bruno can become prolix on the topic of forces that conspire against him and how they are no match for his eternal vigilance; confidence men from mutengene, greedy contractors, jealous in-laws, pineapple thieving teenatgers...
-yes, four twenty. if they accuse me of ambush in scanwater quarter at four o'clock, i know that you will come to my rescue
-alibi
-you can say, 'no, i was walking to bellua market with him at 4.20,' and how can i make it from scanwater to the bellua market road in twenty minutes?? i can never move alone. i must have an a-li-bi
-an alibi who owns a clock
this last point is a big catch. i see one of my students in the market, seated in a pavilion with her brother before a great mound of kola nuts. they are working with spoons, removing the rubbery white casings from the nuts, leaving a shiny pink seed that can be separated into five or so wedges, also with the aid of a spoon. they are edible and have a strong bitterness that you learn to love because it is the taste of stimulant.
-this pa, mbei nkemala', is having my thousand francs. he is a bellua man, so he can never miss bellua market. surely i will find him, then we sit and take our mimbo

vowel harmony

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

some americans say that there is no way to avoid people yelling 'white man!' at you in a language suited to the region, but i say you shouldn't take such a pessimistic view. the secret is to be doing something more scandalous than being white. just the other day i saw an unknown white man carrying two live chickens through a market, and no one was yelling 'le blanc!'. they were yelling 'gripe aviaire!,' which i think has a nice ring to it.

you've got to show me love

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Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

when my arms stretched as far as they would, and my head agached until i could only follow the ball, i could only think of what coach once advised me for such situations: 'it's all well that you look like you're holding up the host, as it's a miracle if you catch it.' i did catch it, but we never saw that football again. i announced that i was leaving, and pamela followed me towards the gate. reynolds and george, agreeing with the substance, though not the form of my idea, walked down the beach towards the east. as we all privately felt ourselves to be the ones least susceptible to a fear of isolation, it happened that we wouldn't see until nightfall back in town at atlanta. the football wasn't able to voice its opinion.
our plan was to walk along the coast up to the private beach, effectively avoiding the entrance fee. pamela, coming from the north, thus not believing in anglophones, handled all inquiries about our safety:
-woa! beach no dey dey!
-no, ca va, merci, on va a la plage
-mais il n'y a aucune
-c'est pas de probleme, merci
not being discouraged by the first clump of sharp volcanic rocks lashed by the waves, we went back to the road and walked west until seeing the next possible access
-it says sugar plantation. we should go back
-i don't see sugar. wait until we see someone
-bon soir! venez! entrez!
-bon soir, on suit la cote
-haha pas possible, mais on peut vous montrer un peu
-c'est un restau, ici?
-pas du tout, c'est une post militaire.
though it is natural to feel at disease when you realize you are trespassing on military property, west african soldiers have always done their best to make me feel at home in strategic areas. obasanjo's guards would have given us a tour as well, but the sober one finally decided against it. we shared a quiet moment standing on the rocks, looking out into the waves that, for the time being, did not contain any guinean war ships. after giving us the contact information for his aunt in maroua, who would surely show us hospitality, the soldier bid us farewell and we went back to the road.

laborious

carefully enunciated:
that which was upon our bodies was all that we carried

a death celebration on monday:
funeral song

if either of these turn out to be the sex tape, the wiretap, the killing, rather than what i've labelled them, kindly disregard

jenny claims to be attempting to arrive. i'll be patiently waiting in douala

aux édulcorants

we were walking down to three corners where there was reputed to be butter. man drives by on a motorcycle and turns his head back to yell "ndek ma mbije!" which i think means white man together two. a brazilian missionary picked us up and took us to the three corners.
-butter?
-it is at the house. you can wait?
-yes
-ok sit here. how many?
-how is it?
-so. 1000
-one
we waited in the store alone for about ten minutes. it was an interesting store. the usual model of zinc sheets, chicken wire, and chainsaw cut 2x4's. the complete inventory was approximately: canned cat food, insecticide, yogurt, sweetened lime drink, nigerian vcd's, roasted coconut, those stones that you add to beans, foster clark's juice flavoring concentrate...

also i gave out three cabbages in tiko and became ill on the day i planned to visit the aiesec conference.



Douala, Cameroon (DLA) to Marseilles, France (MRS)
Total Travel Time: 9hrs 45min

Sat, Jul 29 02:05 AM to
06:35 AM Douala, Cameroon (DLA) to
Casablanca, Morocco (CMN)
5hrs 30min - nonstop Royal Air Maroc Flight 284
Boeing 737-800 Jet- Economy


Sat, Jul 29 08:20 AM to
12:50 PM Casablanca, Morocco (CMN) to
Marseilles, France (MRS)
2hrs 30min - nonstop Royal Air Maroc Flight 732
Airbus 321 Jet- Economy