Day and Night in Limbo

Tardif Lonkog

Description

With humour, insight and irony, Lonkog recounts the joys and contradictions of daily life in a Northern Cameroon village. Living in Carrefour Poli in Northern Cameroon was never easy. How far will one have to go for drinking water during the dry season? Will there be money for kerosene to fill the lamp tank? For batteries for the torch? For a bowl of corn to make �fufu� for the family? Will there be a night encounter with the poison of a snake or scorpion? The man of Carrefour Poli imagines when he last had a bottle of beer and when he will next have another. Children sit in class staring at the teacher, while their work suffers. People sit under trees for shade only to cut them down for firewood. Ministers run up and down, working very hard and sweating, but little changes. Day and night people turn around on the same spot. It takes a long time to build a nation. Everything is in limbo.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 23 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956792290
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Jean Trdif LONK

Day & Night in Limbo

Jean Tardif Lonkog

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookcollective.com ISBN: 9956-792-62-4 ©Jean Tardif Lonkog 2014

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Chapter 1

Go or Stay? n June 16, 2008, I arrived in Yaounde from China. little O sisters Marie-Claire and Angel put together my The recruitment of teachers into the public service had been launched. I had three days to apply. My documents for the recruitment. I was not taking this seriously, because my intention was to pick up another entry visa and return to China, for I did not come to Cameroon to stay. My sisters however, aware of all my instability in China, did not want me to return. I have written of what I went through in China in my first book “The Black Man and His Visa.” My sisters compiled and successfully deposited my documents on June 18. The government extended the closing date for about a week, but my sisters did all so I was able to meet the first deadline. In the end, I was a candidate for the batch of teachers recruited in September 2008.It was obligatory to choose two Northern Regions and one Southern Region. Nevertheless, it was clear that most of the teachers would be posted to the North, because it is a priority zone for the government and the educators in the country. Education is still backward in the three Northern regions of Cameroon. These are North (Garoua), Far North (Maroua) and Adamawa (Ngaoundere). The government wants to send more and more teachers there to build up the region. However, teachers are reluctant to go up North for reasons such as the hot harsh climate, the lack of water and electricity in most of the rural areas, plus the distance from home. Like

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most of the other candidates, I chose North, Adamawa and West. Despite my possible recruitment, I did not give up my attempt to obtain a visa and return to China. I had applied for admission into a Chinese Traditional Medicine College. They accepted my application and sent an invitation letter to me by email. I printed the letter and went to the Chinese Consulate in Douala. They rejected it saying I should ask the school to post to me a stamped invitation letter. I shared this information with the college, and they said in August they had posted me the letter. However, I waited impatiently for the letter until I never received it. I wrote to them and informed them I did not receive it. Even by the end of September, I had still not received it. They insisted they had posted it to me. It was only after one year, that is in October 2009, that the relative whose address I used brought me a letter saying, “This is your letter, usually things do not go missing, we only forget to hand them over.” When I wanted to ask how he forgot to hand me such an important letter, he had turned and was already leaving. I only spotted his back five meters away from me. I was in the village until September 2008, when my sisters told me from Yaounde that the result of the recruitment was already published. I asked them to look at the list and tell me if my name was on it. They told me I was to work in the North Region and in Government School Carrefour Poli. In a country of mass unemployment, this was an opportunity for work. There are teachers who have been living in the country for many years and have not had the opportunity for employment. I applied in the nick of time and had a job. More so, many who deposited their documents were not recruited. I was very confused. Should I go for this job or

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