A Sweet-Footed African: James Jibraeel Alhaji

Jibraeel Alhaji

Description

A Sweet-Footed African captures the sense of being James Jibraeel Alhaji; the milestones and challenges of his life and his reconciliation with emotions, decisions and circumstances of the past, and hopes for the future. James Jibraeel Alhaji�s life is characterized by a diversity of personal ambitions, family commitments and economic motives, which lead him from his home in Cameroon to Cape Town, South Africa. The story situates the context of decisions that characterize the so-called quest for greener pastures, examining personal opportunities, triumphs and challenges before and beyond life as an immigrant in South Africa. The story explores what it means to move and to be mobile in Africa, the networks that fulfil and sustain mobile Africans during times of uncertainty, and the lineage to home that remains eternally active.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Sociology
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 06 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956792764
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Africa, the networks that fulfil and sustain mobile Africans during times

A SWEET-FOOTED AFRICAN James Jibraeel Alhaji

A STOLDTO Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Sweet Footed African: James Jibraeel Alhaji

As told to Francis B. Nyamnjoh

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: 9956-792-75-6 ©James Jibraeel Alhaji & Francis B. Nyamnjoh 2015

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

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Hero Days in Primary School………………... 1 Chapter 2: Secondary School Life……………………….. 21 Chapter 3: My First Love…………………….…………..37 Chapter 4: Life in high school……………….…………...55 Chapter 5: My Days at the University of Yaoundé……….67 Chapter 6: Saudi Arabia Beckons……………….……….. 77 Chapter 7: South Africa Imagined and Pursued……...….. 115 Chapter 8: Graced by South Africa………………………159 Chapter 9: My Wife Never Understood the Business....................................................................................... 187 Chapter 10: Life as an Immigrant Businessman in South Africa……………………………………..…...…..205 Chapter 11:My Mother Was a Very Good Friend……..... 237

iii

iv

Chapter 1

Hero Days in Primary School

I am a Cameroonian immigrant. I live in Cape Town. I have been in South Africa for almost 20 years. When some years ago there were outbreaks of violence here and there in South Africa against black immigrants from other African countries – those usually referred in most unflattering terms asmakwerekwere –, many journalists, along with academics and students came knocking to interview me. The questions they asked, however deep they tried to be, always left me thirsty and hungry, wishing they had gone this way or that way, explored this or that theme, dug deep, or followed a particular line of enquiry to a crescendo that did not always serve the purpose of overly simplifying the issues or my situation. They would stop only when I was warming up to a serious conversation, warming up with surging questions of my own. I detested the tendency to see us, a priori, as a problem and the resistance, even by those who should know better, to see the extent to which we were more of a solution than an encumbrance. Sometimes I followed the accounts of their interviews with me and other immigrants on radio or as articles in newspapers and on blogs. Although I have never read the more scholarly accounts in theses and dissertations written by students, or in books and journal articles by interested academics posing as migration experts, I have often wondered why very few of them have ever treated me as if I had a life prior to my arrival in South Africa. Few want to know how I came to be here. They imagine and impose a reason on me for coming to this country, often in contradiction to what I tell them if they 1

bother to ask. And, even as they are interested in my life in South Africa, their questions often leave me perplexed as to why they frame things in such terms as not to do justice to the fullness of my life and experiences as an immigrant in their beloved country. Many suppose that I am here to stay, that I would do everything to remain in South Africa, and that the country I come from is not worthy of modern human life, which is why – they suppose rather than ask me – I am running away, and have taken refuge – illegally, they love to insist – in South Africa, in my desperate quest for greener pastures. Nothing I say, or wish I could say in the interest of nuance, seems to matter in the face of such arrogant and admittedly, it must be said, ignorant accounts. My frustrations with what I read and hear have pushed me to the conclusion that South Africans would perhaps understand and relate with much more accommodation if they were to get to know us,amakwerekwere, in our wholeness as human beings – as people composed of flesh and blood, people shaped and humbled by the highs and lows, whims and caprices of human existence – and not simply as statistics of inconvenience or as odd strings of phrases, often quoted out of context, to illustrate news stories by journalists in a hurry to meet deadlines. Sometimes the impression is strong in me, very strong indeed, that some are reluctant to allow such a thing as reality to stand in the way of a good story. Sensationalism craved to the detriment of the complex messiness and intricate interconnections of the everyday lives of South Africans and amakwerekwerein urban South Africa. As I say, I haven’t read anything academic, not being one myself, so I don’t know how better or worse off they are from journalists, in how they, in their scholarliness, capture our lives and predicaments as black African immigrants in South Africa. Whether or not they are less obsessed with documenting how 2

best the South African state and people could control the influx of undesired immigrants flocking in like locusts to dissipate their industrialised economy – the leading economy in Africa, as they often stress, refusing as much as possible to give giant competitors like Nigeria (poised to overtake South Africa to become the leading economy in Africa in a few years) the slimmest of chances –, spread dangerous diseases and enshrine crime, chaos and foreboding, such academic accounts, like their counterparts furnished by journalists and mouthpieces of the various shades of the Rainbow, stand to benefit from more profound knowledge ofamakwerekwere as flesh and blood steeped in histories, both personal and collective. If the intention and determination of the chroniclers of daily life in South Africa are to controlamakwerekwere –real or imagined – what can a fly like me do to stop an almighty bulldozer elephant pregnant with zeal? But I believe that by contributing this very modest and personal account in as detailed a manner as possible, the elephants of South Africa are likely to find substance in it to make informed decisions vis-à-vis this strange species of flies they callamakwerekwere. Before I proceed, I have one confession to make. I am not a good storyteller. I have grown up reading and appreciating the stories of others, stories told in the moving colourfulness of language masterfully harnessed. That I could never imitate, however much I try, and God knows I have tried. So my dear reader – whoever you are – please bear with me. I plead for compassion, understanding and forgiveness as I dabble into a field in which I command little expertise. I have been tempted many times to simply let an accomplished storyteller takeover my story and render my existence fictitious, in the manner of the hunter telling the story of the hunt. Each time tempted, each time I have resisted. It is my conviction that my story is best told by me in person – however defective my style and 3

however appalling the sound of my voice – than left to perfect strangers who, however sympathetic and engaging vis-à-vis my predicament, can at best only reduce my experiences to theirs in the manner translators and interpreters – however accomplished – are known to reduce the words of foreign tongues they do not quite master. With this confession behind me, let’s begin from the very beginning: where I was born and grew up, the relationships that have made me, the nimbleness of being that has characterised me, and how I came to find myself in South Africa, where I have lived and worked for nearly 20 years. * * * This is the story of my life. The funniest thing with me is that I don’t know when I was born. I don’t know my date of birth. The reason for this is that when I was born there was no one to record it. The only person who could have taken note of the time and place: my uncle, D. O, did, but he then lost it again. D.O is my mother’s brother, thechopchair, as we call clan heads in my region of Cameroon. He is very active in Southern Cameroon circles. He was the one eye that we had in the family at the time. He wrote my birth details down, but he subsequently lost the book in which they were kept. I have made so many failed attempts to find my date of birth. My parents could remember that I was born around 1963, but not the month nor the day I was born on. From what they could tell me, I know I was born in the rainy season. There was a lead when I found out that a Pastor in the village at the time had apparently written it down as well. Again, I don’t know what happened, but he, too, couldn’t find the record. Before I knew th that I was certainly born around 1963, I had already chosen 5 March 1965 when I had to establish an official birth certificate. I chose that date for my birth certificate even before I realized 4

I was born during the rains. It turned out that when I got the description, it fitted 1963. On my birth certificate, I am at least two years younger than I actually am. I was born in the Ngali Quarter in the then Pinyin Village (now Pinyin Clan), Mezam Division of the then North West Province of Cameroon. My parents moved from their big compound in Ngali when I was still very young. I can’t remember the details of that move, but I do know that we moved to a place called Payak. Today we call it Payak City, but in those days it was a vast farmland. Ours was one of the families that lived and farmed there. So, I basically grew up on a farm. I remember my childhood in Payak, particularly when I was going to primary school. We had to walk some seven or eight kilometres to school in Kwindegli, another quarter of Pinyin. At the time it was very difficult to find a primary school. We had to walk long distances to get to one. It’s not like today where schools are everywhere. We even have one right in Payak these days. It was fun going to primary school. I had a great group of friends and acquaintances at that school. One particular friend is of blessed memory now. We called him Njzenge. But some pupils nicknamed him Njzenge fufu, which means, “a bundle of fufu”, because he came late to school repeatedly. According to some of the pupils, Njzenge came late to school because every morning when he got up he wanted to eat a big bundle of fufu before he left. That was not true, but it didn’t stop the pupils from claiming and believing it was. Njzenge was my friend. We were always late to school together, because we lived so close together. So, when they called him “Njzenge fufu”, they called me “Nkhaa atsu”, which means “a bundle of atsu”. According to them, I used to eat atsu early in the morning before I came to school. We were 5