Married But Available

B. Nyamnjoh

Description

Married But Available ventures into a theme about which people say as much as they withhold. It explores intersections between sex, money and power, challenging orthodoxies, revealing complexities and providing insights into the politics and economics of relationships. During six months of fieldwork in Mimboland, Lilly Loveless, a Muzungulander doctoral student in Social Geography, researches how sex shapes and is shaped by power and consumerism in Africa. The bulk of her research takes place on the outskirts of the University of Mimbo, an institution where nothing is what it seems. Through her astounding harvest of encounters, interviews, conversations and observations, the reader gets a captivating glimpse into the frailty and resilience of human beings and society. Lilly Loveless comes out of it all well and truly baptized. And so does the reader!

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9789956727636
• Langue: English

Extrait

Titles by Langaa RPCIG
Francis B Nyamnjoh
Stories from Abakwa
Mind Searching
The Disillusioned African
The Convert
Souls Forgotten
Married But Available
Dibussi Tande
No Turning Back. Poems of Freedom 1990-1993
Kangsen Feka Wakai
Fragmented Melodies
Ntemfac Ofege
Namondo. Child of the Water Spirits
Hot Water for the Famous Seven
Emmanuel Fru Doh
Not Yet Damascus
The Fire Within
Thomas Jing
Tale of an African Woman
Peter Wuteh Vakunta
Grassfields Stories from Cameroon
Green Rape: Poetry for the Environment
Majunga Tok: Poems in Pidgin English
Cry My Beloved Africa
Ba bila Mutia
Coils of Mortal Flesh
Kehbuma Langmia
Titabet and the Takumbeng
Victor Elame Musinga Roselyne M. Jua
The Barn
The Tragedy of Mr. No Balance
Ngessimo Mathe Mutaka
Building Capacity: Using TEFL and African
languages as development-oriented literacy tools
Milton Krieger
Cameroon s Social Democratic Front: Its History
and Prospects as an Opposition Political party,
1990-2011
Sammy Oke Akombi
The Raped Amulet
The Woman Who Ate Python Other Stories
Beware the Drives: Book of Verse
Susan Nkwentie Nde
Precipice
Francis B Nyamnjoh Richard Fonteh Akum
The Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of
Anglophone Solidarity
Joyce Ashuntantang Dibussi Tande
Their Champagne Party Will End! Poems in
Honor of Bate Besong
Rosemary Ekosso
The House of Falling Women
Peterkins Manyong
God the Politician
John Percival
The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or
Betrayal
Albert Azeyeh
Reussite Scolaire, Faillite Sociale: G n alogie
mentale de la crise de l Afrique Noire
Francophone
Aloysius Ajab Amin Jean-Luc Dubois
Croissance et Developpement Au Cameroun:
D´une croissance quilibr e un developpement
equitable
Luke Enendu Babson Ajibade
Masquerade Traditions
Carlson Anyangwe
Imperialistic Politics in Cameroun:
Resistance the Inception of the Restoration of
the Statehood of Southern Cameroons
Bill F. Ndi
K Cracy, Trees in the Storm and Other Poems
Kathryn Toure, Therese Mungah Shalo Tchombe Thierry Karsenti
ICT Changing Mindsets in Education
Excel Tse Chinepoh Ntemfac A.N. Ofege
The Adventures of Chimangwe
Alobwed Epie
The Day God Blinked
Married But Available
Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Publisher:
Langaa RPCIG ( Langaa Research Publishing Common Initiative Group) P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Province Cameroon Langaagrp gmail.com www.langaapublisher.com
Distributed outside N. America by African Books Collective orders africanbookscollective.com www.africanbookscollective.com
Distributed in N. America by Michigan State University Press msupress msu.edu www.msupress.msu.edu
ISBN:9956-558-27-3
Francis B. Nyamnjoh 2009 First published 2009
DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.
To all those who contribute knowingly and unknowingly
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1
L illy Loveless sat staring at her Gmail inbox, on a cold winter morning in Muzunguland. Unlike other days, she had come in earliest of all the postgraduate students at the Muzunguland African Studies Institute at Bruhlville, because she was expecting an urgent email. Her co-supervisor in Livingstonetown had promised her the contact details of an African colleague at the University of Mimbo where she was seeking affiliation to do fieldwork for her PhD on Sex, Power and Consumerism in Africa. She was excited and relieved, now that her research proposal had been successfully defended and the way cleared for her to undertake her second African visit. The Ethics Committee had given her a tough time and asked grilling questions about the dangers of voyeurism posed by her proposed study, but she eventually sailed through reassuringly.
Funding had been secured from the Ministry of Cooperation, the Royal Aids Foundation and the Michel Foucault Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Power. Riding high on her accomplishments and bubbling with prospects, Lilly Loveless was set to go.
All she needed was a letter of affiliation: these famous letters without which, so she had been told, Muzungulanders find it impossible to penetrate the bureaucracies of African ministries of research. No permit, no research , that s the maxim. Without a letter of affiliation she couldn t even aspire to get a visa from the Embassy of Mimboland, the country tied to the grants she had received. She had tried persuading the consular officer. This might have worked, had she not, most regrettably, boasted that she was after all injecting millions of Mim dollars into the struggling Mimbo economy, so Why all the fuss? Her attitude seemed to have toughened the resolve of the consular officer, who came short of screaming: Forget your bloody money, arrogant ! Now she knew only a letter of affiliation from Dustbin s collaborator at the University of Mimbo, bearing all the stamps and seals of approval, could deliver her visa.
She recalled reading, in Nigel Barley s Innocent Anthropologist , of similar experiences the author had had with the embassy of another African country, not too dissimilar to Mimboland. She stood up and looked through her bookshelf for the book, opened the relevant page, which she had dogeared from her undergraduate Anthropology years and read.
How similar in their indifference to progress African countries are! And how insensitive to the need to protect even their own self-interest! To discourage potential visitors with such attitudes of callous indifference was worse than shooting oneself in the foot. Little had changed for the better, much for the worse.
Her experience of Africa was limited though, very limited. Apart from the masses of books she had read, books written mostly by Muzungulanders and by Africans whose knowledge of their continent was like a river humbled by the dry season, Lilly Loveless had had only a short two-week holiday experience of the lovely beaches of Sunsandland, one of the most exotic, exciting wonders of the tropics, dreams of which have kept many a Muzungulander going.
The email eventually came through. Lilly Loveless clicked and read:

Dear Lilly, the contact details of my Mimboland colleague whom I insist you meet as he has similar research interest to yours are:
Dr Wiseman Lovemore
Department of Social Work
University of Mimbo, Mimboland
Email: Wiseman.Lovemore yahoo.com
Dr Wiseman Lovemore is a fascinating and accommodating fellow whom I am sure you will like. He isn t exactly international in terms of Google, but he is an intelligent man with solid convictions. I cannot locate his cell number, but his email address should suffice. Just email him your travel details, and if you are lucky and he checks his mail, which unfortunately he doesn t do often, he would most certainly go to fetch you at the airport. If you miss him for whatever reason, simply make your way to the university campus upon arrival - some 40 to 50 minutes away by taxi, in Puttkamerstown. Ask the first person you meet, and you should be taken to the Department of Social Work where Lovemore is as solid as an oak and the easiest person to find.
Safe trip and enjoy your fieldwork.
Best
Dustbin
Lilly Loveless started typing immediately.

Dear Dr Wiseman Lovemore,
My name is Lilly Loveless. I am a student reading Social Geography at the Muzunguland African Studies Institute, Bruhlville. I am writing to you about the research I d like to carry out for my PhD over the next six months in Mimboland. I am writing courtesy of Professor Dustbin Olala, who has pressed me to contact you. Given your expertise on the subject I d like to work on, I d be really interested to hear your thoughts now and once I am on the ground. In a nutshell, I shall be investigating changing sexuality and power relations occasioned by growing obsession with material possessions and the desire to consume Muzungu products in a context of screaming poverty.
I am very interested in your work, which, I must admit, I haven t read but which your friend, my co-supervisor Professor Dustbin, thinks very highly of. The most recent thing by an African that I have read on this theme is the paper: Fishing in Troubled Waters: Disquettes and Thiofs in Dakar . I would like to know what you think of this paper, which fascinated me, although the author writes as if African women are irredeemably consumerist and helplessly easy to manipulate by men of wealth and power. I can t say whether or not the situation he paints is real and widespread, but I could bring a copy of the paper along for you, if your library does not subscribe to Africa , the journal in which it was published. Indeed, it would be a huge honour if we could meet up to discuss the topic as soon as I arrive
She was full of questions. First, she urged and pleaded with him to send her an urgent letter of affiliation, duly signed by the Vice Chancellor of the university. Failure of which, the letter must be signed by the Dean. She also had questions about where to stay.
Sorry to bombard you with all these questions, she wrote, but as I am sure you can understand, I w