Cup Man and Other Stories

1. Cup Man

1 1 Cup Man a Shimoon, for that was what we grew up knowing him to be called, was an extraordinary man. When I First heard of the name of the former Israeli Prime Minister, Shimoon Peres - and that was in primary school - it reminded me of Pa Shimoon’s name. I sometimes wondered if the name Shimoon was not really a corruption of Simon, but my father said it was not. “His father named him Shimoon. I don’t know why, but that’s the name his father gave him at birth. If you want the whole story, his full names are Shimoon Atanga Ngu, the last name being his father’s,” my father would say, and then go on to recall that Pa Shimoon’s father ran into problems with the parish priest who stopped the local priest from baptizing Pa Shimoon, unless he was given a “proper” Christian name, whatever he meant by “proper”. “We can’t put that name on our church records. It’s not a Christian name. It must be a pagan creation,” Fr. Anthony said, in the coolness typical of Mill Hill missionaries. He was born in Southampton but grew up in Bedfordshire and Yorkshire. However, since Pa Shimoon’s father would not agree to an alternative name and the parish priest would not yield an inch either, a rift soon developed between the two men. The result was that Pa Shimoon’s father withdrew his entire family from the Catholic Church and they became Presbyterians. Of course, my father could afford to be so authoritative about Pa Shimoon. Both men were from Njini Menam village. They were age mates and had grown up together in the village. They were classmates in the village catholic Mission Primary School. When Pa Shimoon’s father moved them out of the Catholic Church, he accordingly enrolled at the village Presbyterian school. Meanwhile my father stayed on at the St. Andrew Catholic School. When P 2 both boys completed primary school they entered the big and famous Basel Mission College (B M C) that was the only one for boys in that part of the country. After their studies, they both won British scholarships to study in England. My father went to the famous Milroe College where he took an honours degree in Tropical Agriculture. His friend and brother went to Silverpool for and honours in mechanical engineering. That was then. Today, because of the closeness of my father and Pa Shimoon, all of us my father’s eight children (from his only wife, my mother, mama Benedicta) called Pa Shimoon, just Shimoon, not uncle Shimoon. The latter, on the other hand, had two wives. Mama Beatrice had five children while the second wife, Mama Angela, had three. If you ask me, I would say Pa Shimoon had difficulties handling his polygamous home because there were frequent fights between the wives. Sometimes they even they fought. Even so, what I or I guess any other child with whom I grew up in the neighbourhood remember most about Pa Shimoon was his indulgence in alcohol. It seemed to me that he was always drunk. For many years he and my father worked in Ndokoban, the headquarters of Kana administrative Division in the Plateau Province. My father was the divisional delegate for Agriculture while Pa Shimoon was Divisional Chief of service for Agricultural Statistics. My father was his boss because according to the organisational chart, the Divisional Delegate of Agriculture Controlled the Divisional Chief of services for Administration and Finance, the Divisional Chief of Community Development, the Divisional Chief of Rural Engineering, the Divisional Chief of Agriculture Production. My father always spoke disconsolately about his “brother Shimoon” at home. “What haven’t I said to him? I have warned him repeatedly about drinking. I have told him it will ruin his career and even his life. But will my brother listen to me? That places me in an awkward situation because if I were to apply the rules on him and send a nasty report to 3 hierarchy, he might lose his job. But does my brother understand that?” Sometimes, I felt sorry for Pa Shimoon because even his physical looks were already wearing him down. He, from what I could see was born handsome. He had the fair complexion, which most people dream of. Unfortunately he made himself a slave to alcohol. Perhaps he could even...