Africans in Canada: Blending Canadian and African Lifestyles?

Chapter 4 - Idealizing Marriage and Family: The Manjo Year, Yaoundé-Montreal effects, and Age Politics in University Education in Cameroon

117 Chapter 4 Idealizing Marriage and Family: The Manjo Year, Yaoundé-Montreal effects, and Age Politics in University Education in Cameroon It seems to me that people with the kind of outlook on life as mine often end up with the kind of marriage mess like mine because they idealize the institutions of marriage and of family in a world where self-centredness has become the rule rather than the exception; where take and take and take has long replaced give and take. When I talk about idealizing marriage and family, I am simply referring to three things at least; namely, (1) that both parties do share or learn to share the same or similar perspectives on as many domains as possible; (2) that both parents be there together to bring up the children and advance the family; and (3) that the marriage decision should begin with the two persons concerned. All the three requirements combine to bring about the ideal but sometimes only a few are present for a start, with the others being developed as the parties go along. I will examine particularly the third (which is like the gear-lever) in some details in the next chapter, drawing from my own case as well as from the intriguing experiences of other members of my large extended family. In this chapter, I dwell mostly on the duel and strategies of Manjo for getting to UNIYAO in time, with a slant on the Montreal positive that developed from a negative – CGAM – just like the information from God and/or divine intervention in Manjo. The Manjo Duel and the Information from God The town of Manjo is very critical to my UNIYAO bid; a longing that was being timed-out by the age-limit bar for university enrolment in Cameroon. The town is also very intimately tied to the second 118 signification of “idealizing marriage and family”, namely, that both parents should be there to bring up the children. These two principal considerations, exacerbated by the Anna-fiasco, created a real duel for me there, turning the year into a make-or-break one. Although “being there” is not just physical presence, the fact that I hardly know my birth father long led me to vow never to leave my own children with a similar “legacy”. This could explain why I actually started wanting to have children only when I thought I was ready to be there (in all its forms) all the time for them. But, regrettably, it seems that the unwanted birth-father legacy is exactly what my kids are headed for even as (unlike my biological father) I am not yet dead; all this because of my failure to avoid having a narrow-minded spouse like papa had – thanks very much also to Yaoundé, the shortcut to which was also unnecessarily elongated. All these issues and more are interlocking and hidden in the Manjo brain-busting year. Contrary to the thinking of a lot of people there, my one academic year in Manjo was not the bed of roses and of charming girls. Most people that knew me in that small town would find it hard to believe my realities in Manjo just as some others would to my realities in Canada. Because I have learnt not to carry my problems on my face, even the Manjo students themselves would find it hard to believe that I then had some real and devastating issues that were constantly with me. The greatest of them that almost tilted the balance against my returning to Cameroon, and which guided my approach to all the others in Manjo, was that of how to get to the UNIYAO the following academic year before the twenty-five year age-limit condition could bar me. I necessarily had to get enrolled in the UNIYAO by 1984 or never do so since thereafter I was to be twenty-five and above (things have changed today, of course). How was I to meet with this objective? Yaoundé and my objectives are so connected that the city has undoubtedly also played a very significant role in my spouse quest for a number of reasons. First of all, could it not be that the Anna-fiasco that has so predominantly been at the centre of that quest was avoidable but for the nasty experiences I had had arriving Yaoundé 119 for the first time that then...