Blessing

Chapter 4

41 4 ebruary sailed along gracefully with life for the Fopous being as normal as it could be. Day after day, the boys ran after knowledge or cattle, while the women bent over farms, deracinate shrubs and stumps, gathering and burning, and then tilling and waiting. By mid month each nose full carried the scent of dust stirred out of slumber by the first rains, heralds of the approaching season. March came along with the beginning of the rainy season. The Fopou women, along with others in the village, returned to their farms, this time planting and weeding. Life for Temkeu Fopou was also as normal as it could be. A typical morning for him started with a heavy meal, which digested as he took the short walk to his pottery and carpentry workshop, where he spent most of the day. Before returning home in the evening, he often stopped in the village square to make some noise and share some palm wine or corn beer with his friends. He was making for the village square, one evening, when it suddenly started raining. He rushed into a nearby compound but not fast enough to avoid the first few drops of rain, which ran down his torso to be trapped in the folds of his loincloth. He sighed and sighed. His problem was neither his wet skin, which will dry in a few seconds, nor his wet loincloth, which will dry in a few minutes. Superstition held that anyone who was soaked by the first rain would be caught in the rain throughout that rainy season. By August, the flurry of raindrops had become the most faithful companion wherever anyone went. September stepped in with the start of another school year. After primary education, which was all Temkeu could offer his sons, the first two had moved to Yaoundé, the capital of the French Cameroons, with promises of getting more education and returning home to sow its benefits. Five years had gone by since he had last heard from the second. Though Makam, the first, rarely made the one-day journey home, material evidence and remittances showed he carried his family in his thoughts. Achum, F 42 Temkeu’s fourth son, had decided to try his hand at trade by moving to Douala, the economic city. The twenty-seven-year-old gave Temkeu reason to walk about with raised shoulders. Apart from his frequent trips home, he was changing the face of the compound with the brick house he was building nearby. The pampering lavished on Temkeu by his daughter-in-law also added to Achum’s list of achievements. Whenever Temkeu talked about Makam and Achum, his tongue rolled with the ease of one comfortable with a subject. When the discussion stirred towards the likes of his third son, Bacham, his tongue grew heavy with shame. A failed trip to acquire employment in banana and tea plantations in the coastal region, drunkenness and women – these were all he had to show for his twenty-nine years on earth. To increase the weight of Temkeu’s shame, his three middle sons had taken Bacham’s example a step further. Everything they did said they were just waiting for him to close his eyes so that they start competing with his wives for his property. As concerns the five youngest sons who still lived under their mothers’ roofs, Temkeu let go no opportunity to make it known that he had only one favourite. Though just eight years old, Mosa showed signs of conquering where his other brothers had failed. Unlike the other young boys, Mosa went to the farm every day, either accompanying his grandmother, mother, two stepmothers or at times his sister, Fatti. In the evening, he moved from one hut to the other doing whatever there was to do – fetching water, gathering wood, lighting the fire. His was the first name that dropped from every mouth in need. It was the first day of the school year, and the day had dawned with a huge smile carved on Temkeu’s mouth. He walked out of his hut wearing one of his pair of jumpers, his raffia bag and the pair of leather slippers which Makam had brought for him – Makam had shown up unexpectedly the previous evening. By 7.00 a.m., Temkeu was walking out of his compound, dragging along a new Mosa clad in the Catholic school uniform – a sky blue shirt and a pair of khaki shorts...