Africans in Canada: Blending Canadian and African Lifestyles?

Chapter 3 - The Politics of African Family Hitches Elongating Short-Cut: The Bombshell and the Roaming Days

71 Chapter 3 The Politics of African Family Hitches Elongating Short-Cut: The Bombshell and the Roaming Days Half-heartedness on papa’s part has always characterized my leaving one-level to another in academic progress; and may largely belie the bombshell success. After obtaining the G.C.E. Advanced Level in the lower sixth form in August 1981, the idea was that of using Wednesday, the Yoke Market Day, to compile my file in view of registering for university studies in the then one and only UNIYAO. Therefore, before he left every Sunday for Limbe, papa would give money for the certification of some of the necessary documentation on the following Wednesday. (It is not like all these documents could not be certified in one-shot.) This happened for two weeks and the file was almost complete, requiring just another week to be ready for the journey to Yaoundé. Like Anna (then my wife-to-be), I was so excited but kept my cool at the same time because I never for one moment forgot what I was up against, especially when it always came to leaving one educational level to the other. The more so because of the manner the news of my success in the Advanced Level had been received in the household in Yoke. As Mami Cecilia(who was then papa’s inherited wife and my mother’s mbanya) wondered about it, “How could such wonderful news be received instead as if some very important person in the family has died?”I was absolutely right; and my correctness will see the dropping of the bomb that would initiate my roaming days that would eventually lead to the Anna-fiasco which itself would worsen the make or break year in Manjo two years later. One major fault I have found in my father over the years is his over belief in those he has confidence in or in those who claim to know things (the experts) that he thinks he does not know. The confidence-fault of papa has worked both ways for me though. Papa 72 generally treated his children without distinction or bias; which could, for example, explain why I did not know Josephine was not his biological child. Of course, when any of them had won his trust or confidence, it became almost like a sin to the other siblings and my mother. This is because, in such circumstances, papa never stops praising you and referring the others to emulate you. Take food for instance. He often found something to criticize in it, not enough salt, too much pepper, meat cooked too much, etc. When there is nothing to complain about, he would say this to the hearing of everyone: “I know it’s Peter who has prepared this food.” This type of praising did not only turn me into the household’s sole cook but also enlisted my mother’s distrust that dominated her whole attitude toward my continued presence and progress in the household. It is also because of his confidence in me that I (unlike many others) have been able to even progress in the household until high school notwithstanding the constant tussle with the other forces. But with this UNIYAO-going inclination, the unfavourable forces in the household realized the battle was tilting away from them and towards my side; and, as is usual that truth is stronger than lies, some cohorts from the outside had to be brought into play to reinforce the lies. The outside legion, as I later learnt, took the form of some of my mother’s relations residing in Dschang who went all the way to Limbe (while we were in Yoke farming) to convince papa that it was an uphill task sending a child to the UNIYAO (but not to the USA where Joseph will be going four years later?). Studies at the UNIYAO were tuition-free and enrolled students even were accorded bourse(monthly stipend that students called epsi7). Since the talk of uphill task was coming from Pa Martin (as I hear the man at the centre of it is called), it was simply gospel truth; and papa obviously fell for it. Hence, the following Sunday (13 September 1981) when papa was about to leave and called for me, I was expecting to get money 7 For more on this epsi and its assimilationist design see Fossungu (2013a: 175192 ). 73...