Homecoming in Cameroon…

Home coming in Cameroon… Hip Hop is a crusher of language barriers. Where long ago people from different cultures would only say: “Hello, my name is bla-di-bla…” These days they will greet each other: Yo! My brother. How ya doing? What’s popping? Ya heard the new Nas, Jay Z… etc etc. Right on! Fight on! One love!” It would be an understatement to say: we have come a long way.

So Pay went to Atlanta. And I still have to go to Cameroon, central Africa. Both in search of Hip Hop. And in my case in ‘search’ of family. Which I certain will run into, find those who I want to see. And some of those I don’t want to see, will find me. But hey, that’s family.

Cameroon is a bilingual country. The two official languages are French and English. Sadly non of the original non-occupiers languages are recognized as official languages. The lion share is Francophone. A small part, the Southern Cameroons, are English.

This is how it works roughly: in the Anglofone part, all speak two languages. Everything is stated in French and English. In the French, most part of the country, everything is in French and just… French. So typical. Just like France in Europe. Trying to communicated in English, doesn’t make you any friends. And I just paid enough attention in high school to say fluently ‘I don’t speak French’, in French. Seems I gonna have a crash course again. But on the positive side: French is a beautifull language.

So the Anglophone peeps are a bit fed up with the arrogance of the Francophone government. The name Southern Cameroons is also illegal and not wise to mention. (Hey, story of my life). To keep the people in check, there are a lot of military around in the English part of the country. Most military do not speak English. It’s a classical case of ‘Divide and Rule’. How nice. And quite frustrating. Definitely if you are young and full of energy and dreams.

"Hip Hop is now a globalised culture that is locally used to articulate protest. This is, in itself, remarkable and, indeed, more vital than ever in our post-democratic world where corporations exert undue influence over national and international political decisions and electoral processes are too often defined by apathy (in the West) or corruption (in the rest)," from the book 'Where You're At' by Patrick Neate. To put it in a nuttshell: how do my nephews and nieces experience Hip Hop? And how is their strugle? What are their dreams and stuff?

Well first problem: how to get there? So getting to Cameroon, the tickets are not cheap! And I need three for my family. It’s cheaper to fly to Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa and even to Atlanta, than just to go to central Africa from Europe. How much does it cost us to spent money and time in Cameroon? Visa are €80,- for a month, and € 120, for a one month till three months.

‘Auch’, that was €360,-. Not very inviting. My wife is not allowed to mantain her Cameroonian nationality, as she became Dutch, so she need a visa to visit her own country too. But she is allowed to keep her valid Cameroonian passport?! In Dutch we say: ‘Met de Franse slag’ (do it the French way). To put it simple: does it make sense to go on holidays to our beloved homeland? Would it not be better for all mankind if it would be easier and cheaper to visit the motherland. So everybody can experience the original homecoming?

So, for all that money we have the visa, finally! But we did not get even a friendly smile or a nice coffee with a cookie. Tss, greedy. Well, there is a small smile as soon as we, my wife that is, starts to speak French. Even here at the Cameroonian embassy in The Hague, English is not very welcomed. So I ‘bonjour’ myself away. All the money we would like to spent in Cameroon, or supporting family kids to go to school, is now spent on bureacratic red tape. Next time for holidays, we will just forget about Cameroon… If that would be possible.

So we would like to forget about Cameroon, going through all that stress again. The only leverage for our irritation is that we understand how much more frustrating it is to get from Cameroon to The Netherlands as a non-European. That's a whole other moutain to climb! And still, so many young people overthere, have nothing else on their mind than the promised lands Europe and America. Like somebody keeps on telling them the streets of London are paved with gold…

Auke

For safety reasons we did not publish this article before we’re passed the customs of Cameroon)