Who can coherently explain why December brings a lot of excitement? People are busy, they are in a hurry, and they are in a flurry of activity.
This is Yaounde. It is as if all the vehicles in the world are in town. From sun up to sun down cars are competing on the roads of Yaounde for space. Forget about the Highway Code here. The first vehicle to negotiate the bend has priority, as well as the fastest on the lane. Forget about the traffic lights, no one knows when they are functional or not. The cars would speed through when the lights are red and pedestrians are likely to be rushing across when they are green.
So, we who depend on our Leggedez Benz could get hit while crossing on the red and you who are in your Mercedes can hit someone if you burst forth on the green. In some parts, they could stay on the green, red or yellow for several hours, leaving the decision of who goes first and who waits, to the road users. Welcome to the capital city where road rage is part of driving skills.
Buildings are sprouting up like mushrooms in the rainy season and one wonders whether there are any town planners in this village. Oh sorry. I meant this city. Is this a place for derelicts or the capital city? At the sixth district police station, about ten of us get into the premises that look more like an abandoned warehouse for what we fondly call a computerized identity card. When you go for this document, say your prayers to whatever god you worship, hold your talisman and keep your fingers crossed.
This day was really one in the course of which my god was not allowed to be asleep or to be guilty of any form of distraction. I get into the police station with the receipt that serves as a temporary identification document.
St the reception, a policewoman sits on a high stool on the visitor’s side of the arc shaped counter. I think she has two stars on each epaulette but I cannot remember well but she commands some respect. I see the men greeting her with reverence.
I tell her my problem.
“Allez au couloir a gauche, les CNIs se retirent a la deuxieme porte a droite.”
“Merci.” I get there and a gentleman in a ‘T’ shirt who is busy scribbling down something with intense concentration. He looks up from his desk, his eyebrows arch in query.
“C’est pour la carte…” I provide an answer.
“Get around the building”. He tells me in French and asks that I drop my receipt on the table. I do not get what he says at first. He actually barks out the instructions. I make sense out of the words when he barks a second time.
‘Merci.’ I expressed gratitude for being given a royal bark by His Majesty’s dog and move out of the office, down the corridor into the area that passes for the reception. I take the exit. A crowd is on the veranda. Some have filled the wooden benches. I can feel the curious gazes on my back. I guess they have come to get a computerized identity card. This area looks like the waiting room of a traditional African soothsayer. I go behind where I meet a little crowd.
The area is unkempt. There are little pools of standing water containing slimy, smelly stuff. This backyard gives a view of an abandoned construction site. We can see the ‘T’ shirt barking man through the window. He is standing and rummaging through the desk. Probably searching for our identity cards. While we wait, our eyes take in the atmosphere and austere environment.
There is a rickety vehicle parked at one end. It seems to me this car has been stationed at that spot for several generations. Two pregnant women in their mid-twenties join the gang. A young married woman comes along too. She is having a conversation with someone on the phone, probably her husband. I say she is a married woman because of the way she flaunts the wedding ring as if she is not doing it on purpose. “The place is eerie and they talk to people as if they were animals…” She tells her interlocutor. “I would not even talk to a dog in this manner”. She forced a laugh from all of us who were already running out of patience and appeared not to find anything worth laughing at. We laughed alright and focused our gaze on the window to Mr ‘T’ shirt’s office.
He came to the window with our receipts, I am talking about the temporary identity document. He read out our names and rudely announced that our identity cards were not yet ready. Mine was due in October. I hope not to wait till next October, that is, if Ii would still be part of the living organisms on the planet called earth and the kingdom called Cameroon. Here in Yaounde, there are schools everywhere. So, why do people say our education is a disaster? Maybe I should look beyond numbers.
There are very, very expensive veicles on the road. Some look too big and sophisticated that I do not blame the little boy who pointed at one indicating to his daddy and said; ‘look an aeroplane!’ So, why do people say the administration is corrupt? I see a landscape dotted with several health facilities, yet, I hear health is deplorable. The roads! The roads! The roads! Ah. The roads of our capital city. I now see why every man and woman must by hook or crook get a sophisticated car.
Everyone here is handicapped. The sun is scorching hot, but there are places you would not be admitted into without a coat and a tie. Who says dress codes reflect the climatic conditions of the people? We the handicapped by design need specially adapted automobiles to drive through the streets of the capital city.
In this city, religion is doing very well and our children are being continuously wrenched from their roots with the fable of Father Christmas or Santa Claus. My friend’s three year old daughter cried at her older brother’s Christmas party in school to send them off for the first term: ‘daddy, see ju-ju’.
Many people here are impatiently looking forward to seeing the back of the year 2019. Nowadays in the capital city, the greeting is, ‘bonne annee!’ It means happy New Year.