Connections

Every time I go to my village, people always want stop by and say hello. Greetings are very very important and cannot be ignored. In fact, as one of my Physics teacher Mr. Seka Godfrey will always remind us when teaching us,"greetings are prayers" so do not ignore them. These two men with my mother are from my village. These are men I grew up and they have always been around. They have also been very healthy but age is coming real fast. The one on the left doesn't see very well but he is a very good organist. He hails from a neighboring village and I always enjoy him playing the organ in Church back in those days. It is amazing how long he treks even with poor sight.
The Pa on the right is my parents closest neighbor and family friend for as long as we moved into this area. He has been a petit merchant over the years. He sells just a few things moving around with them asking someone to open the market (tóʼ la wáy?). Actually he is said to have been the one who started our market in Sop which has grown to become a very big market but he still says just his few goods. You never see him at home with any such items to sell but what happens is that when he gets to the market, he takes them from other stationed traders and then moves around selling them. At the end he goes back with his own little gain.
He reminded me in appreciation something that happened sometimes ago that I had actually forgotten. He once asked me for money in the market when I just arrived from Bamenda and I politely told him that I didn't think he needed the drink. He was very surprised but I added that I am sure that he was in need of oil or soap or keresene and he gladly accepted. I provided him with cooking oil and that taught him a lesson. I was very happy when he told me that I taught him a lesson that he will never forget. God can work in ways that we cannot imagine. All we need to ask God each day is to use us. May we be His hands, feet and mouthpiece so that the world me may know even in smaller things.
They all belong to meeting together and they have their meetings on Sundays after Church service.

Do you like tethering goats?

When I was growing up, I didn't like tethering goats for several reasons. It was a very difficult thing for me to do because I was suppose to tether them when it was very cold in the mornings and I didn't like to leave my comfort of my warm blanket. In the evenings too, I could not stay out a bit longer because the goats need to get into pane??
As if this was not enough, some goats were very heady. Even more so, goats will chew up any savon around and we will be in trouble with either our mother or didn't even have any soap left for washing stuff.
From time to time a goat will let loose and eat up someone's crops and you will be in trouble. One day I went to tether goats and grabbed some grass and a snake was right there. It almost got me.
When I finally left the village, I had nothing to do with goats for a very long time except to have them in my place for I really like goat meat.
One day I had some money with my father and before he long, he told me he had used it to buy a goat. I was very mad at him for buying a goat with my money even without my consent. Actually my father bought the goat because the goat owner had some health crises and my father would not watch someone in need when he had the money and the person wanted to sell the goat. I almost told my father off about the goat issue but thank God I held my peace. Several months down the road, I received some money from my father that my goat gave birth and the young grow up and was sold. I felt so ashamed of myself in front of my father. This is my little goat that my cousin is tethering for me. It has another young again. Maybe I will eat that one with time since I like goat meat.

Burial of Mama Munchep

About 1924 - 2015 (~91 years) Wiba Josepher Yeli (Mama Munchep) is one of the oldest grandmother in the neighborhood. She is one of the very first wife's of Bondi. She is also known as one of the first Wiba in Donga Mantung who decided to go to Church as it was unheard of wiba's like her at the time. It was even seen as a taboo for her to have done such a thing. She was baptized in 1983 in PC Ntundip.
She was a traditional doctor specialized in treating fractures, pile, filaria and delivery related issues. She was recognized by the government in 1987 as a tradi practitioner. That is her she got the name Mama Munchep.
She had five children, 36 grandchildren, 44 great grand children and 5 great great grand children giving a total of 85 but God called 3 sons and two grand daughters home already. She left 80 immediate family lives to mourn her.
The funeral was really awesome. Interestingly, the family organized a thanksgiving service this was the first time for me to see a family organized a thanksgiving during a funeral service. But I do think that this is something worth emulating.
There was a band all the way from Nkongsamba to animate the occasion. Even at the family compound in Bondi, she was buried as a christian and this was to my greatest surprise especially when I overheard one of the elderly men complaining bitterly to the compound heard that the juju's had gone untop of the grave when she was buried the christian way. It would appear they gave her an entire day to be buried as a christian and then let traditional dances come on as from the following day.