Away to Live
Walking Passed Old Footsteps.
Silence. Silence. Silence. Turbulence. Seatbelt. “What would you like to drink?”. Silence. Announcement. “Chicken or beef?”. Silence.
All the questions. All the information. All the refreshments… were not bringing me a mile closer to where I wanted to be. I was suddenly angry at all the flight-time pleasures I’d been grateful for two planes ago. Three hours to go and I had never felt further away — like the aircraft was flying backwards. The calm around me was exhausting my patience; the fact that no one seemed to feel the anxiety that I did. How could they sleep so soundly? How could they eat with so much appetite and make small talk? What if we did not arrive, ever? Why then would they have slept? And eaten, and talked?
Patriotism is a concept I have never ascribed to myself. But I love my country. The country-things and the country-people are what I love actually, but they make up the country. So I guess in some sense, I am patriotic.
…then I walked off the aircraft, grateful that, unlike the very first time I got on a plane, I did not have to trek the full distance to the gate. It was just as I expected it to be: hot, sunny, crowded, noisy, and in many ways, disorganized. The whispers of discontent, the ugly queue, the French-only questionnaire, the long-wait time, were the confirmation that truly, I was home. My feet had finally touched soils, the love for which I was only then noticing. So much was this love in fact, that I hopped in every direction before, at long last, collapsing on the woman who had given me life.
Every town in the world is vibrant in a sense and its residents, as if they have taken an oath of loyalty, defend its honour. But Douala, I tell you, has a personality of its own. Traffic, taxis, roadside food, hawkers, traffic, motorbikes, the smell of meat, then gas, then something you can’t quite put your finger on, then back to the smell of meat, and gas, repeat. The freedom of cars to horn and the way drivers use the privilege carried with them memories of how much car horns had scared me before, and how few of them I had heard in the last two years. The picture was loaded; the hawker negotiating with the customer, and the taximan waving his colleague, and the occasional private vehicle owner pushing his head out the window to curse at the slick bike rider who was long gone. There’s a party on this side, there is a market on the other side and just adjacent, there is a church. Amidst the business, there is a crying child. We hear them, but we don’t see them and we don’t search because… from where will you start? And they’ll soon stop anyways. So for the time being, the focus was on getting home. Oh yes, before I forget… traffic.
The shenanigans of the traditional Bafut wedding had not changed. My aunts and uncles who conducted the ceremony had not changed either, and the joy of having a sister marry had absolutely not changed for me. I had been surrounded by this much love before. But I had no recollection of those times — not while I was in the middle of these ones. This was it for me. Laughing hard, sharing gossip (true and false), eating late, sleeping on the floor (by choice and by condition), partying, singing Sunday-school songs, giving thanks.
Hell hath seen no fiery like a woman scorned, right.
But,
Cameroon hath seen no ebullience like that Bisi wore.
Nostalgia in varying degrees accompanied me for all fourteen days. It had its moments — one of the highest recorded being the day I said goodbye. A strength-costing moment like that which is bound to flip emotions to the fragile side should not evoke negative nostalgic memories — such memories as those of the check-in hostess refusing to check us into the very first flight of our lives till she heard the final call for boarding. Memories of the same hostess threatening to lock us out of the plane if we took too long to figure out the situation. Memories of the same hostess taking so much time from us that all we had left was forty-five seconds to very quickly wave goodbye to our loved ones whom we will not see again for the foreseeable future. Remembering how the last words my mother said was “It’s okay! Run or you’ll miss it!”, struggling to pick up the bags we’d left behind with one hand and blowing a kiss with the other hand. Me breaking into a run. Entering the plane at last, breathing out air and confusion, and not even realizing that I had to cry. Not knowing that it will help.
In my opinion, a ‘goodbye’ moment should not do that to you. It shouldn’t dig up dirt and put it in your face. But it did. And luckily, I had done something I hadn’t done the first time — I had hugged my mum and kissed my family. This time, I was all set to run.
So what had changed during my time away? It was not the heat, not the rush that kept the town alive. It was not the striving spirit of the people, nor was it the joy in and between individuals. Nothing that defined us had shifted… I doubt that it ever will. I am patriotic for these things.
Be the experience of reemerging into the spinning wheel of unintentional, yet exhilarating living as it may, I found peace. In the cold water and night breeze, underneath the kind skies that had never bled snow, I was calm. I had returned to my chaotic definition of normal. My experience was simple: It was the quench to my thirst that should keep me flowing till I returned for more.
That was my reentry.
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