Street stall, Yaounde, Cameroon
Just a few weeks back the 3 Molas - namely myself, Eric Ngalle Charles and Ifor ap Glyn - set off on a visit to Cameroon, a Welsh delegation ready to launch the anthology Eric edited 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli' ( Hafan Books), make contacts with writers there and build for the future of Cymru-Cameroon ( all supported by Wales Arts International).
So, I entered the utter darkness.....no, I don't mean Africa, but Sophia Gardens bus 'station' in Cardiff. Park gates locked, no lights....overnight express to Heathrow ( loosely 'express', as it goes through Chepstow!).
Screaming kid all the way recalled the new TV drama series 'The Cry', especially when a woman yelled - 'Give him some bloody water!'
At the airport Eric's case was seriously overweight with copies of the book, but sharing and a new case sorted that.
Africa before us, first time for myself and Ifor.....a Continent shaped in my consciousness by the likes of Achebe, Jack Mapanje and Conrad. Cameroon itself hatched in my head by Eric's own inimitable performances ....a part of that country already in Wales, as Ifor put it.
We landed in the commercial capital Douala and very soon at the cafe opposite our hotel, Eric's many friends and family gathered : sister arriving with her baby on an okada (motorbike taxi) and his mother, as larger-than-life as he is, so even Sion Tomos Owen's cartoons would find it hard to pin down.
There were immediately many tales of his home near Buea, across the river and not so far away : tales of the guerilla war fought by Ambazonian secessionists for an Anglophone state ( Cameroon is 80% Francophone and 20% Anglophone) and brutal army response. How even Eric's mother wanted to move and his friend, the film-maker Palmer Ngale Mbua had run 3 kilometres when shooting broke out.
This starkly contrasted the celebration and feasting of this first evening.
The first of countless times, Eric patiently explained that I was a 'vegeterien' and, as in France , he might as well have introduced me to waiters as a 'Martian'.
While they tucked into snails, chicken, fish and tripe ( avoiding the viper and python on the menu), I ate the furlong ( Garden huckleberry) and plantain that would become my staple diet.
Languages criss-crossed and leapt about the tables : Bakweri of Eric's tribe, English, Pidgin ( a hybrid dialect of English and some German),and some French ; though Eric is from the Anglophone south-west.
Next day we embarked on the long car journey to the political capital Yaounde, inland and more tropical, for the launch, media appearances and to meet Cameroonian writers who appear in the anthology.
The main road symbolizes the state of the country : a place thronging with hard-working, busy traders, a timber industry paying no heed to the environment and a collapsing infrastructure. It often became a rough track or was so full of fissures and pot-holes it was like there'd been an earthquake.
A new stadium's being constructed outside Douala in the hope that Cameroon will host the next African Nations Cup: incongruous amongst the dirt tracks.
Few buses were on the road and , despite teams of whistle-blowing safety-men, many vehicles were being driven with broken screens, lethal loads and black fumes from exhaust from the cheap fuel sold in plastic canisters by the roadside.
The country's rich in resources from timber to coffee, tea to cacao : where was all the revenue going to?
Certainly not roads, transport or toilets which consisted of ( as Eric put it) 'dangling your parts' beside a bush or ditch. Caught short in the middle of Yaounde, I had to do this and provoked many car horns to my complete embarrassment!
Our Yaounde hotel was welcome comfort after Douala's dubious dwelling and that evening we met several writers from 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli', including Douglas Achingale, Joffi Ewusi and story-writer Tiffuh Esther.
Douglas is a brave poet of protest and I gave him a copy of 'Red Poets' ; I sincerely hope he submits as his work would be the perfect fit.
It was wonderful to hear Ifor , our National Poet, talk so eloquently about Welsh history.
Explaining Cymru became a vital task just as we were learning so much about their country. It wasn't enough to reference Gareth Bale either and our language and degree of self-government had to be placed into context.
If there was ever the perfect choice for National Poet then Ifor must be it : he adapts so readily, writes notes furiously about the culture and place and even won the great Achu challenge, a one-finger style of eating this yellow soup in a crater of coco-yam, while I swallowed a chilli whole and spluttered ! On Facebook, one wag described that meal as 'a ring of meringue with curry sauce inside'!
For our launch the next evening at the Chamber of Agriculture he had even written a celebratory englyn, which he duly read out after addressing the audience in Bakweri.
The launch was due to begin at 4 pm so, as Eric had warned, we kicked off well after 5 , just as the rain poured down and thunder erupted. Soon as I heard it I said to him - 'There'll be a power cut!'
Sure enough, a black out just after the start. Luckily, his sister had brought torches and our voices carried down the large hall.
Ifor's poem 'Y Ty Hwn' which was written especially for the last opening of the Welsh Assembly was read out in Bakweri by the translator Efange Protus Esuka. This was a moment of sheer magic, as was Eric's performance in front of most of his village for the first time . In the intervals between readings and speeches, the wonderful ChaCha dancers even managed to involve two rather wooden Welshmen.
Douglas Achingale's reading of 'The Honourable Minister' was particularly pertinent in such troubled times.
Each of us was interviewed that night for national tv and in the ensuing days we were interviewed for the national press and radio; the latter by Charles Tembei, who actually did an internship under Channel 4's Jon Snow in 2007!
Despite being government owned, the radio station building was much like the rest of the country: toilet flooding, ceilings gaping, an entire theatre space disused and a subterranean darkness pervading.
Defying these surroundings, Tembei was master of the mic and we had a meal with him afterwards as the Presidential election results were announced on tv. They would take several hours and had no running totals he explained.
When the incumbent President Paul Biya was declared victor with over 70 % of the vote nobody seemed shocked, though everyone expected trouble.
There had been many allegations of fraud and malpractice and a very low turn-out in the Anglophone south- and north-west where the secessionists operate.
Biya is 85 and spends an inordinate amount of time in Geneva. He has never addressed the people in English, despite the contentiousness of the issue, a legacy of colonialism. He has held power for 36 years and the first country to congratulate him was the so-called liberal Macron of France, the former colonial power who still benefit considerably economically and maintain a security presence.
His face ( well, a much younger version) is everywhere on billboards, official offices and the museum and his party are all-powerful. I later learnt about the many Cameroonian writers detained or exiled for their alleged criticism of the regime; surely cases which PEN Cymru must pursue.
One billboard slogan reads 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE' , an apt mistranslation from the French!
Wealth and poverty are strange neighbours here, as they are in India. Right next to a city community like a 'village' without sanitation and with corrugated iron roofs,we came upon a palatial house with high walls and iron gate.
Yet when I reflect on the people I met and came to know I admire so much their ambition and drive, despite these stark inequalities and violence lurking.
I think of the film-maker Palmer who has so little support for his many projects , yet is determined to enter next year's Cardiff Film Festival and, even after watching us lose 4-1 to Liverpool is an honorary Bluebird!
I think of poet Joffi Ewusi with her three young children, who still finds room in her house for two 'displaced' young people from the war zones ( there are many such 'internal refugees' in Cameroon).
I think too of the postgraduate Raoul Djemili with French his first language, telling me about the plight of Cameroon's writers ; a subject I hope he'll write about for 'Red Poets'.
I think also of our indomitable driver 'Benji', a man of few words but many Vimtos, who steered us through so much mayhem with great placidity and who appeared on national TV at our launch to much acclaim from friends and family.
Above all, I think of the 3 Molas bringing those two words 'hiraeth ' and 'erzolirzoli' so close together they have become inseparable, one Welsh and one Bakweri.
Who would have imagined it?
Two countries so far apart, inextricably joined.
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
( for Eric Ngalle Charles)
A resounding explosion like shock of news
travelling fast from troubled territories,
lights out so we could no longer view
that framed face as it peered
on every street, promising 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE'
( mistranslation telling much).
With torchlight, as in a cave, the ceremony proceeded :
poetry and speeches bringing light.
All his village had journeyed for his homecoming:
for them , a tunic of many colours,
black hat and stick ; applause for returning son.
From the depths like beams through a cleft
came Cha Cha drummers and dancers chanting,
so Cymru-Cameroon joined together one expression.
Rain ceased its troubled nattering
and the cockerel crowed both dawn and day-time
when we later shared palm wine
under the gentle shade :
two friends, two lands learning.
So, I entered the utter darkness.....no, I don't mean Africa, but Sophia Gardens bus 'station' in Cardiff. Park gates locked, no lights....overnight express to Heathrow ( loosely 'express', as it goes through Chepstow!).
Screaming kid all the way recalled the new TV drama series 'The Cry', especially when a woman yelled - 'Give him some bloody water!'
At the airport Eric's case was seriously overweight with copies of the book, but sharing and a new case sorted that.
Africa before us, first time for myself and Ifor.....a Continent shaped in my consciousness by the likes of Achebe, Jack Mapanje and Conrad. Cameroon itself hatched in my head by Eric's own inimitable performances ....a part of that country already in Wales, as Ifor put it.
We landed in the commercial capital Douala and very soon at the cafe opposite our hotel, Eric's many friends and family gathered : sister arriving with her baby on an okada (motorbike taxi) and his mother, as larger-than-life as he is, so even Sion Tomos Owen's cartoons would find it hard to pin down.
There were immediately many tales of his home near Buea, across the river and not so far away : tales of the guerilla war fought by Ambazonian secessionists for an Anglophone state ( Cameroon is 80% Francophone and 20% Anglophone) and brutal army response. How even Eric's mother wanted to move and his friend, the film-maker Palmer Ngale Mbua had run 3 kilometres when shooting broke out.
This starkly contrasted the celebration and feasting of this first evening.
The first of countless times, Eric patiently explained that I was a 'vegeterien' and, as in France , he might as well have introduced me to waiters as a 'Martian'.
While they tucked into snails, chicken, fish and tripe ( avoiding the viper and python on the menu), I ate the furlong ( Garden huckleberry) and plantain that would become my staple diet.
Languages criss-crossed and leapt about the tables : Bakweri of Eric's tribe, English, Pidgin ( a hybrid dialect of English and some German),and some French ; though Eric is from the Anglophone south-west.
Next day we embarked on the long car journey to the political capital Yaounde, inland and more tropical, for the launch, media appearances and to meet Cameroonian writers who appear in the anthology.
The main road symbolizes the state of the country : a place thronging with hard-working, busy traders, a timber industry paying no heed to the environment and a collapsing infrastructure. It often became a rough track or was so full of fissures and pot-holes it was like there'd been an earthquake.
A new stadium's being constructed outside Douala in the hope that Cameroon will host the next African Nations Cup: incongruous amongst the dirt tracks.
Few buses were on the road and , despite teams of whistle-blowing safety-men, many vehicles were being driven with broken screens, lethal loads and black fumes from exhaust from the cheap fuel sold in plastic canisters by the roadside.
The country's rich in resources from timber to coffee, tea to cacao : where was all the revenue going to?
Certainly not roads, transport or toilets which consisted of ( as Eric put it) 'dangling your parts' beside a bush or ditch. Caught short in the middle of Yaounde, I had to do this and provoked many car horns to my complete embarrassment!
Our Yaounde hotel was welcome comfort after Douala's dubious dwelling and that evening we met several writers from 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli', including Douglas Achingale, Joffi Ewusi and story-writer Tiffuh Esther.
Douglas is a brave poet of protest and I gave him a copy of 'Red Poets' ; I sincerely hope he submits as his work would be the perfect fit.
It was wonderful to hear Ifor , our National Poet, talk so eloquently about Welsh history.
Explaining Cymru became a vital task just as we were learning so much about their country. It wasn't enough to reference Gareth Bale either and our language and degree of self-government had to be placed into context.
If there was ever the perfect choice for National Poet then Ifor must be it : he adapts so readily, writes notes furiously about the culture and place and even won the great Achu challenge, a one-finger style of eating this yellow soup in a crater of coco-yam, while I swallowed a chilli whole and spluttered ! On Facebook, one wag described that meal as 'a ring of meringue with curry sauce inside'!
For our launch the next evening at the Chamber of Agriculture he had even written a celebratory englyn, which he duly read out after addressing the audience in Bakweri.
The launch was due to begin at 4 pm so, as Eric had warned, we kicked off well after 5 , just as the rain poured down and thunder erupted. Soon as I heard it I said to him - 'There'll be a power cut!'
Sure enough, a black out just after the start. Luckily, his sister had brought torches and our voices carried down the large hall.
Ifor's poem 'Y Ty Hwn' which was written especially for the last opening of the Welsh Assembly was read out in Bakweri by the translator Efange Protus Esuka. This was a moment of sheer magic, as was Eric's performance in front of most of his village for the first time . In the intervals between readings and speeches, the wonderful ChaCha dancers even managed to involve two rather wooden Welshmen.
Douglas Achingale's reading of 'The Honourable Minister' was particularly pertinent in such troubled times.
Each of us was interviewed that night for national tv and in the ensuing days we were interviewed for the national press and radio; the latter by Charles Tembei, who actually did an internship under Channel 4's Jon Snow in 2007!
Despite being government owned, the radio station building was much like the rest of the country: toilet flooding, ceilings gaping, an entire theatre space disused and a subterranean darkness pervading.
Defying these surroundings, Tembei was master of the mic and we had a meal with him afterwards as the Presidential election results were announced on tv. They would take several hours and had no running totals he explained.
When the incumbent President Paul Biya was declared victor with over 70 % of the vote nobody seemed shocked, though everyone expected trouble.
There had been many allegations of fraud and malpractice and a very low turn-out in the Anglophone south- and north-west where the secessionists operate.
Biya is 85 and spends an inordinate amount of time in Geneva. He has never addressed the people in English, despite the contentiousness of the issue, a legacy of colonialism. He has held power for 36 years and the first country to congratulate him was the so-called liberal Macron of France, the former colonial power who still benefit considerably economically and maintain a security presence.
His face ( well, a much younger version) is everywhere on billboards, official offices and the museum and his party are all-powerful. I later learnt about the many Cameroonian writers detained or exiled for their alleged criticism of the regime; surely cases which PEN Cymru must pursue.
One billboard slogan reads 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE' , an apt mistranslation from the French!
Wealth and poverty are strange neighbours here, as they are in India. Right next to a city community like a 'village' without sanitation and with corrugated iron roofs,we came upon a palatial house with high walls and iron gate.
Yet when I reflect on the people I met and came to know I admire so much their ambition and drive, despite these stark inequalities and violence lurking.
I think of the film-maker Palmer who has so little support for his many projects , yet is determined to enter next year's Cardiff Film Festival and, even after watching us lose 4-1 to Liverpool is an honorary Bluebird!
I think of poet Joffi Ewusi with her three young children, who still finds room in her house for two 'displaced' young people from the war zones ( there are many such 'internal refugees' in Cameroon).
I think too of the postgraduate Raoul Djemili with French his first language, telling me about the plight of Cameroon's writers ; a subject I hope he'll write about for 'Red Poets'.
I think also of our indomitable driver 'Benji', a man of few words but many Vimtos, who steered us through so much mayhem with great placidity and who appeared on national TV at our launch to much acclaim from friends and family.
Above all, I think of the 3 Molas bringing those two words 'hiraeth ' and 'erzolirzoli' so close together they have become inseparable, one Welsh and one Bakweri.
Who would have imagined it?
Two countries so far apart, inextricably joined.
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
( for Eric Ngalle Charles)
A resounding explosion like shock of news
travelling fast from troubled territories,
lights out so we could no longer view
that framed face as it peered
on every street, promising 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE'
( mistranslation telling much).
With torchlight, as in a cave, the ceremony proceeded :
poetry and speeches bringing light.
All his village had journeyed for his homecoming:
for them , a tunic of many colours,
black hat and stick ; applause for returning son.
From the depths like beams through a cleft
came Cha Cha drummers and dancers chanting,
so Cymru-Cameroon joined together one expression.
Rain ceased its troubled nattering
and the cockerel crowed both dawn and day-time
when we later shared palm wine
under the gentle shade :
two friends, two lands learning.
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