Family matters

Last Saturday started out just like any other, I slept in until about 6:30am, then rolled out from under my mosquito net just before 7am, motivated by the persistent ruckus coming from the neighboring compound, that would only be acceptable in the states well after noon, and the dull premonition that if I didn’t open my window shutters soon, someone would shortly be pounding on them, checking to see why on earth I was still in bed at such a late hour. I could always lie and say it’s the “paludisme” and believe me it wouldn’t be the first time.
Taking advantage of a free day, I started by sweeping up the week’s accumulation of dust, mouse nests and severed cockroach appendages before washing the floor with my diminishing, dry season, water supply. Afterwards, I picked up my finely filed machete and set out for some lawn maintenance. This is something I don’t get, even in Africa; people get after you if you let the weeds around your house grow too tall. My neighbors don’t understand why I don’t just buy some weed killer, as I can clearly afford it, however, no matter how many new things I am willing to try here, I still can’t justify augmenting the amount of unregulated pesticides in the environment, solely for the purpose of keeping a tidy yard, so I have insisted it will be solved with manual labor, and of my own accord, to which they laugh, and rightfully so, because by the time I finish “ mowing the lawn” with my machete, the weeds on the other side are already back to their original stature.
Anyway, once I had gathered some wood from the banana/plantain farm behind my house and left it to dry in the midday sun, I prepared myself to finally make my way to the neighbor’s to discover the cause of all this rowdiness.
Upon arrival, I found a family reunion of sorts, sitting in a circle, with the chiefs of the family in the obvious apex. Banana leaves with crumbs of brightly orange koki littered the ground; the air was filled with the sickly, sweet smell of palm wine. After saluting the notables, I was quickly handed a plastic cup full of this fermenting liquid, and shortly after a woman, Anne-Marie, covered in orange remnant flakes of dried palm wine, opened a warm Castel beer with her teeth and handed it to me. With my hands full, the drinkless adjacent men, joked that I had given birth to twins. I shared sips of palm wine with the accumulated children. “Don’t give any more to him,” I was instructed, regarding the barely walking son of the chef de quartier, “he was already drunk this morning.”
By this time plates of food were being presented to the notable men of the family, and as an anomaly, a woman, but somehow deserving special recognition as a stranger, I was served two heaping plates of food. I set to work on something that has become my most noteworthy accomplishment in Cameroon; finishing my plate. I started with the koki and coco yams, and after washing my hands attempted the couscous de manioc with sauce de pistache. Noticing a crowd of children congregating a few yards behind me, I turned just in time to see four struggling legs, flailing in the air, attempting for one final time to flee the inevitable, as its partially decapitated head was severed with one final whack of a dubiously sharpened machete. This sacrifice all took place next to a Drysinia shrub in the middle of the compound, a tribute and sometimes medium of communication with the family ancestors.
I hastened to finish my remaining sauce, not sure if the characteristic musky smell was coming from the meat on my plate, or the freshly butchered goat behind me.
On my way out, I stopped to regard the catagorically arranged body parts, the spleen laid neatly, next to the intestines, two men, dividing the flesh with the aforementioned machete. “You are going to eat everything?” I asked, eyeing the pile of hooves, and recalling with displeasure the cartilaginous crunching of pig’s feet from a few weeks ago. “Yes” they assured me, “even the intestines, after we clean the shit out, we will split the parts between all of the family members. Here is your part,” said Essobo, waving a small freshly sliced cut of flesh in my face, , “I don’t know what to do with that” I faltered, (remember I was a vegetarian for ten years, even without the fur attached, I am not so sure the best way to prepare meat). Unswayed, they offered to keep it for me and prepare it after I returned from my quick trip to town in the evening.
By the time I had finished my tour of Bare centre, the sun was just setting and the first stars of the clear, dry season, sky, visible over tops of the towering oil palm silhouettes. I was presented with the well prepared goat, handing off the fat and skin to the more than willing village kids, and sharing a box of red wine, and several whiskey sachets before being sent home with my share of the family’s rice, salt and a sweet glass of palm wine to put me to bed.