Chevy Runs in the Family

"Do you know what that is?"

His finger pointed to the same thing I was photographing when I looked up at him to say I didn't know. What looked like a metal rusted shell of some sort sat directly behind both graves of my grandfather and his first wife -- Mami, my grandmother. I didn't know what it was, or if it had significance but considering its size and location, I figured it wasn't just someone's litter. I remember it being there seven years ago when I last visited. I assumed it had been there since long before. 

I wasn't sure who it was asking me that question. I met dozens of both new and vaguely familiar faces everyday in the span of little time, so it was difficult for me to keep the faces, names and relations straight. Sometimes people would speak to me and I wasn't sure if they were family, friends, cousins, friends of friends or strangers. Sometimes people would speak to me and I wasn't sure what they were saying, either. Which often made me cautious...and soon I grew custom to hinging on a careful balance of trusting politeness and distant skepticism. If it was family, I didn't want skepticism to be insulting. If it was a stranger, I didn't want trust to be risky. 

There were two days out of the ten days I was in Cameroon where identifying friends from family, family from strangers, and strangers from friends wasn't so challenging. It was during the back-to-back funerary ceremonies in the village. It was because we were all literally color coded.

The sons and daughters of Mami, including my dad, wore the same red, yellow, and mostly blue print. The wives of Mami's sons--both direct and step sons--all wore a black, white and mostly magenta print. The grandchildren and great grandchildren of Mami, including myself, all wore a slightly shimmering pastel shade of pink. And the closest of family friends and more distant relatives wore another blue and mostly red print--the same fabric from which I had a dress tailored later on. 

If I remember correctly, the man who saw me photographing the rusted shell was wearing the same mostly blue print that my dad wore -- the cloth for the sons of Mami. I knew he wasn't my direct uncle. My dad has only 3 brothers. He was also much younger than my dad and my direct uncles. He may have been somewhere in between my age and my dad's age -- maybe in his thirties. He wasn't loomingly tall, fat, or broad like my uncles--or like most Cameroonians. He was leaner and had a narrower face. I thought he was attractive. Honestly I don't even know his name for sure. But I saw him several times throughout the trip. And both his clothing and presence meant he wasn't a stranger. I suspected he was my dad's half brother. From one of my grandfather's later wives. 

Mami's casket was being hoisted, then sunken into the ground behind us while we spoke quietly. We spoke while glancing both forward at the burial and behind us -- at the mysterious heap of rusted metal.

He pointed to the shell behind the graves and asked if I knew what it was. I told him I had no idea...with curiosity. Then his eyes and smile both grew slightly wider and with a bit more passion in his tone he asked in slow English, "do you know how your grandfather died?"

"Oui, un accident de voiture." 

Yes, a car accident. 

I did know that. He died sometime either before or very close to when I was born. I never met him. I've only seen one picture. And his skull--which sat inside the small tomb and on top of the small grave only a few feet behind us. 

"Yes," he nodded. A car accident. He pointed again to the rusty shell, "That is the remains of your grandfather's car." 

The car he died in. 

"He drove a big car. Like a bus," he added, "He drove a Chevy. You know Chevy?" he asked.

I couldn't help but smile,"Oui, je le connais. Je conduis un Chevvy, aussie."

Yes, I know Chevy -- I drive a Chevy, too.

A Chevy was my first car. And when I crashed my first car a couple months back, a Chevy was my second. That's the moment I knew Chevy will always be my next. 

My grandfather Temgoua

The Cure For Depression

The cure for depression may be found in Cameroon.

Often times, when you're feeling lowly about your own life, someone might tell you to think about the less fortunate. Think about all of the people suffering in the world who have far less than you have. Think about the people who lack food, shelter, clothes, fresh water or the people who live in worse conditions than you do.

In moments like that -- when someone tells me to think of abstract people in the world who have very little--compared to myself who, relatively speaking, has a lot--I think of suffering. A thought that looks somewhat like the Unicef commercials on TV asking for donations, with poverty porn imagery, bony bodies, and sunken eyes. And that thought of other people's suffering never heals any sadness. It always intensifies it. 

Thinking to myself that there are people in the world who have less and suffer more than I do makes me feel horribly worse than just thinking to myself that I alone am suffering or that I alone have less than others (relatively speaking). I guess it's the logic that two wrongs don't make a right. That someone else's anguish-- no matter how much worse than mine -- doesn't mend my own. 

When I say "the cure for depression may be found in Cameroon," I'm not referring to any kind of suffering. I'm referring to the opposite. 

I found an abundance of joy in Cameroon--in a country where the majority of people have far less than me--but the majority of people are also far happier. At least it seemed so.

In Cameroon there is what most people living in the West would consider a lack. Most things that we take for granted as constants here in the States are irregular in Cameroon...unreliable. Nothing is all the time. Electricity and running water come and go as they please. If and when there is running water, it is usually cold and is always inedible. Internet and cell phone signals are spotty. Cell phones themselves are a gamble--sometimes they function, sometimes they don't, even when purchased new. Toilet paper and toilet seats are luxury goods. Most homes and cars don't have air conditioning. If a car has 5 seats, it almost always has 6 or 7...or 8...(once, 13) people stuffed inside. If a road is free of pot holes and craters, it's extremely decent. If a road is paved, it's decent and rare. 

Maybe Cameroon has more deficiencies in general than the United States...but when it comes to smiles, laughter, and what feels like genuine happiness...there is an abundance. 

Knowing there are people out there with very little who are suffering weakens morale. Knowing there are people out there with very little who are happy as they are is what builds it. It's true, there is a lot of suffering in the world--but the suffering of others doesn't help feel more sound about my own life. It's through knowing the happiness of others with significantly less that suddenly gives my life a bit more...

In Cameroon, there is often little to go around. What is considered standard or mediocre in the USA is often considered luxury there. And people acknowledge that they have less than a good portion of the world -- and nearly all of the West. But people smile on.

Sky Bound

The Swiss Alps

It's a bit ironic how when lifted from ground, far removed from the world, I feel more connected to the world. While above the clouds...in an airplane traveling faster than all things below me.

I remember one of my professors once said--while discussing Google Maps and its control over how we stratify the world--she remembers being a girl...and being on an airplane, seeing houses morph into little monopoly pieces, cars into ants...then specks. She told us she remembers feeling as though she had been seeing the world through the vision of God. Seeing everything from above the things themselves.

There's a sense of power and surveillance that dissipates when your on the ground.

And while there is a sense of physical vulnerability in the air--maybe we will fall, maybe we will crash--there is a sense of comfort...maybe moral safety. Whatever turmoil or suffering is happening below...I am outside of that when air bound. Boundaries don't exist in the sky as they do on the ground. The skyway is a shared space. Boundaries blur. Any differences below are masked by their tiny size...and clouds. And the lines we see on maps of course don't exist when you're above, looking down at Earth.

You feel both at once the anxiety and relief that come from leaving one place...and approaching another.

Time is different in the air. Earthbound, it takes ten hours to get to Michigan from New Jersey. When I'm on a plane, it takes one. Yet when I'm in my car on the highway, on the ground, I feel like I'm going racing speeds. In the sky, you barely feel motion at all. Clouds roll by like molasses then suddenly in an hour's time you're on new ground.

My grandma died. In Cameroon. I asked if I could go to the funeral. And so I went.

First, home -- to New Jersey -- then to Europe. Then to Cameroon.

It's been over six years since I'd been to Cameroon. So it was time. And this was my opportunity. I wish there had been an earlier opportunity. Before Mami was dead.

We have never spoken the same language. So we've never really spoken. But I know her through gestures, touch, and stories. As well as assumptions. And DNA--I think being a grandchild makes me 1/8th of her...

I was named after her.

A few weeks before Mami died, and before we planned this trip, my uncle called -- Blaise, my dad's youngest brother, and actually his largest brother. I saw the unfamiliar first three digits and thought it was an unsolicited ad. I let it ring. But then the number called back twice so I answered. He said "Mami est fatigue." Grandma is tired. I knew what he meant.

Suddenly death is everywhere. Gripping onto everybody. And I think about it more often.

I still haven't fully understood that my mom has cancer. It doesn't feel like that was supposed to happen. But I'm sure it never does. I haven't fully understood it yet in part because I don't see her often. So I don't see this cancer. I only mostly hear about it. Through emails, texts, and invitations to my aunt's house...to sew hats for when she loses her hair. If she does. Don't they always?

No one is invincible. No matter how invincible they seem. A tiny genetic code, or protein code -- or whatever it is, that begins as one disobedient cell -- can bring anyone down. Thinking about all this isn't so difficult. But seeing it isn't as easy.

Both my parents moved far, far away from their moms...and dads. My mom's mom lived across the country in California and died there. And I think my mom always felt uneasy about that. She sends flowers for her grave a few times a year. My dad moved oceans from his mom and dad. His dad died a long time ago. And now his mom is dead. Just several months before we planned on visiting. I know he wished he visited more often.

I can't say why people estrange themselves from their families. I can't say why I do it either. Either way, I'm glad I went to Cameroon to visit mine. Seldom is better than never -- and so is late.

Au Revoir Mami et Salut Cameroon...

It's funny how you can know someone so little but love them big all the same. Because no stretch of land or sea can sever blood...

RIP my grande mere...I wish I could have visited sooner and more often so we could have taken more pictures smiling together. When I first met you, it might have been unclear to that 6 year old who you are and how special you are to me...but it was clear to me 7 years ago when I last saw you and it is even clearer to me now. 

I'm sad for all the years that I wasn't able to get to know you better...but happy for the times I was able to see you, and looking forward to le voyage...of visiting Cameroon again to celebrate your life.

RIP Josephine "Mami" Zombou