What I saw two days ago I didn’t even know could exist. Living in Yaoundé, a cruel city with beggars, street kids, omnipresent corruption, and injustice all around, I’d assumed that after roughly six years of living here, I’d seen it all. For example, in 2006 our Norwegian volunteer Tirill and I saw a woman stop dead in her tracks on a public road, lift her dress, and defecate in front of us. I had seen it all. I was wrong.
Driving in our minibus, before seeing something that will forever stay in my mind like the corpse of a dead animal, the kids and I saw something sad, but comical. There was an old woman, I’m guessing in her 70s, wearing a dress made out of worn-out, ripped up plastic bags. Although sad, it was funny because she was so creative. Her dress looked like a ball gown; like a long, flowing ballerina dress. The wispy pieces of shredded plastic bags were floating like feathers. From a distance, she looked like a lost performer from Swan Lake. When she walked by our car, the ballet was over. Reality set in. No pirouettes, no piques. Just wincing, hunching, and squeezing a walking stick.
While stuck in the traffic jam, I noticed another beggar approaching us. He was shirtless, going from car to car, wearing a Cameroonian flag tied around his neck. It was blowing behind him like a cape. First we saw the old ballerina and then a shirtless man wearing his country’s flag like a superhero. It was random. You find yourself laughing in these moments, sort of like when you feel like laughing when people are arguing even though you know it’s totally inappropriate.
The humor abruptly ended.
The man wearing the flag-cape walked closer to our bus and he was not only shirtless, but wasn’t wearing any clothes at all. This man was suffering from a condition I didn’t know was possible. His scrotum and testicles were swollen to the size of a soccer ball. My stomach sank with anger, pity, and acidic shock as I pondered what this man must go through on a daily basis, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.
I watched him be rejected by each car he passed as he approached us. As I write this, he’s out there being rejected right now.
He obviously has nowhere to turn. He’s lost all dignity, because he’s forced to beg with no covering or people won’t see his condition. In a country where witchcraft is often the explanation for everything from AIDS to people’s disabilities, I’m guessing that in the eyes of others he’s lost his very humanity. I have no idea what his condition could be. Elephantitis, perhaps?
When he arrived to our bus, I analyzed his facial expression. I could see that was not mentally ill. His gaze was intelligent, no desperate. I lack words to describe what his face said to me. Tell my story? How can you sit in your car like that, seeing me like this? His eyes were human, soft, gentle. I handed him the change that I had in my bag, he thanked me by cupping his hands over mine, and continued on.
Cameroon is a rich country. They have everything from oil to bananas to pineapples to rubber to potentially brilliant tourist locations. And there is a “Christian” church on every corner, many of them with BMWs parked in front. New churches are going up everywhere, obviously costing thousands if not millions of dollars. They do nothing (well, not true, they sing and collect money). As long as they’re using private funds, I can’t really point a finger at them. But I can be disgusted by their hypocrisy.
But the churches are not the primary robbers of this country.
This man looks at the very people who pillage his country as they sit in their cars, scoffing, judging, and looking the other way as they think of what their servants are making for lunch.
There’s nowhere, nowhere for this man to turn. And the places that should have been created for people like this man were never built because the money is clutched tightly between the claws of the evil people who have the power in this country.
I would love to go into detail about these problems. But even I cannot speak out too openly. It’s dangerous. Let’s just say that the root of the problem rhymes with cover-mint.
I can, however, conclude with this:
When you think of the people of Cameroon, the good people who could have reached their potential and achieved their dreams, I want you to envision one thing. I want you to envision this man, begging in the street, naked and deformed, with his country’s flag tied around his neck.
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