The greening of Cameroon

2004-05-06 11:44

Sybrandus Adema

Rhumsiki - The remote north of Cameroon, on the border with Nigeria, is a mix of rocky outcrops and eroded hills, with a surrealistic feeling that is emphasised as the sun goes down and its last rays are reflected against the clouds and natural stone images.

In the small town of Rhumsiki the lives of most inhabitants are interwoven with the landscape where they cultivate crops, tend their cattle and build their homes.

Residents meet under "chat trees" where everything is discussed, including marriage arrangements between the young people of the village. The old soothsayer uses a live freshwater crab to answer questions from his neighbours, and accepts payment for the service from tourists who brave the narrow dirt track to this remote area of his country.

And it is in this village where a man lives who wants to change the perception of his community - to make them believe in a future for Africa.

Parents say he is a witch

Kodji Keka has never heard of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) and has no access to radios, TV or electricity. In an area exposed to deforestation, corruption, minimal development and reduced health and educational services, he soldiers on daily, trying to prove he is not mad as all residents believe him to be.

"It isn't fair that a witchdoctor can predict the future, telling people what to do. I can't accept that," Keka says in angrily.

"The system discourages initiative and change. People are negative. I want to show that everybody can change. Here people chop down trees and never replace them. Not only here, but everywhere in Africa. What are we to burn as fuel if all the trees are gone?"

The problems Keka describe, he has encountered at first hand. Unsure of his true age (somewhere between 32 and 38), he explains that after the death of his four brothers, his parents were convinced he was a witch. "I was kicked out of the house and started begging for cadeaux (presents) from tourists in Mokolo, a town nearby."

The staff of a mission school took pity on him and educated him - an intervention that changed his life radically. Later he returned to Rhumsiki, where he realised big tour operators and hotels were making money from the town, without giving anything back to it.

"I have been fighting for eleven years for the money to stay here. We started a business to show tourists the real Rhumsiki by preparing local food and giving them the option of staying with residents of the village."

Naked mountain people

Now he has opened a restaurant called Kirdi (referring to the name Muslims from the north call local people). "It means 'naked mountain people', but I'm proud to be one. I'm proud to call my business by the name," he stresses.

Through his contact with foreigners, he also tries to educate them. "The most positive thing tourists can do is to donate stationery to the school and medicine to the clinic. It can prevent tourism from causing an even greater rift between rich and poor.

"The biggest problem here is that people live only for today, according to the dictates of our culture. It always leads to problems, forcing people to ask for aid. The culture is a clever way of ensuring that a small group gains power over the masses. The system ensures that people remain as they are.

"Religion also causes us to accept suffering, since it promises a better life after death."

Keka adds with a wry smile: "It will keep us down, for ever. There is no ambition. If the government says 'left' everyone moves to the left and if they say 'right' everyone moves to the right."

When he started preaching his ideas, his neighbours made his life a misery. But he never gave up and in 1997 he started planting trees with the idea to perform children's theatre production in the "new forest".

But residents destroyed it when they cleared land by burning everything - a practice that explains the soil erosion.

"I then planted some more trees, but only on my property. It's a battle, but I have 100 trees already," he says proudly.

"We cannot live without trees. We don't need euros or dollars. What we in fact need is for every man to plant one tree each year."

Don't preach to us

When Keka was very young it was still possible to find firewood around his house. Now residents have to walk far to find wood and hunt for animals - a sad tale that is happening all over Africa.

"One day nothing will be left, unless we start acting now. We have to understand our needs and how we can provide for them. There is also no sense in Europeans coming here and telling us not to destroy our forests, when their homes are stuffed with furniture made from African wood."

He says he cannot help everyone, but he is trying to figure out how to change the bigger picture. One resource he uses is street theatre, by means of which he stresses the importance of education and manages to convey his ideas.

In these plays he uses his own children and those of the area to pose certain socio-economic issues to the audience and to ask their opinion. One play, for instance depicts the options open to the village children and how it is likely to mould their future.

People need to be free, Keka believes, but they should have a social conscience.

"I try and change things on a small scale. I don't know whether people in other parts of Africa are doing the same. I cannot say that I'm seeing the changes happening. Maybe after my death. Maybe people will then say I had a role to play."

- Media24 Africa