Once I told my friend, Divine, how afraid I had become of travelling. I had seen already so many accidents, heard stories, knew so many people who had been killed on the road. He told me it just wasn’t my time to go, and that somehow made sense. Divine, like any other God-Given or Blessed, came from a typical religious African family, only he emigrated from Nigeria to Cameroon some time ago. I never asked why, but I always guessed he came for the economic opportunity that, for anyone hardworking, seemed to spill onto the streets of Cameroon.
He made his home in Kribi at some point, a beach town with a lot of tourism, and the nearest big city to my newest home at the edge of the Cameroon forest and the beach. His family was lovely, though I never met his wife. His children were always polite, and despite their father’s love of the English language, they were totally francophone. He made his living repairing television screens, a skill that he had been taught by a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1990s and a business that probably was booming until the economy turned towards newer technology like flat screen televisions and laptops. Whenever I visited him, I could see the remains of what once was the busiest of days: he kept old parts of televisions stock piled in his small shop. Those small motherboards took up most of the shop and at first glance he seemed like a mad scientist, or a hoarder, but they often came in handy for all kinds of repairs.
I first met Divine at the big bakery in town. I had just come into town that evening on motorbike, and stopped to buy something to eat. Because I had my Peace Corps-issued motorbike helmet and because I am “obviously” American, he said he knew straight away that I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Divine approached me slowly, and because he’s missing many teeth from diabetes and bad medical care and his general appearance was unkempt, it seemed to me that a homeless person was trying to ask me for money. I was trying to avoid this small, strange-looking person, and it wasn’t until the fifth time that I heard him say “Peace Corps?” in an ever-forceful voice that I understood what he was trying to say. When I finally admitted yes, warmth spilled out of his face and he opened up with great stories of all the Peace Corps volunteers he knew from Kribi in the 1990s and how they had recently been back to visit him. He gave me his business card and told me to come visit him at his store.
It took a long time for me to first visit him and it was because of my friend, Miriam, a VSO volunteer who told me a story about him teaching her to drive a motorbike, that I was reminded to go to his shop. She took me there and I would always go back whenever I had time. We would often share beers, but because he often had money problems, I would buy. Sometimes he would borrow money from me to buy me a beer, something that always bothered me a little, but I knew he loved to spend time and share stories with Americans. We would watch National Geographic on his store’s cable with one of his televisions he had repaired, and it seemed that Divine had absorbed all of the messages about species extinction and global climate change from watching National Geographic most of the day.
When I eventually left Kribi, I got a job in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capitol city, and I couldn’t visit often. He would call me from time to time with whatever credit he had in his phone, always aware of the time, and always finishing the call with a “Bon. Bye” before it reached 30 seconds. Sometimes he would call to ask for money, and that was always when I knew he desperately needed it for his health or to send his children to school. In what I recently learned were the last days of his life, I didn’t even know why he wasn’t calling anymore, and I always thought I need to call him but I never did. I don’t know what voice I would have heard on the other end of the line, if he spent a long time in sickness before finally dying, if he got sick suddenly and there was nothing left to be done, if a small amount of money could have paid for the medicine he needed to survive. Maybe it was just his time to go and he knew it.
He made his home in Kribi at some point, a beach town with a lot of tourism, and the nearest big city to my newest home at the edge of the Cameroon forest and the beach. His family was lovely, though I never met his wife. His children were always polite, and despite their father’s love of the English language, they were totally francophone. He made his living repairing television screens, a skill that he had been taught by a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1990s and a business that probably was booming until the economy turned towards newer technology like flat screen televisions and laptops. Whenever I visited him, I could see the remains of what once was the busiest of days: he kept old parts of televisions stock piled in his small shop. Those small motherboards took up most of the shop and at first glance he seemed like a mad scientist, or a hoarder, but they often came in handy for all kinds of repairs.
I first met Divine at the big bakery in town. I had just come into town that evening on motorbike, and stopped to buy something to eat. Because I had my Peace Corps-issued motorbike helmet and because I am “obviously” American, he said he knew straight away that I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Divine approached me slowly, and because he’s missing many teeth from diabetes and bad medical care and his general appearance was unkempt, it seemed to me that a homeless person was trying to ask me for money. I was trying to avoid this small, strange-looking person, and it wasn’t until the fifth time that I heard him say “Peace Corps?” in an ever-forceful voice that I understood what he was trying to say. When I finally admitted yes, warmth spilled out of his face and he opened up with great stories of all the Peace Corps volunteers he knew from Kribi in the 1990s and how they had recently been back to visit him. He gave me his business card and told me to come visit him at his store.
It took a long time for me to first visit him and it was because of my friend, Miriam, a VSO volunteer who told me a story about him teaching her to drive a motorbike, that I was reminded to go to his shop. She took me there and I would always go back whenever I had time. We would often share beers, but because he often had money problems, I would buy. Sometimes he would borrow money from me to buy me a beer, something that always bothered me a little, but I knew he loved to spend time and share stories with Americans. We would watch National Geographic on his store’s cable with one of his televisions he had repaired, and it seemed that Divine had absorbed all of the messages about species extinction and global climate change from watching National Geographic most of the day.
When I eventually left Kribi, I got a job in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capitol city, and I couldn’t visit often. He would call me from time to time with whatever credit he had in his phone, always aware of the time, and always finishing the call with a “Bon. Bye” before it reached 30 seconds. Sometimes he would call to ask for money, and that was always when I knew he desperately needed it for his health or to send his children to school. In what I recently learned were the last days of his life, I didn’t even know why he wasn’t calling anymore, and I always thought I need to call him but I never did. I don’t know what voice I would have heard on the other end of the line, if he spent a long time in sickness before finally dying, if he got sick suddenly and there was nothing left to be done, if a small amount of money could have paid for the medicine he needed to survive. Maybe it was just his time to go and he knew it.
