Martin Jumbam

Professor Daniel Noni Lantum – I salute you! (Final Part).

By Martin Jumbam

In this second and last part of my tribute to Professor Daniel Noni Lantum, I recall how instrumental he was to me during my early years abroad, urging me to have a clear sense of purpose and to focus my attention on my work and not on my financial situation, that was far from glamorous. Upon my return home over a decade later, he was still there to welcome me and my family and gave us a soft landing on territory that was beginning to feel the grueling impact of the world recession. Let’s pick up the narrative from 1976.

Professor Daniel Noni Lantum, I thank you! (Part One).

By Martin Jumbam

It surprises me that I always seem to find words of gratitude for people only when they are no longer with us; when they have, as we Catholics say, gone ahead of us marked with the sign of faith. It is only then that my heart, mind, and lungs pour out of my trembling lips words soaked in tears and wrapped in long moments of silence, interspersed with sighs and much headshaking. Today, however, I have decided to sing the praises of a man who is still very much alive, and to whom I owe a well-nourished debt of gratitude.

 

Who Killed the Girl?

By Martin Jumbam

There is a photograph of a young woman that has been floating in cyberspace for the past several months. I have received it from well over ten different sources. The young woman in question, thought to be from Cameroon, is said to have been strangled to death and abandoned in a brothel in a German city. The brothel owners then posted her picture on the internet with the hope that someone might recognize her and step forward to retrieve her mortal remains for a decent burial in her homeland.

As a father of a family myself – a daughter and two sons - my heart goes out to the parents of that young lady. I wonder if they too have seen the picture of their girl floating aimlessly in space, knowing well that they would never see her again alive? Were they aware that their daughter had joined the "oldest profession" in the world and that the money she sent home to them was the fruit of a life of shame precariously lived in the seedy red-light district of a German city?

The Chirping of a Lonely Bird

By Martin Jumbam

(For Felix Nsom Bongjoh, August 25, 1978, Washington DC)

Friend, in moments of solitude, the lapping tongue of my mind keeps licking the juicy, creamy edges of receding memories. Memories of past dreams. Dreams that budded and flowered. Those that withered in the stifling grips of passing time. Memories of those days together along the sunny seashore in Man O’War Bay in Victoria where we toyed with youthful dreams as numerous as the sand on the beaches.

Foyer de la Charité, an oasis of silence in Bonjongo

By Martin Jumbam

On one of the hills protruding like a finger from the side of the majestic Mount Fako snugly sits the first ever Catholic Church west of the Mungo, the historic German-built Bonjongo Queen of the Angels Church, surrounded by a breath-taking scenery, an amazing panoramic view that stretches all the way to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea across the bay from Victoria.

Nestling at the foot of this hill, and well within its shadow, sits a rectangular structure that looks more like a convent than the retreat house that it really is. Previously built as a formation house for the Brothers of Saint Martin de Porres, this structure has since the year 2000 been serving as a diocesan retreat house under the French name: “Foyer de la Charité”.

Information Technology: Rwanda takes the lead!

By Martin Jumbam

I recently spent several hours at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on my way home from a business trip to India. As I sat in the waiting lounge, I saw droves of neatly dressed men and women, bankers for the most part, capitalist to their finger tips, draped in dark, grey suits, come and go.

As they waited for their flights, I could pick up much of their conversation without really giving the impression that I was listening. I love to eavesdrop in airports, especially when I have many hours to kill and boredom is hitting me on the chin.

Give us a Break!! "Origins of HIV Traced to Chimps in Cameroon"

According to a recent article, scientists claim to have found the origins of AIDS:

After a 15-year quest, scientists believe that they have finally tracked the origins of HIV to a troop of chimpanzees living in a remote corner of Cameroon, near the border of Gabon and the Congo Republic, in West Central Africa.Researchers told the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic. Infections here how they literally dug into decades- old piles of chimpanzee feces to find the earliest evidence of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that most closely resembles the earliest known human immunodeficiency viral sample. That human sample dates to 1959. It was found in serum from a patient in Kinshasa, just down the river from where Paul Sharp, Ph.D., a professor of genetics at the University of Nottingham in England, believes the virus jumped from a chimpanzee to a human, probably in the 1930s.

The Mafia of Business Contracts

Revised and reproduced from Le Lien: Nkeng Shalom # 0002 of November 2001.

I operate a translation unit in the American Language Center of Douala. To keep it running, I need long-term customers, who can guarantee me long-term contracts. That is why I have been seriously courting the business community in Douala, even joining a golf club just to be as close as possible to those who, as the saying goes, call the shots in this country – economically-speaking, that is.

And this has been an eye-opener to me, especially the contacts I’ve had with those who negotiate contracts in companies. And he who says contracts in our country, naturally says kickbacks, cash-bloated brown envelopes that surreptitiously change hands under tables, sudden reversals of previously agreed terms at a moment’s notice when fingers have not been properly greased, etc. One particular case comes to mind.

A drink by the banks of the Wouri

There’s a beer house overlooking the turbid, heavily polluted waters of the Wouri River in the Akwa District of Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital. To my friend, Andy “Young” and me, it is the best drinking spot anywhere in the city.
What with its little booth-like cubicles called “buckaroos”, and its still-to-be-rivalled bevy of heavy-bosomed , hip swinging ladies, some in see-through dresses, who dance along rather than walk.