By JK Bannavti
[Paper presented at the CAMWREAD (Association of Cameroon Writers and Readers) Celebration of the Life and Works of Kenjo wan Jumbam at the Marriott Hotel in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, on January 26, 2006]
This is not an easy task for me because I have to comment about someone so renowned, someone whose birthplace is so close to mine, and someone I have always had great respect for. As a boy growing up in Sob, just about three and a half miles from Nkar, the birthplace of Kenjo wan Jumbam, I always looked at Baáh Jumbam (that is how we called him) with admiration and awe, first because of his feat of numerous writings, and second because he was a well educated baáh (father).
In many of our youthful escapades, we often ended up in Nkar, and later had to fight darkness to get back home. We had fun with a lot of our Nkar friends, from Nya-an to KovNkar, Tahshwerr to Mbo-on, Tsemkan to WaiNkar, Roh-Mbiih to Sangheri.
Our two villages are heavily intermarried and because of the tremendous number of relatives on either side, we live like brothers. Even as I speak, Nkar palace has moved its Ngiri and Nwerong arsenal to Sob, where for a week, masquerades will do justice to the memory of my late father– Shufai Sov, Bannavti Shang.
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