A Woman of Africa: If you run from both the sun and the moon you must one day confront your shadow

By Nick Roddy

Born in the refugee crises of Biafra, A Woman of Africa follows a wilful child who realises that there is life outside the ghetto. We follow her as she develops into young woman, whose eccentric and colourful character drives her to challenge social norms and embrace life to the fullest.

Rarely self analytical, she forces a vicarious, almost existentialist path through her limitations, frequently tumbling in the quagmire, but always pulling herself out without a trace of despair.

Viewing herself and surroundings through the conflicting filters of religion and cynicism, in a narrative voice that is entertaining, moving and occasionally sad, she relates, without a trace of self-pity, the life of an alien and a woman in a modern African society and, in particular, the life of an uneducated Anglophone in today’s Douala.

Her experience encompasses a range of issues that face many women in Africa today; rape, AIDS, tribal prejudice, prostitution, as well as poverty and ignorance. Through force of character and a bawdy sense of humour, she overcomes a variety of obstacles, many of her own creation and some thrust upon her by a harsh society, but she ultimately succeeds in fulfilling her dreams and finds happiness in herself as a true Woman of Africa.

A Woman of Africa is a fictionalised reworking of real life stories told to author Nick Roddy in Douala by Biafran refugees.

This is the story of a woman who bounces back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803133386

Book preview

Part One

Bathed in Blood

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields,

Sold in the market down in New Orleans.

Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing all right,

Hear him whip the women just around midnight.

BROWN SUGAR

Words and Music MICK JAGGER and KEITH RICHARDS

©1971 (renewed) ABKCO MUSIC, INC., 85 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003

All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission

Chapter One

I am an African woman. That’s not a political statement. I am not a Whoopee Goldberg or an Oprah Winfrey, a middle-class American in search of an identity or asserting a political right. I am a woman and I am African. That is all there is to it, and that is my tragedy. That Africa is carried on the backs of its women is well known; well, that is when we are not on our backs.

I was born in a small village, youngest of a large family, where my father farmed yams. We were all well scrubbed when we filed into the Pentecostal church on Sundays; when there was no food we didn’t mind, we just praised the Lord for his kindness. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? It’s less challenging…

Yes, my father did farm yams, when he wasn’t beating my mother, and the ‘village’ had about 12,000 people living in corrugated iron shacks. And when there was nothing to eat we did mind, especially if Father had drunk the money away. We did go to church on Sundays, but it was Catholic.

Choose whichever version you prefer, whichever version is more prosaic or whichever version fits in with your sociological viewpoint. Believe what you will. After all, I am an African woman and not to be trusted.

For our village we were quite well off. Mamma had a shop which grew. She had enough money to put my most senior sister through school and keep Father well oiled enough to keep his fists to himself. She would get up when she could no longer stand the noise of the dogs and chickens, and start frying plantain chips. (For those of you who aren’t African, plantains are big sour bananas that need to be cooked to be edible.) These would be put into little bags to be sold. With her other hand, it seemed, Mamma got us up, fed us and herded us out the door in the direction of school. My senior sister went all the way (so the boys said), and all the way meant she got to university, studied law, got pregnant, and married, in that order. She then moved to the city and brought up kids, fried plantains and dodged her husband’s fists. Invest in education, that’s what I say.

Now, one thing you must know about us Africans is that we fight. Africans of all shades, colours and religions fight; it’s part of being African. Up in the north of the continent, the Maghreb, the western frontier of the Arab lands, we get paler of skin and more Islamic, and wage wars against people who aren’t Muslim; or failing that, in the best traditions of the continent, each other. Down south, the white tribe of Africa don’t feel dressed without a side-arm, and us in the middle . . . Well, you can take out a whole family with a couple of home-made machetes. Most of us got to the twentieth century thanks to that nice Mr Kalashnikov (Communism’s gift to Africa), until the Rwandans got all sentimental about tradition and discovered mass-produced machetes from China. Stainless steel . . . good in the kitchen as well. After a good day’s genocide, your woman can fix you a well-earned meal before obliging your manly needs – after she has washed her sisters’ blood off your blade. So much for safe sex; separating the AIDS from genocide would be a good place to start.

Now, don’t you go misunderstanding me. Ah am proud of who Ah am. Ah is not going complaining, Ah’s just telling you how it is. (Was that Uncle Tom enough for you?) Now, funnily enough, it was one of those internecine squabbles¹ that landed my family in the town where I was born – different country, different language, different tribes, different colonial history. You see, my mamma and papa are Anglophones. In truth that means they speak ‘broken’ and ‘pidgin’. They found themselves (along with several thousand other people relocated by the family Kalashnikov and the Chinese Stainless Steel Machete Company) in a country that was Francophone. Well, don’t go letting anyone tell you that we Africans aren’t a hospitable people. The Anglophones moved in, erected shacks, built churches and beat their wives just like back in the old country, and we grew up speaking English and French. Well, that was the theory. We grew up knowing a whole bundle of words without the faintest idea which language they came from, so a whole new generation of pidgin speakers was born.

Now, the Francophones weren’t too bothered to start off with, because to them there was a whole new generation of impoverished young girls to seduce, rape, impregnate and beat up on. So we were welcomed with open arms, even by the women, who thought it might be quite nice to be neglected for a bit. Well, one thing about us Anglophone women is we work. Now, don’t get me wrong: all African women work. I’ve heard there are even Afrikaans women who have had a go. But Anglophone women work the hardest. In the West you abolished slavery, but the Anglophone woman never noticed; she just carried on regardless. Well, this meant that pretty soon us Anglophones had the biggest shops, the biggest houses and the biggest churches. Now, all of a sudden those Francophone women were no longer so pleased for us to be around, and they started paining their husbands to sober up and build some big churches like the Anglophones, and started asking why were those Anglophone children so well dressed. Now, the Francophone men were none too pleased to have their drinking deranged and disturbed like that. Those Francophone men were also getting to notice that since those shops had been getting bigger, those Anglophone girls had been getting a bit big for their boots. The good old days when you could have a twelve-year-old for less than the price of a bottle of Guinness were all but memories. It was true that with a couple of your friends to hold one down they were still available, but it wasn’t the same. It had even been rumoured that some of the younger, more ambitious Francophone men had considered marrying them. But the Francophone women weren’t having any of that, so it was time for a good old-fashioned pogrom.

Now, us Anglophones, being good businesspeople, we owned the hardware shop. So when suddenly there was an upsurge in sales of stainless steel Chinese machetes to young Francophone men, good old Uche the hardware man just ordered a whole load more.

I should explain something to you here. I am sure you know about the holocaust. Well, that was against the Jews. Now, they knew the Old Testament well and they learnt about killing, and they have been making up for lost time ever since. They’re so good at it you would almost think they were Africans. Well, let me tell you a little secret – we are the real Jews. Us Anglophones, the Igbo, we are the lost tribe of Israel. In the old bible, the Good Lord made it quite clear to the prophets that when you attack a tribe you wipe them out. Kill the women and children, because if you don’t they will breed and rise up against you. Well, it is said that the children of Israel were sent into exile because they disobeyed the word of God, and because of that we, the descendents of Abraham, have been paying ever since. Maybe our illustrious ancestors didn’t listen to the word of the Lord, but surely the word was heard by our enemies. When they attack us, it is always the women and children who pay.

Fat old Uche, the hardware man, was a good son of Abraham, and he could count his shekels and he knew the value of a good machete. Well, it so happened that not far from Uche’s shop was a hard-working and, if I may say so, rather good-looking young man by the name of Joseph. Now, Joseph would borrow money to buy stock when he knew there was a market. He would then sell the stock and pay back his creditors with interest. Young Joseph was no fool and knew that the only people who had money were the mammas. He had also worked out that they kept it in their secret places so that their husbands would not drink it. So Joseph borrowed from the mammas, and, as I told you, he was a fine-looking man and he rarely needed to pay much interest. They say that’s how he kept so thin and toned.

But I digress. Uche knew about young Joseph and was scared of him because he knew that young Joseph was a way deal smarter than fat old Uche, so not unsurprisingly the competition was fierce between the two merchants. Accordingly, when the sudden interest in agricultural implements from urban Francophones manifested itself, he told no one, fearing that, as ever, Joseph would steal a march on him. He simply paid a quiet visit to the agent for the stainless steel Chinese machetes, placed a satisfyingly large order and went home to his two fat wives. This was fortunate, as they were Joseph’s main source of funding and provided most of his information on market trends. Well, it so happened that this particular day, Joseph had some quite intensive interest to pay to the junior of Uche’s two wives. He had his eye on a shipment of sugar cubes that had been stolen from a lorry by the local police chief. So Joseph gave himself a good scrub and set off to see young Mamma Uche. Having made his contribution, he broached the subject of the sugar and some rather nice fabric that would make some very nice lace for her. To his surprise, she told him there was not much money in the house (that was, of course, not including the small fortune that, unknown to Uche, she kept in her underwear). This immediately set Joseph thinking, and being a good son of Abraham he knew that old Uche must be buying stock.

It was about at this moment that old Uche arrived home, well pleased with himself and expecting a good helping of garri from his senior wife and then a good helping of something else from his younger wife. (In fact it was well known that, with a belly full of garre and a couple of bottles of Guinness inside of him, the junior wife was quite safe. This suited both wives, but for quite different reasons.) Well, old Uche, it is said, arrived home unexpectedly. Now, Joseph, as I have mentioned, besides being a rather good-looking young man, was also a true son of Abraham, and even though he had his best pair of interest-paying shoes in one hand and was holding his trousers up with the other, he managed to notice that the machete with which old Uche was chasing him down the street was of a particularly shiny and expensive-looking brand.

The following day, suitably calmed and impeccably groomed, and having made a significant withdrawal (in more ways than one) from the doctor’s wife, Joseph went to place an order with the agent for the Chinese Stainless Steel Machete Company. History would record that it was the voluptuous hips of the doctor’s wife that saved our lives.

No one has ever established exactly what passed in the office of the agent for the Chinese Stainless Steel Machete Company, but what Joseph learnt shook him to the core of his merchant’s soul. The agent for the Chinese Stainless Steel Machete Company was Lebanese and a practical man who knew a bit about the financial implications of genocide, having survived the earlier part of the civil war in his own country. Maybe he was moved by the plight of his fellow human beings; maybe he was haunted by the echoes of the screams of the women and children at Sabra and Shatila; or more likely, in my opinion, he was a good Arab businessman and had worked out that the obliteration of the wealthiest women in the community would limit the future sales of kitchen utensils. Considering that the same Chinese company that manufactured stainless steel machetes was also supplying him with stainless steel cooking pots and kitchen knives, this could well have influenced his decision to impart the information to Joseph about the destined market for the machetes. After all, he had already been paid for the machetes, and the kitchenware was still sitting in a container at the back of his yard. The Arabs, too, are descendants of Abraham and share our pragmatic approach to business. Many years later in a different world, I was to remark to a Lebanese sailor that the true irony was that the Arabs were descended from Hagar the slave girl, yet it was us, the blacks, who wore the chains. My history lesson earned me a swollen eye, but that was years later.

I think I have already mentioned that besides being a particularly good-looking young man, Joseph was also rather smart. And it did not take him very long to work out that urban Francophone men weren’t buying machetes for the felling of palm trees. Probably you will remember that Joseph was not only smart and good-looking, but he was also a true son of Abraham; it immediately dawned on him that were these stainless steel Chinese machetes to be used on the womenfolk, his source of credit would soon dry up. So, having quickly made a provisional arrangement on the second-hand machete market, he sped back to the Anglophone quarter and saved our lives.

The following night, when they burnt the English Quarter to the ground, the only women left in there were old Uche’s wives. Joseph, it was said, was sad to lose good creditors, but, as he later pointed out, the free market is a brutal place.

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¹ It is almost certainly the Biafran war to which she is referring, where the largely Igbo secessionists attempted to break away from the Federation. Over a million Igbos starved to death during the fighting, which left large numbers of them stranded in neighbouring African countries. It was widely believed that, although Israel has never officially recognised the Igbos as Israelis, the State of Israel provided arms to the Biafrans throughout the crises; many of those weapons, it appears, had been seized from the Arabs during the ’67 war.

Chapter Two

Well, that was the end of my education. Mamma’s shop, the economic powerhouse of our little family, was a smouldering pile of timber. At least her private stash of money survived. It was not enough, however. When I suggested that larger underwear might have alleviated our predicament, I was rewarded with a sharp slap about the ears.

Joseph had always been a local character (especially among the mammas), and was now a local hero. So it was to Joseph that the community looked when it came to rebuilding our township. Joseph provided building materials and became extremely rich. It was whispered that he put on weight. He no longer needed so much credit. (The downcast expressions of some of the less attractive mammas tended to lend credence to this theory.)

This was about the time that I started to develop the minimal breasts that were to stay with me for the rest of my life. Yes, I am an African woman, but we are not all the same. I was not at school because there was no money, so I fried chips with Mamma and made pancakes and sold them in the market. I missed school, I missed my friends, but I did get to see Joseph every morning.

My mamma swore blind that she had never lent Joseph money (she must have been the only woman in the village who hadn’t), but nevertheless she sent me every morning to deliver his breakfast rations of pancakes and steaming black coffee with enough sugar to give an elephant diabetes.

We West Africans grow coffee, but unlike our East African cousins we are not great coffee drinkers. Joseph started to dress and act more and more like an Oyibu (white man); some of the children called him Mr Coconut: black on the outside, white inside. Mamma, however, stood by him. Every day I took him his breakfast. He was rich and handsome; I was teenaged and of course I fell in love with him. Looking back, I can now see that he was not only rich and handsome, he was also a gentleman. Not once did he touch me (to my intense disappointment), nor did he ever say anything that would hurt my adolescent feelings. He really was every woman’s dream – and therefore not destined for me. This was, of course, not Mamma’s plan; Mamma wanted me pregnant because, I suspect, she knew from first-hand experience Joseph would take good care of me. It was about this time that Joseph took into his employ a young half-caste boy (a Métis, as we called them). All the mammas clicked their tongues and said things about Sodom and Gomorrah.

I started at this time as well to pester Mamma about going back to school. Next year, she promised, if I worked hard and we could get our shop back. I spent more time in the village market speaking pidgin, and I started to forget my English.

During the pogrom, when the Francophones had tried to crush the English ‘cockroaches’, we had lost our shop, as I’ve said; but our house had survived relatively unscathed. Nonetheless, we moved to a compound: it was safer. We were all Anglophone in the compound. In our compound all the families were Muslims, apart from ours, which was, nominally speaking, Catholic. Now, in these days of CNN and live coverage of Palestinian suicide bombings, this might sound a bit strange. We, the lost tribe of Israel, proud of our Jewish heritage, are divided between Rome and Mecca. I could try and explain – but this is Africa. Some things are just easier to accept (like Mamma’s fabric discounts at Joseph’s store). Anyway, there was a girl called Fatima in our compound who, like me, wasn’t going to school, though for different reasons. We would go to the market together every morning after I had delivered Joseph’s breakfast, and sell our pancakes. Off we would wander, our precious loads perched upon our heads, and so the year passed. I pined for Joseph, sold pancakes and wondered if my brain would shrink from not going to school.

My failure to become impregnated by Joseph clearly began to annoy Mamma. She couldn’t understand how such a notoriously promiscuous man could fail to be charmed by such as me. It was obviously my lack of breast size that was causing this lack of attraction. This shortfall on my part was obviously nothing to do with her, Mamma being an extremely well-endowed woman. In fact, I frequently wondered with Mamma where breast ended and body began. It certainly wasn’t my father’s fault; all the women in his family were profoundly well endowed. Nobody commented on the flat-chestedness of Joseph’s mamma and sisters. As I said before, Joseph was a smart man, even if my papa was not.

This frustration on my mamma’s part began to manifest itself with less patience towards me in general, and my hopes of returning to school began to fade. With them so did my obedience.

Now, I know that my mamma and papa loved me; they still do. But, as I keep reminding you, we are African, and the hand that rocks the cradle on the Dark Continent is a harsh and calloused one. ‘Discipline,’ Papa used to say. ‘African discipline for African children.’ As an adult I have seen western TV and pictures of Oyibu mammas and papas going to the jailhouse for instilling what we would consider rather lax control over their children, but the European courts call it cruelty. I make this clear because I know you might be reading this in your flat in London or Paris and misunderstand what I am going to tell you. I don’t want you disrespecting my ma and pa, because they are good people who have suffered much because of me.

They did their best, to the extent of their knowledge. I was not an easy child and I look back on the pain I have caused over the years for my mamma and papa and I have shame.

Fatima and I were getting ourselves quite well known down at the market with our plantain chips and pancakes. We would stay in the main market till about ten o’clock, by which time we would usually have sold most of our wares and trade would be dropping off. We would then run to the main road where there was a toll stop and all the cars and lorries had to slow down. We would chase after the vehicles as they slowed to a stop, thrusting our remaining wares in at the windows. I don’t think we actually sold any more pancakes this way, but it was more fun.

Now, as I said, we were living in a compound. If that sounds like something that you mix up and then it sets and gets hard, well, that would be about right. A compound is a lot of families living behind a wall and a big gate.

Our compound was made of one-room units built around a courtyard, with a hand-pump for water in the middle; we shared a toilet between six families. The mammas would cook on charcoal stoves, or, if they were having a good month, off gas cylinders. The stoves were usually made out of old oil drums cut in half, and there always seemed to be cooking going on somewhere. The small children would be shouting or crying and annoying the chickens; the mammas would be shouting to or at each other, when they weren’t whispering about each other behind the curtains that we used as doors.

As I am sure you can imagine, privacy was not a big thing with us. As children, we would strip off and wash under the pump and then run around naked till we were dry (or caked in dirt and dust). It was a pleasant habit, and one that we carried on through adolescence. We are not neurotic about our bodies, not like Oyibos.

Now, the more alert of you might be asking, ‘Wasn’t this a predominantly Muslim household? Isn’t that totally un-Islamic?’ Well, as I said, this is Africa; don’t try too hard to rationalise; that’s the way it is. All those old hajjis would sit around the courtyard nodding sagely while we ran naked amongst the chickens and the mammas cooked, screamed and intrigued. Life went on. And as you can see, privacy was non-existent and so we were all pretty relaxed about everything. If a mamma wanted to be alone with her papa, and the children were asleep on the floor, she would simply ask another mamma if she could use her room. Usually, if there were enough young children playing in the yard, you didn’t hear too much; but sometimes, if it was just after lunch and all the