One and One

The Eastern region of Cameroon is somewhat of an enigma.  It is dense with jungle, and meager with wealth.  There are a few larger towns along the paved road that leads to the country’s capital, but farther east of those, forests dominate over population, and the latter is forced to give deference to the former.  Red dirt roads allow the few tenacious travelers to tunnel through the forests arduously in rundown buses and at every river or stream, there are merely slats of wood laid across the hollow to permit the passage of the weighty vehicles, top-heavy with goods and baggage.  Housing –which is just more slats of wood barely seeming to succeed in their purpose- is sparse.  Yet people seem to appear on the road suddenly and surprisingly, and then disappear back into thick green brush via small obscured paths that occur every few kilometers.  Most often, they are women, whom carry makeshift backpacks made of entwined branches; but there are men too, with machetes held closely to the sides of their clothing, torn and stained with labor.  Both the baskets and machetes are tools to catch forest game.  Perhaps it is this difficulty of transport and challenge of livelihood that gives the region such an air of mysteriousness.

In this vein, I made a recent exploration to Lomié, a small town in the East known for an active commercial forestry and mining industry, and which is on the eastern edge of the Dja Reserve.  My plan was to hike in the Reserve, which is a fairly well-protected and largely undisturbed area of the Congo rainforest.  I had very few expectations, although the guidebook I owned had captured my interest with its descriptions of varieties of fauna and animal species, including various primates.  The book also picked my curiosity with its description of Baka, or ‘Pygmy,’ encampments on the eastern edge of the reserve.

The term ‘Pygmy’ is used to describe different ethnic groups in Cameroon and Central Africa, who are of small stature and who maintain a hunting and gathering way of life.  I learned that the term is insulting to these tribes because it seeks to cast a broad net over many different ethnic groups with their own distinct cultures.  I understood this well.  As a person of El Salvadoran heritage, I have often had to explain the contentious historical usage of the term ‘Hispanic,’ which was a term imposed by the U.S. government for purposes of the Census to describe all persons of Spanish-speaking background.  It was a convoluted term that compelled a uniform identity and which was met with resistance.

The East is known for its “bush meat,” which comes from a wide variety of forest animals, including diverse species of antelope, primates, pangolins, and large reptiles.  In addition to hunting game, Bakas practice traditional fishing methods, eat edible plants and fruits, and trade with neighboring villages for cultivated foods and other necessities.  They are noted to be the first settlers in Cameroon and one of the oldest cultures on earth.

In the forests on the outskirts of the Dja Reserve, (we never made it all the way into the official reserve because of time constraints), my friends and I hiked for only two and a half hours before we came upon a Baka encampment.  On a well-worn path that had been littered with small plastic gin sachets, we made a lumbering arrival through trees and brush as we followed the not-so-distant sounds of drums.  Along with a park guide and a younger female Baka guide we shyly made our way towards the men and women who greeted us from the doorways of their homes –round thatched huts that could not comfortably fit more than three or four bodies.  The entire encampment consisted of only several of these structures.

I observed that the Bakas themselves were not significantly smaller in size, although the difference was noticeable, as was their unique smiles, resulting from the filing of their teeth into sharp points, a tribal custom.  And it was with many smiles that the members of this small community met us with graciousness.  They shook our hands with great vigor and thanked us repeatedly for our visit.

After awhile we separated, the hikers to rest in the late morning shade, and the Bakas to continue with their drinking, - which judging from the level of intoxication a few of the men had reached - had begun early.  They were drinking raphia wine, a wine made from extracting the sap of a tree by the same name, and distilling into a gin-like alcohol.  They passed around a jug and everyone partook, even a small child of no more than three or four years old eagerly guzzled his portion. 

“Namaste” is a Sanskrit salutation that, accompanied with a bow, signifies acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another.  Modern day translations express this as liking to “the light in me sees the light in you” or “the good in me bows to the good in you.” No matter the translation, the meaning is clear.  It is an expression of respect for our oneness.  On some level, we are all the same.  We all draw from the same well of human experience and emotion.  It is not the emotions or experiences themselves that matter so much, but the recognition that they are shared by all.  In this sharing, we find the core of our existence.

If only we could look into the eyes of every person we meet and find the communal self, the self from which we are all derived.  But moments of clarity are rare, and as a result of the inability to see others for who they are, to see ourselves for who we all are, we feel unseen. 

In relationships, especially love relationships, we often create an illusion of the other person to match the illusion we have of ourselves.  This other person, or illusion, exists to satisfy our own ego’s needs.  We use the person as a false mirror, feeling as if we are finally being seen for whom we are because we have constructed a reflection of who we want to be.  The person we are with is merely the means to an end:  our own self-gratification.

Homeless people commonly express that one of the hardest parts of life on the street is feeling invisible.  Passersby are unable to look them in the eye.

Undocumented immigrants in the United States are often forced to live in the shadows of society because of their fear of deportation. Moreover, they are commonly referred to as “illegals” or “illegal aliens,” a term that not only has no legal basis, but is used as a denial of their humanity.

Throughout history, the failure to see the common humanity of others has resulted in our greatest sins.  There are numerous examples of this in Africa’s history alone.  For example, during the colonization of Western Africa, an Islam philosopher noted that African nations were submissive to slavery because Africans “had little that is human.”  The Rwandan genocide was enabled by the Hutu tribe’s media propaganda against Tutsis on the basis of their being of an 'inferior’ ethnicity.  Historical perceptions and depictions of Africans in western culture have been dehumanizing, with likenesses to primates commonly appearing in print, propagating a mentality used to justify slavery in the United States.
In 2002 a private zoo in Belgium created controversy with its exhibition of several Cameroonian Bakas singing and dancing among artificial village huts.

Often times in Cameroon, I struggle with the feeling that I am no more than an attraction.  When children see me, they run towards me, yelling in a fit of excitement, demanding money or “gifts.”  I am expected to perform.  For them the association between a white hand and the money it dispenses is indiscernible, and the person beyond it is invisible.  For adults, I am more like a game, a lottery machine, with a line of eager and expectant players waiting to see what they might get.  Perhaps they will pull down on the side handle, the wheels will roll, and there will be a match of three – the prize:  a white wife for status, or a free pass to the Promised Land, or the steady clanging of falling coins.
In the Dja Reserve, the Baka women demonstrated to us their traditional fishing method at a nearby rivulet.  The work entailed their damning of several partitions of the stream with branches, rock, and mud.  Once the water flow was held off, they dug in the bed and the sides of the creek for small fish and crustaceans, which once found were wrapped in sizeable leaves from nearby trees.

Of the group, there was one woman who was luminous. With each finding, she would bring it to us in her cupped hands, smiling proudly and trying to explain her livelihood without words.  I had noticed her back at the encampment as well, as she had watched us carefully and seemed pleased at our playfulness with some of the children.  And when she saw my clumsy footing, she constructed for me a walking stick to aid my step.  This woman, strong and unsure, caring and stern, friendly and shy, was so unguarded that it was difficult not to see every expression of humanity written on her wrinkled face.

One of the countless reasons I am here in Cameroon is to try to become this vulnerable.  After nearly a year and a half I continue to shed so many layers of self that I sometimes alternate between feeling fearful that nothing is left, and liberated from the burden.  I have burnt through numerous labels, titles, adjectives, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions, yet they are endless.  I have sought to expose myself to the things I fear, to do the things I am most reluctant to do, to admit things I want to deny.  All this I have done in an attempt to destroy everything in me that is destructible, so that I can relax with what I know is indestructible – the true self, the core self which we all share. 

When we returned to the village, the women began to sing in a chopped yodel that rang with melancholy, the men played drums, and a small child danced in hip-skirt of dried grass and makeshift bells.  We gave the Bakas goods we had bought them from village, and we all took pictures together. 

When it was time to leave, there was a shared sense of gratitude.

To be seen, one must first acknowledge and “bow to” his or her own core self in order to illuminate that which is within us all.  To see another, we must first see that which is within ourselves, then acknowledge the sameness within another.  This exchange, of seeing and being seen is the greatest gift we can give each other.