African in America Read online

  AFRICAN IN AMERICA

  By Wencelaus Muenyi

  Published by use of African Technology | © 2013 Wencelaus Muenyi

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be given away to other people or resold without the author’s explicit written permission. If you would like to share this book with someone else, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, we ask that you please purchase your own copy.

  Some names of individuals have been changed in this book to protect their privacy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  In Hoc Singo Vinces

  Read more about the author at: http://www.wenmuenyi.com

  CONTENTS.

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Maps

  Chapter 1: The Past that Led to Me.

  Chapter 2: Early Years.

  Chapter 3: The Honeymoon is Over.

  Chapter 4: It’s Okay Now… You’ll Be Fine!

  Chapter 5: America is Unreal.

  Chapter 6: The Beginning.

  Chapter 7: The Next Three Years.

  Chapter 8: People & Possessions.

  Chapter 9: Finally Home!

  Chapter 10: Middle School.

  Chapter 11: Freshman Years, the Good Years.

  Chapter 12: Florida, the Heartbreak Cure.

  Chapter 13: Bigger… Nicer… Better!

  Chapter 14: The Last Trip.

  April 7th, 2013

  April 8th, 2013

  April 9th, 2013, 12:30 AM

  April 9th, 2013, 9:00 AM

  Eulogy

  Getting There.

  Home to Ndop.

  Fresh Start to a Long Healing Process.

  Bye-Bye, Dad.

  Preparing Again for America

  Chapter 15: Ultimate Freedom.

  Chapter 16: Lingering Questions.

  Island Chapters - Introduction.

  Island Chapters: In the USA.

  Chapter 1: Inappropriate Sense of Accomplishment.

  Chapter 2: Never Alone.

  Chapter 3: Discrimination and Learned Helplessness.

  Chapter 4: No More Self-Control.

  Chapter 5: Business Rules Happiness. Religion Rules Laws.

  Island Chapters: In Africa.

  Chapter 1: The Promised Land.

  Chapter 2: Man-Made Conflict.

  The End

  About the Author.

  Special Thank You

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my mother, Grace. There is nothing I can do that can effectively show her how much I love her. This book was originally written as a gift to her, but, in its development, evolved into much more. In working to give her this gift, she has unknowingly given another to me.

  Still, my life, my every breath, and my ability to publish this book to share my story is all due to her determined fight against adversity and gender limitations in Cameroon; to her achievement in removing her children from Africa; to her unrelenting bravery and battles with cancer. Most people would have never been able to do what she did, especially with four children to care for. Her bravery is like none I’ve ever encountered. I prize her determination and for her living her life to the fullest in order to give us, my siblings and I, opportunities we otherwise would have never had.

  Thank you, Mom. This is for you.

  Love, with all my heart,

  Wen.

  PROLOGUE.

  Africa. Science tells us mankind originated from this land. It is home to some of the world’s greatest wonders and some of the earth’s most unique wildlife. Based solely on its natural resources – oil, diamonds, gold, cobalt, copper, silver, cacao beans, to name only a few of the more popular ones – Africa is the wealthiest continent on the globe. Yet, still many of its 55 recognized states are a generation or more behind what would be considered fully-developed or civilized. A nation as wealthy as Africa is not neglected because “God is cruel.” There is more to it than that.

  Aside from these greater or lesser-known details, many people know nothing about the second largest continent on Earth. With the global community’s rushing from day to day, Africa gets easily forgotten. Interacting with someone with an African background happens more frequently than anyone in America seems to realize. For me, when I look at people going by, the question lingers: does anyone really know anything about what Africans have gone through? Does anyone really understand why these people left Africa to come to America in the first place?

  Traveling from Africa to America is no easy task. One cannot simply hitch a ride across the Atlantic Ocean. Traveling that distance comes at great cost, both monetary and emotionally. It requires a passionate drive to begin, an almost fanatical obsession to achieve, and a heart of stone to traverse again if one wishes to visit those left behind.

  I wrote this book to give people out in the world an idea of what it’s like to grow up in Africa and come to America with fresh eyes. I wrote it to tell a story that is rarely told, a story that needs to be heard, a story that can educate and enlighten. I wrote this book, above all, for the people in Cameroon, Africa – my people – and for the people in America who I’ve come to love; all of those people deserve to read a story like this from someone who understands the achievements and the failures of both countries.

  Hope is all many Africans have left. They hope in God too much because they have no one else to hope in. The world has forgotten them, and their country has abandoned them to fight for themselves.

  I wrote this book believing that, if I do not, no one will.

  You’ll find that African in America is quite unconventional in its fashion. It’s not so much a book about my life as it is a book about perspective; it’s not so much a book on social concepts as it is a chronological progression of opinions.

  I wish for you to get an idea of how children in Africa are brought up; I wish to show how similar African life is to many, if not most, other cultures around the world. Finally, I wish to explain to those who don’t know exactly why Africa is the way it is today, despite its riches. I’ve found in my interactions with people that there is much misconception going around regarding Africa. Living in America has solidified my notion that if there is any one thing that people could stand to know more about, Africa is it. The land that we all came from has become the land we all ignore. The world dares to pretend that what happens there does not drift across oceans and hemispheres as a shadow cast across humankind.

  One fact cannot be ignored: Africa is a continent home to over one billion people. It has within its borders some of the brightest and hardest working people on this earth. Imagine: if only half of that population of 500 million were allowed to thrive, were allowed to live a life in which their knowledge and intelligence could be used for research and economic productivity, how much better the world would be today. Instead, many of Africa’s inhabitants struggle from day to day, working hard to barely survive. Africa is a continent full of great people who fight the never-ending battle to survive in a place where there are almost no guarantees, no motivators. There is almost no healthcare – millions are ill – but still the people move forward and demand life, hoping for a better tomorrow, and if not a better tomorrow for themselves, then one for their children, or their children’s children. In Africa hope is relentless. It is immortal.

  This picture is not necessarily true of all of Africa. There are places in the continent where populations thrive, where economies are strong and innovation happens and people aren’t starving. Tourists travel across the globe to experience Africa’s unique landscape, wildlife, cities, cultures, and history. In Afr
ica, there is much beauty and magnificence to be found for those who seek it.

  Despite its size the world is a small place. It is filled with billions of human beings who, though separated by borders and oceans, are much alike. We all cry. We all laugh. We all bleed. Most importantly, we all dream. The more people learn about the world, the more we can relate to one other… and the better we will all be tomorrow and in generations to come.

  Change begins with the person in the mirror. I hope reading this book will help you to understand how each of our mirrors look much the same, and that, in understanding, we will be able to walk alongside one another to be the change the world needs.

  MAPS

  Cameroon, Africa.

  (Image © 2013 Wikipedia.org. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cameroon_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg#file))

  Approximate locations of Doula, Bamenda, and Ndop, Cameroon.

  CHAPTER 1:

  The Past that Led to Me.

  “If you’re not doing something amazing, something someone else has never done before… you will never become someone great.”

  November 12, 1993. My birthday. I was born Cameroonian in a very small town. Weighing over nine pounds, I was the biggest baby that that little hospital had ever seen; everyone had assumed my mother was carrying twins. Other than my astonishing size, I was birthed into a hereditary line that would be considered extraordinary for Americans, but one that is quite common in Africa. My mother was, quite literally, a princess of her native village. Her father, my grandfather, was true king, but was put into hiding from political leaders by his mother, for fear of him being trapped by the throne. When time came to crown him he was nowhere to be found and, therefore, his brother, my great uncle, became the seated leader.

  My father, Moh, was a very influential person with Cameroon’s ruling political party. His influence with the right people helped him win votes and become mayor for the town in which I lived and grew up. In his political seat my father’s influence broadened even more, giving him an instrumental voice in the way the town was managed around us. My father’s second wife—legally, his first—had a big family and church connections that were central to my upbringing and worldview. My father, coming from a very religious Catholic home himself, made it a priority to have me baptized in the church as an infant. People have teased that I’m the Devil’s child; they are convinced that there are other powers at work within and around me.

  Mine was a typical baptism—people clapped, hands were shaken, my parents were congratulated, prayers were sent up to the heavens, priests smiled down at me—and then I almost died. The instant the water touched my head I began crying vehemently. People have told me that to have an infant cry during its baptism is normal. However, I continued bawling on into the evening. I cried so hard I didn’t eat, I’d gasp for breath and send myself into a fit of tremors. My mother—bless her soul—rushed me to the hospital that night, certain I wasn’t going to make it. That crying fit led me to the cusp of life. I had experienced near-death before my first birthday. That experience—my baptism and those moments which immediately followed it—were only the start to the unusual problems which have defined my existence.

  By the age of one I had experienced a number of bizarre situations and I had grown into an odd talent. I wonder sometimes if my baptism brought me the gift – or curse -- of foresight (specifically in regard to death for those close to me) and if that is why I had cried late into the night. This talent was suspected by my parents for a while but was not confirmed until one night at about one o’clock when I suddenly became the most inconsolable baby to exist. My mother, try as she might to feed me, soothe me, or coddle me, could not ease whatever pain was causing me to cry. But, as mothers usually do, and as her previous suspicions had suggested, she had a gut-feeling that there was something very wrong.

  The next day someone came to our door. My father answered the door, certain that this was the bad news which had caused his son (and, subsequently, the rest of the family) a night’s worth of misery. It was a man, our neighbor, coming to announce that another of our neighbors had died during childbirth. ‘What time did it happen?’ my father asked. It happened just after midnight, around one o’clock.

  That news, along with countless other occurrences beforehand, confirmed for my parents that I’d been allotted a special ability. (To this day I’m not sure what my ability was given to me for, as it has only brought me pain.)

  Aside from my so-called gift, I played and laughed like any other child. I continued breastfeeding beyond two years of age, both as an excuse to be with my mother and because, as a young child, I simply loved breast milk. Halfway past my second birthday my mother could no longer indulge my homely tastes. She had been diagnosed with cancer. The treatments she would undergo would make her milk dangerous for me to consume. Little did I know it was the first of many steps down a road life drew which would try to take her away from me.

  Wenceslaus Muenyi as a one year old.

  Baby Wen and his father, Moh Triya Muenyi.

  CHAPTER 2:

  Early Years.

  “My life is a dream, and so I will live the life I’ve always wanted,

  regardless of any obstacle.”

  Though we do love to have our fun, life in Africa is not as animated as most people think. I did not live with giraffes or tigers and I certainly did not entertain elephants. Where I lived the only animals I really interacted with were ones familiar to most people: dogs, cats, and other common domestic animals like that. Oh, and snakes… lots and lots of snakes.

  I grew up in a house the size of a typical inner-city American home. But, because of the size of our family, there was not nearly enough space for everyone. I slept in bed with my father until I left the country. Someone else (who was not directly related to me and who I won’t name in this book) took possession of every other room in the house. When my father’s brother died, my father promised to take care of his children, my father’s nephews and my cousins. Our house, therefore, was anything but roomy. This lack of space became even more apparent when it was time to eat. A big house like that, with so many bodies and only one dinner table, made getting food difficult for me, the smallest person under the roof. Every meal was a battle—I was constantly wrestling my way in, fighting off other hands and trying to grab for things my little arms just couldn’t reach. I learned to despise eating. Between the fighting and the crowd and the noise, I didn’t find the experience of dining with my family all that gratifying. Instead of wasting my time and effort trying to get food, I ended up taking walks with my two best friends—twins from the neighborhood—until it was time to go to bed.

  Every weekday morning involved two important tasks: school and morning prayers. In Cameroon, school was the definition of strict. Children in our community started school at a very young age (for example, my sister began attending before she was three). When a child hit schooling age the stern lifestyle began. We would wake up early in the morning to walk across town—cold, hot, rain or shine—to attend morning prayers at the church. In order to get to school on time (and praying that prayers didn’t take too long), we’d run back home after being dismissed, throw on our school uniforms, make sure we looked presentable, and then begin the trek to the school grounds to face the teachers.

  The classroom was where the real battle started. In America, schoolyard bullies are the biggest common physical threat. In Africa, the teacher is. If you were late to class, rude to teachers, or did not dress properly, teachers would assure you remembered not to let it happen again. This was commonplace for me. I seemed to always be in trouble. The effects of being constantly beaten still make me clench my teeth when I hear a whip crack. I’m certain my back side is strong due entirely to the number of whippings I received!

  Though school literally hurt for me, the education I received in Africa is etched into my mind more clearly than anything I’ve ever learned in any school in America. Ironically, I feel that the education in Africa, while
much less advanced technically, is more effective simply because of the lack of technological advances which end up being handicaps for students in other, more modern places around the world. My only regret is that I wish I had been exposed to more Cameroonian education. Maybe now I would be smarter.

  There were a lot of rules at school in Cameroon. The first and most important was that students could never talk back to their elders in, or even outside of, school; if they did, they’d promptly be beaten. The second most important rule was the dress code. We were always expected to look presentable. People there took pride in looking proper for school, as if learning were something to celebrate and important enough to dress for. It wasn’t like here in America. Today I see students coming to class in pajamas and house slippers, with their hair so sloppy it seems as if they couldn’t care less about their education. Dressing proper for school in my hometown meant you were well clothed, your hair was cut and trimmed, and, most of the time, you were wearing an ironed uniform. Now this was not mandatory in the sense that students would get in trouble if they failed to commit to their appearance daily. But, we had to watch out, because every once in a while the Head Master would come out from his office to check and make sure the students were following the dress code, or any other rule for that matter.

  The Head Master looked terrifying. He wore a collared shirt buttoned-up tight around his big neck and a stern expression plastered on his face at all times. He held a thick cane in his right hand and walked down the hall slowly to make sure everyone saw him coming. Even before we saw him, we could tell by the sound of his shoes hitting the floor as they echoed down the corridor who it was. We called him the Black Arrow because he beat kids so badly, never flinching, we were convinced he enjoyed it.