Kadjam – Stay in Peace
Dario Leoni, a fidei donum layman from the Diocese of Milan, tells us a glimpse of his experience in Cameroon from 2018 to 2022
(by Dario Leoni)
Vast spaces and a sunburned land.
Hard soil that cracks in pentagons from aridity at the height of the dry season and heat in this pre-desert belt of the Sahel. It is called vertisol in technical jargon and is a mixture of altered clays and sands that are ill-suited to cultivation attempts.
In this village of Kadjam-“stay in peace” in the Moundang language-we drilled with the hydraulique team one of the last water boreholes by mechanical probing at a depth of 65 m, also with the economic contribution of local people.
At the time of drilling, some water had leaked out, The test, called pumping, takes at least 4 hours. It is an adaptation for the African context in areas with crystalline basement .
Not unlike other outings, one hopes to get on the ground and find some shade to shelter from the strongest sun of the year, maybe some neem planted by someone not far from the well.
But that is not the case this time either, and the issue is not so simple to understand. People do not like to plant trees even when they are provided for them. Sometimes because of land issues, other times the few trees that are there are cut down to sell firewood at the market, with serious consequences for an already very fragile ecosystem.
There is only a few shrubs with stunted branches that cannot offer much shelter but we try, at first.
We start the test, the water starts gushing out, and children with yellow 25-liter jerry cans rush in, that’s their job. They magically appear out of nowhere every time we do such a test.
But it is really hot and not too far away, about 300 m, there is a hut with a kind of court and a shelter with a few poles planted as best they can in the ground, with some millet stalks cut above to act as shelter. A guy who came to the forage says it’s his. So I ask him if we can shelter there. All right, he says.
Some shade is there, there are 6/7 chickens ( unfailing at the dwelling of any “paysan”), several children curious to see the white, and two young men, the landlord and his friend.
Some time is spent together, maybe not so many words, but certainly enjoyable. There may be a way to make the children laugh, when after a gust of wind that raises a fuss, a branch from the “porch” falls on my head. It was light, fortunately, though gnarled.
The two youngsters are preparing their bac, the equivalent of the high school state exam for us, which is of a really difficult level traced as it is to the French school system and is at the end of a high school cycle. To call it absolutely improvised is an understatement. They are studying science. Okay, plate tectonics… As a geologist I feel prepared, it’s gone.
It’s really too hot under even the canopy and I don’t feel too good. I need to lie down for a moment. The boy understands and invites me into his hut made from mud. “I made it last November,” he says proudly, and inside I think about the diversity of experiences among boys of the same age in different contexts.
I will always be grateful to him for the cool feeling once inside. A hallway in front beyond the door to the right-that’s where I will lie down to rest on a mat-, no windows, a sheet to separate the room where the bed stands without any mattress or pillow and with a few slats ( just enough to keep from falling to the floor). Underneath, one finds school notebooks in large quantities.
There is also a kind of string instrument, like a small guitar, also made by him, and similar to other traditional ones with which griots accompany their stories. He will enjoy playing it with his friend or by himself once he has finished studying, after he has fetched water for the day, fed the chickens, and cultivated his millet field adjacent to the hut.
I lie on my back and so look at the square-plan roof made from the stalks of dried millet, cleverly supported by a few branches and really beautiful to look at in its simplicity.
Right from the center hangs a crucifix made of two crossed millet stalks secured with a bit of rubber. Evidently something my host could not miss in his mansion.
We finish installing the forage and the village of Kadjam will have its forage. A bit of relief in the life of my host who happened to have a white man – Nazara, as they say here – in his freshly prepared mud hut, not knowing where the rain was coming from. Just as I don’t know anything about his story and why such a young man lives only in an environment like that.
And I don’t know how to express the best wish for him and his friend as they grapple with the most important school exam of their class, which I can’t imagine what doors it might open for them.
Source and images
- spazio + spadoni
- Dario Leoni