Opening Days

This chapter recounts my first day as an ASTI student after gaining admission.

When you are an ex-student of an Institution, you always have the penchant to reminisce stories and hullabaloos that marked your term of office at that institution. My contract in ASTI was a turning point in my life. In ASTI, I met all species! Ewondos, Bassas, Bamilékés, Orockos, Bakwerians, just to name these few. My first day at the ASTI power-house was memorable. I wore an old jeans trouser I purchased from the Bertoua Central market and put up a shirt my dad offered to me as gift for passing the entrance examination into ASTI. Upon my arrival, I was presented to this feeble, dark, slim girl, named Shisha. The setting was the ASTI corridor at the floor level, nicknamed le couloir de la mort.

This passage was about 50 meters long and about 5 meters wide, and hosted 5 offices. It was dubbed thus because each time results were dished out to students you saw all sorts of pre-and post-reactions to the results; students crying out loud, others laughing out loud, a river of tears on the veranda, a compendium of smiles, jeers and even students attempting to collapse. She was the first strange person I met in ASTI. I was told she was a senior student and she wore a pair of thin, fat glasses you will only see in the Cosby Show. She was dark in complexion and had a skin as soft as a baby’s bottom and she smiled like a cat. Her accent was beyond the normal Cameroonian broken and she uttered each word with dexterity. She spoke from her nose I suppose and I remember her saying Enchanté when I was presented to her.

We chatted with her for a while together with my friends Mamou and Odysee. They were also of the same category in terms of height with Shisha although Odysee outweighed the two others who were feather weights. Come see me, a common boy from Berotoua trying to speak like CNN’s Anderson Cooper. During the chat I constantly lost my breath in a bid to speak like the others. That was my punishment for faking. When Shisha left I gazed her manner of walking, she swung her butt to the tune of a military march past, I guess it weighed 10 kilograms, although she swung it with bravado. She had a swagger of a champion and left an indelible mark in my eyes. I left for the mails office to collect my Admission Letter and later on left for the payment of my school fee. 

I had finalized my registration procedure. But in the course of paying my school fee at BICEC-Buea, I met this girl. She happened to be of the same parentage with me and it was not the first time we met. Our maiden meeting was at Tiko, in my late Aunt’s house, but because of our sturdy egos, no one could initiate a discussion. She was a distant cousin. She was spectacularly beautiful, but brief in height. I guess she was 1m 30cm tall. She had hair on her leg, a charming smile, healthy and updated milk bags, immaculate toe nails, elongated hair and a mountain of a butt. Despite the fact that she was short and had a giant butt, she was the most beautiful ASTI girl I had met so far. She was a relation and I hate short girls, hence, any move of mine was punctured by the aforesaid ideas.

                The maiden class I attended in ASTI was attention-grabbing. I met all sorts of translation-hungry students; mathematicians, civil servants, married people, bald-headed men, grey-haired men, pastors, legal scholars, amateur translators, adventurers, teachers, just to name these few. The course was titled TRA 603 (General Translation from English into French). It was to be co-taught, but that faithful day, one man showed up and I took stock of him. He was tall, imposing, fat, horizontal-stomached, mildly-handsome and had a bald head yet to attain completion point, and he spoke French like Molière restored. His stomach was emphasized by the trouser he wore; a brown jeans trouser punctuated at the top by a thick, black, no-name belt below his stomach. He wore no wrist watch, no jewellery, no eye glasses, but a black pair of shoe and brought a box of chalk to class. Every centimetre of his dressing was that of a teacher. He brought a one-page text which marked me. The author of the article was Randy Joe Sah, who uncalculatedly bore the same name with me, although my name has a double “n” (Ranndy).

                Translation tenders to the text were fired from all directions. Mr Skopos as he was tagged by students, giggled and walked self-confidently in between the rows in class, like a clergyman in front of a congregation of 10 000 believers. The class was packed to the rafters and was busy like the Soppo market; snapping fingers, ink oozing out of pens, whispers in ears and others listening to the clergyman preach. The text in question dwelled on the hunger strike which rocked Cameroon in February. Little did we discern that this professor was an aficionado of theories. He insisted on the Skopos Theory and gave us a hand-out to read succinctly before coming to his next class. During my term of office in ASTI, Mr Skopos never stopped preaching the gospel according to Skopos. I even believe he was one of the proponents. We came to understand the importance of skopos only a year after and everybody ran to snatch a copy at Mrs Namou’s reading room.

                But, what ensued at the end of the class was outstanding. I met him, not her, HIM. I remember, at the end of the lecture, I was about to leave class and this tiny, dark, fine-looking, tall boy strolled to me. He greeted me and probed me on all the classes so far. He said he was called Mankon, and he sought to be my friend. His voice was gentle like that of a child caught pocketing meat from the pot and his chin was bald. I looked at him eye ball to eye ball and said, YES! My instincts told me we were of the same age group and I had to seize this opportunity to pair up with people of my age group. I was the youngest of the class in the male category and if I had said no, I am not sure I will have had a shoulder like Mankon’s to lean on in moments of difficulties. A problem was yet to show a difference between us; he was a share-holder at Les Brasseries du Cameroun S.A. He gulped as if beer was out of fashion, in fact, CASTEL BEERS were like feeding-bottles through which he sucked-out milk from. Each time he had a bottle at his mercy, he grabbed the bottle with his left hand, raised to his mouth level, while his upper and lower lips sucked the nectar out of the bottle. At the end of the day he colonised me to beer-drinking and we created the acronym “Come And See Translators Enjoying Life” (CASTEL).

While waiting for the lecturer, we chattered like weaver birds. After 15 minutes the class went dead silent as if the angel of death was passing and from a distance, we spotted an elegant figure approaching and dressed in an Italian tuxedo. He walked majestically as if he was walking on thin ice. You could tell he just left and air-conditioned office, reason why every pore on his skin was glaring. He wore a black, perfumed and pressed tuxedo. His haircut was beyond the ordinary and he had black lips. His shoes were spotlessly polished and you could see yourself through his shoes! He was fair in complexion and had a device on his left ear. When I took stock of him, I gazed left and gazed right to see the reaction of the girls, then I saw this 26 year-old translation-apprentice who hailed from Bujumbura via Arusha completely dumbfounded at the elegance personified. Mouth wide opened, when she came back to her senses, she licked her lips and gnashed her teeth as if to say, “MAMANANGAÏ”. That was not my concern; Mr Elegancia was on the spotlight. Then he uttered his first words “Good morning class”, with a flawless British accent and the class responded with our crooked, husky, scratchy and rasping voices “Good morning, sir”. The frown on his face translated that he was unimpressed with the bunch he saw in front of him. I guess he must have said to himself “Il y a du pain sur la planche”. From his accent we could not decipher that he was from the Boyo Division like some of our colleagues who pronounce cocoyams as “kukuyams” and ruler as “luler”. The one-paged text he brought to class, focused on the Bakassi Crisis. By the time the class was about ending, plenty of us rushed to the Buea Linguistic Centre to enhance our English Language, knowing fully well we had a long way to go as translator-apprentices. Elegancia was a perfectionist but unfortunately, his term of office at ASTI was shot-lived; his farewell gift (examination paper) was a Pandora’s box tagged “Ces Japonaises notre”.

                About 2 minutes to the end of the class, while some of us where en route to the Buea Linguistic Centre, we were called back to reality, when we heard a car humming nearby, announcing the arrival of Father Small Finger, the co-lecturer of TRA 603, the Ronaldinho of translation. He drove a 1992 Nissan car, with an almost-faded registration number (I have forgotten) and which was midway between black and brown. The tyres of the car were all unroadworthy, although it had a “Visite Technique”. Physically speaking, he was short (1m 15cm), dark in complexion, wore a brown trouser punctuated with a thick brown belt above his navel, a white shirt with brown stripes and a white cap which hid his hair-less head. You could tell he was an age-mate to no other that the infamous lone cow boy and signatory to the Gemano-Duala Treaty, Papichulo, coming in Part X. He was known to utter the following sentences, with his Bassa accent, “Le français est une langue des substantifs”, “Il faut mettre le petit doigt”. You could also see the reaction on his face whenever a student uttered the word “jouir” in a bid to translate “enjoy”. With regards to that word he said “Mes enfants, il ne faut pas utiliser le mot là, c’est pas bon”, without him uttering the word himself. “Le petit doigt” was his motto and he moved in class with his index finger pointing at each student. Whenever he heard a good translation he said, “Mais voilà, voilà!” When all the students could not find the appropriate translation, he stepped in an unleashed a vintage translation, with a smile on his face and his index finger pointing at us, “Le petit doigt mes enfants, le petit doigt, mettez-le, mettez le petit doigt!”

                2 pm was the time and CV 3 was the scene for the next Anglo-Saxon mêlée; TRA 605 (Specialised Translation from French into English), we were in for another 3 hour battle, overflowing with English from the Queen’s land. Ajalyn Shoes, as students dubbed him, was spotted from a distance. We could not interpret whether he was walking or running. He outfitted like T.B. Joshua on a Sunday morning, ready to address his Synagogue Church of All Nations, Nigeria. He was white from head to toe; white shoes, white socks, white trouser, white belt, white shirt, white eye brows and some white spots on his hair. He had a haircut you will only see again on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air TV series. He was fair in face and was very hairy, he was mid-way between short and tall. He was handsome in my opinion and what touched me was the shoe he wore and the text he brought to class. The shoe was white and you could tell the sole had stood the test of time. The text he presented was a three-stanza, one-page, sketchy text titled “Les souliers Ajalyn”. It was an advertisement (text type) and the style was not the same like 601. He walked tall and stepped into style while translating his text. He spoke with varied pitches in class; sometime he yelled and some other times he spoke coolly. During the class, I noticed this man or boy, I could not tell how old he was but he looked younger than his age tendering mouth-watering proposals and Mr Ajalyn shoke his head from up to down as if to say, YES, you know your thing. He was called Manulo Lofata, I will get back to his case in Part XII. The class ended with students gathering near Mr Ajalyn for souvenirs, his performance was outstanding.

                (Chorus) Finally, finally, finally, the Lord has done it, finally, finally, finally…..Mr Dropable is in class. It’s 5pm and the venue has moved to CV 4. He was an average, tall, dark man, with a rugby-ball-shaped head (NGOPO) and an English intonation ruined and crystallized by his Banso’o ancestries. A Banso’o par excellence he was and his pronunciation paid the huge price for his origins; he had a yawning voice and holds the record in ASTI antiquity for the most dropped translation suggestions by students and the figures are shocking (100 000 dropped proposals and counting). When he was in class you could not believe a professor was in. “I think we should drop that one!” “That one is dropable!” “That one is laughable”, are his much-loved rulings and he said them while laughing at the student. But the student who paid the uppermost price was Chief Darly, the twin brother of Papichulo. Chief Darly wished-for the following translation in class, “Jonas Sabimbi (Savimbi) is the architect of my architecture”. Mr Dropable laughed out his lungs and burst into waterworks, if not for a student who offered him a handkerchief, CV 4 will have flooded. His first semester examinations just like Elegancia’s, sent shock-waves worldwide. The title of the text was “Le chèque en blanc de l’Etat américain”. The text started with a sentence that even the former Director of ASTI lodged a complaint about; “C’est ce qui s’appelle retourner sa veste”. The level 2 students equally paid the price of his neck-breaking and career-threatening texts; the text dished to level 2s was on a certain Jack Lang. I recall seeing one student identified as Prési, grimacing and blaspheming Mr Dropable!

Author's Note