Deciding to travel to Cameroon
It all started in June 1999 after completing my intensive 3-month French language study program at a language school in Benin City. I realized that although I was already quite comfortable reading and writing in French, I had not reached the level of fluency in speaking that I wanted. For example, I still had a hard time easily answering simple questions or holding a conversation for short periods without pausing and interspersing a few “eems and hmms”!
So, I told my teacher that I wanted to travel to any French-speaking country and spend part of my annual vacation there to develop my fluency. After some deliberation, he decided that although the Ivory Coast would have been the preferable place to go, he would (for cost considerations) send me to stay with his family in Cameroon (Yes, my guardian is Cameroonian). In this way, following his instructions in a letter sent by me, his brother and sisters would help me by exposing myself to numerous opportunities to practice speaking French.
I went to Cameroon by road (via 2 border towns: Ikom in Nigeria and Ekok in Cameroon) for two reasons. First, that was the only way my N12,500.00 (about $125 US dollars left over from my annual leave allowance) would have sufficed for the trip (I was told a return air ticket was N30,000.00 – $300 USD – at the time). Second, it gave me the opportunity to mix with French-speaking people as soon as I crossed the border.
Being able to listen to the natives speak French among themselves; Being asked by the gendarmes for my passport and visa in French (it was not often that I came across one who spoke English!) helped me to consolidate my learning faster. With the money I saved from going by road, I was able to buy many novels and magazines published in French, including those written by authors well known for their works, such as James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, etc. – which I read regularly while there, and brought back to Nigeria to continue using in my studies.
Trying to return to Nigeria: the drama begins!
But back to my traumatic experience back home. Let me give you an idea of what it was like. That July morning in Douala, I asked my friend for the money that he promised to pay me back and he told me that he had asked his boss for a salary advance. He left for work saying that he should call him at 9:00 am so he could instruct me to stop by his office and pick up the money on my way. A few minutes after 9:00 am I called him. To my dismay, he told me that he couldn’t come up with the money and began to apologize profusely, begging me to go on my journey without him!
I was shocked almost beyond words. Recovering myself a bit, I told him (in as dignified a tone as I could manage!) how disappointed I was that he had put me in such a dire straits knowing it was my first visit to the country (to which I made even more profuse apologies). . I hung up the phone in disgust and did some very harsh quick thinking.
One thing was very clear in my mind. I had to return to the Guinness Benin Brewery (in Edo State, Nigeria) to resume the afternoon shift no later than 2:00 pm the next day. I had used up the remaining days of my leave waiting for my friend to come up with my money. It was around 10:00 in the morning. I took a bike to the city center and inquired about alternative routes to travel to Nigeria on the cheap.
I remembered meeting some Nigerian traders who lived in the city, who had mentioned a small port where Nigerian traders frequently entered Douala with produce and agricultural products to sell. Eventually, someone gave me instructions on how to get to the place called “Idinao” port by transport. The journey was not easy for me, as several checkpoints meant that I had to face repeated questioning by the gendarmes. At times when passengers were asked to pay one fare or another, since I had no more than a few CFAs left, I tended to receive more than a little harassment from the officers.
Rescued by a “guardian angel”
Towards the end of the trip, at the last control, I was rescued from a particularly aggressive gendarme, who, after seeing my passport, questioned my intentions of wanting to leave the country through the port of Idinao. A gentleman who had quietly watched me go through the troubles since the beginning of the trip, and who was obviously quite well known as a trader in Douala, spoke on my behalf and said that I was his younger brother (he was a Nigerian) who had come to visit him and that he was going to take me back to Nigeria! I was more than grateful and I told him so. However, at the same time I was surprised that this man would have made such a gesture to a person he did not know. But as I was to find out later, it hadn’t even started yet!
After getting off at the port, he told me his name was “Sugarr” (a nickname, and that’s exactly what he wrote in my journal). His accent revealed that he was from the Igbo tribe (I am Yoruba). He asked me where he was going and I told him Benin City. He then explained to me that the ships from Idinao would reach Oron in twelve hours, after which he would have to travel a few more hours to reach Aba, and then Benin. Then he took me to the owner of one of the big but old boats, who was his personal friend. The owner of the boat, known as “Delta” (another nickname), agreed to let me board with what few CFA I had left as payment after Sugarr’s pleas, and also after I desperately offered him my Olympus Stylus camera to complete the job! the pay!
Aid! Me? Traveling in a rickety, leaky old boat for 12 hours in heavy rain?
It was only after he said yes, that I got a good look at the ship that I would be traveling on along with many other people, and its countless bags of goods. The large boat creaked repeatedly as the waves of the Atlantic Ocean beat against its sides, and I could see that water was pooling at the bottom, suggesting it was leaking! He had never been at sea before and what was worse, the radio carried by someone close had just announced that many Nigerians had died on a ship bound for Oron a few days earlier.
Some of the future passengers next to me were talking excitedly about people they knew who had been on that ship. I started to get really scared, but the thought of not being there in time to resume my duties when I was supposed to (I never took my job lightly, and always wanted to do what was expected of me at all times), kept me from changing. . my mind. I collected my bags and got into the boat. The drizzle soon turned to a downpour and I had to use some extra change I found in my pockets to buy one of the big nylon bags that people used as modified raincoats (cutting crude holes in the bottom and sides for the head and arms). to pass).
We had to wait from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm before the trip could start. I hadn’t eaten anything since I woke up and I didn’t have money to buy anything to eat.
However, all he could think about was getting back to Benin City in time to take over from morning duty. I was resolved. As for being afraid of the ship capsizing in the sea, I quickly gave up any excuse for not proceeding, when I saw about five old merchant women settle on the bottom of the ship, their bags of produce by their sides. , and just fall asleep! “If they’re not worried, then I certainly shouldn’t be!” I told myself.
The journey home begins
We rode in heavy rain on Delta’s rickety old powerboat for over 12 hours overnight (from 7:00 pm to 7:30 am). During the first four hours of the voyage, I experienced for the first time what I had read about in sea travel books: motion sickness. I got dizzy and felt like throwing up many times. Fortunately, after a while, my body seemed to adapt to the rhythm of the ship at sea, and I subsequently got over it.
During the “trip” we came across about 5 different water control points manned by Gendarmes, Police, Customs, Navy and Drug Control, respectively. Many times passengers were required to pay some “water fee” or fee, and as you can imagine, since he had no money, he always received special attention, even some loud slaps. On one occasion my friend Sugarr tried to intervene as he had in the taxi, but this time he earned a nasty slap for his efforts.
At approximately 7:30 a.m., the boat came ashore at Oron. After our passports were stamped at the Customs post, Sugarr asked me how I planned to move. Unable to think of anything better, I offered him my camera in exchange for the cost of taking the shuttle to Benin City. He refused and instead paid my fare to Aba, where he then took me to his wife’s shop and gave me money to continue my journey to Benin City. I wrote down his address in my journal, thanked him profusely, and headed for the parking lot he had described.
I resume work, as planned, in Guinness Benin!
A few hours later I was in Benin City. Before 2 p.m. one-hour journey across the Atlantic Ocean from Cameroon to Benin City, Nigeria. Even Yo I couldn’t believe it for a long time after that. Among other things, I kept wondering how Sugarr had come along at the exact moment he most needed help to achieve my purpose.
Two years later, in 2001, I would return to Cameroon (in company service), but despite my best efforts, I was unable to locate Sugarr.
To this day, I have not been able to find it. However, I will never forget the wonderful role he played in helping me achieve my purpose. Napoleon Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” said, when his magnificent obsession completely dominates him, he will find that people and events begin to come together in a way that will eventually help him achieve it. I believe that is exactly what happened when I focused my mind on returning to Benin at that defined time so that I could resume work as scheduled.
From the day I had that experience, I was convinced that Hill was right when he wrote that “whatever the human mind can conceive, it can achieve.”
But you might wonder: How has learning to speak French “the hard way” helped me in my career?
My answer is that not only did it help me a lot in my career, but it also opened up a lot of opportunities for me outside of the workplace: new friends, etc. For example, in April 2001 (almost 2 years later), I was selected along with three senior managers, out of fourteen who attended the pilot course at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, to attend an international coaching conversation facilitator course. 1 week in Douala, Cameroon (note that the company and most managers had no idea at the time that I could speak, read and write French).
Read my article titled Achieving Your Goals DESPITE Adversity – Two Short But True Stories That Tell HOW to learn how my ability to speak French helped me get noticed by senior colleagues (including Guinness Cameroon’s expatriate Managing Director), even as I gained the admiration and respect/friendship of others I attended the course with.
“If you are weak in a crisis, you really are weak!-Then
