After looking at the score lines I would have to say great victory for Alabama over Clemson(34-10). Clemson gets themselves in a hole after great pre-season expectations. They still have the chance to grap an ACC crown though. Virgina Tech falls to East Carolina(27-22). Hokies should bounce back,dent on their national championship hopes but still in track for ACC glory.
Impressive win for USC over Virginia(52-7)at Virginia. Top ten teams Ohio State, Georgia,Florida,Missouri,West Virginia,Auburn,Oklahoma and LSU all won. It looks like the Clemsons Tigers were the only top ten team to slip. Still early in the season though.
In the second week of play the top ten team that slipped was West Virgina losing to East Carolina.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
2008/2009 College Football
The 2008/2009 college football season kicks off on the 29 of August and most of the pre-season polls that I have taken a look at have Georgia ranked as the number one team. This is mainly because of the great end of year run that they had last season with a 41-14 trashing of Hawaii in their last bowl game. Being the pre-season number one does not automatically crowns you as college national champions. Georgia plays in the SEC which is arguable the toughest of the college conferences. So to be national champions they first have to emerge as SEC Champs. They have some tough games in their schedules including a showdown with the Florida Gators that have given them some problems in the past.
The lastest AP poll is as follows
1.Georgia
2.USC3.Ohio State
4.Oklahoma
5.Florida
6.Missouri
7.LSU
8.West Virginia
9.Clemson
10.Auburn
11.Texas
12.Texas Tech
13.Wisconsin
14.Kansas
15.Arizona State
16.BYU
17.Virginia Tech
18.Tennessee
19.South Florida
20.Illinois
21.Oregon
22.Penn State
23.Wake Forest
24.Alabama
25.Pittsburg
Georgia is suppose to have the best one-two running back, quarterback combination in the country. I think Georgia could have been better off sneaking into the national chamiponship instead of going in with all the pre-season hype.
USC will continue to be a powerhouse until Pete Carrolls gets to the age Bowden and Pa JOE or he suddenlly goes brain dead.
Ohio state is still a great programm despite their rap of losing many BCS title games(loser of the last two.)
Oklahoma is great but I do not see them winning it all.
I have always liked Florida with the swamp and spread offense especially when coach Steve Spurrier was there. I like their chances better than Georgia though.
LSU is defended champs so they should make some noise.
Missouri would do well in the big twelve, national champîons, I can't remember the last time that they won the national championship.
I like the Clemson Tigers, though there is a lot of expectation on a team returning quite a few starters. ACC champions, maybe, national champs, its being a while since the won the big one.(1981).
The other teams that I like, not in any particular order include Virginia Tech(great defense and special teams play all the time.Hope Frank Beamer is still their coach.
Texas(people in North Carolina still haven't forgetten this guy for leaving them for the University of Texas. Great coach though.
Penn State still has Pa Joe, so i like them also.
Alabama has a rich football history, they have to win the big one soon though, its been a while
Tennesse produced Peyton Manning of the Colts and they have a great coach(look up the name yourself)
South Florida, another top twenty five team in the state of Florida not named Florida state or Miami.
Enjoy the College Football season.
The lastest AP poll is as follows
1.Georgia
2.USC3.Ohio State
4.Oklahoma
5.Florida
6.Missouri
7.LSU
8.West Virginia
9.Clemson
10.Auburn
11.Texas
12.Texas Tech
13.Wisconsin
14.Kansas
15.Arizona State
16.BYU
17.Virginia Tech
18.Tennessee
19.South Florida
20.Illinois
21.Oregon
22.Penn State
23.Wake Forest
24.Alabama
25.Pittsburg
Georgia is suppose to have the best one-two running back, quarterback combination in the country. I think Georgia could have been better off sneaking into the national chamiponship instead of going in with all the pre-season hype.
USC will continue to be a powerhouse until Pete Carrolls gets to the age Bowden and Pa JOE or he suddenlly goes brain dead.
Ohio state is still a great programm despite their rap of losing many BCS title games(loser of the last two.)
Oklahoma is great but I do not see them winning it all.
I have always liked Florida with the swamp and spread offense especially when coach Steve Spurrier was there. I like their chances better than Georgia though.
LSU is defended champs so they should make some noise.
Missouri would do well in the big twelve, national champîons, I can't remember the last time that they won the national championship.
I like the Clemson Tigers, though there is a lot of expectation on a team returning quite a few starters. ACC champions, maybe, national champs, its being a while since the won the big one.(1981).
The other teams that I like, not in any particular order include Virginia Tech(great defense and special teams play all the time.Hope Frank Beamer is still their coach.
Texas(people in North Carolina still haven't forgetten this guy for leaving them for the University of Texas. Great coach though.
Penn State still has Pa Joe, so i like them also.
Alabama has a rich football history, they have to win the big one soon though, its been a while
Tennesse produced Peyton Manning of the Colts and they have a great coach(look up the name yourself)
South Florida, another top twenty five team in the state of Florida not named Florida state or Miami.
Enjoy the College Football season.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Teaching
What do you do when you have plans to travel overseas and you need to make some money? You go and look for a job. After spending a year at University of Yaounde and failing the examination to go to the second year, I sat down with my elder brother who had just returned from the US and we decided I should get a job and start marking plans to go study in the US. I had given up on the local University after a year of schooling there. It was getting close to the end of August 1983 and secondary schools were due to reopen soon for the beginning of the academic year.
I needed a place to work for a year and save some money before travelling overseas. Teaching at the time was one of the easier jobs to get. With your GCE advanced levels you could get hired very quickly especially if one of your advanced level subjects happened to be in the French language. I decided to teach at Christ the King College Tiko because I could save money easily by getting my food from our home which was just across the street from the school.Also at the time my monthly allowance at the University was still passing(you could collect it for up to two years).
I use to time it and get to Yaounde by Saturday morning and collect the money and make it back to Tiko before School starts on Monday.The rail transportation was the main means of transport at the time and I got used to taking the night train. Sunny Eyabi, a classmate of mine from CCAS Kumba already had a teaching job in the school. I had talk to him before and he said the place was alright. I got the job there by talking to Sister German, she was the principle at the time. I told her my level of education and what subjects I wanted to teach. They needed me to be able to attend daily church service and that was okay with me.
The subjects that she will allow me teach were French language in most of the classes and English language in a few classes. But my primary field of teaching will be French. That is how you get the name "monsieur". Form one and two students do not care about learning the names of French teachers. Throughout the secondary school they just called them "monsieur".
The school at the time ended in form four so I took on teaching French from form one up to form four. I believed that I was the lone French teacher there at the time. The salary was 50,000FCFA. The school had another young teacher at the time besides me and Eyabi. Tafong was his name. He had studied in the commercial educational system and he taught commercial law and accounting I believe. Eyabi was teaching English Language and English Literature and was also in charge of sports.Tafon,Eyabi and myself became very close and we had some fun at the place for the one year that I was there.
The first month that I taught at Christ the King college I lived at home which is just across the street from the school. After I got my first salary Sister German gave me a place at the school campus to live in. I lived there while still getting my meals (lunch and supper) from the house. Mom’s cooking is the best, besides I did not have to pay for the food. Sunny, Tafon and myself used to go out and have a good time especially at the end of the month when we got paid. We would go somewhere in Tiko town and settle down on one of the drinking places. We will be talking and soaking down some bottles.
The year at CKC went bye real fast and by the end of the year my plans to travel overseas did not go through. I ended up going to Dschang in the Western province to spend the holidays with Lydien, my elder sister who was living there at the time with her husband. After the holidays, I returned to CKC and there was a problem. It turned out that Anjey had been taking his girlfriend to the place that Sister German had given me to live in and the Sister had found out(saw them physically).
When I asked Anjey he said that was not the case. He had not expected him to be that dumb to be caught taking a lady to the school campus knowing fully well that Sister German was on campus. Sister German though was very upset and did not want me back at the school. I found it strange at the time but I was not going to be arguing about a teaching job at CKC(you could get a job very quickly teaching anywhere else for the same salary). She paid me for the holiday period(which was a surprise)and I headed home.
The next day I went to Limbe(Victoria)at the time and got a teaching job there. The principle there at the time was Mr Taiwo. They gave me a place to live and I let them know that I planned to be there for about a year. I had made up my mind that if I ended up not travelling, I would take the entrance examination into one of the professionals schools like ENAM(school of that trains magistrates and administrators) or Ecole Normal Superieur(The school that trains teachers).In Saker Baptist College I taught French to form one and two students and English Literature to form two and three students.
There was an elderly guy there that was teaching French to the form four and five students. My stay in Saker was very quite as oppose to CKC. I had to learn how to cook. I was far from home now. Learning how to cook would help me in the future. The idea of teaching was getting boring to me. The first reason been that it was suppose to be something temporary(just for a year was the original plan) and I hated the fact that I was still around teaching while my friends had either gone overseas or had stayed at the university and somehow adjusted to studying there.
I never did finish the school year at Saker and I left there before the year came to and end. I believe it was around June when my brother showed up in campus and said that he had gotten my visa and it was time to go. You do not turn down a chance to move to the US.I parked my few belongings and literally disappeared from the school campus before dawn. Good thing I was only teaching up to form three students. The school could get a replacement for me in a heartbeat.
I needed a place to work for a year and save some money before travelling overseas. Teaching at the time was one of the easier jobs to get. With your GCE advanced levels you could get hired very quickly especially if one of your advanced level subjects happened to be in the French language. I decided to teach at Christ the King College Tiko because I could save money easily by getting my food from our home which was just across the street from the school.Also at the time my monthly allowance at the University was still passing(you could collect it for up to two years).
I use to time it and get to Yaounde by Saturday morning and collect the money and make it back to Tiko before School starts on Monday.The rail transportation was the main means of transport at the time and I got used to taking the night train. Sunny Eyabi, a classmate of mine from CCAS Kumba already had a teaching job in the school. I had talk to him before and he said the place was alright. I got the job there by talking to Sister German, she was the principle at the time. I told her my level of education and what subjects I wanted to teach. They needed me to be able to attend daily church service and that was okay with me.
The subjects that she will allow me teach were French language in most of the classes and English language in a few classes. But my primary field of teaching will be French. That is how you get the name "monsieur". Form one and two students do not care about learning the names of French teachers. Throughout the secondary school they just called them "monsieur".
The school at the time ended in form four so I took on teaching French from form one up to form four. I believed that I was the lone French teacher there at the time. The salary was 50,000FCFA. The school had another young teacher at the time besides me and Eyabi. Tafong was his name. He had studied in the commercial educational system and he taught commercial law and accounting I believe. Eyabi was teaching English Language and English Literature and was also in charge of sports.Tafon,Eyabi and myself became very close and we had some fun at the place for the one year that I was there.
The first month that I taught at Christ the King college I lived at home which is just across the street from the school. After I got my first salary Sister German gave me a place at the school campus to live in. I lived there while still getting my meals (lunch and supper) from the house. Mom’s cooking is the best, besides I did not have to pay for the food. Sunny, Tafon and myself used to go out and have a good time especially at the end of the month when we got paid. We would go somewhere in Tiko town and settle down on one of the drinking places. We will be talking and soaking down some bottles.
The year at CKC went bye real fast and by the end of the year my plans to travel overseas did not go through. I ended up going to Dschang in the Western province to spend the holidays with Lydien, my elder sister who was living there at the time with her husband. After the holidays, I returned to CKC and there was a problem. It turned out that Anjey had been taking his girlfriend to the place that Sister German had given me to live in and the Sister had found out(saw them physically).
When I asked Anjey he said that was not the case. He had not expected him to be that dumb to be caught taking a lady to the school campus knowing fully well that Sister German was on campus. Sister German though was very upset and did not want me back at the school. I found it strange at the time but I was not going to be arguing about a teaching job at CKC(you could get a job very quickly teaching anywhere else for the same salary). She paid me for the holiday period(which was a surprise)and I headed home.
The next day I went to Limbe(Victoria)at the time and got a teaching job there. The principle there at the time was Mr Taiwo. They gave me a place to live and I let them know that I planned to be there for about a year. I had made up my mind that if I ended up not travelling, I would take the entrance examination into one of the professionals schools like ENAM(school of that trains magistrates and administrators) or Ecole Normal Superieur(The school that trains teachers).In Saker Baptist College I taught French to form one and two students and English Literature to form two and three students.
There was an elderly guy there that was teaching French to the form four and five students. My stay in Saker was very quite as oppose to CKC. I had to learn how to cook. I was far from home now. Learning how to cook would help me in the future. The idea of teaching was getting boring to me. The first reason been that it was suppose to be something temporary(just for a year was the original plan) and I hated the fact that I was still around teaching while my friends had either gone overseas or had stayed at the university and somehow adjusted to studying there.
I never did finish the school year at Saker and I left there before the year came to and end. I believe it was around June when my brother showed up in campus and said that he had gotten my visa and it was time to go. You do not turn down a chance to move to the US.I parked my few belongings and literally disappeared from the school campus before dawn. Good thing I was only teaching up to form three students. The school could get a replacement for me in a heartbeat.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Ngoa Ekelle
After passing the GCE advanced levels, it was time to start thinking about University studies. There was at this time only one option available since I was just coming fresh out of high school. That option was to register at "Ngoa Ekelle"that is what we called our local university here in Cameroon.
At the time there was only one university available for everybody and the University of Yaounde was the one. Getting admission into the University is not a problem once you pass your GCE advance levels.
The only problem was getting admitted into the section that you wanted to continue your studies in. I wanted to do Bilingual series and not everybody got admission there. You needed some decent grades. I went to Yaounde and stayed with a friend of my dad while going through the admission process.
I got admitted into the Bilingual series and a couple of friends were admitted into the same department. Mokoro Michael was in the class. He had stayed in Lycee Bilingue and completed his high school education there. Leukenza Michael was in the class. He too was from Lycee Bilingue Molyko.There was a fellow called Tabe John who was a class ahead of us while at Lycee. He was repeating the class (this was common in the university at the time).Ako Pauline was in the class. I had known her from CCAS Kumba.
Going to the University at the time, my plans were to get the University diploma and to look for a job as a translator at the Presidency. That is what most of the graduates from the Bilingual series do after completing their university education. The educational system at Yaoundé was tricky though for a number of reasons. First of all, except for those in the department of English, the University was a continuation of the Francophone educational system.
So if you were in say the department of History, you were required to take History courses in the French language, no matter your background. In theory lectures could be provided in either French or English, the two official languages in the country. But the reality was that a large majority of the lecturers were French speaking. Getting through the university was also tricky in that we did not operate on a credit type system.
You had to get a certain average (either 9 or 10 out of 20) in your combine courses to make it to the next class. It is not easy to get a 9 or 10 average at the university. Also if you are repeating a class and you failed, you get thrown out of the university. It took a total of three years to graduate, but quite a few people got thrown out of the university from the second year.
So in theory lets say you repeated the first year before going to the second and in the second year you failed after two attempts to get into your final year, you have just spend four years in the university with nothing to show for. Anyway I had gotten temporary living arrangements close to the University (I was living opposite ENAM) and I was to begin school in October.
There was something that the government was doing at the time though that attracted a lot of students to the University. There was a scholarship of 25,000FCFA that was given to students monthly. You get the first payment of the money just before you left for the Christmas holiday. The payment covered the months of October, November and December. So once you passed your advanced levels it made sense to at least register in the University and you can sojourn for a year and live on your scholarship, while looking at opportunities to study abroad.
The following people had also registered at the University coming out of high school. Sunny Aiyuk, Angel Emmanuel, Munu Christian, Aurelia Enow, Fombou Henry, Ndifang Michael , Oben Victor,Ejuba Wilson, Kepe Jackson,Foba Melvis, Yenika Eric, and Tamen Fred just to name a few. These are some of the people that I knew from my days in secondary school or high school.
The first two months at the university are usually boring because you are getting yourself acquainted with the new environment. Classed are going on and payment of the monthly allowance does not start until late December. You have to get some documents made during this period. You needed a national Identity card made in one of the Police Commissioner's offices. I still have mine that I made in 1982(it is now expired). You also needed to make a student ID card. This would allow you to get into the restaurant and once the monthly payments start flowing; you would need the ID card to collect your allowance.
The restaurant was a popular place for all the students. I believe you could get meal tickets for 75CFA. This would get you a lunch meal. The same amount would get you a meal in the evening also. Most people did not bother getting breakfast. It was considered a waste of money since the lunch and supper meals were really huge affairs. The first three months at Ngoe Ekelle came and passed and towards the end of December we were given a lump payment of three months worth of scholarship money. A grand total of 75,000CFA. I used part of the money to buy clothes(most university students did this to go show off once they get back to the provinces). I kept some of the money because come January I was going to be paying rent and basically living off my monthly allowance.
Before I left for the holidays I did stop by the University campus to check on what was going on and the place was totally full of life. The students had gotten paid and he could just tell be the jovial atmosphere that was in Campus. At night all the drinking places were full of students and that is went you get to see some serious drinking. Guys would line up about four to five bottles of drinks in front of them and by the time people get home they are totally drunk. There are no examinations during the first term, so most of the students had been hanging around just waiting to get paid. The last week before everybody leaves for the Christmas break is a whole wild party.
In the evening we will all line up in the restaurant for the evening meal and as soon as darkness arrives everybody starts looking for the drinking spot. We take turns paying for the drinks and it gets to about midnight when places have to be closed and everybody then heads home to sleep. It is rumoured that some students end up needing to borrow money for their trip back home. This is after receiving 75,000CFA in just about a week. I remember while I was teaching in Christ the King College Tiko, a friend of mine who had stayed at the university showed up to borrow some money that would help get him home. He had drank up all of his monthly allowances and had felt short on change to get home. I got home for the christmas break and anybody was saying that I look very fresh and well rested. University life must be very good.
The christmas holidays were over very quickly and I hearded back to the university. This time around I joined Anjey Emmanue and another friend of ours from our days at CCAS Kumba and we rented a place close to the University. It was mainly a place that you could get some rest and sleep at night. We did not very much property in the place. Meals we would get in the restaurant. We now had to manage the 25,000CFA monthly allowance. It is funny how we always manage to run out of money before the next payment. You are suppose to budget the allowances very well but none of us were good at managing money. The exception was Anjey Emmanuel. He would use part of his money and buy enough meal tickets to get him through the monthly before he starts to spend the rest. He had been a day student while at CCAS Kumba and I guess that is where he got his money management skills. The rest of us will get are money and head first to get some clothes and at night hit the drinking spots. We will start managing the money when it is already to late and the time we get to the last week of the month we all will be depending on Anjey for his meal tickets. The guy would not give it to us though, who would blame him? We all got paid and none of us seems to be learning our lesson from one month to the other.School gets serious in Ngoa Ekelle during the second term.At this time you are back from the Holidays and the excitement of being in the University and getting paid a monthly allowance is all over.We had some cool lectures. There is only one guy that I remember who seem to want to get his way by threatening us each time he was in class.
Tabi-Manga was his name.Relatively young lecturer that had just returned from French and seem to be in a bad mood all the time. The guy had a nice looking automobile though.
Dr Lambo is a character also.He gave us a class in Literature. We studied part of the Bible with him starting with the book of Genesis and the Creation of Heaven and Earth. There was a French lady that taught us French Grammar. I remember her because her class was very well organised. The term came to a close and the last few days before everybody heads home is spend in the local drinking spots. You got high on alcohol for about four straight days before heading for home.During the third term you take the examination and actually wait for the results. I wasn't too sure how I was going to perform in the examination that gets you into the next class.
I took the exams just like everybody else and waited for the results to come out.At this time we had been in campus having a good time and when the result came out a lot of people including myself had failed. That dampened our spirits for a few days, but we had money to spend and we continued with our beer drinking nightly rountine. I headed home when the academic year came to an end. I could have come back to resit my exams in September but after talking to my brother we decided that I should plan on continuing my studies abroad. That was the end of my stay at Ngoa Ekelle
At the time there was only one university available for everybody and the University of Yaounde was the one. Getting admission into the University is not a problem once you pass your GCE advance levels.
The only problem was getting admitted into the section that you wanted to continue your studies in. I wanted to do Bilingual series and not everybody got admission there. You needed some decent grades. I went to Yaounde and stayed with a friend of my dad while going through the admission process.
I got admitted into the Bilingual series and a couple of friends were admitted into the same department. Mokoro Michael was in the class. He had stayed in Lycee Bilingue and completed his high school education there. Leukenza Michael was in the class. He too was from Lycee Bilingue Molyko.There was a fellow called Tabe John who was a class ahead of us while at Lycee. He was repeating the class (this was common in the university at the time).Ako Pauline was in the class. I had known her from CCAS Kumba.
Going to the University at the time, my plans were to get the University diploma and to look for a job as a translator at the Presidency. That is what most of the graduates from the Bilingual series do after completing their university education. The educational system at Yaoundé was tricky though for a number of reasons. First of all, except for those in the department of English, the University was a continuation of the Francophone educational system.
So if you were in say the department of History, you were required to take History courses in the French language, no matter your background. In theory lectures could be provided in either French or English, the two official languages in the country. But the reality was that a large majority of the lecturers were French speaking. Getting through the university was also tricky in that we did not operate on a credit type system.
You had to get a certain average (either 9 or 10 out of 20) in your combine courses to make it to the next class. It is not easy to get a 9 or 10 average at the university. Also if you are repeating a class and you failed, you get thrown out of the university. It took a total of three years to graduate, but quite a few people got thrown out of the university from the second year.
So in theory lets say you repeated the first year before going to the second and in the second year you failed after two attempts to get into your final year, you have just spend four years in the university with nothing to show for. Anyway I had gotten temporary living arrangements close to the University (I was living opposite ENAM) and I was to begin school in October.
There was something that the government was doing at the time though that attracted a lot of students to the University. There was a scholarship of 25,000FCFA that was given to students monthly. You get the first payment of the money just before you left for the Christmas holiday. The payment covered the months of October, November and December. So once you passed your advanced levels it made sense to at least register in the University and you can sojourn for a year and live on your scholarship, while looking at opportunities to study abroad.
The following people had also registered at the University coming out of high school. Sunny Aiyuk, Angel Emmanuel, Munu Christian, Aurelia Enow, Fombou Henry, Ndifang Michael , Oben Victor,Ejuba Wilson, Kepe Jackson,Foba Melvis, Yenika Eric, and Tamen Fred just to name a few. These are some of the people that I knew from my days in secondary school or high school.
The first two months at the university are usually boring because you are getting yourself acquainted with the new environment. Classed are going on and payment of the monthly allowance does not start until late December. You have to get some documents made during this period. You needed a national Identity card made in one of the Police Commissioner's offices. I still have mine that I made in 1982(it is now expired). You also needed to make a student ID card. This would allow you to get into the restaurant and once the monthly payments start flowing; you would need the ID card to collect your allowance.
The restaurant was a popular place for all the students. I believe you could get meal tickets for 75CFA. This would get you a lunch meal. The same amount would get you a meal in the evening also. Most people did not bother getting breakfast. It was considered a waste of money since the lunch and supper meals were really huge affairs. The first three months at Ngoe Ekelle came and passed and towards the end of December we were given a lump payment of three months worth of scholarship money. A grand total of 75,000CFA. I used part of the money to buy clothes(most university students did this to go show off once they get back to the provinces). I kept some of the money because come January I was going to be paying rent and basically living off my monthly allowance.
Before I left for the holidays I did stop by the University campus to check on what was going on and the place was totally full of life. The students had gotten paid and he could just tell be the jovial atmosphere that was in Campus. At night all the drinking places were full of students and that is went you get to see some serious drinking. Guys would line up about four to five bottles of drinks in front of them and by the time people get home they are totally drunk. There are no examinations during the first term, so most of the students had been hanging around just waiting to get paid. The last week before everybody leaves for the Christmas break is a whole wild party.
In the evening we will all line up in the restaurant for the evening meal and as soon as darkness arrives everybody starts looking for the drinking spot. We take turns paying for the drinks and it gets to about midnight when places have to be closed and everybody then heads home to sleep. It is rumoured that some students end up needing to borrow money for their trip back home. This is after receiving 75,000CFA in just about a week. I remember while I was teaching in Christ the King College Tiko, a friend of mine who had stayed at the university showed up to borrow some money that would help get him home. He had drank up all of his monthly allowances and had felt short on change to get home. I got home for the christmas break and anybody was saying that I look very fresh and well rested. University life must be very good.
The christmas holidays were over very quickly and I hearded back to the university. This time around I joined Anjey Emmanue and another friend of ours from our days at CCAS Kumba and we rented a place close to the University. It was mainly a place that you could get some rest and sleep at night. We did not very much property in the place. Meals we would get in the restaurant. We now had to manage the 25,000CFA monthly allowance. It is funny how we always manage to run out of money before the next payment. You are suppose to budget the allowances very well but none of us were good at managing money. The exception was Anjey Emmanuel. He would use part of his money and buy enough meal tickets to get him through the monthly before he starts to spend the rest. He had been a day student while at CCAS Kumba and I guess that is where he got his money management skills. The rest of us will get are money and head first to get some clothes and at night hit the drinking spots. We will start managing the money when it is already to late and the time we get to the last week of the month we all will be depending on Anjey for his meal tickets. The guy would not give it to us though, who would blame him? We all got paid and none of us seems to be learning our lesson from one month to the other.School gets serious in Ngoa Ekelle during the second term.At this time you are back from the Holidays and the excitement of being in the University and getting paid a monthly allowance is all over.We had some cool lectures. There is only one guy that I remember who seem to want to get his way by threatening us each time he was in class.
Tabi-Manga was his name.Relatively young lecturer that had just returned from French and seem to be in a bad mood all the time. The guy had a nice looking automobile though.
Dr Lambo is a character also.He gave us a class in Literature. We studied part of the Bible with him starting with the book of Genesis and the Creation of Heaven and Earth. There was a French lady that taught us French Grammar. I remember her because her class was very well organised. The term came to a close and the last few days before everybody heads home is spend in the local drinking spots. You got high on alcohol for about four straight days before heading for home.During the third term you take the examination and actually wait for the results. I wasn't too sure how I was going to perform in the examination that gets you into the next class.
I took the exams just like everybody else and waited for the results to come out.At this time we had been in campus having a good time and when the result came out a lot of people including myself had failed. That dampened our spirits for a few days, but we had money to spend and we continued with our beer drinking nightly rountine. I headed home when the academic year came to an end. I could have come back to resit my exams in September but after talking to my brother we decided that I should plan on continuing my studies abroad. That was the end of my stay at Ngoa Ekelle
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Bakassi Peninsula
The remaining part of the Bakassi Peninsula was handed over to Cameroon on Thursday the 14 of August. The Republic of Cameroon now has full jurisdiction over the Bakassi Peninsula. The few Nigerians that were interviewed express their disagreement with the situation,but had no choice but to accept the international accord.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Life in CCAS Kumba
During preparations to write the GCE ordinary levels you are asked to make a choice of two high schools that you would like to attend if you are successful in the examinations. You get to make a first choice and a second choice. The school that you designate as your first choice is the one that you really wanted to attend. The second choice is if at all things do not go too well with your first choice.
The schools that you have chosen will publish a list of those admitted into their high school based on those that took them as their first choice. In order words priority is given to those that designated them as their high school of preference. There are no interviews at all at this level. The high school publishes a list of those admitted into the school as well as a list of those admitted into the dormitory. I would have loved to continue my education at Bilingual grammar school Buea. But after being thrown out of the dormitory while going into form five I had no choice but to look for another institution. Cameroon College of Arts and Sciences (CCAS Kumba) as it is called was my first choice. Unlike Bilingual grammar school Buea, at this time it was a high school only institution. There was no secondary school attached to it like Bilingual grammar school Buea. It was located in Kumba, the commercial capital of the South West Province. I liked the fact that I could get admitted into the dormitory. Being a government institution, no fees were being paid at the time. When I got my result slip, I and my dad headed for Kumba to see either the Vice Principle or the Principle of the school.
We succeeded in seeing the Vice Principle. It was not necessary though, because the man explained to us that admission we be based strictly on GCE ordinary level grades and a list will be published within the next few days. I met Fonge Julius during this period. He too had come with his father to seek admission into the school. His father and my Dad had apparently known each another because they spend a lot of time talking to each other.
Musonge Gabriel, a close friend of mind from Bilingual grammar school Buea was here also trying to seek admission into CCAS Kumba. Nkeng Ernest was around, so were Akoachere George and a bunch of other students from Sasse College. These guys are going to be my new friends in CCAS Kumba. Anyway the list finally came out and I got admitted both into the high school and into the dormitory. I was very happy to be coming to both a new city and a new school.
I and my dad returned to Tiko and I started preparations for school that was to begin in the first week of October. I started high school in Kumba in the year 1980 and graduated in June 1982. High school here in Cameroon is for two years. Having secured a place in the dormitory, I headed for Kumba to begin high school.
The journey from Tiko where my parents are and Kumba is about a two hours drive. Heading into CCAS Kumba, I had made some friends already. Guys that I met while we were seeking admission into high school. Once I got admitted I was also made aware of people that I should know when I got into the school. CCAS Kumba was a "mixed" high school. Unlike Bilingual grammar Buea, at the time I got there, my new school had girls in it. That would be a positive change because you get to learn how to interact with females.
You are no longer all the time amongst your buddies. There were a total of three dormitories in the school. Dormitory A, Dorm B and Dorm C. Dormitories A and B were the boy’s dormitories while Dormitory C was designated for the girls. There was a restaurant which we used for different purposes including as a dancing floor, Assembly hall and a theatre hall. The restaurant was placed somewhere between dormitory B and dormitory C.
The classrooms were located not too far from where the dormitories were. In terms of hectares, CCAS Kumba is not a real big school. From any of the dormitories you can see the whole institution. None of our administrators lived on Campus or nearby. There was a total of one administrative home near campus and this was occupied by a discipline master. He did not interfere in student’s affairs though and it was hard to see him as a discipline master.
CCAS Kumba was an institution where the students were treated as grown ups and everybody maintained a high level of civility. At the time we were the only high school in Kumba and we were regarded with high esteem. When I arrived CCAS Kumba I was assigned to dormitory B. The living arrangements are organised so that you sleep in a bunk bed with the first year students occupying the upper beds. My bed was on top of a guy called Takim Cletus.
I knew him already. He was a class ahead of me while we were in Bilingual Grammar School Buea. For my studies I enrolled for three subjects, English Literature, French Literature and History. This was the Bilingual series. The History that we studied in CCAS Kumba was world affairs. World History that covered from the 1900s to present day. I had done a bit of it at my secondary school, so this was going to be a continuation. The English Literature was English literature as you know it. It involved African Literature (we studied "Arrow of God" by Chinua Achebe), but mostly books by English Authors. William Shakespeare, Chaucer, Thomas Hardy. Some of the books that we had to get were Hamlet, The Comedy of errors,Much Ado about Nothing, The Canterbury Tales, Far from the Madding Crowd, etc, etc.
For French Literature we studied some African authors like Camara Laye "L’Enfant Noir" but mostly French authors. People like Molière "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme". Before settling on three subjects, I toyed with the idea of adding Economics as a fourth subject but after a week of classes I decided that I should stay with three. Four subjects were going to be too much of a study load. It would not allow you any time for a social life and there was no guarantee that you would pass all four subjects at the GCE advance level exam.
None of the other Arts students was doing four subjects anyway. So I dropped Economics and stayed with English Literature, French Literature and History. The primary difference between being in secondary school in Buea and attending CCAS Kumba is that in Kumba your social life just takes off. You meet a lot of students from schools such as PSS Kumba, GSS Nyasoso, Frank Harcourt Kumba, and PSS Besongabang. These are all mixed schools and the students from these institutions had a balance between their studies and their personal life. People like us coming from a predominantly male school were going to be following their leads.
There were three social clubs at the time and all three clubs were doing serious recruiting of members. I got recruited into a club called UNESCO club. The then President was a guy called Tate Ernest. The Clubs had pictures displayed on the main administrative building. I took a look and said this is real serious. The idea behind club activities is that funds are raised through ball room dances that are organised on campus and contributions are also sought from external donors.
The external donors were mostly former students, enlightened lectures and generally people in town who can throw some weight around. The dances were organised in a rotating manner with each club giving the others a chance to organise and raised some funds after they have gotten their turn. Most of the events will take place early in the semester before studies get serious and as soon as the term examinations were over. A lot of people from out of town attended our dances. There was a high table in which executive members of each club get to sit on during the ball dances as well as some invited guests. Ladies to accompany them were designated before the dances take place.
Members of each club go around before the dances and made arrangements for the ladies that will sit in the high table and it was a great pride to sit on one of these tables. At my second year at CCAS Kumba I was the Secretary General of UNESCO (the second high ranking person in my club) and I got to sit on quite a few high tables. What you do is you designate a lady that you like and one of the club members will go talk to her during the week leading to the dance. Usually you would choice somebody that you like and of course with whom you are in good terms with. I was generally regarded as being "cool" so I did not have any problems getting the girls that I wanted to accompany me.
Most of those elected into the high positions in the Clubs had some charisma and the ladies were just as happy to accompany them. Your names get called and you both walked hand in hand to the table and take your sit. There is an opening dance record after which the floor is opened for everybody. After about an hour or two I believe the ladies were free to engage with whomever they wanted to get engage with. Just because a lady accompanies you to the high table did not imply that she is yours to keep. The ladies had boyfriends and at some point had to be with them.
The arrangement was so nice and I cannot think of any lady who turned down an invitation to the high table. On party days there was a lot of work for the club members. The hall we did not have to worry about because it belongs to the school and we had permission to use it at any convenient time. So long as we did not attempt to organise a party at a time close to the final examinations we where okay. There was nothing as arranging for security. That is not necessary in high school parties here in Cameroon. People do not come to parties here to fight. Everybody is well dressed up and ready for a good time.
The musical instruments were rented from a nightclub owner in town. The drink, we put down a deposit and got all the drinks that we wanted. We returned and got a full refund on the drinks that were unsold by the end of the party. The hall that we used was our restaurant, so there were chairs and tables available for us to use in the party. The club members were responsible for keeping the place clean before and after the party. This duty was assigned mainly to first year students.
That is one thing that I really like about CCAS Kumba. Just about every duty had been planned. First year students knew their duties and second year students knew theirs. You did not complain because the following year you would be a second year student and the chores that you did not like will now be passed to the lower class men. In the dormitory the up keep of the place was divided between the first year and second year students.
The other activity that made CCAS Kumba an interesting place while I was there is our soccer team. We won the soccer championship trophy the first year that I was at the school and we were cheated out of a second in my second year there. The year that I came in, the team was loaded with quality players all over the place. There were two second division professional teams in Kumba town and a lot of our players were regulars in the professional teams. The rest of the players had the quality to play for these teams but choose not to because they wanted to concentrate on their education. We had Nana,Edwin,Khasara,Nzokwelle,Eno Charles,Fombo Henry ,Tasinda,Kimbo,Oscar Elundu(Docteur)and Hencho, to name just a few.
Games were played in the Kumba town Green and in my first year we just crushed all the schools in the regular season. No defeats, no ties, all victories. It was not just the victory that we were getting; it was the manner in which we totally outclassed the other schools. Frank Harcourt, PSS Kumba, Government Technical School Kumba (our next door neighbour) were all pushed aside. We did the same during knock out competition and defeated GSS Nyasoso by 2 goals to zero in the finals to complete our perfect season.
During my second year a lot of our star players had graduated though we still had a decent team. We made it all the way to the finals match and we were disqualified before a reply of the finals was to take place. The opponent was GTHS Kumba and they had beaten us by 1 goal to 0 in the first leg of the finals. On the returned leg we beat them by 1 goal to 0 also. There was a player that we fielded (Esele) is his name that had been showed a red card in the first leg match. The rules at the time were not too clear but our understanding was that you only missed the match in which you were sent off. This was high school soccer not the pros. On the returned match there was no protest and Esele was allowed to play the game. He was our star player at the time and he scored the lone goal of the match giving us the victory. We were getting prepared for the replay when a notification was sent to us claiming that we fielded a suspended player and therefore lost the second match. GTHS was therefore declared champion of the season. We all got so angry and forfeiting matches in all other competitions such as handball and volleyball that we were involved in.The main reason that you get into high school is to prepare for the GCE advanced levels and these usually begins in the first year.There is a syllabus that you follow and you have to stick to it because just about all the examination questions will be coming from text that are included in the syllabus. Studies in the first year though is mainly geared towards getting you into the senior year where you actually sit for the examination.
During my first year I did some preparations by beginning to memorise some to the quotes in the French literature text that we used. That was going to help when the time came for essay writing. You are giving some questions and you are required to provide a written essay on them.Second year came and I believe I and some friends including Musonge Gabriel decided to stay in school and study for the short two week vacation that links the second to the third term. It was a brilliant idea in terms of staying in school during a period during which everybody is gone and thus have a quite period during which you could concentrate on your studies.The reality was that we were very hungry most of the time and it is very difficult to study on an empty stomach.The two weeks that we remained in campus we ended up getting up in the morning and visiting friends and relatives around the area to try and get some food.By the time that we got to campus we were pretty much tired and ready to rest.The two weeks went by and we were happy to welcome the rest of the student body, together with all the restaurant cooks.
I believe you pass the GCE advanced levels through your efforts for the combined period that you are in school.You attend classes and take notes and just keep up with current events for your History class and you would be okay.I can only thing of one person that passed the examination by virtually staying away from classes and pretty much doing everything by himself.I believe the fellow's name is Tokuff Ferdinand.Guy nevered showed up for classes especially during his second year.He was a day student and ended up with two Es.The Minimum passing grade.Quite a few students that attended classes and did all the studying ended up failing the exam.During the period leading to our taking the examination some strange events began taking place.
First of all there were rumours that one of our classmates was capable of literally picking up our brains. You do all the studying and he ends up with the knowledge. Eno Charles is the name of the guy falsely accussed.Problem was the fellow was popular in school and was a friend to just about all of us.Our school principle had to step in and assure us that it was impossibly for somebody to accomplish what we are accusing Eno of doing. We called our principle "Mola" and we all had a lot of respect for him. He got all the second year students into the reflectory and his speech went a long way towards calming all of us down.
There was one other incident, but this was actually during the examination period.The night before we took the first part of the history examination, news spread around that somebody had gotten hold of the examination questions earlier.It was just a mess because questions that were suppose to be on the examination were distributed.A lot of people stayed up all night memorising answers to these questions. I do not remember exactly what I did.It just knew that getting questions that late at night before the examinations and trying to memory the answers was just going to get you confused. It was History though and World Affairs was something that I was pretty strong in anyway so getting questions that late at night was not going to be any good.The day of the examination, I do not believe that any of the questions were on the question sheet.I wrote all the sections of the examination and departed for home in Tiko.
Of the three subjects that I wrote, English Literature, French Literature and History, English Literature was by far the most challenging.There was a section that we wrote and everybody came out of the examination room basically complaining.When the result came out I was at home in Tiko listening to the names being read out. The batteries in the radio had ran down so low that I heard my name and that I had passed in three subjects. I could not get my passing grades. A friend of mind in town though got the grades for me and they were History C, French Literature D and English Literature E.Just like I was anticipating, I barely squeeze out a passing grade in English Literature.I got my GCE advanced levels and it was time to start thinking about University(College studies).
The schools that you have chosen will publish a list of those admitted into their high school based on those that took them as their first choice. In order words priority is given to those that designated them as their high school of preference. There are no interviews at all at this level. The high school publishes a list of those admitted into the school as well as a list of those admitted into the dormitory. I would have loved to continue my education at Bilingual grammar school Buea. But after being thrown out of the dormitory while going into form five I had no choice but to look for another institution. Cameroon College of Arts and Sciences (CCAS Kumba) as it is called was my first choice. Unlike Bilingual grammar school Buea, at this time it was a high school only institution. There was no secondary school attached to it like Bilingual grammar school Buea. It was located in Kumba, the commercial capital of the South West Province. I liked the fact that I could get admitted into the dormitory. Being a government institution, no fees were being paid at the time. When I got my result slip, I and my dad headed for Kumba to see either the Vice Principle or the Principle of the school.
We succeeded in seeing the Vice Principle. It was not necessary though, because the man explained to us that admission we be based strictly on GCE ordinary level grades and a list will be published within the next few days. I met Fonge Julius during this period. He too had come with his father to seek admission into the school. His father and my Dad had apparently known each another because they spend a lot of time talking to each other.
Musonge Gabriel, a close friend of mind from Bilingual grammar school Buea was here also trying to seek admission into CCAS Kumba. Nkeng Ernest was around, so were Akoachere George and a bunch of other students from Sasse College. These guys are going to be my new friends in CCAS Kumba. Anyway the list finally came out and I got admitted both into the high school and into the dormitory. I was very happy to be coming to both a new city and a new school.
I and my dad returned to Tiko and I started preparations for school that was to begin in the first week of October. I started high school in Kumba in the year 1980 and graduated in June 1982. High school here in Cameroon is for two years. Having secured a place in the dormitory, I headed for Kumba to begin high school.
The journey from Tiko where my parents are and Kumba is about a two hours drive. Heading into CCAS Kumba, I had made some friends already. Guys that I met while we were seeking admission into high school. Once I got admitted I was also made aware of people that I should know when I got into the school. CCAS Kumba was a "mixed" high school. Unlike Bilingual grammar Buea, at the time I got there, my new school had girls in it. That would be a positive change because you get to learn how to interact with females.
You are no longer all the time amongst your buddies. There were a total of three dormitories in the school. Dormitory A, Dorm B and Dorm C. Dormitories A and B were the boy’s dormitories while Dormitory C was designated for the girls. There was a restaurant which we used for different purposes including as a dancing floor, Assembly hall and a theatre hall. The restaurant was placed somewhere between dormitory B and dormitory C.
The classrooms were located not too far from where the dormitories were. In terms of hectares, CCAS Kumba is not a real big school. From any of the dormitories you can see the whole institution. None of our administrators lived on Campus or nearby. There was a total of one administrative home near campus and this was occupied by a discipline master. He did not interfere in student’s affairs though and it was hard to see him as a discipline master.
CCAS Kumba was an institution where the students were treated as grown ups and everybody maintained a high level of civility. At the time we were the only high school in Kumba and we were regarded with high esteem. When I arrived CCAS Kumba I was assigned to dormitory B. The living arrangements are organised so that you sleep in a bunk bed with the first year students occupying the upper beds. My bed was on top of a guy called Takim Cletus.
I knew him already. He was a class ahead of me while we were in Bilingual Grammar School Buea. For my studies I enrolled for three subjects, English Literature, French Literature and History. This was the Bilingual series. The History that we studied in CCAS Kumba was world affairs. World History that covered from the 1900s to present day. I had done a bit of it at my secondary school, so this was going to be a continuation. The English Literature was English literature as you know it. It involved African Literature (we studied "Arrow of God" by Chinua Achebe), but mostly books by English Authors. William Shakespeare, Chaucer, Thomas Hardy. Some of the books that we had to get were Hamlet, The Comedy of errors,Much Ado about Nothing, The Canterbury Tales, Far from the Madding Crowd, etc, etc.
For French Literature we studied some African authors like Camara Laye "L’Enfant Noir" but mostly French authors. People like Molière "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme". Before settling on three subjects, I toyed with the idea of adding Economics as a fourth subject but after a week of classes I decided that I should stay with three. Four subjects were going to be too much of a study load. It would not allow you any time for a social life and there was no guarantee that you would pass all four subjects at the GCE advance level exam.
None of the other Arts students was doing four subjects anyway. So I dropped Economics and stayed with English Literature, French Literature and History. The primary difference between being in secondary school in Buea and attending CCAS Kumba is that in Kumba your social life just takes off. You meet a lot of students from schools such as PSS Kumba, GSS Nyasoso, Frank Harcourt Kumba, and PSS Besongabang. These are all mixed schools and the students from these institutions had a balance between their studies and their personal life. People like us coming from a predominantly male school were going to be following their leads.
There were three social clubs at the time and all three clubs were doing serious recruiting of members. I got recruited into a club called UNESCO club. The then President was a guy called Tate Ernest. The Clubs had pictures displayed on the main administrative building. I took a look and said this is real serious. The idea behind club activities is that funds are raised through ball room dances that are organised on campus and contributions are also sought from external donors.
The external donors were mostly former students, enlightened lectures and generally people in town who can throw some weight around. The dances were organised in a rotating manner with each club giving the others a chance to organise and raised some funds after they have gotten their turn. Most of the events will take place early in the semester before studies get serious and as soon as the term examinations were over. A lot of people from out of town attended our dances. There was a high table in which executive members of each club get to sit on during the ball dances as well as some invited guests. Ladies to accompany them were designated before the dances take place.
Members of each club go around before the dances and made arrangements for the ladies that will sit in the high table and it was a great pride to sit on one of these tables. At my second year at CCAS Kumba I was the Secretary General of UNESCO (the second high ranking person in my club) and I got to sit on quite a few high tables. What you do is you designate a lady that you like and one of the club members will go talk to her during the week leading to the dance. Usually you would choice somebody that you like and of course with whom you are in good terms with. I was generally regarded as being "cool" so I did not have any problems getting the girls that I wanted to accompany me.
Most of those elected into the high positions in the Clubs had some charisma and the ladies were just as happy to accompany them. Your names get called and you both walked hand in hand to the table and take your sit. There is an opening dance record after which the floor is opened for everybody. After about an hour or two I believe the ladies were free to engage with whomever they wanted to get engage with. Just because a lady accompanies you to the high table did not imply that she is yours to keep. The ladies had boyfriends and at some point had to be with them.
The arrangement was so nice and I cannot think of any lady who turned down an invitation to the high table. On party days there was a lot of work for the club members. The hall we did not have to worry about because it belongs to the school and we had permission to use it at any convenient time. So long as we did not attempt to organise a party at a time close to the final examinations we where okay. There was nothing as arranging for security. That is not necessary in high school parties here in Cameroon. People do not come to parties here to fight. Everybody is well dressed up and ready for a good time.
The musical instruments were rented from a nightclub owner in town. The drink, we put down a deposit and got all the drinks that we wanted. We returned and got a full refund on the drinks that were unsold by the end of the party. The hall that we used was our restaurant, so there were chairs and tables available for us to use in the party. The club members were responsible for keeping the place clean before and after the party. This duty was assigned mainly to first year students.
That is one thing that I really like about CCAS Kumba. Just about every duty had been planned. First year students knew their duties and second year students knew theirs. You did not complain because the following year you would be a second year student and the chores that you did not like will now be passed to the lower class men. In the dormitory the up keep of the place was divided between the first year and second year students.
The other activity that made CCAS Kumba an interesting place while I was there is our soccer team. We won the soccer championship trophy the first year that I was at the school and we were cheated out of a second in my second year there. The year that I came in, the team was loaded with quality players all over the place. There were two second division professional teams in Kumba town and a lot of our players were regulars in the professional teams. The rest of the players had the quality to play for these teams but choose not to because they wanted to concentrate on their education. We had Nana,Edwin,Khasara,Nzokwelle,Eno Charles,Fombo Henry ,Tasinda,Kimbo,Oscar Elundu(Docteur)and Hencho, to name just a few.
Games were played in the Kumba town Green and in my first year we just crushed all the schools in the regular season. No defeats, no ties, all victories. It was not just the victory that we were getting; it was the manner in which we totally outclassed the other schools. Frank Harcourt, PSS Kumba, Government Technical School Kumba (our next door neighbour) were all pushed aside. We did the same during knock out competition and defeated GSS Nyasoso by 2 goals to zero in the finals to complete our perfect season.
During my second year a lot of our star players had graduated though we still had a decent team. We made it all the way to the finals match and we were disqualified before a reply of the finals was to take place. The opponent was GTHS Kumba and they had beaten us by 1 goal to 0 in the first leg of the finals. On the returned leg we beat them by 1 goal to 0 also. There was a player that we fielded (Esele) is his name that had been showed a red card in the first leg match. The rules at the time were not too clear but our understanding was that you only missed the match in which you were sent off. This was high school soccer not the pros. On the returned match there was no protest and Esele was allowed to play the game. He was our star player at the time and he scored the lone goal of the match giving us the victory. We were getting prepared for the replay when a notification was sent to us claiming that we fielded a suspended player and therefore lost the second match. GTHS was therefore declared champion of the season. We all got so angry and forfeiting matches in all other competitions such as handball and volleyball that we were involved in.The main reason that you get into high school is to prepare for the GCE advanced levels and these usually begins in the first year.There is a syllabus that you follow and you have to stick to it because just about all the examination questions will be coming from text that are included in the syllabus. Studies in the first year though is mainly geared towards getting you into the senior year where you actually sit for the examination.
During my first year I did some preparations by beginning to memorise some to the quotes in the French literature text that we used. That was going to help when the time came for essay writing. You are giving some questions and you are required to provide a written essay on them.Second year came and I believe I and some friends including Musonge Gabriel decided to stay in school and study for the short two week vacation that links the second to the third term. It was a brilliant idea in terms of staying in school during a period during which everybody is gone and thus have a quite period during which you could concentrate on your studies.The reality was that we were very hungry most of the time and it is very difficult to study on an empty stomach.The two weeks that we remained in campus we ended up getting up in the morning and visiting friends and relatives around the area to try and get some food.By the time that we got to campus we were pretty much tired and ready to rest.The two weeks went by and we were happy to welcome the rest of the student body, together with all the restaurant cooks.
I believe you pass the GCE advanced levels through your efforts for the combined period that you are in school.You attend classes and take notes and just keep up with current events for your History class and you would be okay.I can only thing of one person that passed the examination by virtually staying away from classes and pretty much doing everything by himself.I believe the fellow's name is Tokuff Ferdinand.Guy nevered showed up for classes especially during his second year.He was a day student and ended up with two Es.The Minimum passing grade.Quite a few students that attended classes and did all the studying ended up failing the exam.During the period leading to our taking the examination some strange events began taking place.
First of all there were rumours that one of our classmates was capable of literally picking up our brains. You do all the studying and he ends up with the knowledge. Eno Charles is the name of the guy falsely accussed.Problem was the fellow was popular in school and was a friend to just about all of us.Our school principle had to step in and assure us that it was impossibly for somebody to accomplish what we are accusing Eno of doing. We called our principle "Mola" and we all had a lot of respect for him. He got all the second year students into the reflectory and his speech went a long way towards calming all of us down.
There was one other incident, but this was actually during the examination period.The night before we took the first part of the history examination, news spread around that somebody had gotten hold of the examination questions earlier.It was just a mess because questions that were suppose to be on the examination were distributed.A lot of people stayed up all night memorising answers to these questions. I do not remember exactly what I did.It just knew that getting questions that late at night before the examinations and trying to memory the answers was just going to get you confused. It was History though and World Affairs was something that I was pretty strong in anyway so getting questions that late at night was not going to be any good.The day of the examination, I do not believe that any of the questions were on the question sheet.I wrote all the sections of the examination and departed for home in Tiko.
Of the three subjects that I wrote, English Literature, French Literature and History, English Literature was by far the most challenging.There was a section that we wrote and everybody came out of the examination room basically complaining.When the result came out I was at home in Tiko listening to the names being read out. The batteries in the radio had ran down so low that I heard my name and that I had passed in three subjects. I could not get my passing grades. A friend of mind in town though got the grades for me and they were History C, French Literature D and English Literature E.Just like I was anticipating, I barely squeeze out a passing grade in English Literature.I got my GCE advanced levels and it was time to start thinking about University(College studies).
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Lycee Bilingue
The Bilingual Grammar School,located in Molyko,Buea used to be known just as "lycée Bilingue" while I attended it in the 70s.At the time it was one of only two Government Bilingual Grammar schools that existed in the country.The other one was located in the nation's capital in Yaoundé.
I knew a number of students that attended the famous school before I got there.The list included Kum Joseph Marine who I had met in Ndongo.As a matter of fact he gave me some to his text books from form one as soon he heard that I had passed my interview. When our family left Ndongo and relocated to Clerk’s Quarters in Tiko I met Embola Michael who was our next door neighbour.Embola was going to form three at the time.
The first day of school I accompanied him. There is something called maltreatment of new students and it is always a good idea to have someone from a higher class accompany you to school. This would at least buy you some time on your first day at school. All newly admitted students got admission into the dormitory also. Day students were rare at the time. A few girls that were present in the school at the time were day student. We had about three to four girls in our class.
I remember Akonobo Emilia, She was the Vice Principle's daughter. There was also a girl called Mafany.There was also Stella Mbonteh and Ful Magdeline.The first day I that I got to lycée, I ran into Weledji Conrad. He was a class mate of Michael Embola at the time and the guy could not stop pestering me.”Sixieme, Sixieme”, that is how they call freshmen in the school.
There was no physical contact though but he made sure that I knew he was a presence in the school. The first day in school is usually a Sunday. So you get your belongings and they show you your dormitory. You are given a bed and a mattress. Freshmen get a grass mattress. It is only when you get into form two that you get a mattress made of foam material. Our mattresses were a little bit rusty, staining the white bed sheets that I had brought from home.
The dormitory for freshmen was located close to the home of the Vice Principle and the Disciplinary Master. We occupied the ground and first floor of the building. There was an additional floor up stairs for the “Cinquieme”students.You do not want to ever make a mistake and find youself in this floor. The form two students there will throw their weight around, having just graduated from the bottom of the student chain. In Lycee Molyko, once you get into form two you are home free. Nobody messes with you anymore. All the maltreatment is for the freshmen. There was somebody called a “maitre”, we called them metro, who was incharged of each dormitory. Ours was a guy from the French speaking part of Cameroon.
The dormitories at Lycee were really impressive. Tiles covered the rest room areas of the dormitory. This included the toilet and shower areas. There were sinks in the bedroom area, with wall mirrors in front of each sink. The toilets were state of the act with flushing capabilities. On a few of the dormitories you could get both cold and hot water(Buea is located at the foot of mount Cameroon and it can get real cold in the morning).
Most dormitories only had cold water though.Lycee was an institution with modern infrastructures and we were all happy to be there. I started to make some friends right away.Musonge Gabriel,Njukwe Charles,Tamen Fred,Ekiti Ernest,Ngatchu Theodore,Ewusi Bruno and Ebai Samuel were all friends and classmates.
Sunny Aiyuk came in to lycee from Government technical school Ombe during the third term in Lycee and he blended in immediately. The guy came in and did not behave like a new comer at all. He was totally fearless and we all took to him. He was from Kumba and he and Ebai Samuel will be close friends for some time.
From form two Forcha Beltus,Anjey Victor,Emile Fonderson became friends as soon as the initial harassment period was over. We started classes on Monday and the most challenging of the classes will be French that was taught by a guy from Belgium named VanDorpe.Married to an African Lady, the guy wore a wig(that is what the form two students told us)I could not tell at the time.
The very idea of going into a Bilingual Grammar School is to come out a Bilingual Student. It is a brilliant concept, though I think it is started a little bit late. Presently in Cameroon, they have gotten it right because from nursery school, kids are introduced to the French language, so that by the time they get into Secondary school they can read and write both French and English.
Anyway, what happened in Lycee is that there are two freshmen classes, one for the English speaking students and another for the French speaking students. The idea is that in form three we will combine and take courses in both languages. So an Anglophone student will be able to study “histoire et géographie”, that is History and Geography in French, while a francophone student will be able to study history and Geography.
What we the Anglophones found out the hard way is that two years of “intensive» French still does not prepare you to be able to function very well in these French courses. As a matter of fact at this point of time you still had problems in your own main language which was the English language. Part of the problem with the English language is that there is a third spoken language in Cameroon called “Pidgin” English. You grow up speaking this until age six,when you go to primary school.Pidgin english is a broken language that totally screws up your ability to learn the English Language correctly.
What we the Anglophones found out was that the only students who were completely bilingual were a few students that were born of Anglophone parents but had pursued the French system of education while in Primary School. You had students like Manyitabot, Mbulle Pierre, Ayukache and Ebekwe Godwin who were Anglophones but had attended their primary school in the French system of education.
I believed all of them passed the "BEPC"(French equivalent of the GCE ordinary levels) but opted to continue their education in the Anglophone system. They came into Lycee Molyko already Bilingual. I cannot think of any Francophone student who mastered enough of the English language to be able to sit for the GCE Ordinary levels.
By mingling with students from the French part of the country, you do pick up the French language much faster that somebody who is studying French in a traditional Anglophone school. You get to know the terminology much faster. I remember people that made friends easily with francophones started speaking French much earlier.
Writing French though is another issue.Up till today I can speak French fluently but writing it is still challenging. These were the students who would pass with ease the “BEPC”; this is the French equivalent of the GCE ordinary levels that we all are suppose to take in form four.
It is an examination design for students that have gone through the French system of education, but we all are suppose to sit for it at the end of our fourth year. Very few Anglophones pass the exam and it did not bother us at the time because our main aim was the GCE.The few Anglophones students that passed the BEPC were people like Njukwe Charles,Tabi Makia,Ngatchu Theodore, students who were exceptionally brilliant and very good in mathematics.
In my first year of studies in Lycee, apart from the French language the only other course that was challenging was mathematics. We had a guy called Nkwenti who taught us mathematics. Very dark in complexion man who wore glasses. I wasn't at the top of my class in Lycee.I was somewhere in the top twenty to thirty percent. I believe my average position was usually 17 out of about 50 students. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. My parents were happy with my results as long as I kept passing from one class to the order.
I passed from form one to form two and at the end of the third term we were given a letter stating that henceforth to stay in the dormitory there will be a fee of twenty seven thousand francs for the whole year, making it nine thousand francs per term. I showed my parents the letter and everything was okay. In form two we were now out of the freshman doldrums.
Nobody messes with you anymore. It was now all based on your personal strength. We saw the freshmen come in. I never did take part in any maltreatment of new students. First of all as a freshman I knew so many upper schools students, and nobody really tried to mess me up. Some of the freshmen we made friends with immediately.Ngone Henry, Peter Asanga, Ndumbe Edney were some of the popular students coming in.
Form two at Lycee went just as smoothly as form one. I passed to form three. In form three you had to make a decision on whether you are going to continue your education as an "Art" or as a "Science" student. You begin narrowing down the courses that you take inorder to prepare for the GCE ordinary levels. I therefore stopped taking courses in Physics and Chemistry.
Generally students that choose the sciences option are suppose to be better students. In the Arts section there will be me,Mokoro Michael,Chibili Michael,Ekiti Ernest,Ebekwe Godwin,Mbule Pierre,Tamen Fred,Ayukache,just to name a few.
Form three was also the school year in which were start taking course in the French language in preparation for the BEPC.So it was welcome to the world of “Histoire,Geographie,Mathematique,Biologie,etc”.The BEPC was to take place in form four. We struggled mightily in the French courses. We knew a lot of the material but the language was an issue.
There were some interesting francophone that that we made friends with. People like Ebelle,Mbiang came in by the time we were in form three.Francophones have a habit of skipping from one school to another. During my stay in Lycee there will be a lot of students that you would see for one year and you would never see them again. Most Anglophones choose a school and stay there for the duration of their studies. I passed to form four and that was the year that we sat for the BEPC.I did not care much about the exam. I studied the best that I could but did not make it in the exam. My dad was not too happy with my results, but it did not bother me too much. Few Anglophones were passing the examination anyway and I did not particularly see where the BEPC was going to take me in the future.
Form four was over and I passed the examination into form five. A funny thing happened though at the end of the fourth year in Lycee, some students were thrown out of the dormitories. I was one of them.Uptil today I cannot think of any reason that would have gotten me thrown out of the dormitory. My grades were good; I did not get into trouble at all. I was shocked and very disturbed by the news. How could I be a day student(the term for students who lived out of the dormitory).I was so young, had no relatives that lived close to the institution,had no idea how to cook and my parents are not rich people.
Form five, the year that I sat for the GCE was a very tough year for me. When I reported to start the term, I had no idea where I was going to be living. I left home and just came to Molyko the Sunday before school was to resume. Luckily two of my friends,Ebai Samuel and Aiyuk Sunny had also been thrown out of the dormitory. They found a place in Molyko that they rented and I shared the place with them.Ngatchu Theodore joined us later to make it four of us in the place when he found out that he too had been thrown out of the dormitory.
The person responsible for all of this mess is a guy called Thamfack Thomas. He camed to Lycee as the new principle replacing Meva who had been there for quite some time. The guy, tall and built physically like a military commander gave the impression that he was there to clean up the image of the school. He had been send to change things. He came in while I was at form four and the guy totally changed the image of the school for the worse I would say. When I got into four five, Mr Thamfack had admitted so many students we ended up with a form five A and a form five B.
The first time in the history of the school that the fifth year got so full so much so that the class had to be split into two.The trend will trickle down to the rest of classes as this guy continued his term at the head of Lycee Molyko.I believe the guy started to take bribes to get students into the school, for all of a sudden you started seeing a lot of unqualified students in the school. If you go to Lycee today, there are no dormitories anymore.
The dormitories have been turned into classes. So has every other available hall in the campus. The restaurant has long gone; the halls that we used to have recreational activities are also gone. They have all been transformed into classes. The arrival of Thamfack started Lycee on a path that will see its total decline.
Today I hear parents prefer taking their children into mission schools.We had some very interesting lecturers at lycee.Starting from form one I remember a lady from the north west Province called Wilmum Claire. She taught us Biology.Single at the time she made her weight felt in a school that was dominated by males.I remember Mrs Darney(Oh! Doctor what a wonderful thermometer).She taught us English language and her husband was incharge of the provincial radio station of the South West Province located in Buea.
Mr Babila is another character that was suppose to be teaching us Mathematics while we were in form four. You wouldn't believe this but I can count with my five figures the number of times that this guy showed up to give us lectures.The man was involved in a lot of activities out of his regular teaching.He was a businessman,he drove a cab,he played soccer for a Division one side.He would at times show up to give lectures to our brothers who were in form five,their classroom located just above ours.As soon as he is done with them he would be gone.We would at times see him sneaking out of the school campus and it was so funny we will all be laughing.Good thing we had a different math tutor by the time we got into form five and starting serious preparations towards GCE ordinary levels.
Miss(at the time) Ebob Mbiwan(chocolate colour with a gap tooth up front) was popular.She taught us English Literature in Form five."To kill a Mockingbird"was one of the novels that we dealt with.Good looking lady,she landed in lycee fresh out of a University in Nigeria and all the male lecturers were drooling.
Some of the french speaking lectures were just awesome characters.We had this guy straight out of the University and recruited to teach in Lycee. He comes in the class with all the confidence in the world and says"mes amis m'appelle Yuk".So we all jumped up and starting calling him Yuk and he comes right back with "Vous n'etes pas mes amis"shaking and nodding his head.
Some of the characters were administrators.We had the discipline master at the time."Monsieur Gwaté".He used to scare the hell out of all of us.Each time we see the guy we would be saying to each other"Gwate de came,Gwaté de came".The guy picked on it and came to one of your night study sections and was yelling "chaque fois vous dites Gwaté de came,Gwaté da came, je ne veut plus entendre ça"He use to say "ça ne se fera jamais ici au lycéé".
Gwaté would go after Weledji who gave him a lot of trouble and he would yell "Weledji viens ici".
Our first Principle was the coolest principle of all time.A lot of us got an education at the time thanks to him.Everybody during his tenure got to lycee on merit.He was very open with the students and would play soccer with the school team when he was invited.He started all his speeches with "Je suis très très content".Even at a time when there was a student strike in the school, he called everbody together and started with "Je suis trés trés content".The strike happened while I was in form two and it was caused by the fact that the school administration went silent after Lycee won a 1 million franc CFA price for agricultural performance.At the time the Cameroon government ran a program called green revolution.The school with the best performance for agricultural output was to get the first price of 1 million CFA franc.
There was also complain about the poor quality of food.I was only in form two and did not know who were the ring leaders of the strike.The school made amends though.A "Grand Répare" was organised and everybody enjoyed the feast.The quality of food in the restaurant was also upgraded.The sad part was some of the ring leaders of the strike got expelled from school.Getting expelled from school was a big deal then.
There was Mr Esai, a friend of my Dad.Mr Esai taught us English language in form three.The guy had a handicap left hand(we did not make fun of that).He was noted though for protecting his daughter who was one class ahead of us.Word got around very fast that you don't mess around with Mr Esai's daughter.There was a guy in form five though that tried.
Ojong was his name.Small guy with a big heart. I do not know how far he went.Lucky for him I was not aware of Mr Esai's daughter being pregnant at any time.
The reason you get into a secondary school is to get some education and also to get the qualification to show that you did not just throw away five years of your life.Passing the GCE ordinary levels was the goal after five years of studies and I registered for 9 subjects in total.It was originally just eight but somebody within our cycle of friends came out with a brilliant idea that we could all pick up an easy A grade in the GCE by adding Commerce to our list of selected subjects.
At the time it was explained that having the A grade would be like a walk in the park.Quite a few of us jumped into the bang wagon and starting studying Commerce in Form five.No prior classes on it.It was suppose to be a junior brother to Economics.If you can pass Economics, read the Commerce test book and you would be Okay.
We all ended up failing the subject.I did not find out though until much later.Okay,being in form five means that you have been preparing for the GCE ordinary levels for two years now.Some subjects such as Biology,we started the syllabus in form three.The examination itself was never going to be a problem.If you spent five years in lycee you are suppose to pass the GCE ordinary levels,no excuse for failing.I hated the fact thought that a lot of us were taking the examinations as day students.Come to think of it,I will try to go through the list of those that were living off campus.Njukwe Charles,Musonge Gabriel,Mbulle Pierre,Sunny Aiyuk,Ebai Samuel,Eric Tambe,Munu Christian,Ngatchu Theodore to name just of few.
Tamfack had just gone mad and kick a lot of decent students out of the dormitory.We eat some real strange meals.There is a saying that no matter what you cook you yourself can always eat it.GCE ordinary levels ran for a period of about a month and the morning after the examination ended I was headed home.After living as a day student for a year you get to appreciate what students that are day students all their lives go through.
I knew a number of students that attended the famous school before I got there.The list included Kum Joseph Marine who I had met in Ndongo.As a matter of fact he gave me some to his text books from form one as soon he heard that I had passed my interview. When our family left Ndongo and relocated to Clerk’s Quarters in Tiko I met Embola Michael who was our next door neighbour.Embola was going to form three at the time.
The first day of school I accompanied him. There is something called maltreatment of new students and it is always a good idea to have someone from a higher class accompany you to school. This would at least buy you some time on your first day at school. All newly admitted students got admission into the dormitory also. Day students were rare at the time. A few girls that were present in the school at the time were day student. We had about three to four girls in our class.
I remember Akonobo Emilia, She was the Vice Principle's daughter. There was also a girl called Mafany.There was also Stella Mbonteh and Ful Magdeline.The first day I that I got to lycée, I ran into Weledji Conrad. He was a class mate of Michael Embola at the time and the guy could not stop pestering me.”Sixieme, Sixieme”, that is how they call freshmen in the school.
There was no physical contact though but he made sure that I knew he was a presence in the school. The first day in school is usually a Sunday. So you get your belongings and they show you your dormitory. You are given a bed and a mattress. Freshmen get a grass mattress. It is only when you get into form two that you get a mattress made of foam material. Our mattresses were a little bit rusty, staining the white bed sheets that I had brought from home.
The dormitory for freshmen was located close to the home of the Vice Principle and the Disciplinary Master. We occupied the ground and first floor of the building. There was an additional floor up stairs for the “Cinquieme”students.You do not want to ever make a mistake and find youself in this floor. The form two students there will throw their weight around, having just graduated from the bottom of the student chain. In Lycee Molyko, once you get into form two you are home free. Nobody messes with you anymore. All the maltreatment is for the freshmen. There was somebody called a “maitre”, we called them metro, who was incharged of each dormitory. Ours was a guy from the French speaking part of Cameroon.
The dormitories at Lycee were really impressive. Tiles covered the rest room areas of the dormitory. This included the toilet and shower areas. There were sinks in the bedroom area, with wall mirrors in front of each sink. The toilets were state of the act with flushing capabilities. On a few of the dormitories you could get both cold and hot water(Buea is located at the foot of mount Cameroon and it can get real cold in the morning).
Most dormitories only had cold water though.Lycee was an institution with modern infrastructures and we were all happy to be there. I started to make some friends right away.Musonge Gabriel,Njukwe Charles,Tamen Fred,Ekiti Ernest,Ngatchu Theodore,Ewusi Bruno and Ebai Samuel were all friends and classmates.
Sunny Aiyuk came in to lycee from Government technical school Ombe during the third term in Lycee and he blended in immediately. The guy came in and did not behave like a new comer at all. He was totally fearless and we all took to him. He was from Kumba and he and Ebai Samuel will be close friends for some time.
From form two Forcha Beltus,Anjey Victor,Emile Fonderson became friends as soon as the initial harassment period was over. We started classes on Monday and the most challenging of the classes will be French that was taught by a guy from Belgium named VanDorpe.Married to an African Lady, the guy wore a wig(that is what the form two students told us)I could not tell at the time.
The very idea of going into a Bilingual Grammar School is to come out a Bilingual Student. It is a brilliant concept, though I think it is started a little bit late. Presently in Cameroon, they have gotten it right because from nursery school, kids are introduced to the French language, so that by the time they get into Secondary school they can read and write both French and English.
Anyway, what happened in Lycee is that there are two freshmen classes, one for the English speaking students and another for the French speaking students. The idea is that in form three we will combine and take courses in both languages. So an Anglophone student will be able to study “histoire et géographie”, that is History and Geography in French, while a francophone student will be able to study history and Geography.
What we the Anglophones found out the hard way is that two years of “intensive» French still does not prepare you to be able to function very well in these French courses. As a matter of fact at this point of time you still had problems in your own main language which was the English language. Part of the problem with the English language is that there is a third spoken language in Cameroon called “Pidgin” English. You grow up speaking this until age six,when you go to primary school.Pidgin english is a broken language that totally screws up your ability to learn the English Language correctly.
What we the Anglophones found out was that the only students who were completely bilingual were a few students that were born of Anglophone parents but had pursued the French system of education while in Primary School. You had students like Manyitabot, Mbulle Pierre, Ayukache and Ebekwe Godwin who were Anglophones but had attended their primary school in the French system of education.
I believed all of them passed the "BEPC"(French equivalent of the GCE ordinary levels) but opted to continue their education in the Anglophone system. They came into Lycee Molyko already Bilingual. I cannot think of any Francophone student who mastered enough of the English language to be able to sit for the GCE Ordinary levels.
By mingling with students from the French part of the country, you do pick up the French language much faster that somebody who is studying French in a traditional Anglophone school. You get to know the terminology much faster. I remember people that made friends easily with francophones started speaking French much earlier.
Writing French though is another issue.Up till today I can speak French fluently but writing it is still challenging. These were the students who would pass with ease the “BEPC”; this is the French equivalent of the GCE ordinary levels that we all are suppose to take in form four.
It is an examination design for students that have gone through the French system of education, but we all are suppose to sit for it at the end of our fourth year. Very few Anglophones pass the exam and it did not bother us at the time because our main aim was the GCE.The few Anglophones students that passed the BEPC were people like Njukwe Charles,Tabi Makia,Ngatchu Theodore, students who were exceptionally brilliant and very good in mathematics.
In my first year of studies in Lycee, apart from the French language the only other course that was challenging was mathematics. We had a guy called Nkwenti who taught us mathematics. Very dark in complexion man who wore glasses. I wasn't at the top of my class in Lycee.I was somewhere in the top twenty to thirty percent. I believe my average position was usually 17 out of about 50 students. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. My parents were happy with my results as long as I kept passing from one class to the order.
I passed from form one to form two and at the end of the third term we were given a letter stating that henceforth to stay in the dormitory there will be a fee of twenty seven thousand francs for the whole year, making it nine thousand francs per term. I showed my parents the letter and everything was okay. In form two we were now out of the freshman doldrums.
Nobody messes with you anymore. It was now all based on your personal strength. We saw the freshmen come in. I never did take part in any maltreatment of new students. First of all as a freshman I knew so many upper schools students, and nobody really tried to mess me up. Some of the freshmen we made friends with immediately.Ngone Henry, Peter Asanga, Ndumbe Edney were some of the popular students coming in.
Form two at Lycee went just as smoothly as form one. I passed to form three. In form three you had to make a decision on whether you are going to continue your education as an "Art" or as a "Science" student. You begin narrowing down the courses that you take inorder to prepare for the GCE ordinary levels. I therefore stopped taking courses in Physics and Chemistry.
Generally students that choose the sciences option are suppose to be better students. In the Arts section there will be me,Mokoro Michael,Chibili Michael,Ekiti Ernest,Ebekwe Godwin,Mbule Pierre,Tamen Fred,Ayukache,just to name a few.
Form three was also the school year in which were start taking course in the French language in preparation for the BEPC.So it was welcome to the world of “Histoire,Geographie,Mathematique,Biologie,etc”.The BEPC was to take place in form four. We struggled mightily in the French courses. We knew a lot of the material but the language was an issue.
There were some interesting francophone that that we made friends with. People like Ebelle,Mbiang came in by the time we were in form three.Francophones have a habit of skipping from one school to another. During my stay in Lycee there will be a lot of students that you would see for one year and you would never see them again. Most Anglophones choose a school and stay there for the duration of their studies. I passed to form four and that was the year that we sat for the BEPC.I did not care much about the exam. I studied the best that I could but did not make it in the exam. My dad was not too happy with my results, but it did not bother me too much. Few Anglophones were passing the examination anyway and I did not particularly see where the BEPC was going to take me in the future.
Form four was over and I passed the examination into form five. A funny thing happened though at the end of the fourth year in Lycee, some students were thrown out of the dormitories. I was one of them.Uptil today I cannot think of any reason that would have gotten me thrown out of the dormitory. My grades were good; I did not get into trouble at all. I was shocked and very disturbed by the news. How could I be a day student(the term for students who lived out of the dormitory).I was so young, had no relatives that lived close to the institution,had no idea how to cook and my parents are not rich people.
Form five, the year that I sat for the GCE was a very tough year for me. When I reported to start the term, I had no idea where I was going to be living. I left home and just came to Molyko the Sunday before school was to resume. Luckily two of my friends,Ebai Samuel and Aiyuk Sunny had also been thrown out of the dormitory. They found a place in Molyko that they rented and I shared the place with them.Ngatchu Theodore joined us later to make it four of us in the place when he found out that he too had been thrown out of the dormitory.
The person responsible for all of this mess is a guy called Thamfack Thomas. He camed to Lycee as the new principle replacing Meva who had been there for quite some time. The guy, tall and built physically like a military commander gave the impression that he was there to clean up the image of the school. He had been send to change things. He came in while I was at form four and the guy totally changed the image of the school for the worse I would say. When I got into four five, Mr Thamfack had admitted so many students we ended up with a form five A and a form five B.
The first time in the history of the school that the fifth year got so full so much so that the class had to be split into two.The trend will trickle down to the rest of classes as this guy continued his term at the head of Lycee Molyko.I believe the guy started to take bribes to get students into the school, for all of a sudden you started seeing a lot of unqualified students in the school. If you go to Lycee today, there are no dormitories anymore.
The dormitories have been turned into classes. So has every other available hall in the campus. The restaurant has long gone; the halls that we used to have recreational activities are also gone. They have all been transformed into classes. The arrival of Thamfack started Lycee on a path that will see its total decline.
Today I hear parents prefer taking their children into mission schools.We had some very interesting lecturers at lycee.Starting from form one I remember a lady from the north west Province called Wilmum Claire. She taught us Biology.Single at the time she made her weight felt in a school that was dominated by males.I remember Mrs Darney(Oh! Doctor what a wonderful thermometer).She taught us English language and her husband was incharge of the provincial radio station of the South West Province located in Buea.
Mr Babila is another character that was suppose to be teaching us Mathematics while we were in form four. You wouldn't believe this but I can count with my five figures the number of times that this guy showed up to give us lectures.The man was involved in a lot of activities out of his regular teaching.He was a businessman,he drove a cab,he played soccer for a Division one side.He would at times show up to give lectures to our brothers who were in form five,their classroom located just above ours.As soon as he is done with them he would be gone.We would at times see him sneaking out of the school campus and it was so funny we will all be laughing.Good thing we had a different math tutor by the time we got into form five and starting serious preparations towards GCE ordinary levels.
Miss(at the time) Ebob Mbiwan(chocolate colour with a gap tooth up front) was popular.She taught us English Literature in Form five."To kill a Mockingbird"was one of the novels that we dealt with.Good looking lady,she landed in lycee fresh out of a University in Nigeria and all the male lecturers were drooling.
Some of the french speaking lectures were just awesome characters.We had this guy straight out of the University and recruited to teach in Lycee. He comes in the class with all the confidence in the world and says"mes amis m'appelle Yuk".So we all jumped up and starting calling him Yuk and he comes right back with "Vous n'etes pas mes amis"shaking and nodding his head.
Some of the characters were administrators.We had the discipline master at the time."Monsieur Gwaté".He used to scare the hell out of all of us.Each time we see the guy we would be saying to each other"Gwate de came,Gwaté de came".The guy picked on it and came to one of your night study sections and was yelling "chaque fois vous dites Gwaté de came,Gwaté da came, je ne veut plus entendre ça"He use to say "ça ne se fera jamais ici au lycéé".
Gwaté would go after Weledji who gave him a lot of trouble and he would yell "Weledji viens ici".
Our first Principle was the coolest principle of all time.A lot of us got an education at the time thanks to him.Everybody during his tenure got to lycee on merit.He was very open with the students and would play soccer with the school team when he was invited.He started all his speeches with "Je suis très très content".Even at a time when there was a student strike in the school, he called everbody together and started with "Je suis trés trés content".The strike happened while I was in form two and it was caused by the fact that the school administration went silent after Lycee won a 1 million franc CFA price for agricultural performance.At the time the Cameroon government ran a program called green revolution.The school with the best performance for agricultural output was to get the first price of 1 million CFA franc.
There was also complain about the poor quality of food.I was only in form two and did not know who were the ring leaders of the strike.The school made amends though.A "Grand Répare" was organised and everybody enjoyed the feast.The quality of food in the restaurant was also upgraded.The sad part was some of the ring leaders of the strike got expelled from school.Getting expelled from school was a big deal then.
There was Mr Esai, a friend of my Dad.Mr Esai taught us English language in form three.The guy had a handicap left hand(we did not make fun of that).He was noted though for protecting his daughter who was one class ahead of us.Word got around very fast that you don't mess around with Mr Esai's daughter.There was a guy in form five though that tried.
Ojong was his name.Small guy with a big heart. I do not know how far he went.Lucky for him I was not aware of Mr Esai's daughter being pregnant at any time.
The reason you get into a secondary school is to get some education and also to get the qualification to show that you did not just throw away five years of your life.Passing the GCE ordinary levels was the goal after five years of studies and I registered for 9 subjects in total.It was originally just eight but somebody within our cycle of friends came out with a brilliant idea that we could all pick up an easy A grade in the GCE by adding Commerce to our list of selected subjects.
At the time it was explained that having the A grade would be like a walk in the park.Quite a few of us jumped into the bang wagon and starting studying Commerce in Form five.No prior classes on it.It was suppose to be a junior brother to Economics.If you can pass Economics, read the Commerce test book and you would be Okay.
We all ended up failing the subject.I did not find out though until much later.Okay,being in form five means that you have been preparing for the GCE ordinary levels for two years now.Some subjects such as Biology,we started the syllabus in form three.The examination itself was never going to be a problem.If you spent five years in lycee you are suppose to pass the GCE ordinary levels,no excuse for failing.I hated the fact thought that a lot of us were taking the examinations as day students.Come to think of it,I will try to go through the list of those that were living off campus.Njukwe Charles,Musonge Gabriel,Mbulle Pierre,Sunny Aiyuk,Ebai Samuel,Eric Tambe,Munu Christian,Ngatchu Theodore to name just of few.
Tamfack had just gone mad and kick a lot of decent students out of the dormitory.We eat some real strange meals.There is a saying that no matter what you cook you yourself can always eat it.GCE ordinary levels ran for a period of about a month and the morning after the examination ended I was headed home.After living as a day student for a year you get to appreciate what students that are day students all their lives go through.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Summer Olympics
The Olympics is the worlds most participated international multi-sport event usually held every four years.
When I was growing up,television sets were not available,so most of the news that we got about the Olympics was from reading history books and magazines such as Time and Newsweek.You read about all the great African runners and it was until later in life that you get to see live footage of these great athletes.
The first Olympics was held in 1896 in Athens with just 245 athletes participating.About 200 of these athletes were Greeks,with a total of only about 14 nations participating in the event.The Olympics has now grown to an event that will see(come August in Beijing) more than 10,000 athletes from over 202 nations participate in about 302 sporting events.The US has hosted the most Olympic games,a total of four,followed by the United Kingdom that has hosted a total of three(all in London).
The following countries have hosted a total of two Olympics each,Australia,France,Germany and Greece.Including to be current host China this coming summer,the following countries have hosted the games once.Belgium,Canada,Finland,Italy,Japan,Mexico,Netherlands,South Korea,Spain,Soviet Union and Sweden.
A total of four cities have hosted the games twice,Los Angeles,London,Paris,Athens.Five countries have participated in all the Olympics games,they include Australia,France,Great Britain,Greece and Switzerland.
Only one country,Great Britain has won at least a gold medal in all the Olympics games.The 1904 Olmpics saw the introduction of the tradition of awarding medals,gold for first place,silver for second place and bronze for third place.
In 1900 the games were held in Paris,France with women allowed to participate for the first time.
The 1904 games was the first Olympics games to be held in the US in St Louis,Missouri.South Africa made its first participation in this Olympic games,sending in 8 athletes in total.
The 1908 games were held in London with the first running of the marathon over its now standard distance of 26 miles,386 yards(42.195km).John Hayes was awarded the gold medal after the disqualification of Italian Dorando Pietri,who had entered the stadium 30 seconds earlier but had collapse from exhaustion and had to be aided over the finish line by some spectators.
In 1912,Stockholm with a total of 2504 athletes participating held the games,this was the first game that had participants from all the continents(the idea behind the creation of the Olympics was to have participation of athletes from all the continents of the world) and it was also the first time that all the events took place in one stadium.The games saw South Africa win a total of six medals,four goals and two silver.The goal medal winners were kenneth McArthur,winner of the marathon in men's athletics,Rudolph Lewis,winner in men's cycling individual time trial,Harold Kitsen&Charles Winslow,in Tennis men's double.The two silver medals went to Christian Gitsham,men's marathon,athletics and Harold Kitson picked up his second medal in tennis men's single competition.
The 1916 games scheduled for Berlin were cancelled because of the first World War.
The 1920 games were held in war torn Belgium.Egypt made its debut as the second African country to participate apart from South Africa.South Africa won a total of ten medals(three gold,four silver and three bronze) in the games including Bevil Rudd's 400 metres gold in men's athletics.
1924 saw the games in Paris,with about 3000 athletes participating.The star of this games was the"The Flying Finn"Paavo Nurmi who won gold medals in three team events and in the individual meter 1500 and 5000 runs, the later in the same day.South African boxer,William Smith picked up a gold medal in the bantamweight division.
In the 1928 games held at Amsterdam,females were allowed for the first time to participate at track and field events.This games also saw the appearance of corporate sponsorship,from the soft drinks company Coca Cola.Rhodesia(present day Zimbabwe)made its Olympic debut alongside Egypt and South Africa.Egypt picked up four medals from the games including two in gold from,Ibrahim Moustafa,light heavyweight in wrestling and El Sayed Nosseir,light heavyweight in the weightlifting competition.South African got three medals including a gold medal from Sydney Atkinson in the 110 metres hurdles athletics event.
The 1932 games were held in Los Angeles,the games were greatly affected by the economic hardship at this period of time"The Great Depression",as the games saw its fewest participants since the St Louis games in 1904.China made its first participation in the Olympics in this games.South African picked a total of five medals,two of them gold medals.
The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin,with the Nazi party given film marker Leni Riefenstahl permission to film the games."Olympia",the result of his work is a masterpiece.African American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the games disproving Hitler's theory of white racial superiority.Egypt picked up a total of five medals,two of them gold in the weightlifting competition.South Africa managed just one silver medal in the games.
The 1940 games initially slated for Tokyo and later relocated to Helsinki were cancelled because of the second World War(Madman Hitler was busy trying to conquer all of Europe).The 1944 games,slated for London were also cancelled due to the second World War that was still going on.
1948 saw Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Keon emulate Owen's achieving in 1936 by winning four gold medals in the track.Egypt got gold medals in weightlifting competition,five medals in total for the games.South African got a total of five medals,two in gold from Gerald Dreyer in the men's lightweight and from George Hunter in the men's light heavyweight boxing competition.
The 1952 games saw the first participation of the USSR and they will dominate the games for a long period to time.A certain Czech army Lieutenant,Emil Zatopek competing for the first time in a marathon and winning it after having won the 5000 and 10000 meters races to complete the treble.The Gold Coast(present day Ghana)became the first nation from West Africa to participate in the summer Olympic games.Nigeria also made their Olympic debut here.Egypt got one bronze medal and South Africa grabbed a total of ten medals including gold medals from Esther Brand in the women's high jump and Joan Harrison in the 100 metres backstroke swimming event.
The 1956 Olympics held in Melbourne,Australia was highly successful.Olympic debut for Ethiopia,Kenya and Uganda.South Africa went home with four bronze medals.
The 1960 games,held in Rome,Italy saw the appearance on the centre stage of a certain light heavyweight boxer at the time in the name of Cassius Clay.He won the gold medal at his competition and would go on to become the greatest heavyweight boxing champion of all time in the person of Mohammed Ali(Ali would throw away his gold medal in disgust after he was refused to be served in a white restaurant back in the states).The 1960 Olympics also saw the USSR women's gymnastic team members win 15 of 16 possible gold medals.A lot of African Countries were now independent,Olympic debut for Morocco,one silver medal win,Sudan,Tunisia and Liberia.The first ever Olympic medal for Ghana,a silver in boxing by Clement Quartey in the men's light welterweight class.Ethiopia got its first medal in the Olympiad with a gold medal in the men's marathon from Abebe Bikila.South Africa picked up a total of three medals,one silver and two bronze.
The 1964 games were held in Tokyo,with this being the first games that were broadcast over television.Cameroon made its debut at the Olympics,also participating for the first time from the African continent were Algeria,Chad,Zaire,Cote d'Ivoire,Libya,Madagascar,Mali,Niger,Northern Rhodesia(present day Zambia),Senegal and Tanzania.Nigeria won its first ever medal at the Olympics with Nojim Maiyegun winning a bronze medal in the men's light middleweight class in boxing.This was the first Olympic games from which South Africa was banned for refusing to desegregate their sporting events(policy of apartheid).Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila repeated his fit of the 60s games by winning the men's marathon athletic event,earning a gold medal.Kenya won its first ever Olympic medal,with Wilson Kiprugut winning a bronze medal in men's athletics,800 metres.Tunisia got its first ever medals at this games with Mohammed Gammoudi picking up a silver medal in athletics,men's 10,000 metres and Habit Galhia got a bronze medal in boxing in the men's light welterweight class.
The 1968 games were held in Mexico City and saw American athlete Bob Beamon jump 8.90 metres,setting a new world record that would stand for 23 years.Politics took centre stage in the games during the medal ceremony for the 200 metres as African-American athletes,Tommie Smith(gold-medal) and John Carlos(bronze medal) made a protest gesture on the podium by raising their black-gloved fists in as a symbol of protest against racial segregation back home in the US.Cameroon,got its first ever medal at the Olympics,a silver boxing medal(Boxer Joseph Bessala).Ethiopia's Mamo Wolde got two medals for his country,a silver in the men's 10,000 metres and a gold medal in the men's marathon race.The Kenyans came alive at this games, having their best performance ever,9 medals in total,with three of them gold.Kipchoge Keino got a gold medal in the men's 1500 race,Naftali Temu got his in the 10,000 metres and Amos Biwott in the men's 3000 metres steeplechase.Tunisia won its first ever gold medal at the Olympics,when Mohammed Gammoudi won two medals for his country including a gold medal in the men's 5000 metres and a bronze medal in the 10,000 metres.Uganda got its first ever medals at the games with a silver medal coming from Eridadi Mukwanga in the boxing men's bantamweight class and a bronze medal from Leo Rwalbdogo in the men's boxing flyweight class.
Politics also took centre stage in the 1972 games in Munich,West Germany but this time with lethal consequences.A Palestinian terrorist group"Black September" invaded the Olympic Village,killing two Israelites athletes and taking 9 others hostages.The 5 Palestinians,together with the 9 hostages will be later on killed during a standoff with Germany Security forces in their attempt to free the hostages.The games will continue after much deliberation and American swimmer Mark Spitz will go on to win 7 gold medals in swimming events.Lasse Viren from Finland won the double in the 5000 and 10000 metres events.The Kenyans did it again winning 9 medals(two gold,three silver and four bronze).Kipchoge (Everybody in Africa has heard of this guy,the famous kip Keino)Keino,men's 3000 metres steeplechase winner and a men's four by four relay team of Julius Sang,Charles Asati,Hezekiah Nyamau and Robert Ouko got the gold medals.Uganda got its first ever gold medal when John Akii won the men's 400 metres hurdles competition.
The 1976 games in Montreal was notorious for its cost that ran over budget.$5billion(the equivalent of $20billion in 2006 figures)was spend in total due to bad planning from the organisers.African countries boycotted the games to protest a recent tour of a New Zealand rugby team of then apartheid-run South Africa.Lasse Viren repeated his 5000 and 10000 metres fit of the 72 games and become the only athlete to ever win the distance double twice.An era of Romanian gymnastics dynasty was born as gymnast Nadia Comàneci won the women's individual all around gold medal with two of four possible perfect scores.Another female gymnast,this time from the USSR,Nellie Kim earned a perfect score and three gold medals.
The 1980 games saw a US led massive boycott of the games as 66 nations in total stayed home to protest the Soviet Union's invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.This was the era of the cold war and the Soviet Union was looking to add some another member into its Warsaw Pact.This would not be an easy war for the Soviets though as it would take them about 20 years before they would be able to leave Afghanistan.The countries that boycotted included the likes of Japan,West Germany,Canada and the US.Great Britain,Australia and Greece participated in the games and keep their perfect attendance record in all the summer games.The host nations dominated heavily due to the lowly participation in the games.Ethiopia's Miruts Yifter won the men's 5000 and 10,000 metres double,equal Finland's Lasse Viren fit in the previous games.Zimbabwe won its first ever gold medal at the Olympics with a teams gold medal in the female category of field hockey.Uganda's John Mugagi(the beast)won a silver medal for his country at the men's boxing welterweight class.Tanzania won its first ever medals at the games,two silver medals,one from Suleiman Nyambui in the 5000 metres and the other from Filbert Bayi in the men's 3000 metres steeplechase.
The Soviet Union and 14 East bloc countries reciprocated by boycotting the 1984 summer games held in Los Angeles.The US dominated the event with Carl Lewis matching the great Jesse Owen's fit of 1936,picking up gold medals in the long jump,100 metres,200 metres and 4x4 100 metres relay.Algeria won its first ever medals at the Olympics,two bronze medals,one from Mohammed Zaoui in the men's boxing middleweight category and the other from Mustapha Moussa in the boxing heavyweight class.Morocco won two gold medals at this games,one from Said Aouita in the men's 5000 metres and the other from Nawal El Moutawakel in the women's 400 metres hurdle.Kenya's Julius Korir won gold in the men's 3000 metres steeplechase competition.Cameroon picked up a bronze medal at this games from boxer Martin Ndongo Ebanga in the men's lightweight class.
The 1988 games were held in Seoul,South Korea and saw the games being tainted by failed mandatory drug test,with the leading culprit being Canadian Ben Johnson getting stripped of his 100 metres dash medal(His dad would later blame it on US trying to bring his kid down).The Kenyans were at it again picking up 9 medals(five gold,two silver and two bronze)ranking as the 13 team out of a total of 159 nations that participated in the games.The gold medals came from Paul Ereng in the men's 800 metres,Peter Rono in the men's 1500 metres,John Ngugi in the men's 5000 metres,Julius Kariuki in the men's 3000 steeplechase competition and Robert Wangila in the men's welterweight boxing competition.Senegal got its first ever medal in the Olympics,a silver medal in the men's 400 metres hurdles by Amadou Dia Ba.Morocco's Brahim Boutayeb won a gold medal for his country at the men's 10,000 metres.
The 1992 games in Barcelona saw the introduction of professionals in team sports such as baseball and basketball in the Olympics with the US fielding a "Dream Team" of basketball players from the NBA to easily win the basketball gold medal.In what is considered to be the greatest collection of players ever assembled in any team sport, the US fielded the following players:Michael Jordan,Larry Bird,Magic Johnson,Charles Barkley,Karl Malone,John Stockton,Patrick Ewing,David Robinson,Clyde Drexel,Chris Mullen,Scottie Pippen and college star player Christian Laettner.This games saw the return of South Africa to the Olympic games(Apartheid had been officially banned).The Ghanian men's soccer team won a bronze medal in the prestigious soccer competition.Ethiopia's Derartu Tulu won a gold medal in the women's 10,000 metres competition.Kenya won two gold medals,(8 medals in total)one in the men's 800 metres athletics by William Tanui and the other in the men's 3000 metres steeplechase competition.Morocco's Khalid Skah won the men's 10,000 metres race in athletics.
The 1996 Olympics were back in Atlanta,US with Michael Johnson winning gold in both the 400metres and 200 metres, breaking the 200 metres dash record(19.32).Canadian Donovan Bailey set a new world record in the 100 metres race also(9.84).The games saw Mohammed Ali being awarded a replacement medal for the one he threw away back in 1960 out of disgust.There was also a scare as a bomb was exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park.Chief suspect Eric Robert Rudolph was captured in June 2003 and taken into custody.Nigeria got its best ever performance at the Olympics winning a total of 6 medals.The men's soccer team with the likes of Kanu,Oliseh,Okocha,Ikpeba,Babangida,Amunike and Taribo West got the gold medal in the soccer competition.The other gold medal was an individual one as Chioma Ajunwa became the first Nigerian to win an individual gold medal in the Olympics(women's long jump with a leap of 23 feet and 4 1/2 inches).Burundi made its Olympic debut in style as Venuste Niyongabo won the first every medal for this tiny nation,a gold medal in the men's 5000 metres.Mozambique got its first ever medal in the games with Maria Mulola winning a bronze medal in the women's 800 metres athletics.kenya won 8 medals with a gold medal coming from Joseph Keter in the men's 3000 steeplechase race.Ethiopia got 3 total medals,two of them goal,with Haile Gebrselassie winning gold in the men's 10,000 metres,whiel Fatuma Roba completed the gold medal count by winning the women's marathon.South Africa's Josia Thugwane won the men's marathon in this Olympics.Compatriot Penny Heyns got two other gold medals in the 100 metres and 200 metres breakstroke swimming event.
The Olympics games of 2000 marked the dawn of the new millennium.Cameroon won its first ever gold medal at this games in the men's soccer competition.The likes of Samuel Eto'o Fils,Patrick Mboma,Geremi Njitap,Idriss Kameni,Etame Mayer and Pierre Wome Nlend capped a brilliant performance in the soccer competition with a penalty shoot-out win over Spain.Eritea made its Olympic debut at this games.Kenya got 7 medals at the games with Noah Ngeny getting one of the two gold medals in an Olympic record 3:32:07 in the men's 1500 metres.Fellow Countryman,Reuben kosgei completed the goal medal count with a win in the men's 3000 metres steeplechase competition.Ethiopia got its best ever performance at the Olympics,winning 8 medals,four of them gold.Haile Gebrselassie won the 10,000 metres,Gezahgne Abera,the men's marathon,Millon Wolde,the men's 5000 metres.Derartu Tulu completed the gold medal count with a win in the women's 10,000 metres.
The 2004 games were held in Athens,Greece amidst concern of terrorist acts.This was after 9/11 in 2001.A total of $7.2billion was spend on the games with a whopping $1.50billion going for security alone.Cameroon got its 2nd ever goal medal at the Olympics,this time in an individual event as Francoise Mbango Etone picked up a goal medal in the women's triple jump event.Ethiopia got 7 medals at the games,with gold medals coming from kenenisa Bekele in the men's 10,000 metres and Meseret Defar in the women's 5000 metres.Kenya got 7 medal at the games with Ezekiel Kemboi winning gold in the men's steeplechase 3000 metres(The Kenyans have been dominating the steeplechase since the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City).South African won 6 medals with the gold medal coming from a new world record performance in the 4x400 metres men's freestyle swimming event(3:13:17)by Roland Schoeman,Ryk Neethling,Lyndon Ferns and Darian Townsend.Morocco got 3 medals,two of them gold medals from Hicham El Guerrouj who achieved the 1500m,5000m double.Egypt got five medals at the games with Karam Gaber winning gold in the men's Greco-Roman(96kg)wrestling event.
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