Selecting a secondary school

You start to look at secondary schools by the time you get into class seven.In primary school, we always had an admiration for those that had gone to college(that is what secondary schools are called in Cameroon).
Before we sat for the common entrance examination, you had to fill out a form on which you decide on which government school you would like to attend, if you passed in List A, and which college you would want to attend if you passed in List B.There were five government secondary schools at this time.Bilingual grammar school Buea,Bilingual grammar school Yaounde,government grammar school Mamfe,government grammar school Nyassoso, and lastly government grammar school Mundemba.
The glamour governments schools were first,Lycee Bilingue Buea(they had dormitory facilities) and second Lycee Bilingue Yaounde(no boarding facilities at the time).You actually could get a bilingual education in both of these institutions.You had to choose two schools from the above mentioned five.Lycee Molyko was my first choice and lycee bilingue Yaounde was my second.
From the B list, I had PSS Besongabang as my chosen school.Dad actually made the choice on this one.My elder brother, Dennis had attended the school and it was also located in Besongabang,the village in which I was born.Deep down though;I knew I had to pass in list A to make it into college.Dennis had a lot of difficulties going through secondary school because of school fees.As a matter of fact, once he passed his GCE ordinary levels, he applied and got admitted into Lycee Bilingue high school section.He had a lot of good things to see about the school.Joseph Marine(a family friend at the time), who lived in Ndongo camp was attending lycee.He will be a form four student by the time I get into the school.He is now of late, dying under some very mysterious circumstances.I believe he was murdered after he was just about to obtain his bachelor's degree from the university of Yaounde(he did bilingual series there).He had just returned from a student exchange program in France.
To get admitted into secondary school you have to go through an interview process.One of the reasons is probably that I lot of people lie about their ages.The interview process will then filter out people who had not been truthfull during the application process.When the common entrance result came out I was thrilled to learn that I was successful.I started preparations for the interview process.This involves talking to friends and present secondary school students about their experiences during interviews. Interviewing, did not involve any further studying.It was just a matter of your showing up and the people in charge will then decide on whether you were to gain admission or not.
Interviewing for admission into government school took place in different campuses and ours was conducted in the lycee Bilingue campus in Molyko, Buea.The intervew takes place while students are still on campus, so you actually get to meet some of your future school collegues(one of the students that was interviewing at the school was Ilongo Fritz).I arrived Molyko, accompanied by my father and I went through the interview process.
After interviewing, you had to go home and wait for the results to be annouced over the radio(Radio Buea at the time).I remember vividly the day that the results were annouced that I had gained admission into lycee Buea.The annoucement went like this"TAMBE ERIC NKONGHO", very sweet music to my ears at that time.

Common Entrance examination

The common entrance examination is written yearly by primary school pupils vying to get into secondary schools.When I took it, primary school education was for a full seven year period.Although the exam is taking when you get to class seven, you start preparing for it by the time you get to class six.The exam compose of a section in Arithmetic and another in English language.There are two passing grades, List A for those that pass with honors and will attempt to get into the government secondary schools.List B passers seek for admission into private and mission secondary schools.There were then those that completely fail the examination.
By the time I took it, I was about twelve years of age and had been preparing for the exam for some time.We had teachers,like Mr Orum, who gave us free review evening classes from the time that we got into form six.There were books that you could also read to improve on your chances of passing the examination.I and Agi, my elder sister, were in class seven, and we both took the exam at the same time.In each class seven, there are individuals that you could pretty well determine how they were going to perform in the examination.In our class, for possible list A, you could count me,Obi Regina,Glory Okon(girl of Nigerian origin)and Hans Agbor to past the examination in the A list.I was real strong in arithmetic, but a little bit above average in my English language skills.The pass grade was based on an average score from both sections.You could thus cover up from one section, your weakness in the other.Obi Regina, was very solid all around.So was Glory Okon,little Ibo girl, she was arguably the brightest of all of us.Agbor Hans, was a master of the English language.The guy knew from around class four that "Aid" and "Assistance" were synonyms.Remember, this was not the age of the whiz kids.He had two things going against him though.One, he was already aged seventeen, by the time he took the common entrance, his age will thus eliminate him from admission into the government schools during "interview".Secondly, his arithmetic skills were just average.
A total of about twenty to thirty of us sat for the exam which told place in Tiko town.Ndongo, our school was not an examination center.We thus had to make it to Tiko town in time to sit for the examination.My Dad accompanied me and Agi, for the trip, to make sure that we arrived on time and to provide us with some guidance.We arrived on time and together with pupils from other primary school, we were seated and began the examination with the section of Arithmetic.
After the arithmetic section, we were given a break for about an hour before the English language section was to start.Everybody was instructed that the break was for lunch purposes and we were not to venture too far from the examination center.
A funny thing happened though.The two girls, Obi Regina and Okon Glory went into town for their lunch break.Glory, lives in town and she probably took Regina to have lunch in their house.The two of them did not return until about an hour into the English section examination.I guess, that is one of the reasons that Dad accompanied us to the examination.Mr Orum, he was the class seven teacher of the time, and had accompanied the school delegation was really mad and greatly disappointed.His best two pupils want missing during a critical part of the examination.He was to remain angry with the girls until we graduated from primary school.
When the result of the common entrance came out the two girls totally failed.Glory was to return to Nigeria and I never heard of her again.I and Agbor Hans were successful in List A. Agi passed in List B. Because of his age at the time,Hans seeked admission into Government Technical School in Ombe. I do not remember whether he was successful at all and I never did see him again.

The rest of the family

In Ndongo, Lydien and Agbor came into the family when both of them were about going to college.Lydien, is the second child of my mother before she met my father.Agbor, was her third child.My mother had a son also, named Ayuk, who did not live with us.He was the first child of my mother and he lived in then Victoria, now called Limbe.Ayuk, who is now of late visited us occasional.He was at the time,the star member of the family.He decided to end his education after primary school and concentrated on making a living on his own at a very early age.He played soccer very well,mainly during "inter quarter" competition back then in Limbe.So my mother and father met when she already had three children from previous relationships and he had also three child from different marriages.Helen, my father,s first daughter lived with us until she got married.Helen,is now of late.After being married and having all her children,she had decided to go make a living in Gabon.She was to get sick there and later died while I was in the US.She is buried right in front of our compound in Besongabang,Mamfe.Dennis, my father's first son was already in Presbyterian Secondary School Besongabang at this time and we saw him only during the holidays.Agi, my father,s third child was just two years older than me and lived with us in Ndongo.We both attended the same primary school.I was the first child of the marriage between Mr and Mrs Tambe.Lydien had gotten admission into Okoyong Secondary School in Mamfe, while Agbor, had admission into the legendary St Joseph,s college of Sasse.They joined us in Ndongo shortly before leaving for their secondary school education.The last member of our family is called Betek, he was born in the year 1970 while we were in Ndongo.It is always a happy moment when a new member is welcomed into the family.Betek was very fair in complexion and lot of people just loved him.He was very sick in his early days and we had some concern moments when we taught he was not going to make it.There is an age difference of four years between Betek and Charles & Ebenezar,the twins who he follows.This because my mother had a set of twins who did not make it out of the hospital.They passed away shortly after birth.My mother had earlier lost a set of twins, who had passed away shortly after birth.My middle name,Nkongho,means somebody who follows twins. I and Agi, my elder sister, started and completed our primary school education in Ndongo.Olivia, my immediate follower, Charles and Ebenezar, the twins, started in Ndongo primary school, but were to finish their primary school education later at Government School Upper Cu stains, when we were later transferred to Tiko.

Darfur Crisis

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had been indicted by the international Criminal court at The Hague on charges related to events in the Darfur region of his country. So far up to 300,000 people, mostly of African tribes have been killed in the region and a total of close to 2.5 million of them have been displaced. They are surviving in the desert through the grace of the international community. The displayed people have lost everything, their homes,their cattle and just about all of their properties. They are still being constantly harassed by Janjaweed militiamen that are backed by government forces.The indictment was handed down today the 14 of June by Luis Moreno-Ocampo who compared the situation in Sudan to that of Hitler’s Germany; with the desert being today's concentration camps. There are ten charges altogether.3 counts of crimes of genocide, 5 counts of crimes against humanity and 2 counts of murder.

Primary school soccer

Primary school soccer is all about rivalry and our fiercest rival was Government School Upper Cu stains Tiko.There was a little bit spice added to the rivalry because of a close family friend of ours whose children attended Upper Custains School Tiko.We had some memorable games with them.I remember a 3-2 thriller at the Ndongo field.We opened the scoring and Upper Cu stains equalised and took the lead making it 2-1.We then squared it all up early in the second half and put in a late winner to seal the 3-2 victory.As the two teams changed leads, I had a straw hat that I gave to her when we opened the scoring.She later on got mad and gave it back to me, when we put in the winning goal.There was a Cup that all the teams in the Tiko region played for.There was a knockout competition that ended with the two remaining schools playing for the trophy come the 11 of February each year.The 11 of February is youth celebration day in Cameroon and each year there is a match past ceremony in the early morning periods and the soccer finals took place at the Holford Field in Tiko around 4pm.The whole school community took soccer very seriously.There was a game that we lost to Government school Likomba and the whole teaching staff were disappointed to the extend that the soccer team was lined up and lashed in front of the rest of the school pupils.Likomba,at that time had just recently gain full status as an institution on its own after successfully breaking away from Government School Ndongo.They had pupils only up to class five level.We had been a class seven school for a long time.It was the first encounter between the schools since the break up.They came and defeated us 1-0 in Ndongo field.Mbah Mukouri,he was a pupil of Upper Custains,although he lived in Ndongo camp made a mockery of us in Ndongo until we could get our revenge at Likomba field two months later.Another reason that the Likomba defeat was so disappointed to me was that the guys that they fielded as players were guys that we played pick up soccer with each time that both schools had a come-together.They were my friends,putting up new jerseys and beating us in plain daylight for everybody to see.We had some good rivalries with RCM Mutengene also.This was mainly during the knock-out stages of the competition.Missions schools, as they were referred to at the time,had a reputation for producing hot headed players.RCM Mutengene will arrived Ndongo Field with what amounted to a gangster squad but we will still trash them.Tiko town had some of the better teams around.I remember RCM(Roman Catholic Mission School) Tiko coming to Ndongo field and defeating us 1-0 with a team that included Agbor Hans.Agbor Hans is arguable the best soccer player to come out of the Tiko school system.He will go on to play with the Cameroonian national team, after having a brilliant career with First Division Side PWD Kumba.RCM came to Ndongo school while I was around class five.You could just see them beaming with confident,especially Agbor Hans.He scored a goal that is still sharp in my memory after all these years.The ball sailed as if it was heading out of play in the direction of our right goal post before twisting into the bottom right hand corner for the goal.Primary schools did not have nets on the goal post during the 70s.Ndongo has produce some very good players.Robert,who stayed with the head master was a star player from day one.He would later on play for CDC Tiko,a first division side at the time.In his debut for Government school Ndongo, the guy score four goals.He could take on defenders all by himself.We had guys like Dada,Mutengue,I hope these guys are still alive somewhere.Ndongo had its best run to the championship in 1973 while I was in class six.The was nothing special about the team when the school year started, but some members of the squad just bloomed unto prime time players as we begin the knockout stages of the school competition.We just dominated teams like Upper Custains,Government School Mondoni,RCM Mutengene until we made it to the finals.The finals was to be against RCM Tiko.I remember because RCM had an albino player in their team who was one of the better primary school players in those days.There was rumors that he had completed school the year before but stayed on with the soccer team to continue competitions.We had an all around quality team,but there had emerged during the year a certain right winger who pretty much had become the deciding factor in all our close matches.If you grew up attending primary school in the 60s and 70s, you could just tell the people who were the soccer players.They were much older.These were guys that helped their parents in the farms and pretty much had a life of their own,independent from their parents.They were mainly guys who never intended to further their education past primary school,with a few exceptions.Our star winger was different though,he was just a little bit bigger than us regular guys.We talked to him and hang out with him sometimes.The guy could play soccer,but we never knew that he would be carrying the whole team.Late into games,during the knock-out phase of the competition he will take on three defenders on the right flank,one after the other as we cheer him on.After taking on the defenders,he will then either place a perfect pass to one of our forward players for a goal or score himself from the right hand side of the field.We made it to the 1973 soccer finals and met RCM Tiko.We were clearly the underdogs,coming from Ndongo.Who are these guys?How did they make it this far?Everybody was asking at Holford field on the 11 of February.The soccer finals was usually the last event to cap out the other sporting events of the day.The "Cup"was the holy grail,that was what every school wanted to hold for a year.We held our own against a star studded RCM team.The guys could play and they were intimidating also.We weren't afraid though.We defended very well during the first half and it was all tied at 0-0.Midway through the second half we started gradually to dominate play.Our driving force,the right winger even provided us we a cross that lead to our lone goal after one of his classic runs down the right wing.We could not believe it.Ndongo was actually up by one goal to nil.You could hear people grumbling in the background.The Cup is going to the "bush".A funny thing happened though,time was up, but the referee refused to blow the final whistle.Ask anybody that attended Ndongo school during this period and they would narrate to you the story.The referee led the game go on for at least another 30 or to minutes.Incredible,places were getting dark.They just were going to deny us at all cost.During this extra extra time,our players were so exhausted that RCM got their equalising goal.Immediately they got the goal, the referee blow his final whistle,end of match.This were the days that ties were decided,not by extra time and the dreaded penalty shoot outs, but by replays.On the replay,RCM crushed us 4 nil.Four goals to zero, we knew we had the match won on the 11 of February but we were cheated, so our minds were not there on the day of the replay.That is how close we came to lifting the converted trophy but ended up with the runners up medal.Do you know how much we got for our second place effort?400fCFA.Good thing I was a brilliant young man.In the future I would be attending the famous Bilingual Grammar School in Buea and later on CCAS Kumba.Soccer trophies will sure be coming my way.

The headmaster

Pa Ndongo,as Mr. Ndumbe was affectionately called was the headmaster of government school Ndongo throughout my time there.He was married to Mrs Ndumbe who everybody called Madame.The nicest lady on earth if there ever was one.The children were mostly girls.Pat, the first,ended up being an airline hostess.There was Iyo, the second, who attended National comprehensive school Kumba.There was Emmanuel, who everybody called "Mukala",Dora who was Agbor's first girlfriend,she attended National comprehensive school Victoria(now Limbe),there was Lydia,but we all called her Endaley, and lastly Victorine,who was my friend.The Ndumbe's lived to the right of our house and we had a lot of interaction with them.Pa Ndumbe had a reputation for chasing skirts and I believe he had one of the single members of the staff impregnated.He did not owned up to it at first, but later on picked up on his responsibilities.He went after ladies like Miss Lefang(a fiery lady who dealt only with the big shots)and it was even rumoured that he had affairs with married women.Mr Urum's wife come to mine.That was not the only blemish in Pa's character.He was rumoured to misappropriate school funds also.We had a lot of fun making a mockery of the guy because he would die his hair black to try and stay younger.He did at one time buy a plot around the railway route leading to Tiko town, were he attended to build a block house.Building a so called block house was a very big deal at that time.Anyway we nicknamed him "big fish", because he would go to Tiko market and buy such large fishes for consumption.Despite his many flaws, Pa did love children and you could see it in the way that he managed to sponsor all his children through expensive secondary schools.At one time there was an outbreak of cholera in Cameroon(the early 1970s) and Pa lost a lot of his relatives back in his native Douala.I remember the period vividly because you could not drink water coming from the tap anymore.All drinking water had to be boiled.The cholera outbreak took a lot of lives and left some children very deformed.The signs of cholera infection were easy to see.Massive loss of weight.Constant rushing to the restroom.People that stayed alive during this period where very lucky.The disease took people indiscriminately.At one period it was like one bad news after the other.Madame was a staunch member of the Presbyterian church and she and my mother were members of the christian women fellowship(CWF).She would help them win in a lot of rallies and she was like everybody's mother in the whole Ndongo camp.Emmanual was very technically inclined and he was very vest in activities taking place over the Mungo bridge,that is in the littoral province.He would feed us stories about Oryx Club of Douala,a team that would be the first African club champions(in 1964), with Mbappe Leppe as their star player and team captain(There is a soccer stadium in Akwa,Douala that bears his name).Emmanuel used to dismantle and rebuild bicycles and he played a lot with Lydien, who was my elder sister.He was to be the only one in the family that never attended secondary school,choosing to pursue money using his technical know how.He spend his time between Ndongo, where his parents lived and Douala,were most of the family relatives resided.There was Robert,a soccer playing wize who lived with the family as a maid and attended primary school.This guy could practically carry the team for a whole season.He attended church services also and was one of our YP mentors.My mother liked him a lot and kept in touch with him way after we had left Ndongo camp.Robert was also a lady's man in every sense of the word.Women would go after him like crazy.We attended YP studies together so I know a lot about his numerous affairs.Beautiful women just could not resist the guy.There was a girl that we used to stop bye to visit in Clerk Quarters on our way back from church service.The girl had a twin sister and one day on our way back he made his usual stop.I stayed outside and waited for him.I was to find out later that the lady he was with that day was his regular's twin sister.She did not hesitate a minute going for him.He did help spiritually and pushed me towards aspiring for better grades in school.He himself was not the best of pupils, but he could motivate others.