SOMETHING I LEARNED FROM MY COUSIN

When I logged onto my blog  (AMAZING GRACE) today, the story that came up was one I did three days ago. It was entitled: “The Story of the Two Couples”. You can read the story by clicking on the link, http://tmazonga.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-story-of-two-couples.html , or by copying it and pasting it in the address bar of your screen if you are unable to click and open. Usually, when I post a story on my blog, Google inserts adverts around it. Today my attention was arrested by a Google advert that said: “Make Your Favorite Meals in Minutes. Find it in the Free Recipe Toolbar!” When I saw the word, “recipe”, I immediately thought of my cousin (sister in the African context) Mrs. Fri Bime. That is how she is known today. But when we grew up as little children and primary school classmates in the compound in Baforkum (Bambui), she was commonly known as `Beatrice`, just as I was known as `Robert`. However, she has dropped her English name just as I have dropped mine. So, because I respect her choice and I have also dropped my own English name, I will henceforth refer to her in this story as `Mrs. Bime`. It was from her lips that I first heard the word, “recipe”. At the time she was living with the wife of  Mr. S.N. Dioh, a former registrar of the Cameroon GCE Board who at the time was principal of CCAST Bambili. Mrs. Dioh was a friend of my aunt`s, Mrs. Bime`s mother, Ma Eli, and it was both women who arranged for my cousin to move to Mrs. Dioh`s place. Each morning when I left the compound with my other cousins and classmates, the Retired Gendarme Officer Abot Martin and the Late Rose Mbaku, we would “collect” Mrs. Bime from the Diohs` and together we would walk to school. Although she lived at the Diohs`, she frequented the compound and sometimes spent days and weeks with us before going back. She was very good at cooking and usually prepared an assortment of delicacies for us children to eat. I remember that while doing so, she used to refer to what she called her “recipes”. If any of us mentioned an item she felt was in poor taste, she would snap, “that`s not in the recipe!”.She prepared “ground nut sweets” and “coconut sweets”. There was one particular gooddie to which she added drops of kerosene. Despite the smell of kerosene, we still relished the delight. She made cakes, “miss rolls”, pies and many other sweeties. I do not know whether she learned these things from the Diohs or somewhere else. Coming back to today`s recipe that Google posted on my blog (Make Your Favorite Meals in Minutes. Find it in the Free Recipe Toolbar!), I regret that there isn`t much I can do about it for I don`t have the skills that Mrs Bime had as far as recipes are concerned. Despite the good times with which she graced me with her recipes, I feel sorry that while we were in Class Six (at St. Farncis` School, Bambili) I unintentionally caused her some grief. In that year she was in Class 6A and taught by Mr. Tanteh Dominic, while I was in Class 6B taught by Mr. John Njende. One day Mr. Tante needed a red pen which none of the pupils in his class had. My sister, Mrs. Bime who remembered that I always had a blue and a red pen with me, came over to my class to borrow it for her teacher. Unfortunately for her it was long break and I was out playing. However, since she knew my school bag, she went ahead, searched it and took the pen to her teacher. Unfortunately when Mr. Tante removed the red cork of the pen and started writing in his register, it came our blue! He immediately accused my sister of making him “spoil” his register and punished her for it.  The plain truth is that I have reversed the corks of the two pens so that the red one was on the blue pen and the blue one was on the red pen. This was to deter unwitting classmates from reaching my bag and taking out my pens without my knowledge and permission. Little did I know the victim would not be a classmate but a teacher! Now that I have talked about that year in Class 6, I can`t close the chapter without paying tribute to three other classmates of ours. I wish I could mention all of the rest of them, but I can`t for want of space. I think of Florence Bih Awasom (who later on became Mrs. Somebody, unfortunately I can`t remember her husband`s name). In the three terms we spent in Class 6, she came first in class at the exams. That was in both classes taken as one since the two teachers jointly set one exam and marked it as if the two Class Sixes were one. I remember the Hon. Rose Abunaw Makia, a member of the Cameroon National Assembly who went on to become Vice President of the National Asssembly. The third but not the least is Agatha Nguti who did not only go on to become a Professor but is today Deputy Director of  the College of Technology of the University of Bamenda. She is also Mrs. Tanya, which is yet another praiseworthy attribute to her credentials.