In trying to get back to a sense of normalcy, we all have to agree that a lot has happened. People lost their lives. Children have moved away from family responsibilities to remote places to ensure the safety of their parents. The plans have been moved, changed and postponed. Jobs, relationships, and many other opportunities have evaporated into thin air. Universities, stores and restaurants have refused services. Schools and other institutions have closed their doors and have turned to digital. And now we are learning new ways to treat ourselves and each other by finding better alternatives to our lives. In the spirit of wanting to take another leave, I did something that I hadn’t done for a long time. I forced myself to remember. I reflected on my past. I went through some nooks and crannies of my mind that I had completely cut off for reasons I can’t say out loud without risking putting myself in an awkward position.
And I remembered.
I saw myself.
I saw a body – finally.
Not the vessel that carries my subconscious, not the body you see when you leave; hey there you – long without seeing – where were you? Not the scars on my face. Nor the million tiny little springs that grow from my scalp. I saw a body with evidence and traces of the past. A body shrouded in generational curses, stories, traditions and all that we have been made to forget about the places we come from and the women, men and children whose we have carried and held. hands during restless nights.
What I saw, stood up. He had legs. And the eyes. And a mouth. And the pores. And they were all open and ready to pour out like a spilled ink bucket – like a friend reconnected with another long lost friend. He had his own conscience. With questions, desires and expectations. He wanted to be seen. And taken seriously. He wanted to be hugged, kissed and held tight for hours. It was hungry. He had gnawed. And disguised himself as a lie. In something, it wasn’t. It reeked of fear and decay. But in all that was left, I could still recognize something – namely the person I once was before I left for the West. A boy with fiery eyes and eager to tell stories.
When you adopt another culture, you lose part of yours – you go to bed. Suddenly, some of the things you’ve been raised to believe take a step back as they give way to other newer things to take the places they occupied in your life. These changes can take innocent forms and sometimes they can come at the expense. After many years of not really realizing how far I had come from who / what I was a little boy sitting between my grandma’s thighs eating palm nuts and dried fish, swearing that I will come back to something neither of us had ever seen. dreaming of a world outside of what was then available for a boy from a town called Mutengene, I realized that after living in Germany for fifteen years and taking a lot of what is German in the name of l assimilation, I forgot some of the fundamental values and traditions that made me a child of Cameroonian soil. Now very far away and far away, I fear that I will no longer be able to access what I was / know about where I was born and raised.
Years of answering empty questions like; why did you come to germany – were you brought here by a parent – were you raised by a single parent – how different is life in the west – bet it’s better than you never imagined it – you are lucky to be here – you are ready for life, now – the freedom you must feel as you traffic the German streets with endless opportunities and a head full of dreams, must being mind blowing for a boy who was raised on the heels of a mountain in a country no one knows and giving half-truths in response led me to this place filled with doubts, wondering who / what I am become – looking at myself in the mirror and being afraid to accept what I see. The above questions are some of the things I have been told and asked. In response, I smiled and nodded, sighed and left, cried and laughed in anger and confusion. I wondered about the questions that were not put to me and the answers in my head, prepared for anyone who is willing to bring it with me in an honest and caring manner.
So now when people ask me why I came to Germany, I tell them I didn’t come for the food. I say, my stomach is already full. I tell them that I have come for a lot more. I tell them that my lips no longer know thirst, my calves are strong and buried deep in the earth, and that one day I will again be able to own land and a name that will not be questioned by strangers. I tell them, no one will say “you are not one of us”. They will say: “you are weird like us”. And I will tell them the things that I left behind, I will tell them things that I have not told my friends because I am ashamed and afraid of the judgments. The lessons I learned like losing a parent at only eleven, attending the funerals of several family members, suicide right behind the building of the local Saint Joseph Catholic school in Mutengene, the pain of leaving a family in pursuit of higher education at a distant distant Catholic college in the mountains of Fako, the alienation of a sister whom I admired and feared. I would tell them what my body forced itself to forget and remember in pursuit of dreams. I would tell them about the funeral that I couldn’t attend. The rose that did not go down to the grave with the body of a loved one. The fronts, I did not say goodbye. Stories that will forever remain unfinished. Sins that were not forgiven because they needed a mature body and mind to ask for forgiveness. The bowl of soup that was left untouched but remained cold, sour, and placed on the kitchen counter. The finger that hasn’t been licked to celebrate granny’s delicious Mbanga soup. I would tell them that in life we name things for many reasons. To give context. To eradicate fear. It is done to celebrate. Commemorate. To tell. That when you leave a name behind, it doesn’t cease to exist – it continues until someone takes it back. If people wanted to know, I’d tell them what it feels like to leave a name behind. A house. A country. A people. It looks like death. I would tell them that I don’t see myself most of the time because to see means to remember. It means that you are made aware of something. Something you must like or dislike. Something that needs to be fixed, tweaked, or eliminated. I would tell them that I now live with more fear than ever because I have been driven out and because I have become something that does not fit into the past and present. I would tell them that assimilation has some very terrible side effects that we all have to struggle with. I would tell them, there was a person here who no longer exists. I would say that a body is a person. A story. A life. And we need to start seeing it and valuing it for what it is – so that people don’t end up dying, stuck, lost, and confused as to who they are, where they’re from, and to whom. and what they were intended for. be.
Text: Henry Lyonga
* * *
Henry Lyonga is a Berlin-based writer, essayist and poet. Currently, he is a Masters student in American Studies at Humboldt University. He holds a BA in American Culture and Sociology from the University of Kassel. He was born in Cameroon and writes about immigration, life in the diaspora, loss of identity and bodily autonomy. He has written for Stadtsprachen, Immigrant Report, Discover Germany, and various other online and print publications. In his work he emphasizes the importance of storytelling as an integral part of cultural and intercultural communication.
Diesen Artikel auf deutsch lesen.
