Read Online Yefon: The Red Necklace by Sahndra Dufe - Free Book Online
Authors: Sahndra Dufe
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to the kitchen where she attacked me, spanks flying in my face left, right, center. I wailed louder than necessary to get Pa’s attention, and as expected, he soon ran towards us.
“Can a man not have peace in his own house?
Koi, kah
? What is going on?”
I forced tears from my eyes, shouting at the top of my lungs. My sisters just watched as if it were an action film.
“What is it?” Pa demanded as Ma tapped her legs, looking the other way.
“Your daughter is very stubborn!” she declared.
“Is she not your daughter too?” Pa asked as some of the other wives and relatives came out of their
taav
s. Pa asked everyone to return to his or her
taav
and dragged Ma to his hut. All I heard were raised voices. I couldn’t catch much of the conversation other than Pa telling Ma to stop treating his children like strangers in their own father’s house. He didn’t know it, but this was digging my own grave.
My sisters looked at me. Their faces told me that they were not on my side. Sola looked at me up and down in a very nasty way. African women do this mean look, referred to as “picking” someone and I looked away. My eyes fell on Kadoh, who stared at me with compassion from behind a clay mask thathad bananas tied to it.
“I don’t like that woman.” I explained to Pa when he summoned me to his hut moments later.
“If you don’t like me, go and hang yourself! Stupid child! Frog!” Ma insulted me at the top of her shrill voice. I rolled my eyes angrily.
“If you touch me next time, I will hit back!” I fired back.
“Yefon!” Pa’s stern voice brought a moment of clarity in the room. “This woman is your mother,
wanle
, and the next time you speak back to her like this, I will have you well beaten.”
As defeating as that was, that settled things. I shamefully apologized to Ma but even that didn’t satisfy her.
“I am not speaking to you,” she said, and true to her word, she didn’t speak to me for a week after and cut my rations at dinner.
When Pa left for Yola, I had a tantrum. I cried for a long time because I knew what my fate would be while he was gone.
“Don’t worry, I will bring you a special gift,” he promised before he left. I was isolated for a week after Pa left and sent to bed without supper or the privilege of joining the story telling in an effort to teach me a lesson about respect. I heard Ma bragging to Ya Sero that she knew how to discipline her children.
I cried, as I lay alone in my room listening to the bubbly stories outside my window. Ma must hate me so much I thought to myself. She could not possibly have given birth to me.
“Women should not meddle in the affairs of men.” I heard Ma telling the people outside, her voice clear and crisp. “Women are women, and men are men”, and everyone agreed with her except me, but I didn’t say anything.
“My findings confirm that the UPC revolts in French Cameroon are getting serious,” Uncle Lavran said to Pa, one day in 1955 when he was visiting.
The Union des populations du Cameroun, aka the UPC, was one of those new political parties that were formed in Cameroon in the late 1940s. Pa only listened, and drank his palm wine without commenting. As usual, I was at his feet listening to the conversation while slicing bitter leaves that Ma was going to use to prepare supper.
“These local rebellions in French Cameroon are being brutally suppressed,” Uncle Lavran said eloquently, a worry line deep on his forehead.
Just like most of the things he said, I didn’t understand the meaning of his last sentence, but I listened on watching both him and Pa.
“And so how does that affect my palm wine supply?” Pa asked, jokingly.
He was hardly a man to speak just for the sake of it. His words were always cool, calm, and calculated as if he processed every thought, every answer, and every reaction before even replying.
Uncle Lavran looked offended. “I speak to you about how the whole of Africa is being thrown into
“Can a man not have peace in his own house?
Koi, kah
? What is going on?”
I forced tears from my eyes, shouting at the top of my lungs. My sisters just watched as if it were an action film.
“What is it?” Pa demanded as Ma tapped her legs, looking the other way.
“Your daughter is very stubborn!” she declared.
“Is she not your daughter too?” Pa asked as some of the other wives and relatives came out of their
taav
s. Pa asked everyone to return to his or her
taav
and dragged Ma to his hut. All I heard were raised voices. I couldn’t catch much of the conversation other than Pa telling Ma to stop treating his children like strangers in their own father’s house. He didn’t know it, but this was digging my own grave.
My sisters looked at me. Their faces told me that they were not on my side. Sola looked at me up and down in a very nasty way. African women do this mean look, referred to as “picking” someone and I looked away. My eyes fell on Kadoh, who stared at me with compassion from behind a clay mask thathad bananas tied to it.
“I don’t like that woman.” I explained to Pa when he summoned me to his hut moments later.
“If you don’t like me, go and hang yourself! Stupid child! Frog!” Ma insulted me at the top of her shrill voice. I rolled my eyes angrily.
“If you touch me next time, I will hit back!” I fired back.
“Yefon!” Pa’s stern voice brought a moment of clarity in the room. “This woman is your mother,
wanle
, and the next time you speak back to her like this, I will have you well beaten.”
As defeating as that was, that settled things. I shamefully apologized to Ma but even that didn’t satisfy her.
“I am not speaking to you,” she said, and true to her word, she didn’t speak to me for a week after and cut my rations at dinner.
When Pa left for Yola, I had a tantrum. I cried for a long time because I knew what my fate would be while he was gone.
“Don’t worry, I will bring you a special gift,” he promised before he left. I was isolated for a week after Pa left and sent to bed without supper or the privilege of joining the story telling in an effort to teach me a lesson about respect. I heard Ma bragging to Ya Sero that she knew how to discipline her children.
I cried, as I lay alone in my room listening to the bubbly stories outside my window. Ma must hate me so much I thought to myself. She could not possibly have given birth to me.
“Women should not meddle in the affairs of men.” I heard Ma telling the people outside, her voice clear and crisp. “Women are women, and men are men”, and everyone agreed with her except me, but I didn’t say anything.
“My findings confirm that the UPC revolts in French Cameroon are getting serious,” Uncle Lavran said to Pa, one day in 1955 when he was visiting.
The Union des populations du Cameroun, aka the UPC, was one of those new political parties that were formed in Cameroon in the late 1940s. Pa only listened, and drank his palm wine without commenting. As usual, I was at his feet listening to the conversation while slicing bitter leaves that Ma was going to use to prepare supper.
“These local rebellions in French Cameroon are being brutally suppressed,” Uncle Lavran said eloquently, a worry line deep on his forehead.
Just like most of the things he said, I didn’t understand the meaning of his last sentence, but I listened on watching both him and Pa.
“And so how does that affect my palm wine supply?” Pa asked, jokingly.
He was hardly a man to speak just for the sake of it. His words were always cool, calm, and calculated as if he processed every thought, every answer, and every reaction before even replying.
Uncle Lavran looked offended. “I speak to you about how the whole of Africa is being thrown into
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