Photos on the Wall

9 January 2010

In Cameroon, whenever a new person, such as myself, enters a village or town, he needs to go around to all the notables in the community, such as the chief, mayor, sous-prefet, etc., and introduce himself and why he is there. I did this in Ngong and then also had to go to Garoua to do the same with the people a step up. I had to go the Gendarmerie (sorta like the army barracks) twice because the first time, the Commandant was in Yaounde. When I returned a couple weeks later, he still wasn’t in the office but I decided to wait for a little while and took a seat.
A TV blared in the background, playing something like afro-reggae-pop which I found surprisingly catchy. The guard there didn’t really ask me anything but worked on his paperwork and occasionally shot a glance at the TV. I looked to my right and on the wall was a tagboard with some photos and captions on it. In one photo, four people lay on the ground and when I looked a little closer, I realized there were others standing around them.
The people on the ground were dead, shot by Chadian rebels who had made a raid across the border a few years ago.
Another photo was a close up of a man missing half his head. He was also shot by Chadian rebels. The photo was odd because his face was still almost completely intact and he looked eerily like he could have simply been sleeping—save for his mouth which was open and, though not disfigured, seemed to express pain, or surprise. I’m not sure which.
Yet another photo showed a person missing most of his intestines.
You get the idea.
I’m not trying to alarm anyone; these photos were taken several years ago when Chad was much more unstable and were a decent distance away from where I am currently living so don’t fear for my safety at all. Cameroon is the most stable country in the region and one of the most stable in Africa.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that while I sat in a chair, waiting for the Commandant of the Northern Legion and listening to a blaring television, I saw these photos of people senselessly murdered. I felt an odd sense of disconnect. Disturbing: yes. Graphic: yes. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. I’m not going to lie and say I was rattled to my core to see a real life photograph of what we so often read about in the paper (or skim over) and see in movies (and subsequently ignore), but even through the detachment I felt, it was puzzling to try to make sense of.
Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me to see a picture of a man missing the back part of his head. Maybe it means nothing to me, or maybe it just means I’ll have a faint reminder in the back of my head when I see the name of his town on a sign as I drive by.
There isn’t anything I can do about it, that’s for sure. I do, however, hope to remain mindful of it, and of death, which I feel people acknowledge so much more here than in the US, because it happens so much more often and is so much more a part of life.