A Review of Beads of Memory
Simolen Jumbam
Remember how as kids we would gather around someone who had “fallen bush” or “gone to the abroad” to listen to their tales of adventure? Even as adults we still do, when someone regales us with stories of adventures in foreign lands. Even if we ourselves are in that foreign land, we still ride on the waves of their experience and try to connect with them from our personal stories. Since many of us are in strange lands, I am positive we will be able to relate to the shared experience of the character in this story, an African student in Spain in the seventies. Culture shock and homesickness are timeless experiences!
I cannot wait for you to get immersed in the word pattern Martin Jumbam has woven to create this beautiful piece: Beads of Memory. Word weaving runs in the family. He and his siblings (notably the novelist, Kenjo Jumbam, author of The White man of God) inherited it from their father, who was a great storyteller and boy did he have stories of his exploits in foreign lands (topic for another day).
Word weaving runs in the family.
Martin Jumbam has a way of threading words that effortlessly propel the abstract world he creates into an almost tangible one. See for yourselves from this extract in which he describes the view of Douala from the air. Home, sweet home indeed!
“There, far below, are the beautiful, meandering waters of the Wouri River. Huge trees with majestic trunks stretch out their gigantic arms to the winds. They stand on both sides of the Wouri like sentinels protecting the eternal flow of its waters to the sea. Their big leaves, stalked onto strong branches, are dancing leisurely in the wind. The wind caresses them, tickles them, and occasionally one of them, unable to stand the incessant fondling of the wind, snaps off its stalk, crash-landing onto others that had taken the same ecstatic leap hours, days, or even months before.
“From above, the tropical forest looks like one huge green carpet unrolled over the land. It has a soft-looking texture to it. Down there, I see the gaping mouth of the Wouri opening out onto the flat sheet of the glittering waters of the sea. That is the Atlantic Ocean. Before that flat sheet of water brought the Portuguese to my country way back in history, the mighty Wouri was already easing the burden of its long journey into it. Long after their departure, it still takes its rest there”
I bet you could see the tropical forest green carpet, the dancing trees, and the meandering Wouri River, even if you have never had the vantage point from which the excerpt above was written. A great read!
Simolen Jumbam
