By Joyce Ashuntantang
(Afterword from Their Champagne Party Will End: Poems in Honor of Bate Besong)
March 8th 2007, the literary sky fell in Cameroon. Bate Besong; Kwasen Gwangwa’a, Hilarious Ambe, and their driver were crushed in a ghastly accident on the Douala-Yaoundé highway. Yes, after writing poetry, crying, making and receiving frantic calls from and to Cameroon, it was clear that I had to go to the land of my birth to see for myself and be a witness not only to the dramatic exit of the erstwhile Obasinjom warrior, Emanyangkpe, iconoclast, playwright, poet, scholar, and social critic, Dr. Bate Besong , but also to witness the exit of the other two literary gurus, Television Producer, Thomas Kwasen Gwangwa’a and Dr. Hilarious Ambe who died alongside BB.
I left the United States on the 14th of March 2007 and arrived the next day in Douala at night. After having a restless sleep, I left for Yaoundé the following morning, March 16th, and arrived just in time for the viewing of Victim number one, Thomas Kwasen Gwangwa’a. After the funeral rites in Yaounde, I joined family and friends that night for another tedious five hour plus trip to Bali, Northwest Cameroon, for the burial. From Gwangwa’a’s burial, I rushed to Bafut on the same day to witness the burial of Victim number 2, Hilarious Ambe and the next day, I was back on the road to Yaoundé to prepare for my descent, and yes, ascent to Buea to be a witness to the traumatic funeral ceremony of the now legendary Bate Besong.
In Bali @ Kwansen Gwangwa'a's Funeral. March 17, 2007
March 21st 2007 was the D day. The crowd at the mortuary was over two thousand including both friends and foe. Buea had not seen anything like that. BB had been such a public figure that he had become more of a symbol than a real person. But his death proved that he was just human, born of woman. And true, BB’s mother was at the mortuary. I stared at her for sometime wondering: how does a woman raise a child who becomes a symbol of hope for a people? When does she realize that such a child will carry the burden of his people? How does a mother mourn a child who symbolized the anger of a people? How does a mother’s personal grief negotiate the boundaries and margins of this show of public grief?



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