Life in a Dead City Part 1

For over two years, the English speaking regions of my country Cameroon have been in what is today known as the Anglophone Crisis. What’s interesting to know is that for over two years, inhabitants of the two English speaking regions, North West and South West Regions have lived without Monday as a working day.
In other words, Monday is now part of the weekend and weekends for over two years begin on Friday after work only to resume on Tuesday. For over two years, we have been at home every Monday and Mondays are now known as “Contri Sunday”, a day when nobody is suppose to work or do anything apart from stay at home and this is part of the peaceful resistance strategy English speaking Cameroonians have resorted to in a bid to force the government to dialogue and solve the Anglophone Crisis.
Today, I managed to sneak out of my house to have chat with my closest neighbor and we remembered this same day last year, when thousands of English speaking Cameroonians came out in their numbers to match for independence. ### You can learn more about the Anglophone crisis at Relief Web

We asked ourselves when all these is going to end. Anyway, Life in a dead city strives to talk about how I my life and that of the people in my community on “Contri Sundays”.
Remember that “Contri Sundays” are Mondays and any day during which the entire city is ghosted. Ghost town days.
Part 1 of life in a dead city begins yesterday Sunday 30th after news of the Governors’ 48 hours lockdown of the entire North West and South West Regions spread like wild fire over the social media on Saturday 29th.

On that Saturday, you could see more and more people flee the North West and South West Regions for fear of the unknown. Transport fares quadrupled but people were still willing to leave. However, some stayed but how is life like in a dead city? A city that many people have evacuated: A city where you can’t get the sound of a car or people chatting freely.

Sunday

Yesterday Sunday was completely different because in the Governor’s communiqué, all gatherings were prohibited. As such there was no church. People stayed at their homes and in a big city like Bamenda, you could hear the birds chirp. My family stayed at home and I managed to use the backyard to do laundry. At least, I got all the dresses cleaned up while my wife made sure she prepared and stocked the refrigerator with more food.
In the afternoon, I got the chance to spend almost 6 straight hours babysitting our 10 months old son and we had a lot of quality time together. He got his first hair cut and now has a very round head.
Later in the evening, we locked our doors, stayed indoors and watched movies. Luckily, there was some pop corn and drinks for us to enjoy while we watched the movies.

Monday

Today Monday, the sounds of AK47 woke us up from the bed at about 05:45AM. The gunshots lasted for about 5 minutes but we stayed indoors till about 8:30am. We cleaned our yard and went back indoors but at about 11:00am I sneaked to greet one of my neighbors.
We chatted for about 5 minutes with our eyes open and ears on the ground listening to any incoming sound and watching for any incoming person before I rushed back home.
Immediately after I chat, I dashed back into the house and since morning, we’ve been indoors. My wife prepared us some corn-fufu with vegetables and chicken. Its known as kati-kati and we have enjoyed this delicious meal with some fruit juice.

I have been able to write this post and 03 others.

It’s 06:00PM and places have been very calm all day thought my friends from different parts of the city have been complaining of heavy gun shooting in their neighborhoods. Luckily, all of them are safe and I hope today ends with all of us being safe.
Tomorrow, I shall bring life in a dead city part two.

Mr. Green is a member/promoter of;