Economic Survival in Africa By Any Means Necessary

“There are extraordinary ways in which hardworking Africans have managed to survive in spite of the hard times. They seem to be guided by the French aphorism: “Aux grands maux les grands remèdes” ….in every street corner in every country in Africa one finds street vendors selling food, fish, bobolo, myiondo, mai-mai, dodo, koki, puff-puff, and more. In every city inAfrica, you would find hawkers selling anything from second-hand clothes to safety pins and shoe-polish. There are youths in many cities in Africa making a living by going from house to house and from office to office polishing people’s shoes for a living. Others are tinkers going from door to door repairing the leaking kitchen utensils of housewives for a stipend. These are characteristics of people who know what indigence means and are determined to rise above the poverty line…Little acts of survival … bear testimony to the people’s steel. Isolated acts of dishonor such as feymania and scam mania may stand as sore fingers in the hands of Mother Africa; nonetheless, it should be noted that Africa’s success story will never be complete without an account of ‘small’ honorable acts accomplished by so-called ‘small’ people noted for their sense of integrity. Despite the unprecedented turn in Africa’s fortunes in the past couple of years, there is room for optimism about the years and decades ahead.”

 Introduction
More often than not, well-educated people, most of them friends of Africa, tell me that they despair of Africa. They attribute their despondency to the fact that the majority of African leaders are corrupt, immoral people who not only abuse and exploit their own people but perpetuate their tenure in office by foul means. They point to the fact that multi-million projects intended to improve the lot of the underprivileged have been allowed to flounder on account of corrupt practices aided and abetted by administrators who often siphon the funds to personal bank accounts in foreign lands. Some of these doomsayers are quick to point out that Africa’s abundant natural resources—oil, diamonds, gold, bauxite, etc—do not serve Africans at all. Oilfields have been exploited and forests depleted but the proceeds have ended up in Banks overseas. They contend that African economies have stagnated; that epidemics and pandemics have ravagedAfrica’s human capital. Others observe that abject poverty and chronic unemployment on the African continent are caused by the dearth of domestic industries and brain drain.

There may be some truth in all this but this sort of reasoning ignores the extraordinary ways in which ordinary Africans have succeeded in making a living against overwhelming odds.

 I believe that economic ‘miracles’ are happening everyday on every street corner in Africa. Every now and then you run into a group of women, young and old, who have improvised a roadside market to sell their fruits and vegetables spread on banana and plantain leaves to shield them from dust and mud. All too often, one encounters a group of children, orphaned by HIV/AIDS, carrying firewood on their bare heads to sell in order to procure money needed to pay for the education they need to turn their lives around. Every day one runs into roadside mechanics armed with nothing but rusty spanners trying hard to resuscitate a dilapidated clando vehicle that should have been sent to the junk-yard years ago. Suddenly, the car takes off amidst a cloud of dark smoke. The next minute the same vehicle is loading a miscellany of goods owned bybayam sellam heading for the urban centers for retail.

All these activities bear testimony to the superhuman courage and resilience of Africans, people determined to eke out a living regardless of the odds confronting them. On this count, I cannot find any reason to despair of Africa. There is no gainsaying the fact that Africans continue to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps in the face of unfathomable adversity. I believe that corruption, misgovernment, pestilence, famine and unemployment will be bedfellows with Africans for only as long as they will tolerate it. But the day will come when they will say no to manipulation and misinformation by extraneous powers and take their destiny into their own hands. The day will come when Africans will come to the realization that no amount of paternalistic goodwill from outside is enough to solve their internal problems.

There is no reason to despair of Africa. I can hardly imagine any other group of people on this planet that have been subjected to the myriads of ills—slavery, colonization, neo-colonization and more—and yet can afford to hold their heads high and walk tall as Africans do. For this reason, I don’t despair of Africabecause the ‘small’ acts accomplished by so-called ‘small’ people will eventually snowball into great acts.

1. Big Acts by ‘Small’ People
There are extraordinary ways in which hardworking Africans have managed to survive in spite of the hard times. They seem to be guided by the French aphorism: “Aux grands maux les grands remèdes” (Le Nouveau Petit Robert, 1993, p.1921). Take the case of the indomitable spirit of market women in Cameroon brandedbayam sellam.

1.1. Bayam Sellam
These are women who employ genius and wit to make ends meet. Their trade is a thriving business in the informal sector dominated by underprivileged classes in the Republic of Cameroon—women, youths, orphans, etc. Bayam sellam is a word derived from Cameroon Pidgin English, meaning “buy” and “sell” (Ebola, 2002). This activity consists precisely of buying and selling foodstuff bought wholesale at the lowest possible prices in the rural areas—farms and plantations in the villages—to resell by retail in the urban areas—Yaoundé, Douala Bafoussam, Nkongsamba etc. Bayam sellam trade is a growing informal economic activity in Cameroon. It is born out of need— the struggle to improve the livelihood of individuals and families.

Bayam sellam are constantly on the move between rural areas and the cities. They operate individually and sometimes in groups when faced with the prospect of threat or danger—harassment by law enforcement officers, thieves, feymen etc. So there is a kind of group solidarity that binds them together. Their daily tasks are not a sinecure at all. The business ofbayam sellam harbors a myriad of risks. Road insecurity combined with the corrupt attitude of law enforcement officers make the business fraught with uncertainties. Yet these valiant women have stuck to their guns and continued to fight endemic poverty by all means necessary. They have stepped up efforts to meet the challenges confronting them on a daily basis in their struggle to earn a living. The farm-to-market roads are usually impracticable. Transportation is hazardous. These women rely mostly on clando vehicles, farm taxis andbendskin. More often than not, when faced with the problem of transportation, some to these women are seen sitting on top of their cargo on the carriage of the car or on the bonnet. They spend days in the rural areas buying fruits, vegetables and other perishables. The perishable nature of the goods they buy is a great risk for these women who sometimes borrow money fornjangi houses and tontines to have a market capital. In the event that the goods are destroyed by inclement weather or as a result of the bad nature of roads, the borrowed money is gone for good!

The bayam sellam often use subsidiary transportation means—their head, rickshaws, wheelbarrows, etc— to transport their goods to road junctions where they wait for appropriate means of transportation to the urban centers. They often run the risk of being assaulted and even raped. Yet they do not refrain having recourse to this means of making money to provide for their children and sometimes husbands, rendered jobless by economic recession. The economic importance of the bayam sellam trade in Cameroon cannot be overstated. Their business constitutes a mainstay that enables them to assert themselves in a male-dominated society where women are made to play second fiddle on account of their financial dependency on men. The trade does not only provide the much-needed cash; but also enables women to ward off the gender oppression that had hitherto been their lot in a patriarchal society. Some married bayam sellam have pointed out that their business enables them to minimize dependence on their husbands and the humiliation that overdependence often engenders.

These are positive signs of our time. These bold steps taken to cross the threshold of poverty bear testimony to the fact that Africans have a knack for surmounting insuperable bottlenecks. The stoic attitude of thebayam sellam breeds hope, not despondency. The bayam sellam trade is only one of many informal sector economic activities in Cameroon. The youths in Douala, Bamenda, Nkambe, Ndop, Kumba, Kumbo, Bafoussam, Nkogonsamba, Loum, Penja to name but a few have devised two innovative economic sustenance activities: one is the use of motorbikes commonly known as bendskin for the transportation of passengers The other activity is the pousse-pousse or handcart business (Konings, 2006).

1.2 Bendskin and Pousse-Pousse.
Bendskin is a Cameoonian Pidgin English word meaning “bend your body”. This nomenclature derives from the posture of the passenger being transported on abendskin or motorbike. The passenger usually leans forward to hold tightly onto the biker. Bendskin also refers to the name of the popular music played byCameroon’s musical virtuoso, André-Marie Talla (Nyamnjoh and Fokwang, 2003). The posture of the bendskin passenger is likened to that of a bendskindancer. The other transportation activity that has become common currency in Douala and other cities in Cameroon is the use of handcarts— known in French as pousse-pousse—for the transportation of merchandise. (Konings, 2006).These two income-generating activities secure a sustainable livelihood and a feeling of self-reliance for the youths involved in it. They contribute significantly to easing transportation problems in Cameroon. Bendskin drivers and pousseurs usually organize themselves in small groups along tribal/ethnic or friendship ties. The introduction of these carts for the transportation of goods has greatly eased the transportation bottlenecks in traffic-congested cities like Douala and Yaoundé. This activity offers employment to jobless youths, some of them high school graduates. It provides alternative forms of transportation adapted to the income levels of cash strapped families.

The pousse-pousse andbendskins have been hailed as great substitutes toCameroon’s dysfunctional urban transportation system. It should be noted that the SOTUC went out of business a long time ago, leaving cities likeDouala and Yaoundé with no public commuter buses. The activities of the bendskineurs and pousseursdemonstrate the steel that only Africans are capable of. It is their way of contributing to the nation’s economic recovery. These youths have refused to succumb to the economic hardship engendered by structural adjustment programs prescribed by the Bretton Woods institutions—World Bank and International Monetary Fund.These new forms of self-employment provide self-esteem and a means of survival for people who would have otherwise constituted a social liability.

Bendskin drivers and pousseurs are reputed for their ingenuity at courting clients. They are skillful at evading the notorious mange-mille. To date, they have managed to maintain a certain degree of group autonomy. Bendskineurs, in particular have engaged in collective action to protect their interests against corrupt law enforcement officers. Like the bayam sellam, bendskin drivers and pousseurs demonstrate a spirit of solidarity. They are capable of overcoming ethnic and friendship bonds when outsiders such as the police and gendarmes threaten them. To protest persistent police harassment and extortion, these youths often take control of the cities by chasing police officers from the streets and bringing traffic to a standstill. This evasive and sometimes, confrontational attitude is not unique to Cameroonian motorcycle drivers.

Their Nigerian counterparts have recently resorted to wearing dried pumpkin shells on their heads to transgress a new law forcing them to wear helmets. They complain that helmets cost about $25.00, an amount very much beyond the reach of most of the drivers. Some bikers use calabashes—dried shells of pumpkin-sized fruit— usually used as a bowl tied to their heads with a string to try and evade bribe-hungry traffic police (BBC News, 2009). Over and above, several bikers have taken to the street in the northern city of Kano to protest the impounding of thousands of motorbike taxis. Kano Federal Road Safety Commission Commander, Yusuf Garba, told the BBC lately that his office has taken a hard line with the motorbike drivers, adding that they “were impounding their bikes and wanted to take them to court and explain why they thought that wearing a calabash is good enough for their safety (BBC News, 2009).

Motorbikes called “achaba” in Northern Nigeria and “okada” in the South are a cheap way for people to get around congested and chaotic city streets. To solve the chronic unemployment problem in the country, local government officials often give motorbikes to jobless young men as part of a poverty-reduction program. Some of the motorbikes are provided on hire-purchase by wealthy businessmen. These actions inspire hope, not despair. They are measures intended to support young Africans who are fighting tooth and nail to live above the poverty threshold. There is no reason to lose hope in a people who are struggling to survive as the following poem by this writer clearly shows:

BEND SKIN

Pipo dem for Bamenda,
Di one dem for Buea,
Pipo dem for Bafoussam,
Di one dem for Nkongsamba.
Pipo dem for Douala,
Di one dem for Yaounde,
Pipo dem for Kribi 
Di one dem for Bertoua.
Pipo dem for Garoua
Di one dem for Maroua
Pipo dem for Ngoundere,
Di one dem for Batouri,
All Pipo dem for Ngola
Mek wuna no mek erreur!
No be wuna sabi da ting
Wey dem de call’am say bend skin?
Bend skin no be daso dance:
Da mean say da kain dance
Wey André- Marie Talla
Be knack’am for ndinga,
Wey yi mek all man-pikin dem
Wit woman-pikin dem for Ngola
Dem loss dem head,
Dem de dasso shake skin
Like say dem be na ntumbu!
Bend skin na name for taxi for Ngola.
Bend skin na taxi for dong pipo, 
Pipo wey dem own no dei.
Wheda you dei na for Kurumanjang,
Or you dei na for Essimbi
Wheda you dei na for Muea,
Or you dei na for Buea
You go dasso see bend skin
Wey yi go take you sotai
Go lef you for youa doormot.
Bend skin dei for all kain kain
Corner for we own kontri just now!
No be da one na fain ting?
Na dem tok sei na condition mek
Njanga yi back bend!
Mukala dem pass we for helicopter;
We pass dem for pousse-pousse!
Oyibo dem pass we for aeroplane;
We pass dem for bend skin!
There are thousands of struggling people like bayam sellam, bendskineurs andpousseurs in every city in Africa, making a living from honest, profitable activities. One of such activities is street vending.

1.3 Street vendors
In every street corner in every country in Africa one finds street vendors selling food, fish, bobolo, myiondo, mai-mai, dodo, koki, puff-puff, and more. In every city in Africa, you would find hawkers selling anything from second-hand clothes to safety pins and shoe-polish. There are youths in many cities in Africamaking a living by going from house to house and from office to office polishing people’s shoes for a living. Others are tinkers going from door to door repairing the leaking kitchen utensils of housewives for a stipend. These are characteristics of people who know what indigence means and are determined to rise above the poverty line. They are bent on warding off the pangs of financial hardship. In them I have great hope. They could have succumbed to the temptation to steal, burgle and mug people in broad day light. Instead they have chosen the path of moral rectitude. They have elected to live by dint of hard work. Conscientious Africans have refused to throw in the towel in the face of frustration and hardship. They have opted to go the extra mile in their quest for a decent living.

In marché Mokolo in Yaounde, one finds hundreds of sauveteurs attracting customers with a gamut of merchandise. In Nkululung market inDouala, one finds men and women of all ages and sizes trading in assorted goods. Loveline Mbori, one of the hawkers, observes:” For a man of my caliber to stay idle, you can already speak of the results.”(1) Street food vending is lucrative business in many African cities and towns. At the Quartier Briqueterie  in Yaounde, the vending of roast meat, popularly known as “soya” has become so popular that the premises on which the business thrives has been nicknamed “Le Ministère de Soya” or Ministry of Soya. Soya is a delicacy relished by Cameroonians of all age groups. Civil servants often take time off their very busy schedules to go “have a bite” of delicious soya before returning to work. Oftentimes, it is “washed down” with a bottle ofjobajo. In street corners in Yaounde, you would find civil servants eating breakfast and lunch in makeshift stalls called tourne-dos in Cameroonian French. Although concerns about hygiene and sanitation discourage some people from eating street food, lack of time and the means to prepare a square meal generally leave many people with no alternative.

In South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland,boerewors is sold everywhere. It is made from coarsely minced beef (sometimes combined with minced pork, lamb (or both) and spices (usually coriander, cloves, etc). Boerewors is usually served with pap (traditional porridge made from mielie-meal). This is lucrative business for people who, otherwise, would be in the streets either protesting unemployment or stealing from the rich. Considering that every human endeavor has its flipside, it is appropriate to mention the emergence of what has been branded mokoagne moni or magic money in some countries in Africa, especially Cameroon (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2000).

1.4 Occult economies
In Cameroon and Nigeria, feymania has become a way in which underprivileged Africans make a living. As Ndjio observes: “ Symptomatic of …our present times is the growing tendency among socially and economically marginalized Cameroonians to believe that the deployment of occult powers is an efficient way of creating wealth, especially in times of uncertainty and anxiety.”(1)
Since the mid-1990s, feymen, as young urban tricksters and professional swindlers are commonly known in Cameroon, have become the iconic figures of what many regard as prosperity, success and good life (Malaquais, 2001). Through the economy of fraud, swindle and deception, these people, mostly from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, manage to accumulate huge fortunes enabling some of them to drive fancy cars, wear flashy clothes and live in impressive mansions in gentrified neighborhoods in Douala and Yaounde(Ndjio 2009). Feyanmia is not unique to Cameroon. The 419 scam employed by Nigerians to dispossess people of their hard-earned cash is known worldwide. The occult practices used by feymen include techniques that transgress conventional, rational and moral principles. They also challenge common sense (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1999).

Weary of the negative image they have in society, some feymen have resorted to laundering their money. By doing so, they have succeeded in transforming theirmokoagne moni (bad money) into nkap ngoh moni (good or blessed money (Ndjio 2009). A good example is Tom Dollar, a notorious swindler who lives in Tonga village inCameroon. From being branded fingon (traitor) and swenga (sorcerer) this man has become the adored protector of his community. Today he is referred to as talah—father of the community (Ndjio 2009). The abrupt change of heart on the part of the villagers is attributed to the fact that Tom Dollar has used his illicit money for the development of his village. He is said to have built seven new classrooms at the Tonga government school, and opened a computer center for learners. What this means is that once ‘bad’ money is made to serve the needs of the community, the stigma disappears. As Ndjio puts it: “What is at the core of the stigmatization of ‘magic money’ is less the feymania, the extraordinary mode of enrichment per se; it is not the occult sources of this wealth but bad use…” (2009:10).

Conclusion
In this article, I have attempted to substantiate the thesis according to whichAfrica’s economies are not in the doldrums. In the long run, it is small successes like those accomplished by the buyam sellam, handcart pushers, bendskin drivers, taxi-men and roadside vendors that make a huge difference. These are not stories about a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or some gigantic new software project designed to serve the needs of millions of people the world over. Rather, they are success stories about individual Africans who through their own grit, common sense, determination, talent, discipline and tireless effort have made a bright future for themselves. The thrust of the argument in this article is that Africa in not the economic ‘sick man of the globe’ as compulsive Afro-pessimists would have it. Unlike other subjugated peoples of the world, Africans have declined to stumble and fall under the weight of a yoke. Though constrained to fight tooth and nail for daily survival, they continue to walk tall in the face of mammoth obstacles.

Little acts of survival like the ones described in this write-up, accomplished by the rank and file bear testimony to the people’s steel. Isolated acts of dishonor such asfeymania and scam mania may stand as sore fingers in the hands of Mother Africa; nonetheless, it should be noted that Africa’s success story will never be complete without an account of ‘small’ honorable acts accomplished by so-called ‘small’ people noted for their sense of integrity. Despite the unprecedented turn in Africa’s fortunes in the past couple of years, there is room for optimism about the years and decades ahead. I am certain that we will have lots of success stories to share in the future. Let it never by said again thatAfrica is the richest resource continent on the planet that remained in abject poverty in perpetuity. Africans reject the state of pariah and developmental regression to which they have been confined by forces beyond they control.

©The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2009. All Rights Reserved

Peter W. Vakunta, PhD, is at the Department of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.