By
Obododimma Oha
"Ewu Kamaro" (Cameroonian goat) is a derogatory term used in Igboland in referring sometimes to individuals who have been living in Cameroon and who in their simplicity and honesty are not as clever as those back home. Indeed, the returnees after a long sojourn in Cameroon are simple and honest in their ways, to the point that dubious persons could easily cheat them. But by staying back home in Nigeria, they become equally clever and are able to deal with trying situations.
The term is made up of a spatial deixis "Kamaro" (Cameroon) and a metaphor. Goats are understood to be stupid, even though they may not be. Even while chewing the cud and looking on, they may be thinking. One can only know this by being a goat! Well, according to humans, goats are stupid. So, "Ewu Kamaro" must also be stupid.
You would wonder: how can someone who is honest be considered stupid? Is it not because the other person has seen weaknesses or ways of cheating the "goat"? But this is crucial to the identity differentiation and attitude. Obviously, Igbo-Cameroonians would hate that perception. They only want "home people" to take it easy and enjoy life.
In reality, the "Ewu Kamaro" likes keeping to rules.
"Ewu Kamaro" takes life easy.
"Ewu Kamaro" likes being straightforward.
"Ewu Kamaro" likes it clean and authentic.
"Ewu Kamaro detests crookedness.
We can, then, understand why such individuals are considered goats. They are expected to interrogate and if possible suspend these to be able to live in a context that demands shrewdness.
How can someone be on a battlefield and take life easy? Is that person stupid? How can a person be straightforward and be injured by those policing plans? The person obviously does not know the meaning of "strategy." How can we try to be clean and authentic in a shithole? Isn't that brainless? And this shrewdness of a thing. Didn't Jesus himself advise us to be as wise as serpents...? Even if one's name is "Innocent," that person still needs to be shrewd.
It would seem like a support for the character identified as "Ewu Kamaro" is hasty. It is really difference of context that is labeling him "ewu" and wondering how being back home would work. Obviously, this attitudinal alienation can just be called a culture shock, following sociologists. "Ewu Kamaro," it could be argued in this case, needs to adjust quickly or be injured, not just shocked.
The character called "Ewu Kamaro" is told that surviving back home is not a "mimbo" (wine) thing. It is a brain thing. It requires cleverness, shrewdness, craftiness. You just can't survive here as "ewu." You need crudeness.
This tells us one important thing: it is not just that an identity can emerge from an existing one, but migration and going to live and work in other places will, with time, give rise to a new and different group that even has its own schibboleth and thinks about its difference. Indeed, Igbo people who live or have lived in Cameroon prefer dealing with their kind and not with "home people" understood as "difficult" people. In other words, they prefer dealing with their own fellow "ewu" and not with those resident at home.
Apart from this, "Ewu Kamaro" fantasizes about life in Cameroon, making other fellow "Ewu Kamaro" very nostalgic and desirous of returning to Cameroon. Also, other listeners who have not been to Cameroon would wish and dream about going.
Even though many of the Igbo dwellers in Cameroon live in the English-speaking part, they show off the little French they know back in Nigeria. Is it not fantastic to be bilingual and to know French? You English-speaking people are crude, very crude. And so, the "ca va bien" (French for "I am fine") person is evidently more civilized!
So, the battle extends to the languages left behind by the colonial authorities, actually for the battle to be continued by "Ewu French" and "Ewu English" persons without the soldiers knowing why and for whom they are fighting.
Very subtly the Nigerian colonization by the British is seen as a terrible scar: "home people" carry that scar and are undesirably very rough like their colonizers!
"Ewu Kamaro" finally hits back. Being called a goat is coming from the mouth of a crude person! Does it throw some dust on my polished shoes?
Finally, being called "Ewu Kamaro" has become another praise-oriented acknowledgement of the fact that the referent has traveled before beyond his or her village. If traveling is still part of education, then, "Ewu Kamaro" has been to school. "Ewu Kamaro" has seen more to life and is still alive to tell it.
Next time that you see "Ewu Kamaro" passing a very busy road, don't be quick to conclude that every "Ewu" that chews the cud does not know that this is left, that is right.
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