Bafut Village Monday, October 5, 1999 01:00 PM
We didn't just cross a geographical line. We crossed a century.
The red dirt road wound down from the Bamenda highlands into the valley. The air grew heavier, wetter. The tall eucalyptus trees of the city gave way to dense, ancient mahogany and raffia palms. The "Green Wall."
Bamenda was noise, dust, and concrete. Bafut was silence, mud, and woodsmoke.
Lucas wrestled the Hilux around the final bend. The truck groaned. The suspension was bottomed out, scraping the mud. Ahead, the trees parted.
The Bafut Palace stood before us. It wasn't a building. It was a fortress. A massive complex of thatched roofs, red brick walls, and intricate wood carvings. In the center, the Achum the sacred shrine rose like a pyramid of grass and bamboo, towering over the valley.
It was ancient. It was imposing. And it made our truckload of solar panels look like cheap plastic toys.
"Defensive position," Lucas muttered, scanning the perimeter. "High ground. Limited entry points. Good luck invading this."
"We are not invading," Tashi said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "We are contractors."
"Tell that to them," Lucas said.
He pointed to the gate. Three men stood there. They were shirtless, wearing wraps of intricately woven blue and white cloth. They held spears. Not ceremonial spears. Sharp spears. The Chindas. The Palace Guards.
Lucas stopped the truck. The engine idled roughly. Chug-chug-chug.
One of the Chindas stepped forward. He raised a hand. He didn't look at the truck. He looked through it.
"Engine off," he commanded.
Lucas killed the engine. The silence that rushed in was deafening. No cars. No generators. Just the sound of crickets and the wind in the raffia palms.
Tashi stepped out. He smoothed his suit jacket. He held the Ministry folder like a shield.
"I am Tashi," he announced. "Contractor for the Millennium Village Project. Sent by Dr. Foncha. We are here to install the system."
The Chinda didn't look at the folder. "The Fon is resting," he said.
"We have a deadline," Tashi said. "The Doctor said—"
"The Doctor is in Yaoundé," the Chinda interrupted. "This is Bafut. In Bafut, the sun waits for the Fon. You will wait too."
He pointed to a large stone bench under a plum tree outside the gate. "Sit."
We sat. Me, Tashi, Collins. Lucas leaned against the truck, smoking a cigarette, watching the guards with amused professional interest.
We waited for an hour. Then two.
"This is the friction," I whispered to Collins. "Administrative latency."
"Na Juju," Collins whispered back, his eyes wide. "You see the bag wey hang for gate? If you pass under am with bad heart, you go swollen."
"It's just dried grass and cowries," I said.
"To you," Collins said. "To them, na security system."
A gong sounded from inside the palace. GONG. GONG. The Chinda returned.
"The Fon will see you."
"The truck?" Tashi asked.
"Walk."
We left the Hilux. We walked through the gate. We entered the Lower Courtyard. It was a different world. The ground was swept clean. Hundreds of years of history stared down at us from the carved pillars.
We were led to a reception hall with open sides. At the far end, sitting on a raised dais covered in leopard skins, was The Fon of Bafut.
He was a large man. Powerful. He wore a flowing robe of embroidered velvet. He held a staff. He wasn't a relic. He was a modern king. He wore a heavy gold watch. Behind him stood a Council of Elders old men with weathered faces and eyes that missed nothing.
We bowed. Tashi stepped forward.
"Your Highness," Tashi said. "I am Tashi. This is my team."
The Fon looked at us. He looked at Tashi's frayed suit. He looked at Collins' terrified face. He looked at Lucas's red beret. He looked at me.
"Dr. Foncha promised me engineers," the Fon said. His voice was deep, resonant. "He promised me Germans. Or Frenchmen."
He gestured at us. "He sent me a shopkeeper, a soldier, a mechanic, and a child."
"We are the technical team," Tashi said, keeping his voice steady. "We are the ones who will bring the light."
"Light," the Fon mused. He pointed to the corner of the courtyard. There, covered in dust and bird droppings, sat a massive diesel generator. A Perkins 40kVA. It was rusted solid. Silent. Dead.
"The Ministry brought that five years ago," the Fon said. "They made speeches. They drank my palm wine. They turned it on. It made noise. It made smoke. We had light for one week."
He leaned forward.
"Then the diesel finished. Then the belt broke. Then the Ministry stopped answering the phone. Now it is a statue to broken promises."
He looked at Tashi.
"Why is your machine different?"
Tashi hesitated. He looked at the rusted generator. The ghost of failures past.
"My machine drinks the sun," Tashi said. "The sun does not run out. There is no diesel to buy. There are no belts to break."
"The sun," one of the Elders scoffed. "The sun dries the corn. It does not light the bulb."
"It does," I spoke up.
The Elders turned to look at me. A child speaking in the court. Tashi stiffened.
"It is physics," I said. "Photovoltaics. We turn the light into electrons. We store them in the grey boxes in the truck. At night, we let them out."
The Fon looked at me. He looked at the Databank watch on my wrist. "You are the child?"
"I am the technician," I said.
The Fon smiled. It wasn't a warm smile. "Brave words. But words do not banish the dark."
He waved his hand. "You may start. But know this: The Palace closes at sunset. If you disturb the ancestors, you leave. If you fail to bring light... you leave."
"We need to bring the truck in," Tashi said. "The batteries are heavy."
"The truck stays outside," the Fon said. "Only humans enter the sacred ground. Carry them."
It was brutal. The distance from the gate to the installation site the Community Hall next to the Palace was 200 meters. Uphill.
We had to carry everything. The batteries weighed 60kg each. The panels were fragile glass. The acid jerrycans were ticking time bombs.
Lucas refused to carry. "I am Transport," he said. "My job ended at the gate." He sat on the hood of the Hilux, cleaning his fingernails with his knife.
So it was Me, Tashi, and Collins. Collins carried the batteries on his head. His neck muscles bulged. Sweat poured down his face. Tashi carried the panels, walking like a crab to avoid cracking them. I carried the acid and the cable.
It took us an hour. By the time the gear was piled in the Community Hall, the sun was setting. The light was turning golden, then grey.
"We have to mount the panels," Tashi panted, looking at the roof.
The Community Hall had a zinc roof. But it was old. Brown with rust. And it was steep.
"Nkem," Tashi said. "Survey."
I walked around the building. I looked at the roof orientation. North-South. Good. We could face the panels South-East to catch the morning sun.
Then I looked up. My heart sank.
"Papa," I said.
"What?"
"Look."
I pointed. Towering over the Community Hall was a massive Iroko Tree. It was ancient. Its trunk was as wide as a car. Its branches spread out like a canopy, covering the entire roof in deep, cool shade.
"Shadow," I whispered. "Hard shadow."
"So?" Tashi asked. "The sun will move."
"No," I said. "That tree blocks 80% of the sky. Solar panels need direct light. If even one cell is shaded, the voltage drops. With that tree there... the system will produce nothing. Zero."
Tashi looked at the tree. He looked at the pile of expensive equipment. He looked at the darkening sky.
"We have to cut it," Tashi said.
Collins gasped. "Cut Iroko? For Palace?"
"We trim the branches," Tashi amended. "Just to open a window for the light."
A Chinda appeared from the shadows. He had been watching us. He saw us looking at the tree.
"That is the Ancestor Tree," the Chinda said quietly. "It was planted by the first Fon. It houses the spirits of the valley."
Tashi looked at the Chinda. "It blocks the sun," Tashi explained. "We need to trim it. Just a few branches."
The Chinda's face went hard. "If you touch one leaf of that tree," the Chinda said, "the village will burn your truck. And the Fon will feed you to the leopards."
He pointed to the gate. "Sunset. Leave."
We walked back to the truck. We were exhausted. We were muddy. And we were defeated before we started.
We sat in the cab of the Hilux, eating cold rice. The Palace was dark. The village was dark.
"Physics vs Metaphysics," I whispered.
"What?" Lucas asked, chewing on a piece of dried meat.
"The physics says the tree must go," I said. "The metaphysics says the tree must stay. If the tree stays, the lights don't work. If we cut the tree, we get killed."
"We move the panels," Tashi said.
"To where?" I asked. "The Hall is the only building with a zinc roof strong enough. The rest is thatch. You can't mount solar on grass."
Tashi rubbed his temples. We had the gear. We had the acid. We had the will. But we were blocked by a tree that had more authority than the Ministry of Energy.
"The Fon set us up," Lucas said, laughing softly. "He knows the tree is there. He knows the generator failed. He wants to see if you are smart enough to solve the riddle."
"Or he wants us to fail," Tashi said. "So he can tell Dr. Foncha: 'I tried, but your magic is weak.'"
I looked at the massive silhouette of the Iroko tree against the starry sky. It was beautiful. It was sacred. And it was the enemy.
"We don't cut it," I said.
"Then what?"
"We don't need the roof," I said. "We need the sun."
I looked at the Palace grounds. I looked at the geography. The Palace was in a depression. But the Achum the sacred shrine was on a rise.
"We need a remote mount," I said. "We put the panels somewhere else. somewhere sunny. And we run a cable."
"How far?" Tashi asked.
"100 meters," I said. "Maybe more."
"We have 100 meters of cable," Tashi said. "But 4mm cable... at 12 Volts... over 100 meters?"
I did the math in my head. Voltage Drop = Current x Resistance. Resistance of 4mm copper over 100m...
"The voltage drop will be massive," I whispered. "We will lose 40% of the power in the wire. The lights will be dim. The batteries won't charge."
"So we fail," Collins said.
"Unless," I said.
I looked at Lucas. I looked at the acid jerrycans in the back. I looked at the dead generator in the courtyard.
"Unless we change the voltage," I said. "We don't run 12 Volts. We run high voltage."
"We don't have a transformer," Tashi said.
"We have two batteries," I said. "If we wire them in series... 24 Volts. The current drops by half. The loss drops by half."
"But the inverter is 12 Volts," Tashi argued. "The lights are 12 Volts. If you feed 24 Volts into the system, you blow everything up."
"We build a step-down," I said. "At the other end."
"With what components?"
I looked at the rusted Perkins generator. "It has a regulator," I said. "An alternator has diodes. Resistors. Heavy copper windings."
I looked at the dark silhouette of the generator. "We cannibalize the dead god to feed the new one."
Tashi looked at the Palace gate. "Stealing parts from the Fon's generator?"
"Recycling," I corrected.
"If they catch us?"
"Then we definitely get fed to the leopards."
Lucas started the engine. "I like it," Lucas said. "It's tactical. We sleep in the truck. Tomorrow... we go grave robbing."