Moment of Clarity

 Some problems do not yield to force. You can push harder and only make them tighter. Others unlock the instant you stop trying to solve them the way you were taught and instead solve them the way the world actually works.

Nineteen eighty nine. I was flying in from Tanzania to Cameroon, heading for Bamenda to meet my brother. He was flying in from Canada. We had not seen each other in a long time. The kind of reunion that lives in your chest before it ever happens.

I landed in Douala and walked straight into trouble.

The immigration gendarme took my passport and invited me into his office. The door closed. Papers were shuffled. Silence stretched. The unspoken expectation hung in the air like humidity. Chop moni. Everyone knew the ritual. You pay, you pass. You do not, you wait.

I sat there thinking I might be stuck for hours. Or longer. I had no interest in playing the game, but the game had me.

And then it happened.

A moment of clarity. Sudden. Clean. Almost funny.

I stopped speaking the language of paperwork and authority. I switched to the language of home.

“Please sah, I no get moni sep. You fit fo check am. Fo watti yu di hol me fo dis place. I wan go meet mah small broda weh dey bi don bon heh for wina contri eh.”

The gendarme froze. Then his face split open in the widest grin I had seen all day.

“Webbe!” he laughed.
“White man weh ee fit fo knak dis propa Kameron bush pidgin?!”

Just like that, the knot loosened.

He laughed. I laughed. He leaned back in his chair and waved off the performance. He wanted to know where I was from. I gave him the short version. Father, Missionary Doctor. Family in Cameroon for long time, not just a short posting. It was part of our bloodline. He nodded. Listened. Understood.

The system dissolved. The man remained.

He stamped my passport and handed it back without asking for a franc. No chop moni. No delay. Just a smile and a nod that said you belong enough to pass. "Merci baucoup, peti fray (petit frere, little brother), as I left. Another loud laugh and a wave from the Gendarme. 

That was my lightning strike.

Not every problem is solved by rules. Some are solved by recognition. By speaking the truth in the language that carries trust. By remembering that authority is still human underneath the uniform.

I walked out of that office lighter, not because I had outsmarted anyone, but because I had finally stopped pretending I was a stranger in my own story.

Clarity does not always come as an answer. Sometimes it comes as a voice you already have, waiting for the right moment to be used.

© Rob Lemke. This content is protected. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or AI training without permission is prohibited.

I write

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