Yvette B.Tamukong. That is what my birth certificate reads. However, I have been called many other names in the few years my cells have been going through mitosis. Some of these words are medical, insulting, complementing and, of course, nicknames. I was called an embryo, a baby, a child, a pre-teen, a teen, an adolescent and, at last, an adult. I do not really think the term adult should be applied based on medical terms. An adult is someone who is responsible for themselves and is capable, if needed, of caring for another. As of now I do not believe myself to have met those conditions. So this the story of how I got so many names.
I was born to Joseph and Florence T on the evening of monday, May *1, 19** in a providence called Wum. I was their first biological child together. Joseph had two children from a previous marriage: both boys. Gerald and Edwin are their names. Gerald is the eldest. And then there was Nadine. She is, in actuality, my cousin on my mothers side who was adopted by my parents upon their marriage. She is something like a mother to me despite being only five years older. Two years and couple of months after my birth, my parents came home with another baby. Thus I became an older sister. At that time I was also a younger sister, half sister, cousin, niece, grand daughter, daughter,and toddler. I grew up happy in Wum till I was three. From my eyes everything was fine; happy and dandy. But I was told by elder siblings that we were so poor they would eat boiled sweet potatoes with water to serve as the soup breakfast, lunch and dinner. I at that time was privy to better nutrition because I was younger. then we moved to the providence of Bamenda. That was were I started attending school. My mother tells me I started attending school around the age of four. I had learned how to count and since Nadine was going to school, I also wanted to go. Since my parents saw no harm in me going, I was allowed to. I do not know what urged that on. Was it because I was enamored with my sister and wished to be like her or was it competition? Besides the point, thats how became student of an official institution.
As I grew up over the years and my brain became more capable, I got craftier. So much so that I masterminded a plan to steal sugar cubes and got my younger brother to join me. As far as I knew if I asked for sugar cubes at a time other than breakfast, the reply would be a "no." so i took matters into my own hands. I told my brother to stand guard at the door to the living room and if any body was to start walking in our direction he should scream "cacala." The word came from from my in ability to remember the word "calabash": a container which was formally the shell of a gourd. while he was on look out I was supposed to go take two cubes of sugar. Unbeknownst to me, my mother had overheard the thing! While I was taking the two sugar cubes I heard my brother screaming, "Cacala! Cacala!" In a rush to put everything away, I dropped the sugar jar. We were caught red-handed. I really do not remember if we were punished. Whenever the story is told my brother always claims that I threatened him. I on the otherhand vividly remember him wanting a sugar cube too. However, the machinations of his brain are not unfounded. I myself do not remember this, but my mother tells me I was once angry with my brother for putting me in trouble. So I called him out in a really sweet voice to a secluded area. When he got there I started threatening him to behave and make sure he does not get me into trouble again. She says I was probably influenced by watching my elder brothers do the same to my elder sister. So I guess I was a bully.
With time I grew older, but not necessarily wiser. I did get smarter, though. Seriously! I was always first in my class. My grades were top notch and my ego knew it. My siblings were not as blessed with knowledge as I was. On one hand, they were not dunces. On the other hand, they were not the first in their classes. On the last day of the year, when children took their report cards home, I would sometimes pretend to have flunked and feign tears. Then I would burst out laughing as if to say "like that would ever happen!" Once one of my uncles was making a bet on my siblings and I passing all our classes and I, with my over-inflated ego, said "I always pass. It's them you need to worry about." By the time I was finished with the sentence I could feel many eyes glaring at me. At the time I did not realize how egoistic that was but now that I do, I feel really bad. I think about that moment and how it felt to be resented whenever my ego seems even a little over-inflated. That is how I got to be called an egotist. I was also a destroyer. I broke countless dishes among other items. Most of the dishes got broken because I was in a hurry to go watch either the Stargate series or cartoons on a francophone channel called Mangas. I would get scolded and sometimes beaten for breaking plates. Eventually, I got smarter, some would say guileful. When I broke a dish, or say dishes, I would hide them. When I got a chance, I would sneak them out of the house and hide them in the shrubs outside our gate. Let us just say if an archeological dig ever takes place there, it would yield many a artifacts. The other item got to their broken states haphazardly. By this time in my life electronics had not yet been introduced. But trust me they will be.
I do not remember exactly why but we moved to the providence of Yaounde. This is where things changed. I started failing my classes. I was no where close to first. I might have been even considered a dunce. I had no idea why. I can hear you saying "Karma." I guess I deserved it. I was so disheartened because i had built my niche around academic performance. I broke a lot of things, I was lazy, I was selfish, I was not good at cooking, I was not the cutest (at the time), but at least I got the best grades. I tried my best to get better grades, or marks as we called it, but my best just was not cutting it. I got so bad that my teacher started calling me stupid in class. I was really mad and hurt so when I went home I complained to my dad. The next day he came with me to school and warned my teacher to never insult me in any way again. That very same day was a test day. Miraculously, I did well and have sailed smoothly through my education ever since. There was some great turbulence at one point though and that was 9th grade English.
A few years later my parents won a contest to come to America and I was so excited that I would get to touch the clouds while in the plane. Much to my disappointment, the windows would not open. I asked my dad about it and he said they would have no texture. I could not understand then but, after all the science classes I have been through; I think that I would only feel a slight change in temperature. This is how I became an immigrant.
I’ll tell you about the names I was called while in America later I promise. But of course there is one very important name I recently acquired. It took twelve years of hard work and some hard core essay writing to get this name. This name also has a high cost if you ask me. There are over 37000 people who are also currently known by this name because they met high standards. I am called a Terp! I have a t-shirt that says so.TYB