Les fous

I just passed Mama on my way home from school. He was walking a few paces behind me, laughing hysterically. I turned, said “Sannu” (hello), and continued on my way. He didn’t respond—perhaps he didn’t even notice I was there—but I didn’t expect him to.

The first time I saw Mama was a few weeks after my arrival in Nyambaka. It was August, late in the rainy season, and my yard was overgrown with tall grass. Every once in a while, I would peek out my front door and notice a little boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting in the grass and imitating the birds’ songs or just laughing to himself.

Perhaps a month later, I was eating lunch at Diddi’s house when Mama and his father (an elderly gentleman never seen without his bicycle) passed by. Diddi and the father exchanged greetings in Fulfulde, while Mama said nothing.

“Does he go to school?” I asked after they had continued on their way.

“Why would he?” replied Diddi. “Something’s not right in his head. He didn’t even start speaking until about a year ago.”

Mama is what people here might call a “fou,” the French word for crazy. Of course, I’m not a huge fan of this word, but frankly, I haven’t heard any alternatives.

Mental health in Cameroon is something of an enigma. Even those within the medical profession seem to equate mental health issues with some kind of personal failing. For example, when having blood drawn for my yearly physical in Yaoundé, the very kindly nurse asked me if I was on any medication. I replied that I took a malaria prophylaxis and an antidepressant every day.

“Oh, no,” she said as she shook her head sympathetically. “You really should stop.” (Spoiler alert: I did not, after five years, stop taking antidepressants based on the advice of a woman I’d just met.)

The nurse’s mentality is par for the course for Cameroonians, who largely seem to believe that those who struggle with depression, anxiety, or any number of other issues are simply lacking in moral or spiritual fortitude. In many cases, people with mental health issues are basically told to deal with it, but more severe cases may face more extreme forms of treatment, such as a young woman in another Volunteer’s village who was forced to listen to recitations from the Koran for hours every day.

But as frustrating as it is to hear stories like this, I can’t stand on a moral high ground and judge the people who react this way. After all, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the United States became a “Prozac nation” and finally began a public conversation about mental health. Even personally I struggled to accept the nature of my condition, believing throughout my late teens that I wasn’t depressed, I was just sad all the time and would have to live with it. So when a Cameroonian woman looks at a spoiled American woman who takes pills to make her not sad, I can see how the Cameroonian would be skeptical.

And of course access is a huge issue. As far as I know, there’s only one psychiatric facility in Cameroon, which is physically and financially far out of reach of the vast majority of the population. And even if someone were able to travel to Yaoundé and be admitted, how astronomical must the cost of treatment be? Surely a farmer in Nyambaka would be unable to pay even a minute fraction of the cost.

The truth is, the “fous” in Nyambaka seem to have a pretty pleasant life. As is the case so often in Cameroon, their family or the village becomes their safety net, because there is no other safety net. Mama’s father, for example, does an admirable job caring for his son by himself. He feeds him well and allows him to pursue various adventures around the village. Two other men—one perhaps in his 40s who does not speak but smiles at everyone, and another already in his old age whom everyone calls “The General”—are not merely tolerated but accepted by the community, who invite them into their homes to share their food or shake their hands when they meet in the market. No one speaks of their difference. Their mental health is a non-issue, even nonexistent.


Of course I wish these individuals had access to treatment, but I cannot look down on their lives. They have all of the necessities, and a support system, and a quality of life, and really, isn’t that all any of us can ask for? Until revolutionary systemic change comes to Cameroon’s health system, this is their lot. And while I don’t think anyone should be complacent about this, I also don’t think these individuals should be pitied.