Why I remember Chantal Biya now

For readers who do not know it, Chantal Biya is the “First Lady” of Cameroon, that appellation being the one reserved for the wives of Heads of State. She has that status because she is the wife of Cameroon`s President, Paul Biya.

The term, “First Lady” appears to be an American invention. The online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA explains: “First Lady is an unofficial title used for the wife of the President of the United States. Collectively, the US president and his or her spouse are known as the First Couple, and if they have a family, they are usually referred to as the First Family.” Another source, TheFreeDictionary (and that is how it is written) defines the term as “the wife or hostess of the chief executive of a country, state, or city.

Woman with a heart of gold? As First Lady, Chantal Biya cannot go unnoticed because at a personal level she is flamboyant in style and always distinguishes herself through her unique and loud hair style and her flashy dressing. But deep within her, she has a heart of gold. Her two humanitarian organizations, African Synergies and The Chantal Biya Foundation have not only touched the hearts of many through their charity work but are also conspicuously present in some other countries. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) made her one of its goodwill ambassadors.

An irreparable loss to her As a First Lady, one may think that Chantal Biya is feeling on top of the world. But, no; she is very humble in her style and approach to the public, especially the needy. She also has her fair share of human tribulations. From that perspective, one can view her as a “normal” human being. Yet there is another dimension to all of that in the sense that like the “normal” human being, Chantal Biya is currently bereaved. She lost her mother, Rosette Ndongo Mengolo recently. She died as Rosette-Marie Mboutchouang and mayor of Bangou in the West Region. Following the demise of her mother, Chantal wrote on her Facebook page: “Que ton âme repose en paix Maman. Rien ne pourra jamais te remplacer...” (May your soul rest in peace, mother. Nothing can ever replace you).

Where I come in As might be expected, the First Lady has received a veritable outpouring of sympathies from Cameroon and abroad over this immense loss. At a very personal level, my heart goes out to her. I react in that way because of something very special she did to me.

When one of my books, Say No to AIDS, came out. I wrote to her and enclosed a copy. The book is a collection of poems, some of which are in English and some in French. They are all aimed at sensitization, education and information about the pandemic HIV AIDS. I wrote to her with a copy of the book because of the considerable work she too had been doing not only in the area of HIV AIDS but in health as a whole.

The book is prefaced by the Minister of Public Health and carries the support and logo of the National AIDS Control Committee. It is currently on the National Book List for secondary schools in both the Anglophone and the Francophone sub systems of education of Cameroon. In the publication, I included two poems on the work of Chantal Biya in the area of the pandemic, one being in English and the other in French.

Later, she distributed her copies of the book to the nursery and primary schools that fall under the Presidency of the Republic in the ten regions of the country. I was reliably given the information. Another reason is that when I was running the Assignment Desk at the national Television channel, CRTV, in Yaounde, an intern walked into my office with a copy of the book.

When I asked her how she got it, she told me her mother who was a teacher at Les Coccinnelles (one of the Nursery and Primary Schools under the Presidency of the Republic based in Yaounde) brought the book home and said copies had been given to them (teachers) at the school.

Her signature in my book After she received my letter and the book, she contacted me and asked me to kindly translate the poem in English on her into French, and the one in French into English. I did so and after receiving the translations, she bought copies of the book and stuck the translations on bits of paper against the originals in the books she had bought. It was at that point she distributed the copies to the schools.

In fact, she was the first person to purchase the book when it was published. So, how can I forget her, especially at this most trying time in her life?