YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon “”mdash; It’s Holiday, and Biliga Marvel Bemelingue does not have school.
Even so, the 6’8″ basketball player rises around 8 a.m. in a home so small he can’t stand up straight. He greets his mother, who sits at her table knitting, drawing string from a roll that rests on the inward curve of a Coke bottle. Elielyne Boya seldom smiles and almost never laughs. The ongoing struggle to just pay the rent on this tiny house keeps her silently at work.
Boya seems acutely aware of the problems her hut-like home presents. But there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s polite to her visitors, but not warm. She cannot offer them nuts or juice, nor can she deny her humble existence.
“Like you can see for yourselves, we grew up in a lot of difficulties,” Boya said. “We can hardly eat.”
Making ends meet has always been difficult for Boya’s family. But when she developed uterine fibroids seven years ago, things got even tougher. While the rent money went to pay medical bills, the family had to split itself up ““ Boya went to her sister’s, Bemelingue to his grandmother’s. And although the family is back together with Bemelingue’s older sister and 3-year-old niece, the house is devoid of a father.
Boya laughs aloud at the mention of her ex-husband: “I don’t have a husband. I don’t know what happened before he went to jail because we’d been apart for a long time.”
That leaves Boya all alone to scratch and claw for a few francs here and there. And as if supporting a family of four isn’t enough, there’s one more on the way.
“Look at my pregnant daughter for example,” she said. “The man she’s pregnant for died so I have to prepare for the baby. Now everything’s on me.”
Bemelingue knows this, and it drives him up a wall. The thought of his mother stuck eternally at her makeshift desk is ultimately what motivates him to sweat it out in the jewelry shop. The shop serves as a place to make a little money, while engaging his inner artist.
So out the door the 14-year-old man goes to work ““ to the place he’ll stay until basketball practice begins in the late afternoon.
Bemelingue’s poverty forces basketball to become something of an afterthought, an activity that draws its primary worth from its pragmatic potential to prevent future struggles. It’s hard for him to concentrate on the game when his stomach is empty, and his mind is elsewhere.
But in order to rectify struggles in the present, Bemelingue must walk the same path his father did when he worked at the same jewelry store, Bijouterie La Dakaroise.
Bemelingue arrives first and is rewarded with the task of sweeping the jewelry factory floor ““ where all that shiny stuff you see encased in glass is crafted by sweat and fire. The factory room is about the size of Bemelingue’s living room, lit only by the sunlight coming through the window. The floor appears permanently stained like a mechanic’s garage, paper cups strewn across the decaying wooden desks, the smell of rust permeating the air.
Within minutes, the steady slicing of the jewelry saw moving back and forth creates a hum that fills the workroom. Bemelingue is focused, intent, leaning carefully over his desk, shaping a piece of metal against its will with his large, coarse hands.
Bemelingue is a big guy holding a big tool ““ a large, empty metal rectangle with a blade on one side. With crisp sawing motions, he cuts the silver ever so carefully, making indentations grow ever so slowly.
“He is really good,” his boss, the owner Tall Gora, says with a half-smile. “It’s in the blood.”
Within a half hour, Bemelingue has already transformed a clump of silver into four letters ““ someone’s initials ““ and has begun the even more difficult job of linking hundreds of tiny gold hooks to form a chain.
Bemelingue’s pendant, attached to his handmade chain and paired with a set of earrings, will sell for 35,000 Communauté financière de l’Afrique francs (approximately $70). Bemelingue, on average, is paid 1,000 CFA (approximately $2) per week for about 30 hours of work.
“It is really hard,” he said. “You have to breathe some acid, and you have dangerous scars. I do not want to be a jeweler all my life.”
As he works, Bemelingue reveals a small circle of white paper from one of the boxes on his desk. He unfolds it to reveal a drawing of a dragon. Simple, but precise ““ the red pen strokes swift, creating perfect scales. The care is evident, the drawing no bigger than the palm of your hand. He digs into the box and brings forth a silver pendant ““ an identical carved representation of the dragon.
“This (dragon) is a thing I did yesterday,” he says in his soft, deep voice. “I like my work because I like art in general. This is a form of art. This gives me the possibility to create and invent something.
“I would like to go to the university to become an architect,” he added. “That is my dream ““ not to be a jeweler.”
Life has forced Bemelingue to speak softly, often monosyllabically. It has depressed and deprived him, as it has so many others in the most impoverished quarters of Yaoundé. But it hasn’t yet sapped the color from his soul.
The key for Bemelingue will be getting into architecture school, where his artistic talents can spin into something beautiful ““ and profitable ““ before that color runs dry.
And that’s where basketball comes in. Bemelingue’s care and craftsmanship are evident in his work, but there is much standing between him and his architecture dreams. The two primary problems are a lack of money and education. Basketball could fix both.
“Basketball is important to me because first of all, it enables me to relax, and play with others,” Bemelingue said. “It can also help me succeed in life. Most of all, it goes hand in hand with studies. It’s one of the sports that can be practiced with school; so it could bring success either with school or basketball.”
Just as he has a drawing of a dragon hidden in a tinderbox at work, he has binder upon binder of drawings stored away at home: everything from detailed flowers to Dragon Ball Z characters. And tucked in the back of his head, he has a blueprint for the house he plans to build for his family one day.
All he knows now is that the house will be bigger than the one he lives in, but not so large that thieves will lurk nearby. He thinks about the design of the house daily, the artistic possibilities overflowing in his head.
“I still don’t have an exact idea for the house because I have so many ideas,” he said, laughing. “So many, I don’t know which to choose.”
But he’ll only get to choose if basketball gives him his chance.
With reports by Maya Sugarman, Bruin senior staff.