Campfire riddles

A couple of weeks ago I moved in with a Cameroonian family in the city- I have actually only lived with them a couple of days since I have been traveling every week to different villages. The day after I moved in to their home, their father/grandfather died so lots of people came to visit for nearly two weeks of cooking/sewing/hosting/night vigils/funeral/celebration/headshaving/dancing/drums (all of which I experienced during the weekend that I was in town). Anyway, one night I am setting up a mattress on the floor so that someone else can have my bed and an aunt begins to protest that I should take the bed. At some point in the discussion she says, “But you are not used to sleeping on the floor.” So I tell her, “Oh yes, during holidays my family goes camping and we sleep on the ground for fun. Tonight I will pretend that I am camping.” Whether she was convinced or not, she chuckled and allowed me to sleep on the floor.

Last week I again pretended I was camping. I went to a more remote village in the northwest called Bamukumbit. Two single missionaries live there without running water, electricity or a toilet. The people cook all of their food over the open fire so in the evenings we would go and sit around a neighbor’s campfire and munch on grilled corn, plums, achoo or koki beans. One evening we started telling riddles to each other. In Bamukumbit each riddle begins in the same way:

Person 1 says, “I have a story.”

Person 2 responds, “The pig is hungry” (This is a literal translation but the idea is that you are eager to hear the story).

I will share some good ol’ Cameroonian riddles: (I have put the answers below so you can have a chance to guess):

1: I am walking down the road with three legs. I come into the house with two legs. What happened?

2: What is silent when alive but speaks when it is dead?

3: You are noisy on the way and silent coming back. Where have you gone?

4: What runs and runs and never stands still?

5: This is a bridge that you can’t see but others can. What is it?

6: Your mom tells you to collect an orange but it is floating in the middle of a deep river. You are unable to swim. What do you do?

Answers:

1: I left my walking stick at the door.

2: a leaf

3: You have gone to harvest palm oil in a calabash container. A calabash container reminds me of a hollow squash with a hole in the top used to pour the oil. When empty the calabash rattles and is used as a percussion instrument.

4: a river

5: your nose

6: Throw something at the monkey sitting in the tree above the river. He will want to mimic you so he will reach down and pick up the orange to throw it at you. Catch it and take it home to your mother.