Mission to Kala     by Mongo Beti, Translated by Peter Green Original title: Mission terminée Original language: French Published by Heinemann Pub. Date: 1990 Format: Textbook Binding Dimensions: (in inches): 0.48 x 7.33 x 4.72 ISBN: 0435900137 List Price: $8.95 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £7.20 Buy online from Amazon.com for $8.95 Published by MULLER Pub. Date: 1958 Pub. Place: UK Format: 207 pages Not available for ordering

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On the bus back from his boarding school Jean-Marie Medza is brooding on his latest exam failure. His foremost worry is his father’s reaction — he does not expect a pleasant reception and a summer of revision stretches out before him. On arrival at his home, however, his father is away on business (he has learnt the ways of the white man fast and engages in widescale moneylending in the surrounding countryside). There is another problem at hand. One of Medza’s many cousins, Niam, has a troublesome wife who has run away back to her home village ‘up-country’ among ‘bush people’. An emissary is required to go and undertake the delicate negotiations such a situation demands. While Medza is obsessed with his exam failure, the other villagers see in him, despite his youth, the ideal man to undertake this task. Despite his initial unwillingness, Medza finds himself on the local paramount chief’s spanking new bicycle peddling towards Kala and his up-country cousins.


Once in Kala his sense of failure slowly evaporates as it becomes apparent to him that here, whatever the ups and downs of his academic career, he is seen as something of an expert on the culture of the white man and turns out to be greatly in demand for his ‘city’ wisdom and learning. If matters were left here the book would not be as successful as it actually is. For Medza is deeply puzzled by the entire situation and he himself, for all his ‘wisdom’ remains in awe of the physical prowess of his country cousin Zambo and his friends who themselves indulge in ample mockery of their elders.


The errant wife he is seeking is absent from the village so Medza’s stay has to be prolonged. In the period he spends waiting to complete his mission he grows up in ways they do not teach at school and he learns to drink and make love. This latter experience leads him to being married to one of the local chief’s daughters. This whole process of maturation sets him up for a final confrontation with his father from whom he takes his leave to tramp the wider world with his cousin Zambo in tow. Beti’s finely wrought and humorous portrait takes us on a mission towards a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which European culture has impacted upon African reality.

‘She moved closer to me, and bent down as though to whisper in my ear. She gave off a strange odour, which was certainly artificial; she smelt as though she had put on the faintest dab of perfume. At that period all country folk, and even people like my family who lived near a country town, were absolutely convinced that the only reason a woman ever puts on scent is to cover up a nasty smell. The nasty smell, they reckoned, could only be caused by some unpleasant disease; and that, to us, meant some kind of V.D., which was the most unpleasant disease we knew.’ p72