Days Come And Go Quotes

“Misery wreaks havoc. The yawning gap between this place and the rest of the country is unfathomable to anyone who has not experienced it. Boko Haram recruits them like child's play because the sect at least offers a tangible, immediate solution. As shocking as we might find it, their message appeals to some. Dying for God is more thrilling than dying of hunger, humiliation, or because the neighbourhood dispensary has run out of antibiotics. Maybe one day someone will study just how personally distressed one must be to weaponise faith against one's own people, but that is not my job.”
― Hemley Boum, Days Come and Go

“Terror is a bottomless pit. Did you know that, Max? When you think you have hit rock bottom, that your heart cannot take any more of it, something unexpected happens and the dread and anguish spike as if your brain is acknowledging your imminent death. Then you realise that you can still fall further than you already have.”
― Hemley Boum, Days Come and Go

“Non-violent resistance supposes that the almighty enemy, at the very least, considers you to be a human being, capable of logically arguing why you disagree.
It supposes that this enemy is ready to hear your demands and find common ground. Yes, Bamileke maquisards took up arms! But did they have a choice? Colonial masters feigned departure, but their cruel puppets continue to safeguard their interests through murder. We were cheated.
Our struggle has been used to different ends. And, you will see, they will chop off any head that stands out, and then falsify our history. In fact, they won't; they will not even bother to record our history."
"Who is "they?" I asked.
"This 'they' is 'we’,” replied Louis. "We are the ones killing ourselves. Our killers are encouraged, trained, and funded by the former colonial power. But, and this is what makes it worse, we ourselves are the ones doing the dirty work with senseless enthusiasm," he added.
That was how Cameroon—not just myself as an individual, or my village, Ombessa, or Bafia and Yaounde, the places where I had lived, but also this multi-layered, nuanced, bruised entity called my country—took shape in my mind.”
― Hemley Boum, Days Come and Go

“No one taught me how to analyse a book, how to read from a safe distance, how not to lose sight of context, how to grasp the things left unsaid. No one taught me about schools of thought or even the ideologies meant to give depth to a mundane story. No one taught me aesthetics, language... All these, I discovered in high school while studying the classics, and broadened this knowledge at the Higher Teachers' Training College in Yaounde, from which I graduated as a French teacher. But I had already developed a habit. All my life, I would read the same way l had started off—intensely, passionately, instinctively—and sentence fragments would stick with me […] Books soothed my soul, made me angry, made me strong. They made me laugh and cry. They pushed me to examine existence with my own mind, to trust my intuition, to stretch my mind to perceive—against the backdrop of characters, nature, and plot—the intricate symphony of time that beams our being to the world.
As a child, reading made me feel less lonely, less insignificant, less vulnerable. As an adult, I developed enough discernment to understand that, while reading had not made me a better person, it had made me more levelheaded towards my own motivations, and freer.”
― Hemley Boum, Days Come and Go