With humour, insight and irony, Lonkog recounts the joys and contradictions of daily life in a Northern Cameroon village. Living in Carrefour Poli in Northern Cameroon was never easy. How far will one have to go for drinking water during the dry season? Wi ll there be money for kerosene to fill the lamp tank? For batteries for the torch? For a bowl of corn to make 'fufu¯ for the family? Will there be a night encounter with the poison of a snake or scorpion? The man of Carrefour Poli imagines when he last had a bottle of beer and when he will next have another. Children sit in class staring at the teacher, while their work suffers. People sit under trees for shade only to cut them down for firewood. Ministers run up and down, working very hard and sweating, bu t little changes. Day and night people turn around on the same spot. It takes a long time to build a nation. Everything is in limbo.