You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can come out of it. Maya Angelou
I could just visualize this scene. A stunning young Cameroonian teen walks proudly down her neighborhood street in Buea, Cameroon, a city located on the eastern slopes of Mount Cameroon, on her own. She uses no stick or crutch to help balance her weight on one leg, something she had done throughout her childhood. Those who had watched the Tadfor offspring often achieve what would probably prove insurmountable odds for most, came out on their porches celebrating her phenomenal feat. She would no longer have to be carried on the back of her beloved grandmother or her siblings and devoted friends. She would no longer have to crawl or feel the brunt of excruciating emotional and physical pain. Her young mother and maternal grandmother, Mami Ncha, the matriarch of the close-knit Tadfor family whose ancestors were rooted in the village of Bagante, would never allow her to feel sorry for herself or to not lead a normal life which she has done so admirably. On this day, she would wear a new prothesis her aunt in Nigeria had located.
Ceci Tchakounte Tadfor, was born in Cameroon with a defective leg as a result of her pregnant mother’s use of ‘thalidomide’ to treat morning sickness. What happened to Tadfor, Ceci, as she has always been affectionately called, and thousands of other unborn babies’ disabilities was indeed preventable.
Research had uncovered evidence that the ‘thalidomide’ tragedy was definitely foreseeable, but German pharmaceutical companies in the 60s ignored the safety risks and covered up one of the most devastating global medical atrocities in modern history.
The drug had been marketed as a mild sleeping pill even safe for pregnant women. Unbeknownst to most, the medication would cause grief worldwide when babies were inflicted with malformed limbs.
Today, this ageing generation faces isolation as many of their caretaker parents have transitioned, rising health care bills due to numerous and necessary surgeries have mounted, and uncertainty for a healthy future looms in the darkness of an ugly truth that was seldom acknowledged nor compensated by those who profited from the injustice perpetrated against the innocent.
Tadfor was fortunate in that Grace afforded her a strong family base whose members are now located all around the world and have largely been quite successful. Tadfor became one of the finest cooks of the new frontier of African cuisine, published “Ceci’s African Kitchen Cookbook”, and has long been recognized as a multi-talented hair technician, once owning a thriving beauty salon and an African restaurant in Santa Fe where she has lived for over 30 years. She arrived in the Land of Enchantment when her former husband landed a position in Los Alamos. Their daughter, Anne Marie, is an educator with the Chicago school district.
“It has been a roller coaster ride, she would write. The bullying, the betrayals, the heartaches, and the painful losses. I continue to re-create and start all over again and again, but with so much gratitude, thankful I am still able to recognize the blessings, those that have been given to me, and those I graciously give to others.” She often compares her life to the powerful Japanese art technique, kintsugi. The process entails repairing broken ceramics with an emboldened gold, the fractures quite visible. The broken pieces have become a new form of art created from shattered matter and resulting in a magnificence all its own.
Tadfor has created the Cecilia Tchakounte Tadfor Foundation where she hopes to inform, to be a witness to the injustice, and to raise funding for others in her native Buea for resources such as wheelchairs and walkers, and to offer ‘possibilities’ for a much happier and easier life for those with similar disabilities.
For more information: http://www.tadforfoundation.org
