Comfort Eneke Ashu a.k.a MADAM

 

 On the 30 of June 1944, a beautiful baby girl was born as a third child to Chief R. N. Ayukosok of Sumbe and Ma Helen Ayuknso Tanjong of Fotabe village. Her father, newly returned from World War II named her "Comfort" because she had brought comfort to his war-torn soul. He also named her "Eneke" after his own mom. Thus named specially, the baby, Comfort Eneke Ayuk began her foray on God's earth. It will take some months before this baby girl will show her peculiar beautiful set of teeth with the gap that was and remains an attribute of beauty in many parts of the World. No one foresaw that she was going to break boundaries and write her name in the sands of time as one of the leading women in her society but it was not farfetched either; because, she had certain privileges that remained a dream to many women of her time.

As a princess and daughter of WWII veteran turned school manager, she encountered ABC's quite early at her father’s community school at the age of six and ended her primary school at the Roman Catholic school in Tombel in 1958, earning a First School Leaving Certificate. Already groomed as a teacher in her father’s school she later enrolled in St Francis Teacher’s College and Baptist Teacher’s Training College where she earned her grade III and II teacher’s certificate respectively. A high achiever, she did not stop here, between 1964 and 1966, she attended Cameroon College of Arts and Science, Bambili where she obtained her GCE“A” levels. After her A levels she joined the pioneer staff at the Bilingual Grammar School, Man O’ War Bay near Victoria as a History/Civics teacher. During this time she earned her Grade I teacher’s certificate. 1966 seemed to be a special year because it also marked an important milestone in her life. After satisfying their ancestors with traditional marriage rights, Miss Comfort Eneke Ayuk became Mrs. Comfort Eneke Ashu after a solemn Marriage ceremony at the Mizpah Baptist Church, Victoria. This marriage to the gentle Shadrack Nkongho Ashu eventually yielded five beautiful children.

Yet the self- driven, highly motivated go getter did not allow neither marriage, nor children to interfere with her dreams of going further with her education. Between 1970 and 1973 she studied in the University of Exeter, University of Wales and University of London, England from where she obtained respectively an Advanced Diploma in Education, a Diploma in English Studies and an M.A. Education Degree with a bias in teaching English as a second language. She also did a one year Post Graduate course in the University of Nairobi, Kenya, ending in the award of a diploma in Curriculum Development. Because of her education and training she was often invited to conferences and seminars as a resource person, and/or participant. Some of her cherished conferences include.

 

A consummate educationist she served the Cameroon nation in every tier of the educational ladder including serving as an English Language/Literature teacher at B.G.S Molyko and G.T.H.S Ombe, a curriculum designer and implementer at IPAR Buea, Pedagogic Adviser for English with the Ministry of Education and Faculty officer in the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences in the newly opened University of Buea in 1993. She continued serving as a part time lecturer with the Department of Education even after her retirement.

 

In 1997 she founded Community Education Center, an integrated day care, nursery and primary school where she served in various capacities.

 

Besides her passion for teaching, she enjoyed writing and was a published and established writer. She is well known in Cameroon as a writer of children’s literature because of her celebrated novel Ayamoh’s Days at School, published by Longman, which was part of the Cameroon school curriculum for several years and distributed in East Africa under the title Kantana’s Days at School. She also published Riddles and Folktales For Schools (1984), -A Junior Secondary Poetry Anthology (1985) Picture Composition Work Book(1992)    Ayito And Other Stories (1992). She moved beyond Children’s literature when she published The Cultural Emancipation Of A Woman From A Christian Perspective (2000) and Nobility Differs From Wealth, a novel (2004), In 2010, an updated and expanded version of Riddles and Folktales for Schools was published under the title Riddles, Folktales and Proverbs from Cameroon by Langaa publishers, a member of Africa Book Collective, UK. In 2008, Mrs. Ashu was one of the recipients of the pioneer EduART Lifetime Achievement Award for Trailblazers for her work in children's literature and her tenacity in writing. She has been the treasurer of the Anglophone Cameroon Writer's Association (ACWA) from 2004 until her untimely death.

She was equally an active Baptist Christian in the churches to which she belonged, but also found time for other social groups. Her Christian, alumni and social groups include Cameroon Baptist Convention women union, Kakane, FESANS, Yang Chi Ye, Mami Ceci and United Sisters. In terms of professional affiliations, she was a member of:

 

 

Suffice to say here that her life was a kaleidoscope reflecting the determination of a woman who pushed beyond the boundaries ascribed to womanhood in her society, a mother who nourished more than the children who fed from her breasts, a wife who for 45 years of marriage was still standing tall by her man, a teacher who induced dreams of a better world in her students and a pacesetter who left a trail, so others could follow without the need to re-invent the wheel. 

 

Mrs. Comfort Ashu’s health started failing from the second quarter of the year when her doctors at the Referral Hospital, Yaoundé discovered she was suffering from a metastatic disease of the lungs. Her treatment was progressing in phases under the supervision of an oncologist at Hôpital General, Yaoundé. On Thursday 4th August she was discharged, but advised to be in Yaoundé as an outpatient until such time as she was well enough to travel back to her home in Buea. Her re-admission to the same hospital on Tuesday the 17/8/2011 came as a depressing surprise to her husband, family members and sympathizing friends. She died at the Referral Hospital Yaoundé during the early hours of Friday 19th August 2011. She leaves behind her 90 year old mother, husband, five children, a grand daughter, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins and a host of other relatives  and friends to mourn her departure.

                     May Her Soul Rest in Peace