An ululAtion from a lone voice in my home of Nso (an ethnic group in the North West region of Cameroon) is a call for immediate help: a house on fire, a person on a stealing rampage, an accident, a health emergency. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Nso cultural codes knows that such a call is responded to with alacrity. Except for children, frail elders, handicapped persons, nursing moms, and strangers to the town, everyone is expected to follow the ululation to its source and to help whoever is in need. This expectation is not limited to the people of Nso. A student of mine who spent a year studying philosophy at the University of Accra in Ghana recounted how he found himself among those responding to such a call when in a flash every community member converged, apparently pulled by some secret centripetal force, to a burning car. The crowd formed a bucket brigade to bring water in small vessels from a nearby stream to put out the fire. My student was at first exhilarated at what a community could accomplish, but exasperated the next moment, when, at the height of the inferno, he saw a police car complete with flashing emergency lights and a siren approach the scene of the fire. From the window of their car, the police took a long, almost bored look at the spectacle, then drove away. What amused my student was that, except for brief glances of curiosity, the people paid no attention to the police, as if no one expected them to be of any help at all. An Akan proverb (articulated by Kwasi Wiredu) captures the ethos of the respondents to the burning car emergency thus: