As most of you know, there was a wedding ceremony between myself and my girlfriend Larissa on April 11th. We aren't what you could call married, exactly, certainly not legally. If you saw any of the photo albums on Facebook, you probably noticed the word "Fwedding," our barely creative euphemism for "Fake Wedding." The best way I can think to explain the purpose of having the ceremony would be to say that it was a celebration of our relationship in its Togolese context. Obviously, that's its only context currently, but the future is better left to itself than to speculation.
We showed up to Agou on Thursday, two days before the wedding. Larissa had been just a few days before, on Sunday, to give money to our wedding planner, the neutral Edith, to start buying supplies. Between Sunday and Wednesday, though, there was a bit of a spat between our host mothers and Edith. This was the first thing we dealt with on Thursday. Sitting the mothers down at the Afrikiko bar, we explained that Edith had done nothing wrong, and that where we are from we use a third party wedding planner. The moms felt that the responsibility (dispensing and holding our money) lay with them, and not someone outside the family. We quelled the unrest pretty easily, and from there on, it was all smooth sailing.
After spending the rest of Thursday and Friday shopping for food, the alcohol for the dowry, etc., Saturday arrived, and with it plenty of our volunteer friends to help us celebrate. As the morning turned into afternoon and the hour of the ceremony approached, Larissa retreated to her mother's house with her bridesmaids (and one bridesman) while the other volunteers, including my groomsmen (and one groomswoman) hung out at the bar. I got dressed in a white lace pagne outfit that had been made on the quick by the tailor next door to my mom's house.
When it was time, Maman Afrikiko kicked everybody out of the bar and took up place at the head of the procession with me and my mom and the women carrying the dowry. An old woman had the alcohols in a bucket on her head, and two teenage girls wearing traditional skirts and palm frond ankle bracelets, their skin dusted with chalk, carried the pagne. David, a groomsmen, had some sweet iPod speakers, so we marched to Larissa's house dancing to various Michael Jackson songs. When we arrived at the house of her uncle, where the ceremony would take place, the guests took their seats, and my mom and I, along with a host-uncle, sat down on one of two couches facing each other. The other was reserved for Larissa and her family. At the first sound of the fanfare, the drum and brass band of the village, David stopped the music and we listened as the sounds of Larissa's procession grew louder. She finally entered with her entourage, the fanfare on their heels, aunts and other host-moms tossing confetti into the air.
The ceremony was pretty cool. The chief supervised, speaking in Ewe, and a man in the audience translated for us. The chief spoke about the connection between individuals, and how our connection to each other was the result of our connection to our families, and the connection of America and the beautiful Agou-Nyogbo. The chief then requested that the dowry be presented. He gave it his approval and Larissa was asked to choose one of the drinks from the amongst the liquid portion of the dowry. There were gin, whiskey, a wine called Dubonnet, rum, five liters of palm wine, four liters of sodabe, three types of beer, an orange soda, a fruit cocktail soda, and a Coke. Larissa got up, picked the orange soda ("Because it's your favorite," she told me later) and put it on the table. The chief declared that by picking the orange soda, Larissa was ensuring that our home together would be refreshing and sweet, and that we would always remain even-tempered and calm.
Now, he said, as Larissa sat back down, we have heard that the son of Hadzi [me], has found a beautiful flower in the village of Nyogbo, and he desires to pick that flower to guard with him forever. But, he continued, in a village like Nyogbo, there are so many beautiful flowers. Which one would he like to pick? Because even though he has indicated the beautiful flower sitting across from him, it is necessary that we verify this for the village. The chief then invited all the "beautiful flowers" present to get up and present themselves to me. The fanfare began playing and one by one, two of Larissa's bridesmaids, two volunteers from the audience, and my groomswoman got up, bowed before Larissa, and then danced in a circle around the table between our couches. They lined up near where the chief was sitting. When they had all danced, Larissa got up and made her twirling way around the table and in front of me, shaking her hips to the rhythm of the big drum. When she was lined up in the middle with the other beautiful flowers, the chief invited my mother and I to indicate to the village which flower I would like as my own. When I took Larissa's hand in mine, the audience exploded in applause, confetti was thrown, and the fanfare upped the rhythm. We then went back to my couch, where my host-uncle left his seat and Larissa sat between my host mother and me.
Now the floor was open, the chief said, for people to speak. David, my best man, gave a brief speech, and then Golda, Larissa's maid of honor, got up to speak. David's speech was a standard best man speech, good, touching. Golda's was a little different. As these two begin their lives together, Golda said, we want to make sure that they keep no secrets from each other. If there are any secrets from their lives before they were together, let those secrets come to light, so that they will not spoil their future. Then, one of the male volunteers stood up, walked up to Larissa, and sheepishly threw a pair of underwear into her lap. The audience roared. He sat down and yet another guy stood up, walked up to her, threw underwear. Hearty laughter turned into a rumble of approval. A third volunteer walked up, did the exact same thing. Larissa was laughing to the point of tears, the chief was chuckling in his seat, the whistles and the applause from the audience were deafening. Again, a fourth male volunteer stood up, walked in front of Larissa. This time, though, he sheepishly threw a pair of underwear into my lap. Explosive, uncontrollable, nobody-can-breathe laughter.
This is wonderful, said the chief, stifling further giggles. Now, he said, because you [talking to me] have taken the daughter of the Koffi family, they must be assured that she will be happy always with you. Larissa's host-father then rose, draped in his traditional kente cloth, and said, "You have taken our daughter, and we are happy that she has accepted you. In our home she received all that she required, and in your home this must also be so. We must know that she will never go hungry; that she will never be cold for lack of clothes; that these clothes will never be allowed to turn to tatters and rags; that you will not in any way harm this flower you have picked; that you will never neglect her for another woman. If you guarantee these things, we accept with full gratitude, the union of our families." Naturally, I said yes.
He then reached into a bag he had kept under the couch, and pulled something out and walked over to us. He presented us with a wooden chain, the ends of the chain being small wooden statues, one of a man, one of a woman. "Take this chain," he said, "as the symbol of your bond." We each took the statue of our respective genders, and he said, "Now, ensure that, no matter what force may arrive, this chain, and this bond, will never break." We pulled against the chain. It held tight, and the fanfare erupted again.
After that, the rest of the dowry was opened, starting with the gin, and then quickly moving into the palm wine and the sodabe. Shots were poured for nearly all present, and the fanfare played, and everyone was invited to dance. When the gin was gone (that took like three minutes) Larissa and I led the procession from the ceremony all the way through the village and down to the house where, when we first arrived in this country, we used to do our training. The fanfare followed, with the volunteers and the village, dancing, singing, laughing.
At the house, Larissa and I were arranged on a couch, and chairs were set up facing us. Someone read a small bible passage and prayed, and then my host-uncle made a brief speech. Following that the cake was presented to us. We cut it together, and, as is custom, shoved it into each other's face. Food and beer were then passed out, and the cake was cut for everyone. When everyone had eaten and drank, our bridal party declared that, according to American custom, Larissa and Tony had to arm wrestle to see who would have the power in the relationship. Once again, laughter from the audience, cheers when I let Larissa win. More beer was passed out, and the families and the volunteers retreated to the back yard to take photos. The ceremony was over.
The villagers had, for the most part, retreated to their homes, or to their small stands along the road. The volunteers headed up to the Afrikiko, and began the party that would last most of the night. Larissa and I went to our respective homes to change before heading to the party. Maman Afrikiko had set up a grill, and her son/employee was grilling beef kabobs, chicken, goat. Throughout the night volunteers would come up to me, put their arms around me, and say, "This was one of the best things I've ever been a part of." I told them for me it was the best thing. And we left it at that, our faces hurting from the smiles that refused to leave our faces.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Demon and The Giant
Two days ago my next door neighbor died. He was only in his early thirties, immensely tall, quiet. The last time I had seen him, reclining on his chair beneath the baobab tree on Tuesday the week before, he seemed healthy. I was going to Sotouboua. “Bring me back some bread,” he said. “You bet.” In Sotouboua the bread ladies refused my worn-out bill and I came back empty-handed.
He died around five o’clock on Friday, they said. That night, I looked out my back window before going to bed. The compound had never had electricity, even though the owner of the houses, Tchao’s sister, was well off enough to install it. He didn’t want to pay the monthly bill, he said. But Friday night I was attracted to my window because of the almost neon glow of a halogen bulb coming from the compound. Sitting around the courtyard were all his female relatives. No one was speaking. I went to bed, and woke up twice during the night, as is my habit. Both times the light was still on, and the women were outside, though now they were sleeping on the wooden benches instead of sitting upright. They were like that until the morning.
On Saturday I dressed and shaved and went next door. Benches were arranged outside the compound for people to sit on. No one was really speaking. At that hour, there were only two rows of benches, so I greeted all the men, and then went inside to where the women were waiting, and greeted them. They led me into the room where Tchao was being kept. His wife sat at his feet under the window, and another woman sat at his head, waving a plastic fan over his face to keep the flies off. He was covered up to his chin in a purple blanket patterned with gold. His head was cushioned on pagne.
I haven’t seen many dead people. Only four. Two in America, two here in Togo. Three of those bodies were clearly devoid of life. The skin looked plastic and painted, the muscles seemed to have shrunk and fallen from their bones, the proud jut of their chests had crumbled and caved in. But Tchao looked normal. When I saw him he’d only been dead about fifteen hours. I even thought I saw his eyelid twitch. It made me think that children’s responses to death are the most honest, much more honest than the wailing and the tears of the adults. Death to me is just very confusing. Sad, yes. But mostly just bizarre. Silence is the best response I can think of.
The crowd outside the house grew larger but stayed silent. I stood in the shade of the baobab. Around ten-thirty an open coffin was brought. On the bottom were two handlebars, one at the head, one at the feet. They set the coffin down at the entrance to the compound. They brought the body from the room, leaving the purple blanket behind. The woman began wailing again. The wails of the women are throaty and wavering, and they rise and descend like a song. Just before they’d brought the body out the deceased’s mother had been scolded for not mourning properly. She immediately began her song, and soon was sobbing. Unlike her scolder, I never doubted her grief. But she is an old woman, arthritic, slightly handicapped, usually in pain. No doubt she feels that her death is near as well. As I implied earlier, I can understand why she felt no need to weep.
They placed the body in the coffin and covered it from head to waist with an animal hide. Tchao was a tall man with large feet, and his toes stuck up over the rim of the coffin. A group of men bent down and they lifted the coffin onto the heads of two other men. Their heads were padded with palm fronds woven into fat green donuts. They then loped toward the cemetery, and the village followed. Periodically the men carrying the coffin would grow tired and a new man would take his place. The cemetery was half a kilometer from the house. It is not cordoned off or indicated by any plaques. A passerby sees only the concrete and tile tombs resting in the dubious shade of teak trees, the ground bare of undergrowth, covered only with the dried mantas of old leaves.
When the procession reached the cemetery the women turned around. It is forbidden for women or children to view the actual internment. I continued with the men. A hole had been dug in the ground about four feet deep. It was half covered already. Logs had been placed over half the hole across the width, the cracks filled with rocks and leaves, and then a large pile of dirt placed atop. The men who had dug the hole were standing barefoot in shorts with no shirts. They removed the hide from over the body, then lifted it out of the coffin. One man was already in the tomb, hidden by the half-covering. He received the head, and the men placed the body gently in the hole. One by one they made an effort to turn the body on its side and tuck the thin faded blue blanket under his whole body. The feet were still exposed. I couldn’t see the head. When the body was arranged they climbed out and handed a hoe to the dead man’s uncle. He grasped a handful of dirt in the bend of the hoe. He gave a brief eulogy in Kabye, which I did not understand, but which I’m pretty sure contained the promise that we would all meet again on Judgment Day. He tossed the dirt into the hole. The spectators were all invited to take one last look on the deceased. Then logs were placed over the remainder of the opening, and the tomb was covered. It was only at this point that I noticed all the other mounds around us. I’d thought that every family built a concrete tomb, and had been a little skeptical about this hole in the ground, with stray roots stick out from the walls of earth. When I looked around I saw at least twenty mounds of earth, all covered with rocks. I left before they finished the mound.
On Saturday after the internment, I was walking with one of my students, a fourteen-year old in cinqieme. He had been bitten by a snake a few months ago, was on the verge of death himself, but his father and some charlatans had healed him. I remember seeing him at school; the whites of his eyes were blood red. His skin was still an ashy grey. He looked like the snake that bit him.
When we were walking together after the internment, he mentioned the snake bite. It had been sorcerers, he said. His father had gone to the village chief, and together they’d performed a ceremony to find out if there were any reasons behind the boy’s being bit. They’d found out that it was revenge sorcery, and the name of the man who had gone to the charlatan to make sure it was done. “What about our friend’s death yesterday,” I asked him. “Is that sorcery?” He said that we don’t know yet. “But we’ll find out tomorrow,” he said.
That night it rained. The sky was clear most of the day, but toward three o’clock we could hear thunder in the distance. The sky took on an orange tinge, but not the tinge of Midwestern sunsets I know so well. It was the hue of coming rain, of disparity between heat and humidity, a drop in the pressure. Around six o’clock it began to rain, just as the sky was losing all traces of twilight. The rain was heavy and straight, but the wind was fierce and wild. I closed all the windows of my house, and the front door, but the rain blew straight through it, and a large pool of water collected along the base of the north wall. The lightning was bright white, not a trace of blue. We could hear branches and fruits falling from the trees, whole woody fronds dropping from the palms. One of my chicks, and three belonging to my neighbor, drowned.
In the morning there was the ceremony to find out how Tchao had died. When Lao had told me of his death Friday night, he said that Tchao had been gravely ill for about a week. But what brought on the illness was unknown. Two charlatans were hired, one by the widow, one by the uncle.
Like the day before, many among the village were there to watch, arranged on benches enclosing the open space outside the compound. The chiefs were there, the widow and her sister-in-law, their kids. Most of our quarter of town. Two women were leaned against the wall of one of the compound’s buildings. One was tapping a calabash with piece of wood, the other was tapping a hunk of concrete with a piece of steel. Tap-clink-tap-clink. The charlatan was moaning and wailing lightly. He came shirtless out of the compound wearing on his head one of the frond donuts used in the procession the day before. On top of that sat a ceremonial bow, loosely strung, and a chunk from the husk of a baobab fruit. The charlatan was rubbing his crotch, and his arms shook like ribbons of water. The uncle, an old limping man who leaned heavily on his cane, came up to the charlatan, lifted the piece of husk and placed it on the ground. Then the widow walked up, picked up the husk, tapped it three times to the bow and donut, and replaced it on the ground.
The charlatan began speaking. It was not in tongues, just Kabye. A man sitting in front of me slipped out of his sandals and went to stand face to face with the charlatan. They spoke in short bursts, finding a rhythm alongside the tapping women. I could understand nothing except the occasional “What did you say?” and frequent grunts of confirmation. At one point the chief took over the dialogue and the other man sat down. After about twenty minutes altogether, the charlatan stopped speaking. The chief sat down and the charlatan tilted his head back to let fall the donut and the bow. Some water was brought to him, and he washed his face. Then he left.
My friend told me that the vision had not been clear. “He gave many reasons for the death. First he said Tchao had had the devil in him. Then he said someone in the village had killed him with an evil song. Then he said that it was not an evil song but an evil object. He just wasn’t clear at all.” What would happen next? “Now the second charlatan will come. Hopefully he will be more specific. If he isn’t, the family will find a charlatan from another village, and they will perform the ceremony privately.”
I thought then about the whole business of sorcery. I told everyone I didn’t believe in it. I’d been saying that for awhile back when I’d first heard about its prominence in my village, and after of few of these declarations one of my friends took me aside and told me I needed to stop it. “You don’t have to believe. But you can’t tell people that what they believe is lies.”
In about five minutes the second charlatan came. He was young and thick, whereas the other had been old and thin. He took his shirt off behind us, near the lime grove. He began whistling shortly and slapping his body. His chest, his back, his shoulders. He whistled with his upper lip hooded over his lower, blowing short bursts of breath out to make a sound like the women make when they prepare food with the grindstones. While he was doing that, one of the men from the crowd, a carpenter, stood where the other charlatan had stood, with the palm donut on his head. When the charlatan approached him, the carpenter gave him the donut, and the charlatan entered the atrium of the compound. He continued to whistle and slap, hitting himself in the armpits, pulling his skin and rubbing it. Like the crotch-work of the previous man, it looked vaguely sexual.
The charlatan came out of the compound with the palm donut on his head, and he stood where the other had stood. Two different women than before were beating out the rhythm on the calabash and the concrete. The uncle hobbled over, picked the husk of baobab from the ground, tapped it on the charlatan’s head, put it back on the ground. The widow got up, tapped the husk three times on the man’s head, and again replaced it. Then a new man from the crowd stood before the charlatan, and they began to speak as before. Again, within twenty minutes the ceremony was over. The charlatan washed his face. The people began to disperse. I turned to my friend for the translation of all that had been said.
“This time it was clear. The man who died had the devil in him. He was of a mean nature, and he signed a contract with the devil. He was supposed to pay the devil with alcohol, and food, and to sacrifice to him sheep. He did not fulfill this part of the contract. The devil came and took him.”
Before everybody had left, the uncle stood up and walked to the center of the circle of benches. He spoke in Kabye, and my friend told me this is what he said. “I am sorry to find out that Tchao died like this. But it cannot be changed. Let us give what thanks we can that it was only of his own hand that he died. And let us hope that his pact with the devil will not return to act malevolently upon his family.”
Once again, my only reaction to all this is confusion. I cannot understand this. I cannot dismiss this verdict as superstition, though neither can I declare my belief in it. I just know that Tchao died mysteriously. He rarely smiled. He seemed often tired, and not just from the fields. The kind of things that seem to line up after the fact, but would never have aroused suspicion without this bizarre declaration. Nobody could tell me what he was supposed to receive from the devil according the contract. I can’t think of anything myself. The only thing I can think to say, if you were to ask me if I believe this, is, “I kind of feel like I have to.”
He died around five o’clock on Friday, they said. That night, I looked out my back window before going to bed. The compound had never had electricity, even though the owner of the houses, Tchao’s sister, was well off enough to install it. He didn’t want to pay the monthly bill, he said. But Friday night I was attracted to my window because of the almost neon glow of a halogen bulb coming from the compound. Sitting around the courtyard were all his female relatives. No one was speaking. I went to bed, and woke up twice during the night, as is my habit. Both times the light was still on, and the women were outside, though now they were sleeping on the wooden benches instead of sitting upright. They were like that until the morning.
On Saturday I dressed and shaved and went next door. Benches were arranged outside the compound for people to sit on. No one was really speaking. At that hour, there were only two rows of benches, so I greeted all the men, and then went inside to where the women were waiting, and greeted them. They led me into the room where Tchao was being kept. His wife sat at his feet under the window, and another woman sat at his head, waving a plastic fan over his face to keep the flies off. He was covered up to his chin in a purple blanket patterned with gold. His head was cushioned on pagne.
I haven’t seen many dead people. Only four. Two in America, two here in Togo. Three of those bodies were clearly devoid of life. The skin looked plastic and painted, the muscles seemed to have shrunk and fallen from their bones, the proud jut of their chests had crumbled and caved in. But Tchao looked normal. When I saw him he’d only been dead about fifteen hours. I even thought I saw his eyelid twitch. It made me think that children’s responses to death are the most honest, much more honest than the wailing and the tears of the adults. Death to me is just very confusing. Sad, yes. But mostly just bizarre. Silence is the best response I can think of.
The crowd outside the house grew larger but stayed silent. I stood in the shade of the baobab. Around ten-thirty an open coffin was brought. On the bottom were two handlebars, one at the head, one at the feet. They set the coffin down at the entrance to the compound. They brought the body from the room, leaving the purple blanket behind. The woman began wailing again. The wails of the women are throaty and wavering, and they rise and descend like a song. Just before they’d brought the body out the deceased’s mother had been scolded for not mourning properly. She immediately began her song, and soon was sobbing. Unlike her scolder, I never doubted her grief. But she is an old woman, arthritic, slightly handicapped, usually in pain. No doubt she feels that her death is near as well. As I implied earlier, I can understand why she felt no need to weep.
They placed the body in the coffin and covered it from head to waist with an animal hide. Tchao was a tall man with large feet, and his toes stuck up over the rim of the coffin. A group of men bent down and they lifted the coffin onto the heads of two other men. Their heads were padded with palm fronds woven into fat green donuts. They then loped toward the cemetery, and the village followed. Periodically the men carrying the coffin would grow tired and a new man would take his place. The cemetery was half a kilometer from the house. It is not cordoned off or indicated by any plaques. A passerby sees only the concrete and tile tombs resting in the dubious shade of teak trees, the ground bare of undergrowth, covered only with the dried mantas of old leaves.
When the procession reached the cemetery the women turned around. It is forbidden for women or children to view the actual internment. I continued with the men. A hole had been dug in the ground about four feet deep. It was half covered already. Logs had been placed over half the hole across the width, the cracks filled with rocks and leaves, and then a large pile of dirt placed atop. The men who had dug the hole were standing barefoot in shorts with no shirts. They removed the hide from over the body, then lifted it out of the coffin. One man was already in the tomb, hidden by the half-covering. He received the head, and the men placed the body gently in the hole. One by one they made an effort to turn the body on its side and tuck the thin faded blue blanket under his whole body. The feet were still exposed. I couldn’t see the head. When the body was arranged they climbed out and handed a hoe to the dead man’s uncle. He grasped a handful of dirt in the bend of the hoe. He gave a brief eulogy in Kabye, which I did not understand, but which I’m pretty sure contained the promise that we would all meet again on Judgment Day. He tossed the dirt into the hole. The spectators were all invited to take one last look on the deceased. Then logs were placed over the remainder of the opening, and the tomb was covered. It was only at this point that I noticed all the other mounds around us. I’d thought that every family built a concrete tomb, and had been a little skeptical about this hole in the ground, with stray roots stick out from the walls of earth. When I looked around I saw at least twenty mounds of earth, all covered with rocks. I left before they finished the mound.
On Saturday after the internment, I was walking with one of my students, a fourteen-year old in cinqieme. He had been bitten by a snake a few months ago, was on the verge of death himself, but his father and some charlatans had healed him. I remember seeing him at school; the whites of his eyes were blood red. His skin was still an ashy grey. He looked like the snake that bit him.
When we were walking together after the internment, he mentioned the snake bite. It had been sorcerers, he said. His father had gone to the village chief, and together they’d performed a ceremony to find out if there were any reasons behind the boy’s being bit. They’d found out that it was revenge sorcery, and the name of the man who had gone to the charlatan to make sure it was done. “What about our friend’s death yesterday,” I asked him. “Is that sorcery?” He said that we don’t know yet. “But we’ll find out tomorrow,” he said.
That night it rained. The sky was clear most of the day, but toward three o’clock we could hear thunder in the distance. The sky took on an orange tinge, but not the tinge of Midwestern sunsets I know so well. It was the hue of coming rain, of disparity between heat and humidity, a drop in the pressure. Around six o’clock it began to rain, just as the sky was losing all traces of twilight. The rain was heavy and straight, but the wind was fierce and wild. I closed all the windows of my house, and the front door, but the rain blew straight through it, and a large pool of water collected along the base of the north wall. The lightning was bright white, not a trace of blue. We could hear branches and fruits falling from the trees, whole woody fronds dropping from the palms. One of my chicks, and three belonging to my neighbor, drowned.
In the morning there was the ceremony to find out how Tchao had died. When Lao had told me of his death Friday night, he said that Tchao had been gravely ill for about a week. But what brought on the illness was unknown. Two charlatans were hired, one by the widow, one by the uncle.
Like the day before, many among the village were there to watch, arranged on benches enclosing the open space outside the compound. The chiefs were there, the widow and her sister-in-law, their kids. Most of our quarter of town. Two women were leaned against the wall of one of the compound’s buildings. One was tapping a calabash with piece of wood, the other was tapping a hunk of concrete with a piece of steel. Tap-clink-tap-clink. The charlatan was moaning and wailing lightly. He came shirtless out of the compound wearing on his head one of the frond donuts used in the procession the day before. On top of that sat a ceremonial bow, loosely strung, and a chunk from the husk of a baobab fruit. The charlatan was rubbing his crotch, and his arms shook like ribbons of water. The uncle, an old limping man who leaned heavily on his cane, came up to the charlatan, lifted the piece of husk and placed it on the ground. Then the widow walked up, picked up the husk, tapped it three times to the bow and donut, and replaced it on the ground.
The charlatan began speaking. It was not in tongues, just Kabye. A man sitting in front of me slipped out of his sandals and went to stand face to face with the charlatan. They spoke in short bursts, finding a rhythm alongside the tapping women. I could understand nothing except the occasional “What did you say?” and frequent grunts of confirmation. At one point the chief took over the dialogue and the other man sat down. After about twenty minutes altogether, the charlatan stopped speaking. The chief sat down and the charlatan tilted his head back to let fall the donut and the bow. Some water was brought to him, and he washed his face. Then he left.
My friend told me that the vision had not been clear. “He gave many reasons for the death. First he said Tchao had had the devil in him. Then he said someone in the village had killed him with an evil song. Then he said that it was not an evil song but an evil object. He just wasn’t clear at all.” What would happen next? “Now the second charlatan will come. Hopefully he will be more specific. If he isn’t, the family will find a charlatan from another village, and they will perform the ceremony privately.”
I thought then about the whole business of sorcery. I told everyone I didn’t believe in it. I’d been saying that for awhile back when I’d first heard about its prominence in my village, and after of few of these declarations one of my friends took me aside and told me I needed to stop it. “You don’t have to believe. But you can’t tell people that what they believe is lies.”
In about five minutes the second charlatan came. He was young and thick, whereas the other had been old and thin. He took his shirt off behind us, near the lime grove. He began whistling shortly and slapping his body. His chest, his back, his shoulders. He whistled with his upper lip hooded over his lower, blowing short bursts of breath out to make a sound like the women make when they prepare food with the grindstones. While he was doing that, one of the men from the crowd, a carpenter, stood where the other charlatan had stood, with the palm donut on his head. When the charlatan approached him, the carpenter gave him the donut, and the charlatan entered the atrium of the compound. He continued to whistle and slap, hitting himself in the armpits, pulling his skin and rubbing it. Like the crotch-work of the previous man, it looked vaguely sexual.
The charlatan came out of the compound with the palm donut on his head, and he stood where the other had stood. Two different women than before were beating out the rhythm on the calabash and the concrete. The uncle hobbled over, picked the husk of baobab from the ground, tapped it on the charlatan’s head, put it back on the ground. The widow got up, tapped the husk three times on the man’s head, and again replaced it. Then a new man from the crowd stood before the charlatan, and they began to speak as before. Again, within twenty minutes the ceremony was over. The charlatan washed his face. The people began to disperse. I turned to my friend for the translation of all that had been said.
“This time it was clear. The man who died had the devil in him. He was of a mean nature, and he signed a contract with the devil. He was supposed to pay the devil with alcohol, and food, and to sacrifice to him sheep. He did not fulfill this part of the contract. The devil came and took him.”
Before everybody had left, the uncle stood up and walked to the center of the circle of benches. He spoke in Kabye, and my friend told me this is what he said. “I am sorry to find out that Tchao died like this. But it cannot be changed. Let us give what thanks we can that it was only of his own hand that he died. And let us hope that his pact with the devil will not return to act malevolently upon his family.”
Once again, my only reaction to all this is confusion. I cannot understand this. I cannot dismiss this verdict as superstition, though neither can I declare my belief in it. I just know that Tchao died mysteriously. He rarely smiled. He seemed often tired, and not just from the fields. The kind of things that seem to line up after the fact, but would never have aroused suspicion without this bizarre declaration. Nobody could tell me what he was supposed to receive from the devil according the contract. I can’t think of anything myself. The only thing I can think to say, if you were to ask me if I believe this, is, “I kind of feel like I have to.”
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Cold and the Spanish Sun, pt. 2
We finally got the hotel room, complete with cable television, hot showers, and a free voucher for the buffet lunch, which included veal, bow-tie pasta with a creamy sauce, salad bar, and a fruit platter, amongst other things. We took a nap, and then went down to check out and catch the shuttle back to the airport. Some Nigerian travelers who were in a similar situation as us were already on the bus. One of them was in the front-most seat, where on the ride to the hotel the baggage had sat. The driver, an Egyptian named Mohamed that Larissa and I had determined was "a nice guy," asked the Nigerian to please move to the back so that he could load the luggage up front. The Nigerian didn't like this, and with a sharp look to his two sycophants, they began to ridicule Mohamed. He, Mohamed, shook his head and Larissa and I threw him our spiritual support. We were not fans of the Nigerians.
When we got to the airport, the Nigerians beat us to the EgyptAir counter, where a representative was holding all our passports. The Egyptian, a large-nosed younger man with close cropped hair, was sitting in front of a computer. We assumed he was taking care of something for the Nigerians, so we didn't say anything. After a moment, the man looked up, saw us, and asked us where our transfer was. "Casablanca," we said. He picked up our passports, walked out of the office, and said, "Follow me." As we turned to be led past security and into the proper terminal, the Nigerians' eyes followed us in disbelief. Their jaws dropped. They had been totally ignored.
The flight to Casablanca was nice and uneventful. We landed at 11:40, twenty minutes before the last train to Tangier, where we needed to go to take the ferry into Tarifa, Spain. We got my bag from the claim, went through customs, and headed to the train platform at the base of the elevators. The conductor was walking towards us from the platform. "Come on, come on," he said, "we go now. You pay on the train."
"We don't have any cash," we said.
"Oh. Sorry. Tomorrow morning, then."
The next train, then, was at 7 am. It was midnight. We decided to sleep in the airport. The unheated airport. For the next seven hours. We piled on our clothes, huddled together on a leather bench in the check-in area, and shivered in our sleep.
The next morning, still cold, we got our tickets and boarded the train. Since the three-car train that leaves the airport only ever goes as far as the main Casablanca terminal, we had two hours to kill in the central part of town before our six-hour train ride to Tangier. It was a cold day, but the sun was bright, and silhouetted the clock tower of the station before us. We headed to a small cafe along the main road, and Larissa got a grilled cheese and egg sandwich, and I got a yogurt. We ordered orange juice, and the man squeezed it in front of us. When we finished eating, they brought us some complimentary tea, which Larissa used to warm up her nose. Then we walked down the street to a small park with tended lawns, clean benches, small trash cans, and palm trees. We like Morocco, we decided.
We spent the last thirty minutes waiting for our train to arrive at the station sitting between two women. The woman on our right just stared at us and the woman on the left covered her face with a shawl and stared at us. Although slightly warmed by the sun, Larissa was still shivering. The woman on the left offered her one of her gloves for two minutes, which Larissa accepted. Finally our train arrived and as we got ready to board, the glove-lender raised her hand as if expecting some change for her two-minute one-glove lending service. We both feigned ignorance, threw her some of our best innocent grins, and boarded the train.
A brief note on Moroccan winter dress/fashion: these people know how to battle the cold. The women wear brightly colored shawls, while the men wear hooded robes that look like Franciscan monks had their winter coats designed by Klansmen. They are dark or light brown, go all the way to the floor, and have hoods which remain remarkably pointy, even in the wind.
The train ride was nice. We slept for most of it. Morocco is in the middle of their rainy season, however, and through the windows of the train we could see the whole countryside, covered with a green velvet sheen. Herders with their meager flocks sat amongst their grazing sheep, cows wandered over the countryside, donkeys loaded with vegetables made their way to market.
We finally made it to the Tangier station about three in the afternoon. We took a taxi from the station to the port and bought tickets for the ferry which would take us to Tarifa. At the customs desk to get on the ferry, a man had hijacked all the disembarkation forms. To fill one out, you had to give your passport to one of his flunkies, who would then fill it out for you. At first we thought they were officials who did this for a living, but their jump suits said "Sanitation," not "Immigration." They were janitors, and when they were done, they held out their hands for a tip.
The thing is, though, that we'd spent all our Moroccan dirhams on the train, the taxi, and the ferry tickets. All we had left were one dirham coins, about 12 and-a-half cents. We held them out to the janitors, and in their Arabic accents they said, "One dirham? You give me one dirham?" They shook their heads in disgust and let us past.
And then we were on the ferry. A thirty-minute ride across the Strait of Gibraltar was all that was left of the journey to Spain. My parents, who had flown into Madrid on Saturday and rented a car, were waiting for us in Tarifa. Since we had no way of contacting them, and since they had been expecting us since the morning in case we'd gotten that midnight train, I was nervous as the sun set over the waters, the blue of day turning into the purple of twilight and finally into the inky black of night on the sea. But when we got off the boat, they were there. So excited to see us, they waved with all their hands.
When we got to the airport, the Nigerians beat us to the EgyptAir counter, where a representative was holding all our passports. The Egyptian, a large-nosed younger man with close cropped hair, was sitting in front of a computer. We assumed he was taking care of something for the Nigerians, so we didn't say anything. After a moment, the man looked up, saw us, and asked us where our transfer was. "Casablanca," we said. He picked up our passports, walked out of the office, and said, "Follow me." As we turned to be led past security and into the proper terminal, the Nigerians' eyes followed us in disbelief. Their jaws dropped. They had been totally ignored.
The flight to Casablanca was nice and uneventful. We landed at 11:40, twenty minutes before the last train to Tangier, where we needed to go to take the ferry into Tarifa, Spain. We got my bag from the claim, went through customs, and headed to the train platform at the base of the elevators. The conductor was walking towards us from the platform. "Come on, come on," he said, "we go now. You pay on the train."
"We don't have any cash," we said.
"Oh. Sorry. Tomorrow morning, then."
The next train, then, was at 7 am. It was midnight. We decided to sleep in the airport. The unheated airport. For the next seven hours. We piled on our clothes, huddled together on a leather bench in the check-in area, and shivered in our sleep.
The next morning, still cold, we got our tickets and boarded the train. Since the three-car train that leaves the airport only ever goes as far as the main Casablanca terminal, we had two hours to kill in the central part of town before our six-hour train ride to Tangier. It was a cold day, but the sun was bright, and silhouetted the clock tower of the station before us. We headed to a small cafe along the main road, and Larissa got a grilled cheese and egg sandwich, and I got a yogurt. We ordered orange juice, and the man squeezed it in front of us. When we finished eating, they brought us some complimentary tea, which Larissa used to warm up her nose. Then we walked down the street to a small park with tended lawns, clean benches, small trash cans, and palm trees. We like Morocco, we decided.
We spent the last thirty minutes waiting for our train to arrive at the station sitting between two women. The woman on our right just stared at us and the woman on the left covered her face with a shawl and stared at us. Although slightly warmed by the sun, Larissa was still shivering. The woman on the left offered her one of her gloves for two minutes, which Larissa accepted. Finally our train arrived and as we got ready to board, the glove-lender raised her hand as if expecting some change for her two-minute one-glove lending service. We both feigned ignorance, threw her some of our best innocent grins, and boarded the train.
A brief note on Moroccan winter dress/fashion: these people know how to battle the cold. The women wear brightly colored shawls, while the men wear hooded robes that look like Franciscan monks had their winter coats designed by Klansmen. They are dark or light brown, go all the way to the floor, and have hoods which remain remarkably pointy, even in the wind.
The train ride was nice. We slept for most of it. Morocco is in the middle of their rainy season, however, and through the windows of the train we could see the whole countryside, covered with a green velvet sheen. Herders with their meager flocks sat amongst their grazing sheep, cows wandered over the countryside, donkeys loaded with vegetables made their way to market.
We finally made it to the Tangier station about three in the afternoon. We took a taxi from the station to the port and bought tickets for the ferry which would take us to Tarifa. At the customs desk to get on the ferry, a man had hijacked all the disembarkation forms. To fill one out, you had to give your passport to one of his flunkies, who would then fill it out for you. At first we thought they were officials who did this for a living, but their jump suits said "Sanitation," not "Immigration." They were janitors, and when they were done, they held out their hands for a tip.
The thing is, though, that we'd spent all our Moroccan dirhams on the train, the taxi, and the ferry tickets. All we had left were one dirham coins, about 12 and-a-half cents. We held them out to the janitors, and in their Arabic accents they said, "One dirham? You give me one dirham?" They shook their heads in disgust and let us past.
And then we were on the ferry. A thirty-minute ride across the Strait of Gibraltar was all that was left of the journey to Spain. My parents, who had flown into Madrid on Saturday and rented a car, were waiting for us in Tarifa. Since we had no way of contacting them, and since they had been expecting us since the morning in case we'd gotten that midnight train, I was nervous as the sun set over the waters, the blue of day turning into the purple of twilight and finally into the inky black of night on the sea. But when we got off the boat, they were there. So excited to see us, they waved with all their hands.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Cold and The Spanish Sun, pt. 1
After some trouble with a money-changer at the Togo/Ghana border, Larissa, a husband and wife combo from PC/Niger, and I rented a private car from Aflao to Accra, a three hour drive. The beginning of the road was similar to Togo. Potholes and dirt, the flora along the edge of the asphalt painted burnt ochre by dust. But as the road became smoother, the painted lines whiter and crisper, the mud huts and the tin roofs gave way to massive fenced-in factories, signs for local farms, and finally subdivisions and duplexes. I felt like I was in a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale.
In Accra itself there were overpasses, exit ramps, readable signs, working traffic lights. Larissa and I got out along the highway, and crossed the road to the mall, to spare the driver a time-consuming turn through the highway's cloverleaf. In the mall we ate fast food, played Wii in a bookstore, checked out the movies playing in the theater, and shopped in a real grocery store. When we were done, we took a taxi to Champs, a sports bar, and feasted on Nachos con carne, washed down by draft beers and a whiskey on the rocks. Except for the occasional piles of trash, and the ever-present little black market sacks, it was hard to believe we were in Africa.
The airport seemed slick and shiny, with clean plastic check-in counters. The attendants were polite and helpful, and we got our tickets and checked our bags with no trouble. The only "African" experience I had during those hours in Ghana was at passport control, when the attendant asked me to give him one of the books I was reading. I told him no, so he gave me his phone number and told me to call him when I got back, so that we could be friends.
At 11:15 pm, our flight to Cairo was announced. We all walked outside into the little bus that carried us across the tarmac to where the plane was waiting. We boarded, met a Yale business student who knows a former volunteer we know, and then fell asleep in the cold recycled air of the plane, the lights flickering into dimness, the hum of the engines steady and true.
We landed in Cairo at 7 am, with thirteen hours to kill before our flight that evening to Casablanca. The Egyptian sun rose later than in West Africa, and the air was so cold our breath escaped in clouds. When we finally made it to the transfer passengers waiting area, we were told our complimentary hotel room would be ready within an hour, and if we could just sit inside the waiting area to the left, they'd call us when it was ready.
While I was in the bathroom, trying to jump out the door over the mop of the tip-hungry bathroom attendant, Larissa was approached by a representative from EgyptAir in charge of QuickTours, who offered her a pamphlet with possible tour options during our layover. When I got back, Larissa brought me up to date as the man came over.
"Hello, Hi, my name is Ahmad." He told us the options we had in lieu of a hotel room. For only $70 each, for example, we could visit the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx. If we threw in an extra $30 each, he'd throw in a tour to the Egyptian Museum as well.
"Hmm..." we said. "We'll have to think about it."
"Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do." Ahmad sat down and straightened his tie. "I'll go talk to my people and see if, since you are Americans, I can bring ze price of ze pyramid trip down to just $55 each. " People think it's just the French who say 'the' with a z, but apparently it's the Egyptians, too.
And then he rushed off. He came back fifteen minutes later with our other options:
"Okay, so, you can take ze hotel room and just rest. Or you can take ze tour, for only 55 US Dollars each, for both ze pyramids and ze Sphinx."
"Well..."
"Or, you can forgo ze hotel room for free visas, so zat you can walk around ze city yourselves."
This option made me a little curious.
"So, I have a question. If we just take the hotel, does that mean we have to stay inside the hotel, since we won't have these visas? Or are we allowed to leave and walk around?"
"Oh, yes, you can walk around, zat is no problem."
"Then why would we give that up for the free visas?"
"Tell you what," he said, "I have another choice. If you want to leave right now, you can skip ze hotel room, we go to ze pyramids and ze Sphinx for 55 dollars each, and I will cook you breakfast here."
"What? At the airport?"
"Yes, yes."
"Tell you what," we said. "We'll do the pyramids and the Sphinx for 55. We'll just need to exchange a little money first."
"Okay, zat is no problem, I will make ze arrangements."
What we didn't know, though, was that none of the exchange banks in the airport, and really, throughout most of Africa, accept traveler's cheques these days. And they also wouldn't exchange Ghanaian Cedis, or West African Francs. Between us, we only had about 40 USD. So when Ahmad came back, with a sign-up list (or maybe his breakfast menu?), we had to tell him that, really sorry, we just wouldn't be able to do the trip, so could we just get that hotel room please?
Ahmad disguised his disappointment well, and said that, yes, no problem, he would take care of zat right away for us.
Thirty minutes later, however, Ahmad came back to sit down in front of us. "Okay," he said, "I have one final option. You see zese people over zere?" He nodded behind him. Yes, we saw them. "They have signed up for ze tour, but zey are only three, and the tour needs at least five. If you would like to go with zem, immediately, you pay only 25 American dollars each, and you leave right now."
"Sorry, Ahmad," we said, "But it's the same problem as before, we just don't have the money." He nodded and said okay. As he was getting up to leave, we asked again about that hotel room. "Oh yes," he said, "I will take care of zat right away."
Two hours later, we are sitting in the same seats in the waiting area. Other EgyptAir employees have been calling people by their destinations, taking them to their complimentary hotel rooms. We have heard nothing about us, about anyone going to Casablanca. We have not seen Ahmad since his last promise to us two hours ago.
Around 12:15 Ahmad walks into the waiting area. He's not wearing his suit jacket, however, and he doesn't make eye contact with anybody in the room. He's carrying a sandwich. He proceeds to eat it. He finishes at 12:45. He gets up and leaves.
A few minutes after he leaves, I find Ahmad and ask him about that hotel room he said he was going to work out for us.
"Oh yes," he says, his shoulders slack in their disinterest. "Well, you see, zat is not my department. You must go over to zat desk right zere."
In Accra itself there were overpasses, exit ramps, readable signs, working traffic lights. Larissa and I got out along the highway, and crossed the road to the mall, to spare the driver a time-consuming turn through the highway's cloverleaf. In the mall we ate fast food, played Wii in a bookstore, checked out the movies playing in the theater, and shopped in a real grocery store. When we were done, we took a taxi to Champs, a sports bar, and feasted on Nachos con carne, washed down by draft beers and a whiskey on the rocks. Except for the occasional piles of trash, and the ever-present little black market sacks, it was hard to believe we were in Africa.
The airport seemed slick and shiny, with clean plastic check-in counters. The attendants were polite and helpful, and we got our tickets and checked our bags with no trouble. The only "African" experience I had during those hours in Ghana was at passport control, when the attendant asked me to give him one of the books I was reading. I told him no, so he gave me his phone number and told me to call him when I got back, so that we could be friends.
At 11:15 pm, our flight to Cairo was announced. We all walked outside into the little bus that carried us across the tarmac to where the plane was waiting. We boarded, met a Yale business student who knows a former volunteer we know, and then fell asleep in the cold recycled air of the plane, the lights flickering into dimness, the hum of the engines steady and true.
We landed in Cairo at 7 am, with thirteen hours to kill before our flight that evening to Casablanca. The Egyptian sun rose later than in West Africa, and the air was so cold our breath escaped in clouds. When we finally made it to the transfer passengers waiting area, we were told our complimentary hotel room would be ready within an hour, and if we could just sit inside the waiting area to the left, they'd call us when it was ready.
While I was in the bathroom, trying to jump out the door over the mop of the tip-hungry bathroom attendant, Larissa was approached by a representative from EgyptAir in charge of QuickTours, who offered her a pamphlet with possible tour options during our layover. When I got back, Larissa brought me up to date as the man came over.
"Hello, Hi, my name is Ahmad." He told us the options we had in lieu of a hotel room. For only $70 each, for example, we could visit the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx. If we threw in an extra $30 each, he'd throw in a tour to the Egyptian Museum as well.
"Hmm..." we said. "We'll have to think about it."
"Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do." Ahmad sat down and straightened his tie. "I'll go talk to my people and see if, since you are Americans, I can bring ze price of ze pyramid trip down to just $55 each. " People think it's just the French who say 'the' with a z, but apparently it's the Egyptians, too.
And then he rushed off. He came back fifteen minutes later with our other options:
"Okay, so, you can take ze hotel room and just rest. Or you can take ze tour, for only 55 US Dollars each, for both ze pyramids and ze Sphinx."
"Well..."
"Or, you can forgo ze hotel room for free visas, so zat you can walk around ze city yourselves."
This option made me a little curious.
"So, I have a question. If we just take the hotel, does that mean we have to stay inside the hotel, since we won't have these visas? Or are we allowed to leave and walk around?"
"Oh, yes, you can walk around, zat is no problem."
"Then why would we give that up for the free visas?"
"Tell you what," he said, "I have another choice. If you want to leave right now, you can skip ze hotel room, we go to ze pyramids and ze Sphinx for 55 dollars each, and I will cook you breakfast here."
"What? At the airport?"
"Yes, yes."
"Tell you what," we said. "We'll do the pyramids and the Sphinx for 55. We'll just need to exchange a little money first."
"Okay, zat is no problem, I will make ze arrangements."
What we didn't know, though, was that none of the exchange banks in the airport, and really, throughout most of Africa, accept traveler's cheques these days. And they also wouldn't exchange Ghanaian Cedis, or West African Francs. Between us, we only had about 40 USD. So when Ahmad came back, with a sign-up list (or maybe his breakfast menu?), we had to tell him that, really sorry, we just wouldn't be able to do the trip, so could we just get that hotel room please?
Ahmad disguised his disappointment well, and said that, yes, no problem, he would take care of zat right away for us.
Thirty minutes later, however, Ahmad came back to sit down in front of us. "Okay," he said, "I have one final option. You see zese people over zere?" He nodded behind him. Yes, we saw them. "They have signed up for ze tour, but zey are only three, and the tour needs at least five. If you would like to go with zem, immediately, you pay only 25 American dollars each, and you leave right now."
"Sorry, Ahmad," we said, "But it's the same problem as before, we just don't have the money." He nodded and said okay. As he was getting up to leave, we asked again about that hotel room. "Oh yes," he said, "I will take care of zat right away."
Two hours later, we are sitting in the same seats in the waiting area. Other EgyptAir employees have been calling people by their destinations, taking them to their complimentary hotel rooms. We have heard nothing about us, about anyone going to Casablanca. We have not seen Ahmad since his last promise to us two hours ago.
Around 12:15 Ahmad walks into the waiting area. He's not wearing his suit jacket, however, and he doesn't make eye contact with anybody in the room. He's carrying a sandwich. He proceeds to eat it. He finishes at 12:45. He gets up and leaves.
A few minutes after he leaves, I find Ahmad and ask him about that hotel room he said he was going to work out for us.
"Oh yes," he says, his shoulders slack in their disinterest. "Well, you see, zat is not my department. You must go over to zat desk right zere."
Friday, January 9, 2009
Tony Peeks Under His Own Hood
Sometimes I wish I'd studied something in college a little more practical than English. Like physics, or some short-bus version of engineering, or biology. Although, I doubt I could biologize, or physicize or even engineer as easily and readily as I can write. Maybe it's not such a big deal that I don't write as much as I think I should. What do physics majors do with their free time? I'd probably juggle a lot, to admire gravity. Or shoot a hose at a high arc, google-eyed and slouch-jawed about the molecular structure of water, which really is probably the most pleasurable thing I can think to watch.
Or maybe another language, studied in detail, till the point of fluency. I speak French pretty well, and I have enough interest in it that I know I'll speak it pretty well for a long time after I'm done using it in Africa. Honestly, I'll probably speak better French when I leave here. I try to read novels in French sometimes, and I get them, I understand them for the most part, but I never get that suck-in-your-breath feeling like when I read DFW or Jonathon Safran Foer or Saul Bellow. But I'd like to, you see.
And then there's all the kinds of handy skills I wish I knew. Horse-shoeing, metal-working, complex carpentry, even plumbing or being an electrician. And what about brick masonry?
I feel like if I were younger, still influenced by the Romantics, still taking myself way too seriously (it's actually pretty embarassing how seriously I took myself from, like, 10-16; it got better after that, but I'm still a bit of a self-important weirdo), I'd consider all these desires as an indication of the question, "Who am I?" But, you know, I feel pretty comfortable with who I am. I've got a good grasp on that, like an old woman gripping her morning mug. I just want to make the me that's here and now a better person for whatever might come up in the future.
Also, I'd like to be the kind of guy who can reference a funny anecdote whenever the occasion calls. Like when people interviewed Kurt Vonnegut, and instead of responding directly to their questions he'd say, "Well, you've heard about the man who fell off a cliff, right...?" Or something like that.
You want to know how to tell if a friend of yours is a genuine person? Feed them a Sloppy Joe. The cleaner their hands at the end of the meal, the less you can trust them. That's a fact. Like, right now, I'm eating a sandwich while typing this, and let me tell you, it's hard to see my shirt through the breadcrumbs. I'm a man who keeps his word.
Speaking of Kurt Vonnegut interviews, I just read an old one I found on McSweeney's, and the interviewer mentioned a movie in which the afterlife was individualized, with every person reliving one memory, just one, for the rest of eternity. Vonnegut said his would be this:
"I think it would be the moment where I was doing everything right, where I was beyond criticism. It was back in World War II. It was snowing, but everything was black. The trucks were rolling in. I was surrounded by my buddies. And my rifle was between my knees, my helmet on my head. I was ready for anything. And I was right where I belonged. That would be the moment. It would have to be the moment."
What would my moment be, if I had to choose right now? I can't think of a specific year, but it would have to be one of the many Fourth of July corn roasts at the Lake. What would yours be?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Passing Thoughts
On Saturday I go to Spain with the gf. To meet the parents. I'm in Lome now, getting my Ghana visa. We're flying out of Ghana. Into Cairo. Layover. Into Casablanca. From there, if all works out, the midnight train to Tangiers, and then the seven-thirty ferry to Tarifa. Where the parents will be waiting with a rented car, not likely red of color, eating tapas in the shadow of a church next door to the restaurant.
Tim and I have been emailing dreams. How we'll make money once I get back home so that we can go to Japan. The book he wants to write, how he wants me to be a part of it. It's a travel book. I told him I'm in. I haven't told him that travelling abroad secretly scares me. Visas and passports and WHO cards with all the proper vaccinations. The conversion of money, the unknown market prices. Some people tell me that travelling in West Africa is harder than in other places. I wish I could be comfortable knowing there are things I don't want to do. But I just feel a kind of personal weakness.
Have you heard? I am having a wedding. With the gf. The dowry is: two bottles of sodabe, four bottles of whiskey, a case of beer. My host mother wanted to get it town to just two bottles of whiskey. The gf thinks she's worth all four. Maybe five.
At the Ghanaian Embassy, two middle-aged Canadian missionaries were filling out visa applications. I said, "Hello, fellow North Americans." The man, looking out of place in Africa in a baby-duck yellow polo, said, "We're from Canada actually, but close enough." I think he misheard me. The wife was nicer.
I walked from the Embassy back to the Bureau. That's a taxi ride of about 800 F CFA. That's pretty far, for a white kid. Or so they tell me.
The thing I most want to do in Spain is to go bowling.
Monday night, before leaving village, Lidao and Adele came to hang out with me before I left. I had to grade papers, so I set up my little laptop and put on Kung Fu Panda. Theo came in shortly after. I couldn't concentrate on grading. I kept looking at the backs of those little black heads as they shook with laughter. They were beautiful.
Tim and I have been emailing dreams. How we'll make money once I get back home so that we can go to Japan. The book he wants to write, how he wants me to be a part of it. It's a travel book. I told him I'm in. I haven't told him that travelling abroad secretly scares me. Visas and passports and WHO cards with all the proper vaccinations. The conversion of money, the unknown market prices. Some people tell me that travelling in West Africa is harder than in other places. I wish I could be comfortable knowing there are things I don't want to do. But I just feel a kind of personal weakness.
Have you heard? I am having a wedding. With the gf. The dowry is: two bottles of sodabe, four bottles of whiskey, a case of beer. My host mother wanted to get it town to just two bottles of whiskey. The gf thinks she's worth all four. Maybe five.
At the Ghanaian Embassy, two middle-aged Canadian missionaries were filling out visa applications. I said, "Hello, fellow North Americans." The man, looking out of place in Africa in a baby-duck yellow polo, said, "We're from Canada actually, but close enough." I think he misheard me. The wife was nicer.
I walked from the Embassy back to the Bureau. That's a taxi ride of about 800 F CFA. That's pretty far, for a white kid. Or so they tell me.
The thing I most want to do in Spain is to go bowling.
Monday night, before leaving village, Lidao and Adele came to hang out with me before I left. I had to grade papers, so I set up my little laptop and put on Kung Fu Panda. Theo came in shortly after. I couldn't concentrate on grading. I kept looking at the backs of those little black heads as they shook with laughter. They were beautiful.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Maman and Daniel
When I was helping with the training group in Agou at the end of November, I didn't go eat as often with Maman and Daniel as I had when I was there in October. I'd gotten a little sick last time, and by the end of the week wasn't eating any of the food that Maman was preparing, so this time I didn't want her to waste anything on me. Nonetheless, I would go over there when I could. Daniel was out and about most of the time, or wandering around the courtyard searching for something he wasn't sure he'd lost. I helped Maman make the couscous she served me one Tuesday, and when I couldn't find an egg sandwich on the side of the road, she insisted one night that I buy the necessary ingredients so she could make it for me at the house. She really is a great mother.
I've recently come to enjoy fufu, the pounded yam dish that is a staple of the Togolese diet. A few days before we were to leave Nyogbo for the swear-in in Lome, I asked Maman to prepare it for me. She says she'd eat fufu every meal of every day if she could, so I wanted her to eat with me, instead of just serving me my couscous or salad at the table and then retreating to the kitchen to make her own lunch. Okay, she said, and we agreed on the next day.
She let me pound the yams along with Daniel and the little girl she took in shortly after Gerson died. When it was done and the sauce was hot, she scooped blobs of the white pasty yams into aluminum bowls and poured the sauce all over it.
We sat in the mini courtyard in front of the kitchen, in the shade of the overhanging tin roof. Daniel was off playing in the abandoned church next door, the little girl was washing some clothes in the yard, and the trainee was studying in his room. We ate in silence at first, my fingers burning against the sauce, my tongue scalded by the chicken. It was delicious.
It's not a Togolese habit to talk and eat at the same time, but Maman knows me well enough to humor me with conversation. She's a lively discussionist, her face a panoply of expressions. We were probably talking about the training, the upcoming departure, my work in village. Whereas before it was I who would steer the conversation towards Gerson's death, this time Maman picked up the thread.
"I still don't know why he died," she said. Her confusion is both physical and existential. The doctors have been unable to tell her what killed Gerson; she cannot understand why God would take such a good man so soon.
"They say," I said, "that only the good die young." It was weak, but I had nothing else. "Maybe God takes the best of us early because he needs them with him."
She didn't like the explanation any more than I did. "He had so much left to do here," she said. Then, in a voice a little more broken: "Why would he leave me?" I didn't look up to see if there were tears in her eyes, but I heard the sniffles.
"I don't know, Maman. But he was a good man. We were the ones lucky enough to be here with him. We have to remember that." My eyes were moist now, too. Maman wiped her nose silently on her apron.
"I worry about Daniel," she said. "He doesn't want to study. He doesn't want to go to school. I tell him to go to his uncle's house during the breaks, but he refuses."
"He's afraid to leave you. He's afraid he might lose you too."
"He used to be first or second in his class. Every year. But now he doesn't care. I said, 'Daniel, why have your grades fallen?' He says because now that Papa has died, no one will buy him a bike if he gets first, so he doesn't try. He's looking for his father, and he knows that he won't find him."
"Maman," I said, and I looked up at her. "You don't need to worry about Daniel. He's a good kid. A great kid. And I know this for two reasons: he had a great father; and he still has a great mother."
She was no longer sniffling. Her face was constricted, as though she were slightly in pain. She was looking away from me, into the fronds of a palm tree behind us. Her voice was shaky now.
"Lately I've been waking up at night from my dreams. In each one I'm some place I don't recognize. I'm surrounded by people I don't know. I get scared, and in the dreams I start to cry. I go into a corner to try to hide, and I hide my head in my hands, wanting to escape. And then I hear a voice calling 'Maman, Maman!' I see Daniel. He's waving at me, running toward me. And I know that he's coming to protect me."
We finished our meal in silence, and I helped Maman with the dishes. "Do you want me to get you some plantains for when you leave again?" she asked.
"No, Maman. Then I won't have an excuse to come back here and eat with you."
"You need an excuse to come back here?" She looked at me with her not-really-insulted smile.
"Never, Maman," I smiled, "Never."
I've recently come to enjoy fufu, the pounded yam dish that is a staple of the Togolese diet. A few days before we were to leave Nyogbo for the swear-in in Lome, I asked Maman to prepare it for me. She says she'd eat fufu every meal of every day if she could, so I wanted her to eat with me, instead of just serving me my couscous or salad at the table and then retreating to the kitchen to make her own lunch. Okay, she said, and we agreed on the next day.
She let me pound the yams along with Daniel and the little girl she took in shortly after Gerson died. When it was done and the sauce was hot, she scooped blobs of the white pasty yams into aluminum bowls and poured the sauce all over it.
We sat in the mini courtyard in front of the kitchen, in the shade of the overhanging tin roof. Daniel was off playing in the abandoned church next door, the little girl was washing some clothes in the yard, and the trainee was studying in his room. We ate in silence at first, my fingers burning against the sauce, my tongue scalded by the chicken. It was delicious.
It's not a Togolese habit to talk and eat at the same time, but Maman knows me well enough to humor me with conversation. She's a lively discussionist, her face a panoply of expressions. We were probably talking about the training, the upcoming departure, my work in village. Whereas before it was I who would steer the conversation towards Gerson's death, this time Maman picked up the thread.
"I still don't know why he died," she said. Her confusion is both physical and existential. The doctors have been unable to tell her what killed Gerson; she cannot understand why God would take such a good man so soon.
"They say," I said, "that only the good die young." It was weak, but I had nothing else. "Maybe God takes the best of us early because he needs them with him."
She didn't like the explanation any more than I did. "He had so much left to do here," she said. Then, in a voice a little more broken: "Why would he leave me?" I didn't look up to see if there were tears in her eyes, but I heard the sniffles.
"I don't know, Maman. But he was a good man. We were the ones lucky enough to be here with him. We have to remember that." My eyes were moist now, too. Maman wiped her nose silently on her apron.
"I worry about Daniel," she said. "He doesn't want to study. He doesn't want to go to school. I tell him to go to his uncle's house during the breaks, but he refuses."
"He's afraid to leave you. He's afraid he might lose you too."
"He used to be first or second in his class. Every year. But now he doesn't care. I said, 'Daniel, why have your grades fallen?' He says because now that Papa has died, no one will buy him a bike if he gets first, so he doesn't try. He's looking for his father, and he knows that he won't find him."
"Maman," I said, and I looked up at her. "You don't need to worry about Daniel. He's a good kid. A great kid. And I know this for two reasons: he had a great father; and he still has a great mother."
She was no longer sniffling. Her face was constricted, as though she were slightly in pain. She was looking away from me, into the fronds of a palm tree behind us. Her voice was shaky now.
"Lately I've been waking up at night from my dreams. In each one I'm some place I don't recognize. I'm surrounded by people I don't know. I get scared, and in the dreams I start to cry. I go into a corner to try to hide, and I hide my head in my hands, wanting to escape. And then I hear a voice calling 'Maman, Maman!' I see Daniel. He's waving at me, running toward me. And I know that he's coming to protect me."
We finished our meal in silence, and I helped Maman with the dishes. "Do you want me to get you some plantains for when you leave again?" she asked.
"No, Maman. Then I won't have an excuse to come back here and eat with you."
"You need an excuse to come back here?" She looked at me with her not-really-insulted smile.
"Never, Maman," I smiled, "Never."
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