“Very clear,” I said.
Colin was in the waiting room smoking a cigarette and leafing through a magazine. He took me home. I told him that I had hepatitis.
“Oh matey, that’s bad. No drinking for the rest of your life! But cheer up, you’ll probably be dead soon, so you won’t have to suffer long.”
Sam took the news as I thought she would: with confidence and optimism. I would not work for the next six weeks. Andre was good about it even though he was losing pilots right and left. Most of his German pilots were leaving to work for a startup aircraft manufacturer in Brazil. He was busy recruiting a recent influx of Spanish pilots who were reported to be very good. For the next few weeks I was too weak to do anything strenuous.
My physical weakness, combined with the frequent rain and high humidity, confined me to what I now realized was a very small house. My visits to Dr. Klatt were something close to agony, but gradually I began to gain strength. The yellow in my eyes started to clear and the thought of anything alcoholic nearly made me throw up. Ironically, Sam got a part-time job as a bartender at the Ambassador’s beach bar and became quite proficient at mixology.
I took this opportunity to do some sketching. I made a sketch of Sam that I did not show her. I sketched from memory and from photographs that Sam had taken. I even started painting the “old man with his wife” on a plywood panel.
When I started back to work in June, most of the pilots now working for the air service operators were new. I was considered the old man and with good reason. I had been there a long time by Liberian standards; most of the new pilots were younger than me. There were a couple of American boys from the Midwest, several English lads, a Canadian, and the rest were Spanish. I couldn’t speak Spanish but, fortunately, they could speak enough English to operate in the aviation environment. English, for reasons unknown to me, was becoming the language of commercial aviation even in West Africa.
I had just returned from a trip to the iron mines, and we were well into the wet season. I was enjoying a lemonade made by Sam’s expert hand when Colin walked out onto our porch.
“What the hell is happening in your country, mate?” I asked him what he meant. Sam heard his comment and stopped what she was doing.
“Some fucker shot Robert Kennedy in the head.”
“Is he dead?” I asked
“It’s a bullet in the head, mate.”
It was difficult, often impossible, to explain to the various people who came up to me in the next few weeks that the United States of America was not descending into chaos, that the military would not take over and there would not be a coup d’état.
Older, expatriate Germans took a particular delight in what they were sure was the collapse of American democracy. I suppose that it was somewhat of a disappointment to them that the US continued with the work of presidential nomination without interruption. I will say, however, that the younger Germans were very concerned and saw the survival of America as the only hope against what they were sure would be an eventual war against the Russians.
The US did not collapse, as I reminded my friends later that summer. However, that August, I did start to have genuine questions about the future of my country while watching the riots in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. We watched it on the new television set up in the Ambassador’s beach bar. Most of the people hanging around the bar were shaking their heads.
“You had better apply for political asylum, my friend, because it doesn’t look like you’re going to have much of a country to go back to” was the most frequent comment. My parents, who were Democrats, knew what was happening. They knew that there had been a move on the part of the democratic establishment to back LBJ’s civil rights act. Therefore, the riots.
Sam, on the other hand, had been in contact with her family in Seattle and, since they were historic supporters of the Republican Party, could have cared less about what the democrats were doing in Chicago and didn’t have the slightest fear for the survival of American democracy.
“Ich must say,” Deet said to me while downing a hefty glass of scotch, “it does remind me of Germany vin I vas a boy—de Sturmabteilung racing through de streets beating up on Communists and Jews. Ya, just like Germany, no different, my friend. Dis Mayor Daley you’ve got, he would make a good Nazi!”
America did survive, much to the puzzlement of most of the people I knew in Liberia. Much of my work by the end of August 1968 was training new pilots on the routes, procedures, airfields, and customs of the various groups of people they would have to deal with.
I returned home after a particularly exhausting day. Sam had the night off from the Ambassador’s beach bar. I had been experiencing a burning pain in my right leg for some time but passed it off as a strain since I had also been doing a lot of maintenance on the company’s airplanes.
I felt a not untypical urge to use the toilet, so I grabbed the closest newspaper I could find and went in to, as is said, sit upon the throne. I was glancing through a report of President Tubman’s latest grandstand when I felt a burning, wet sensation in my right knee. I put the paper to one side, and there, wiggling in front of me, was a Guinea worm slowly writhing and twisting his way out of my knee.
Fortunately for me, it was a male Guinea worm—maybe an inch and a half long and about the size of a string of cooked spaghetti. The female is much more formidable at two to three feet long and much fatter. I had overheard some of the pilots talk about this and the best way of removing them. So, I got a match stick from a box of matches on the dresser and, sitting back down on the toilet, began to slowly roll the worm onto the matchstick until I had completely removed it.
I showed it to Sam. She had seen this before in Voinjama where it was fairly common. The Guinea worm, or Dracunculiasis, gets into the body from water contaminated by a very small water flea carrying the Guinea worm larvae. There is no cure or treatment for it except to pull the worms out when they emerge from your body. They can cause arthritis or maybe even death if they die inside you while they are wrapped around your knee or spinal cord.
Sam put her newspaper down and looked at me.
“That’s it,” she said.
“What do you mean, that’s it?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “Ken, a worm just crawled out of your knee. You’ve had malaria, hepatitis, and diarrhea. What’s next? I know you’re not happy with your job anymore. You’ve been talking more and more about going back to school. This place is wearing you down. It’s wearing us down. I’m tired of the heat, the damp, and the constant palaver. Tubman’s not going to live forever and when he dies, and who knows when that’s going to happen, the shit is going to hit the fan. If these Americo-Liberians would learn from history, they might see that they are not going to have it their own way forever. I want to get out before the deluge.”
I had to admit she was right—right about everything. It was time to go home.
I had one more flight. It was to the mission where Sarah had lived. The Head Man was there waiting for me. I told him that I wanted to see Sarah’s grave. He nodded and told me to follow him. I walked behind him up the single path to the village cemetery. There were rows of wooden crosses crudely pushed into the loose ground. It had been a few years now and the dirt mound covering her grave was weathered down. I placed a single lily at the base of her cross.
As I was turning to leave, the Head Man put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Ah can see ya a mon of deep sorrow, a mon troubled in his spirit. Ya needn’t worry no mo. I know God ha forgive you, ma mon. Ah know it. Ya can go in peace now.”
I thanked the Head Man and flew back to Spriggs-Payne. I taxied Charlie Fox to the ramp at Monrovia Airlines and let the engine idle for a few minutes, listening to the propeller slowly beat the air. I pulled the mixture control and as I turned the ignition switch to off, realized that I had survived seven years in West Africa flying the bush. I would never again be as good at something as I had been at this. The burdens of the heart ha
d been lifted and now it was truly time to go home.
THE END
MERICO ENGLISH DICTIONARY
(LIBERIAN ENGLISH)
All too: Both
Be so: Let it be as it is
Big Man: Rich politician or businessman; usually an Americo-Liberian.
Big past . . . : Expression to explain quantities or size.
Boc boc: May I come in?
Boy: most natives, not connected with power
Boy Yaah: Hard boiled eggs, usually sold by street vendors
Breeze: Wind
Bugabug: Termites
Buku: Plenty, much
Bush: Forested land
Bush meat: Meat from wild game in the bush
Cane juice: Local rum, very strong
Cartoon: Cardboard box
Cassava: Local potato-like root pounded into fufu
Caynoo: Canoe or dugout
Chop: local food
Chunk: Throw or hit
Cotta cotta: Miscellaneous stuff
Dash: Small bribe, usually to a minor government official
Dews be heavy so: Rain
Fee: Fish
Fineo, or fini one time: Event is over
Fixa hee: Repair something
Good heart: Nice person (he got good heart)
Gowana hee: Go on ahead
Grona: Urchin, delinquent
Haloo ya: Standard greeting
He know book: Smart, literate person (he can read)
He know sheenery: Description of a mechanic or a pilot
He like palaver too much: Description of an argumentative person
Hee: Ahead (gowana hee) or Hill (Bomi Hee)
Help me small: I want a discount on business, or a small bribe.
How you keeping, ya: Standard greeting
Humbug: Bother, annoy
I beg you, ya: asking or imploring
I hold your foot: Strongest expression of imploring or begging for something.
I say, my fren: Start of a conversation or argument
I swear, whaaat?: Surprise expression
Juju: voodoo magic
Jus now: Soon
Machine that beating: Any engine or motor
Machine voice: Engine exhaust
Mamba: Species of snake, but can be used for any snake
My Saturday: dash, bribe, tip, extortion
No be fine self: Something bad
No got goo way: Bad person
Old man: Person of skill or substance of any age; mark of respect
On the side: Let me out of the Taxi or bus (with hand banging on vehicle)
Qua, qua: A visitor’s knock on the hut when no door is present
Rogue: Thief
Runny Stomach: Diarrhea
Small boy: Street person
Small small ting: Raw diamond
Spoil da ting: Destroy or ruin something
Tapadoo Stew: Rat stew
TIA: This is Africa
Too fine: Good, very good
Toos: Tools
Waterside: Waterfront
Wawa: European expression when confronted by African issues (West Africa Wins Again)
Whee: Cart (with wheels)
Yama Yama: Miscellaneous stuff or junk. Sometimes as yama yama business
Yana boy: Street peddler
You best me: You are right and I am wrong
Zootin: All dressed up; showing off
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A retired Aviation Safety Inspector for the FAA, Daniel V. Meier, Jr. has always had a passion for writing. During his college years, he studied American Literature at The University of Maryland Graduate School and in 1980 was published by Leisure Books under the pen name of Vince Daniels. He also worked briefly for the Washington Business Journal as a journalist and has been a contributing writer/editor for several aviation magazines.
Dan and his wife live in Owings, Maryland, about twenty miles south of Annapolis and when he’s not writing, they spend their summers sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.
The Dung Beetles of Liberia Page 28
