by Aaron Barlow
I felt a little pampered and admired. As he perfected a side slant to give me a fresh look, he asked, “Would you like a shave?” He noticed that I had a four-day beard and was weathered from the six-hour bus trip to Agadir.
I am open to new experiences, but a man who can only see out of part of one eye, who looks at me sideways to see me straight?
Having four inches of the sharpest knife known to man held next to my neck by him caused only a brief hesitation.
He lathered me up with a brush and the thickest shaving cream I have ever felt. I felt like a car soaped up and pushed through an automatic wash. That brush tickled and hurt, then teased me and lied to me. When he was done with the lather, I didn’t think it could get any better; I had relived every relationship I had had in the last ten years.
Then he pulled the razor out. An old grandfather of a beauty, it had an ivory-colored handle. I thought “Please God, be gentle.” I was nervous; it was my first time.
Though I like to flirt with danger, this was no philanderer. I was marrying this guy, trusting him with my life with that blade to my face.
With the first touch, I flinched deep in my heart, but my face was as still as butter. The second slice, and I entered into a garden of no fear. “I can control my fear, use it, manipulate it, make it disappear.” The third took me out of my trance; I knew that I could not master my fear as he could not master my cleft chin. It had taken me nearly five years to learn intricate art of “clefting.”
He nailed it with perfect form.
He turned down for the neck. A slip of the wrist and life’s end comes. The headline in the Post: “Moroccan Barber Terrorist Murders American Peace Worker.” Then, like the initial warm relief of urinating in your pants, I achieved total nirvana. I was enlightened.
He finished and the guilt set in. I really did feel like the boy who peed his pants. “What do I do now?” I begged in my thoughts. “Do I promise to come back?” The barber smiled. “Like new,” he said to the daunting image in the mirror. I was new.
My God, I was beautiful, shaved. I leaned into the mirror, amazed, breathless. I reminded myself of the monkey who sees his image and doesn’t recognize it. Only I was attacking the mirror in narcissism, not fear, staring in utter disbelief that I could be so attractive.
After a few minutes, maybe hours, the blessed barber took notice and asked, “Would you like some cologne?” My mind raced: “Yes, of course, I want cologne. Spray me down because I am going out tonight, pretty face.”
He sprays it on his hands and, bam, a fiery slap on the face. My eyes watering, the image in the mirror blurs then melts away and a crying little boy remains. When I sober up from the aftershave, the barber is holding my hand. He gently lifts me from the chair and sets me on the sofa. I am a baby in his mother’s arms. I am confused, bewildered, but all trusting.
“Stay for some tea,” my mother says, and I snooze and drool in my newborn warmth.
A baby doesn’t anticipate that every experience will be new and amazing, it just is. A twenty-five-year-old getting a haircut doesn’t expect to be reborn.
If you have never been shaved with a straight razor, I am a jealous riot of envy for that first experience to come. So, when I die bury me in straight lace shoes, a Stetson, a twenty-dollar gold piece for my watch chain, but don’t you shave me. That last shave will come from an old grandfather straight razor in heaven.
Paul Negley Jr., a PCV in Morocco from 2004-2006, pursued two master’s degrees in International Affairs and Natural Resources Sustainable Development at American University and UN University for Peace (Costa Rica). Presently, he works in Pech Valley, Afghanistan, with USAID.
Big Butts Are Beautiful!
Janet Grace Riehl
Our styles, and the way we view ourselves, can change dramatically when we learn to see with the eyes of another culture.
Naledi was my name in Botswana. When I arrived, I had asked my language teachers for a Setswana name. They said, all right, but it’s not something casual to give a name. It’s not something we can do on the spot or even overnight. They told me, “We’ll keep our eyes on you, and think about it for a while, and then let you know what your name is.”
Every week I’d ask how my name was coming. They’d say, “Wait a little longer.”
One week they came in and said, “We’ve got your name. It’s Naledi.”
I asked, “What does that mean?”
“It means ‘Star,’” they said, “and that’s how we feel about you.” Which was a good thing. But Naledi is not an exotic name in Botswana. It’s not any more unusual than Susan or Mary would be in the United States. The good thing about my name being Naledi was that there are so many beautiful songs heralding and celebrating the stars, naledi. As I walked around the village, children sang these songs to me. Being serenaded wakes a body up. In Africa, you don’t have to be standing on a balcony, either.
Now, I’m going to teach you one of these songs. It’s a call and response song—the most common pattern in Africa. It means, “Star, star…star of the morning. Wake-up!”
Naledi.
Naledi. [Echo]
Naledi.
Naledi. [Echo]
Naledi ya mosong.
Tsogong.
Not only did I get a new name in Botswana, but I changed the way I felt about my body. You see, I come from a long line of women with big buttocks. You all know what it means to have big buttocks in the United States, where we grow up thinking you have to have a big bosom to be beautiful. Makes it kind of hard on us gals that are bigger South of the border than North.
But, fortunately, in my early twenties, I struck the body-image sweepstakes and got my measurements imported to Africa—first to Botswana and later to Ghana. In these countries, a woman’s large buttocks are lavishly and openly admired.
I’ll never forget the day in Botswana when this first happened to me. I walked through the village minister’s compound, and he launched into a litany of praise about my big buttocks in Setswana that set my ears on fire:
Minister: Nalediway!
Myself: Ke nna, Rra. [That’s me, Sir.]
Minister: Nalediway! Maraho waharho wa atona mahomasway. [Your buttocks are amazingly big.]
Myself: Maraho wame, Rra? Ow!
[My buttocks? Oh, goodness, gracious.]
Minister: Eeee, Mma. Maraho waharho wamouncle taaaaata! [Yes, Ma’m. Your buttocks are incredibly beautiful.]
Myself: Keitumetsi, Rra. [Thank you, sir.]
“It’s true, Naledi,” said his more understated wife as she awarded some love pats to my rear end. “Your buttocks are traditionally built—just like a Motswana woman! O Motswana tota!”
I cast a look around behind me with an increased appreciation of what I’d been carting around back there all my life. The feeling grew that I had something good going on behind me. It was the secret side of me that I couldn’t fully appreciate because I could only see my buttocks in stillness reflected in a mirror, not in motion, as those around me did.
This feeling of secret wealth was reinforced when I bicycled fifteen miles over deep sand tracks between the village to the capital city. I’m not talking blacktop, here. I’m not talking gravel. I’m not even talking dirt. I’m talking sand. My bike was a balloon-tired bike with no gearshifts on it. Has anyone ever ridden a bike like that recently? I’m talking about the bikes with the fat, fat tires. I stood up to pump, of course, in order to cut through the track. With every downward stroke, the tires sunk down into the sand something like four inches.
Villagers working out on their lands stopped to lean on their hoes to view my buttock muscles straining against the fabric of my long, traditional skirt. Then, all along my bicycle route, as if by prearrangement, whole farming families waved and greeted me with the same chant of appreciation the minister and his wife had sh
owered on my previously unnoticed buttocks:
Nalediway!
Maraho waharho wa atona mahomasway.
Maraho waharho wamouncle taaaaata!
That is how I came to know that big butts are beautiful, and that mine is just as beautiful as any others.
Some of you have big butts like me and some of you, well, we’d have to send out a search party to find your butt, it’s so small. But, no matter what size your butt is, we can be happy we have this precious treasure. We can all feel like stars, right here in this heaven on earth. Ladies, Bo-Ma, show your gents what you’ve got. Strut your stuff just a bit. Remember, your butt is beautiful, especially if it’s a big one.
Janet Grace Riehl served in Botswana from 1972-73 where she taught English as a second language. She is an award-winning author, speaker, and creativity coach. Her down-home family love story beyond death is Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary. Her poems, stories, and essays are published in national literary magazines and in three anthologies. Janet currently struts her stuff in St. Louis, Missouri, where she shakes it up with class.
Monsieur Robert Loves Rats
Bob Walker
Little slips can have odd consequences!
It promised to be a long motorcycle ride to the village where I would be working that day. It was barely dawn when I finished my breakfast, but the rhythmic, earthen thump of a woman pounding cassava flour, punctuated by an occasional rooster call from the village on the hill above our house, signaled that others were also beginning their morning. I broke the still of the dawn, kicking over my motorcycle’s engine and accelerating past our bamboo gate into the fog.
Before coming to Zaire, I never knew how cold it got in the mornings of dry season. The chill air rushing past as I negotiated the rutted, red-clay roads made my hands stiff and uncomfortable. My wife and I occupied a double post, each working with our own fish farmers, but we had worked out a strategy where, every few months, we switched to see how our partner’s work was progressing. It was a beneficial way to critique and lend perspective to each other. Today, I would be visiting some of my wife’s farmers at the far end of our post, so I had made an early start on what promised to be a tiring day.
Relieved to arrive after a physical, forty-minute ride, I turned off the main road and was greeted by a cacophony of children. Having heard my motorcycle from a long way off, they had assembled in typical large numbers. They scrambled to keep up, running perilously close alongside, laughing with excitement as I attempted to maintain control in the deep, soft sand of the village’s central thoroughfare. Finally stopping at one of our farmer’s houses, I stepped off with a wall of smiling kids’ faces tightly crowded around me. Adults pressed through the throng to greet me while a wizened village elder swatted at children with a short stick, attempting to clear space for me to move.
“Niama!” the thin old man scolded, referring to the children as insects. He clucked through his teeth in disgust, ineffectually swinging his stick as the kids laughed and playfully dodged. When the other adults joined the effort to disperse them, they gradually moved away to a respectful distance. A circle of local neighbors, the village elder, and fish farmers replaced the children; all had out-stretched hands ready to shake. Many gripped their right forearm with their left hand in emphasis of earnestness and respect intended by their greeting.
Shaking hands, I took care not to miss one, and to pay attention to the elder, acknowledging the respect owed him. Subsequently, a chair was produced and a glass of water, and I was encouraged to sit and drink. After an appropriate pause, I said, “We have much work to do at the ponds, and if the farmers will assemble, we should go immediately into the forest to visit their work.” I knew that there would be plenty of time in the village spent eating, drinking and socializing; I didn’t wish to lose the cool morning hours.
Hiking down from the village into the forested valley, we arrived pond-side. I began to review the list of daily tasks so important to successfully raising an abundance of large fish in the six months from stocking to harvest. Feeding the fish, cutting the grass, adding compost, keeping the overflow pipes clear—a farmer’s diligence to routine completion of these and other tasks was the key to a rewarding harvest. There is no better teacher than good example, so I worked along side the farmers. Grabbing a narrow bamboo pole lying near the bank, I inserted it into one of the overflow pipes at the top of the dike. Overflow pipes allowed rainfall accumulation to harmlessly exit the pond, maintaining an appropriate level. A blocked pipe would allow floodwater to pass over the top of the dike, eroding it and potentially blowing out the pond.
Immediately there was a cry of “MPUKU!” as farmers scrambled, machetes in hand, eager to dispatch the family of rats that emerged from the pipe. A young nephew was ordered into the forest to collect large leaves, and the freshly killed rodents were bound in neat, green little packages for easy transport back to the village.
That was when I made the faux pas I would regret for the rest of my service.
Thinking of my cat and how much she would appreciate a nice rat-meal, I thought to ask if I could take some home. “Could I have those to take home for my…” I started to ask.
Well, the truth was that I wasn’t thinking, because otherwise I would have realized that this prized catch was valued protein destined make a welcomed meal for the farmer’s family. And here I was, stupidly asking to take some home to my cat! Thankfully, I realize my mistake mid-sentence. But how would I explain that I had changed my mind?
It turned out that I wouldn’t have a chance to explain. The farmers seized onto the idea that I must absolutely love rats. “Oh, Monsieur Robert loves rats! We are going to bring these up to the village and eat them together because you love them so much!”
There was no escaping what had now become a social obligation, so I made the best show I could of graciously enjoying my rat-meal.
As I was saying goodbye to return to my house that afternoon, a tight, leaf-green rat-package was pressed into my hand to “take home to my wife to enjoy.” Every time in the months to come that I visited this village, I knew in advance that I would be served a proper rat-meal. After all, everyone knew how much, “Monsieur Robert loves rats.”
Bob Walker and his wife Tina served as Peace Corps fisheries agents in Zaire from 1987–89. Living and working in a remote village, they spent the first two amazing years of their marriage without telephone, electricity or running water, but lacking nothing of importance. Today they are raising two kids in the Washington, D.C. area.
Imani
Daniel Franklin
The friends we make and lose comfort us and teach us—and allow us to learn even the saddest lessons.
My early days in Basma were not easy. Basma, a traditional village of subsistence farmers located in northern Burkina Faso, is not located on any maps. Directions invariably include instructions to “turn off the dirt road.” Life in Basma is barely changed from centuries ago; people live their whole lives without ever seeing a traffic light or having a cold drink on a hot day.
Upon my arrival in September of 2001, I was proud of the progress I’d made in French during training, only to find that, outside of a handful of people who’d attended elementary school in a neighboring village, nobody could even say bonjour.
Villagers comforted me after the events of September 11th (news of which reached Basma on September 14th) by assuring me that it could not have happened: 110-story buildings simply do not exist.
I had expected the first weeks to be difficult. But when weeks turned to months and things didn’t improve, I began to lose faith—in my program, in my village, and most of all, in myself. Though my Mooré (the local language) was improving, progress was slow. I sensed that my village was nearly as frustrated with me as I was. I was adding nothing to the village, and didn’t feel that I was getting anything from it other than nonstop diarrhea.
Why
had I volunteered for this?
Just as I was on the verge of giving up, I found Imani.
When I found her, just weeks after her birth, Imani had been separated from her mother. I almost didn’t see her: a tiny, abandoned puppy shivering next to a baobab tree despite the powerful mid-day sun. I could sense her fear, confusion, and utter sense of aloneness. I understood it exactly.
I had long ago given up pretensions of saving the world, but at least I could save one helpless animal. I had my mission.
Imani is the Swahili word for faith. I chose it not only because I thought it was a beautiful name, but also because it was one the villagers could pronounce. I had already lived in the isolation of my village for over three months, but it was Imani’s presence in my hut that finally created the home for which I’d longed. Before Imani, long days spent struggling to communicate and trying to find my place in the village were followed by endless nights of loneliness and tedium. I read several novels a week in an attempt to escape my reality, and passed hours staring at pictures of family and friends, melancholy in my heart. All of that changed with Imani.
Imani helped me in more ways than I could have imagined possible: she kept me company; she helped me learn Mooré words such as nemdo (meat) and n deemda (to play); she showed me parts of my village that I hadn’t even known existed until our walks took us there. Most importantly, nurturing her transformation from a hungry, abandoned puppy to a full-grown, healthy dog inspired my own efforts to survive and flourish in the village. As I focused on helping her gain strength, I forgot much of my own despondency and concentrated instead on what I needed to do for her. The frustration of living on boiled flour and leaf sauce was rendered irrelevant when faced with the task of making dog biscuits from those same ingredients. For the first time since my arrival in Basma, I had faith in myself. I had imani.
