A Dancer's Guide to Africa
Page 9
By midnight we were all still going strong. Coffee cups and Regab empties littered the dining table. Daniel had brought out the bottle of Cognac he’d bought earlier. We drank it from a mismatched assortment of glasses as we played Gabopoly, a Monopoly board game the previous volunteer had Africanized. We’d been at it for hours, shrieking over Gabonese property, railroad lines (only one, half-built) and utilities (corrupt and thus highly profitable), with Gabon’s CFA franc as currency. In between rolls, we debated the existence of reincarnation, the merits of corned beef versus canned mackerel, the current Reagan Administration and the pitfalls of Western policy and aid in Africa.
William remained mostly quiet, only contributing to the conversation when he had a strong opinion on an issue. With his shaggy golden hair, he reminded me of a lion, relaxed to the observer except for the feline eyes—in this case blue-green and fringed by thick lashes—that watched everything, waiting for the perfect moment to leap up and attack. He came to life in the discussion on Western aid to the famine-ravaged regions in Africa.
“Refugee camps create their own problems,” he argued. “My sister sent me this article summarizing the Ethiopian government’s attempts to resettle a half-million refugees. Did you hear about this?” We all shook our heads. “It ended up claiming the lives of 100,000 of them. I worked there for six weeks—I believe it. So, you can argue that our efforts to help them killed them.”
Carmen didn’t like this. “Oh, so you would advocate just standing there and watching them die?”
William regarded her impassively. “Yes. You watch them die. And then you go have lunch.”
His words produced a cowed silence around the table. William intimidated me—I wasn’t sure if I liked him or not. Carmen rolled the dice and moved her piece before speaking. “I never would have thought you could be so cold, William.” Her voice trembled with hurt reproof.
William relaxed. He reached out and stroked Carmen’s clenched hand. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “I said it that way to prove a point, Carmencita.”
Carmencita? My eyes darted to her face, over to Daniel’s and back to William’s, whose hand still covered Carmen’s. I looked for heated glances, jealous or otherwise, but found none.
William was still talking. “You know, I didn’t just show up on day one at the camp and act that way. God, the first time a kid died, I went to my tent and cried. I thought of how his family must be feeling, of what a waste of a life it was, of the enormity of the crisis. I was a mess for the rest of the day. I went and ruined three dozen blood cultures because I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Did they yell at you?” Carmen asked.
William shook his head. “I suppose they were used to that kind of behavior from the new arrivals. But I remember a few days later, someone received Hershey’s Kisses in the mail and everyone was laughing and eating them like it was a holiday. We’d lost four people that day. I’d watched two of them die. And there the other workers were, partying over melted Kisses.”
The room grew silent again. William’s eyes were fierce, concentrating on the Regab label he was prying off a bottle.
“You have to learn to put your feelings aside and focus instead on what can be done, which isn’t necessarily what you want done. If your goal is to save everyone’s life, you’ve set yourself up to fail. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. All you can do is try, then let go of your personal agenda.”
It was his turn to roll the dice. He moved his piece, still lost in his musings. “You learn to offer sympathy without empathy. Nonattachment is essential.”
“I hope you feel that way about your cash, buddy,” Henry said, “because I’m about to kick your ass. You just landed on my top-priced Bord de la Mer property and it’s got a hotel.”
William, jolted from his reverie, stared in dismay at the board. “Wait, that can’t be. I just landed on your hotel last time.”
Henry grinned. “Yup. I’ve got hotels on every block, now, don’t I?”
“This is ridiculous. How did you get so far ahead? I’ve only got one house.”
“Henry got one of those palm-greasing cards,” Daniel offered. “The bank slips him the CFA equivalent of a hundred bucks every time he rolls.”
And like that, we switched back into game mode. We argued more, laughed over Gabonese property crises and forgot about the serious stuff lurking outside all around us. Early on Christmas morning, 7000 miles from home, it seemed like the wisest thing to do.
Chapter 9
Carmen had agreed that New Year’s Eve in Libreville was a great idea, so a few days after Christmas, she and I set off. Oyem had its own bustling taxi station, offering commercial transportation north toward the Cameroon border and Bitam, where Daniel lived, or south toward Libreville. We hopped in the back of an open-bed southbound truck, equipped with two stubby picnic benches in back for seating. Portly, middle-aged Gabonese women, younger ones with children, and older men dressed in fraying, thrift-store-reject clothing piled on after us. With each person added on, our shoulder space became more limited until we were snugly pressed, one against the other. The sharp tang of body odor was inescapable. And still more people squeezed in. A mother with a baby strapped to her back hoisted a struggling goat over the side of the truck. It spilled, bleating, into the center and scrambled to upright itself. Another woman got on, carrying a rooster by its legs upside-down, that craned its neck around in confusion.
The passenger truck, a makeshift bush-taxi—a taxi-brousse—took off in a cloud of dust. Being crammed in, I discovered, had its advantages. Our shoulders and thighs, wedged closely together, acted as a cushion and shock absorber for the inevitable bumps and potholes of the road. When we hit a large pothole, we all bounced as one unit. No one spoke as emerald rainforest flashed past and the sun rose in the sky, but there was a relaxed intimacy to the silence. Carmen nudged me a while later and gestured to where a man had dozed off, face lolling against the shoulder of the woman sitting next to him. With each snore, his face slid further down toward her ample chest. Carmen and I exchanged grins. “So, excited about going to Libreville?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely. How about you—are you bummed that Daniel didn’t join us?”
She shook her head. “Nah, I’m fine. He’s not much for cities. He’d rather stay put in Bitam.”
“I can’t imagine wanting to stay at my post.”
“Bitam’s a great little town—he lucked out. His house is on the grounds of the Catholic mission where he teaches. Gorgeous place, and the nuns who run the school spoil him.”
“He’s going to miss out. Rich told me Chuck throws a great New Year’s Eve party at his house each year.”
“Cool. You’ll be my date? I promise to give you a big smacking kiss at midnight.”
“I’d be happy to be your date, Carmencita.” I let the emphasis hang heavy in the words.
She looked at me and grinned. “Now what’s wrong with Carmencita? It’s what my Mom used to call me.”
“And others as well, it would seem.” I studied her casual expression. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up?”
“Nothing’s up.”
“Fine, you just sleep with Daniel by night and let William caress your hand and murmur endearments by day.”
She waved away my words. “William and I look so friendly because we are friendly. He’s just that way. Back when I arrived at my post, I had a tough few weeks. One Friday afternoon when I was feeling particularly lonely, William showed up in town. I got all dopey and cried on his shoulder and he took me to his village. We hung out, took a hike along a river trail, and I made pizza in his propane oven. We played cards all evening.” The truck hit a particularly large pothole that made us all shoot up three inches and slam back down. After Carmen regained the breath knocked out of her, she continued. “It reminded me of going home for the weekend during college years. Someone else is in charge, it feels safe and cozy, and it’s there for you when you need the comfort.”
&nbs
p; “And how does Daniel feel about all this?”
“Daniel’s cool. He spends more time with William than I do—Bitam is less than an hour from William’s village. They eat bachelor food together and William tells him about his girlfriend back in California.”
“You mean all this time William and this woman have been dating?”
“Yes, or whatever you call it when you do it in letters instead of in person. They’re meeting in Paris over the summer, though.”
“That’s insane.”
Carmen laughed. “I know. Long-distance relationships are suicide. I mean, what if you really, really need to get laid?”
I thought of Lane Chatham and his hurried groping. This scenario didn’t strike me as too dire, but Carmen sat, mulling over this as if it were the worst thing imaginable.
Before I could reply, the taxi-brousse came to an abrupt halt on an empty stretch of road between villages. I peeked over the truck’s cab to discover the road blocked by a huge Okoumé tree, ten feet in diameter, twisted from its base and lying in our way. The road, flanked by steep hill on one side and a vine-choked ravine on the other, meant the obstruction was impassable. The driver got out and studied the problem, rubbing his chin. He slapped at the tree and paced the length of it. Then he shook his head and returned to the cab and cut the engine.
The high whine of insects from the surrounding rainforest immediately filled the silence. Carmen and I looked at each other in dismay. “Can’t we take a detour?” I called out in French.
“There are no other roads,” another passenger replied.
We sat. And sat. “What are we going to do?” I grumbled to Carmen as I swatted at flies.
“Sit a little longer, I guess.” She pulled out a paperback and began to read.
The heat grew suffocating. Two pickup trucks stopped behind us. The drivers descended, examined the tree and stopped to converse with our driver in rapid Fang. The drivers all shrugged, returned to their trucks and sat.
My fellow passengers’ patience both awed and frustrated me. No one griped. I wanted someone to take charge, to leap up and say, “C’mon, are we going to let this situation get the best of us?”
“NO!” people would retort, sitting up straighter, hope growing in their eyes.
“Are we gonna solve this problem?”
“YES!” the galvanized crowd would shout.
“Then let’s do it!” And with a war cry, we would all attack the problem. Someone would pull out a rope, another would mention a tow on their rear bumper, things would happen and a great feeling of camaraderie would sweep through the crowd. Kids would cheer, babies would gurgle and wave their fists, and we’d make it happen—this impossible task everyone said couldn’t be done.
But this wasn’t the United States, it was Gabon, where people had long ago learned to accept the hardships that befell them. After the wait stretched into an hour, people began to move around and pull food from sacks—baton de manioc, a baguette, cooked fish that had been neatly stored inside a banana leaf, the stem serving as a tie around the folded leaf’s top. Cups of water and palm wine were passed around. Young mothers whipped out their breasts for infants to nurse, others clambered out of the truck and headed over to the edge of the road to relieve themselves. No one complained about the delay. Except me.
Two hours became three. Eventually, a bright orange government truck pulled up and two Gabonese men in uniformed vests got out. I sat up expectantly. But the inspection of the tree produced only head scratching and shrugs. After a babble of conversation between the officials and the gathered drivers, everyone nodded and returned to their trucks. Our driver came around to the back, making his announcement in both Fang and French. He was turning back to Oyem. The road would not reopen again until tomorrow. This elicited a reaction from the Gabonese—cries of protest, clicks of disgust and pursing of lips. Then the resignation kicked back in.
I freaked.
“Look,” Carmen interrupted, “we really need to reconsider this plan. This puts us a day behind schedule. We’re doing all this driving to spend three days in Libreville, only to turn right back around and take the same trip again. It was stupid to think we could drive there in a day with no problems. And I’m sure we’d only hit more delays.”
I stared at her. “Are you suggesting we not go to Libreville at all?”
“I think we should seriously reconsider. We’re not far from Henry’s village—he invited us to their New Years fête. We should just do that instead.”
“But I have to go to Libreville.”
“Why? Don’t tell me it’s just about going to Chuck’s party.”
I was silent.
“Aha,” she said. “Because ‘someone’ is going to be there.”
When I didn’t reply, Carmen sighed. “Why put yourself through this, Fiona? He would be there with his girlfriend.”
My inner toddler wanted to scream and rail at this latest problem. Instead I shoved my bag back under the bench in a stony silence.
“C’mon, let’s just have our own fun,” Carmen said. “Henry’s great. Hanging out with him will be much less stressful. Screw Christophe. I mean, don’t screw Christophe.”
Changing our plans proved easy. At the junction village where the Oyem and Makokou roads met, we descended and hitched a ride with the next truck that passed by. Less than an hour later, we arrived in Henry’s village, a roadside clearing of mud-and-wattle huts with rusting corrugated tin roofs, surrounded by dusty, open yards. Henry came out of the corps de garde, an open-sided, thatched structure in the center of the village, shouting in surprise. He introduced us to the village chief and some of the elders. We joined them in the corps de garde and sat back to drink Regab.
The sweet smell of wood smoke permeated the air as we listened to the men talk. Children banded together and raced around in yards kept free of foliage and thus the threat of snakes. Hens pecked at the dirt. The peaceful silence was periodically broken by a burst of scolding coming from one of the cuisines, a separate structure from the house that served as its kitchen. The children skittered away from the women and resumed their play. They crept up closer to the corps de garde and when I twisted around to look at them, they ran away shrieking. When I turned my back, they repeated the exercise. Clearly it was a game to see who could get the closest to the ntang, the scary white people. One kid finally became brave enough to touch my hair. As a reward, I yanked out a few strands and presented them to him. He skipped back to the others, who clustered around his prize, chattering in Fang.
Henry showed us his home after we’d finished our beers. Inside the dim living room, a young woman swept the dirt floor, nodding her greeting. “Living room, bedroom,” Henry called out, pointing to the sparsely furnished rooms with crumbling walls that allowed light to peek in through cracks. “Cuisine to the right of the house, latrine out back.”
The women of the village appeared to have adopted Henry. Several hovered nearby, in village attire of a pagne wrapped around the waist, accompanied by a blouse or tee shirt. “S’il vous plait, monsieur Henri,” a woman behind us said. “Will your women sleep in the bed with you?”
Carmen and I broke into snorts of laughter as Henry told her no, he would sleep on the floor in the living room while we used his bed.
Next we walked into the smoky cuisine to meet the woman who was preparing Henry’s dinner. She was small, Pygmy-sized, neither young nor old. When she stood, I saw that one of her legs was hideously twisted in a way that made her limp when walking. She beamed and shook our hands with a surprisingly strong grip. She paused after shaking mine. Peering closer into my face, she crowed and said something in Fang. The other women exclaimed and nodded. One of them propelled me toward the door where the daylight spilled in. They all studied my face.
“It’s your eyes,” a woman explained to me in French. “She says you have spirit eyes.”
If it wasn’t my hair or my height—too tall for a female here—it was my pale eyes drawing attention. I nodded at
everyone and smiled. “Merci,” I said to the lame woman, unsure of what I was thanking her for, but clueless how to otherwise reply. “Merci,” I kept repeating until the women returned to the cooking fire, chattering among themselves.
The darkness that falls in a region with no electricity seems that much more dramatic. The inky blackness on New Year’s Eve however, did nothing to dispel the festive air in the village.
The food for the celebration, set out on a table inside Henry’s house, varied little in color and texture. Bowls of rice sat next to dishes of pangolin, river rat and monkey, all cooked in a fiery tomato sauce. Piment, the local fiery pepper, helped disguise the gamey flavor of the river rat, which, I was assured, lived in the jungle, not in a sewer or latrine. Feuille de manioc was the dish of chopped manioc leaves I’d had on my site visit, that tasted a bit like spicy creamed spinach, with smoky, earthy undertones.
“Not bad,” I said to Carmen as we sat on benches set up outside. “Except that I just pulled this thing out of my mouth.” I pointed to a grayish curl of skin on the edge of my tin plate. “It was furry against my tongue—I think it’s monkey skin.”
Henry held up his plate of stewed pangolin. “Tastes just like chicken, doesn’t it?”
Music blared from Henry’s battery-operated cassette player. Someone lit an enormous bonfire. When food had been cleared, there was dancing—a slow, lazy shuffle in the dirt, but not necessarily between the sexes. “Young men and women don’t mingle much at the parties here,” Henry told us. “In public, at least. You never see couples holding hands here in the village. Guess that would be too shocking.” He had a Gabonese girlfriend, we discovered, the first woman we’d seen in his house. “The village chief kept throwing these women at me,” he said, “and I finally gave up on turning them down.” His girlfriend paid him little attention while we were around. “But she’ll slip in to visit tonight,” Henry said with a grin.