A Dancer's Guide to Africa

by Terez Mertes Rose

  Chuck, Rachel and Anna, the education volunteer leader who’d replaced Meg, braved the muddy roads and came through town to check on the volunteers. “Great to see you’re doing so well!” Rachel exclaimed, which I found curious—the mirror affirmed each day how awful I looked and felt. But it made more sense once I learned she’d med-evaced two volunteers in the last ten days. One had lost a dramatic amount of weight on an already thin frame, and looked like a walking skeleton, while the other had turned yellow, jaundiced with hepatitis. Next to these, my malaise seemed so minor that I didn’t bother to complain. What could I say, anyway?

  Instead, I turned to Chuck. “My house keeps getting broken into,” I told him.

  Chuck looked genuinely regretful. “This is an at-risk house.”

  “Any chance I could find a different place to live?”

  “Speak to your school administrators. House assignments, and any changes, have to be made through them.”

  “I’m struggling in the classroom,” I admitted later to Anna, who seemed less empathetic than Meg. I found I missed Meg. I missed Lambaréné. I missed American-tasting food. I missed my dance company. I missed hot baths and sweet-smelling lotions. I missed pretty much everything from my past life. Even my family. Especially my family. I would have added Christophe to the list, but I’d banished him from my mind. It hurt too much, otherwise.

  Anna gave my shoulder a consoling pat. “All the volunteers feel that way this time of the year. Hang in there, through this month and next. In April you get to attend the education volunteers’ conference in Libreville and see your friends again. It’ll be great. It will rejuvenate you.”

  She beamed at me as though six weeks would fly past in no time.

  It wouldn’t. Not here in this house, this post, this place inside my head.

  And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Not this time. There was literally no place left for me to run away to.

  Chapter 11

  The proviseur, the director of the lycée, was a busy man, perhaps the only busy man in slow-paced provincial Gabon. There was always something going wrong at the lycée. Stolen books, no chalk. Teachers not showing up for class. Roosters wandering into the classroom. Pregnant students going into labor during class. The second week of March found me in his office, a nook of the main administrative building with particle-board walls that stopped two feet short of the ceiling. I sat waiting for him to finish his phone call. Telephones weren’t a highly effective form of communication in Gabon. Calls from Makokou within Africa were hit and miss. Transatlantic calls were not even attempted. Inside the country, quality of the connection varied according to the day’s weather. Today, a great deal of shouting seemed to be required to get the message across.

  Five minutes later, the proviseur had finished his call. “Good morning, Garvey,” he said with a distracted smile. “This is about your classes, yes?”

  “No, it’s about my house. The break-ins.” I bunched and un-bunched the fabric of my skirt.

  This was the third time I’d come in here complaining about break-ins. “Ah, yes. Regrettable,” he said, shuffling through the papers on his desk in search of something more interesting than yet another gloomy story from me.

  A bit more than regrettable, I wanted to shout. With the latest development, it had become more along the lines of nightmarish. “They broke in again last night.” I tried to keep my voice from trembling. “While I was there. In my bedroom, sleeping.”

  This got the proviseur’s attention. He stopped his paper ruffling and leaned forward, his face creased in alarm. “But this is terrible. They entered your home while you were in there? Did they attempt to harm you?” When I shook my head, he relaxed and waved his hand at me. “This is good news.” He saw my expression and hastened to add, “Nonetheless, it must have given you a great fright.”

  “Yes. Or this morning, at least, when I discovered my back door was wide open. I didn’t hear them at the time.”

  The proviseur looked confused. “You heard nothing? Then how can you be sure someone came in? Perhaps you’d simply forgotten to shut your door last night.” His face brightened at this explanation. I wanted to argue that it would take a moron to leave a door open in this mosquito-infested country, saying nothing for my rabid need for privacy, but I didn’t know the word for moron and rabid in French, so I stuck to facts.

  “There are muddy footprints in my living room that came from a shoe larger than mine.”

  The proviseur’s face fell. Before he could reply, the surveillant rushed into the office to claim his attention. Apparently a trio of goats had wandered into the salle des professeurs—the teachers’ room—eating through a stack of the science teacher’s graded but unrecorded tests. The issue seemed to be whether to give all the students credit or make them take the test again. The surveillant finally noticed me. He nodded and beamed.

  “At last, you have come, seeking my assistance in disciplining your classes.”

  The proviseur explained my latest dilemma. As always, the news was followed by tsks of disapproval and a murmured, “Oh that house… it has always been a problem,” as if we’d been discussing bug infestation and not thieves. But I could understand their lack of concern. In a culture where just getting by and raising a family beyond childhood was a triumph over the odds, my household thefts were inconsequential to the point of being absurd. A box of American stationery; the equivalent of eighteen dollars; a Mickey Mouse salt shaker; a frozen chicken.

  The surveillant frowned when he heard about the previous night’s nocturnal visitors. “Did they cause problems?” he demanded, rapping his stick against his palm.

  The proviseur responded for me. “No. She only discovered the intrusion this morning, when she found her back door open.” They exchanged complicit looks. I hated the way I was alternately treated as a fragile creature and a tiresome liability. The American. The single woman. The one who wouldn’t let the surveillant punish the students, but who riled them instead.

  In the end, the proviseur and surveillant agreed that my housing situation required change. Security bars on the window, or another home, or a room at the hotel. The proviseur promised to look into it. But after nine months in Gabon, I knew what that meant. It was one of those lines like “soon,” or “we’ll see tomorrow,” or “perhaps,” or how the director of the post office or school board or local ministry of education was always au village, but was expected back “very soon, very soon.” Until then, you couldn’t get your signature, your oversized package from America, your paycheck. That was how it went here.

  The proviseur walked me to the door. “Perhaps by next year we will find you a safer home,” he said in an encouraging voice.

  Three more months in an open home. The thought made me feel sick with despair.

  I pushed through my first two hours mechanically, grateful that I’d planned the lesson before bed. After the morning break, I numbly made my way to Calixte’s class. Where, lo and behold, on the desk stood Mickey Mouse.

  My salt shaker, from an earlier theft, back to visit. How kind. Judging by the expectant silence, the students wanted a reaction. My spirit leapt back to life. I’d give them a reaction, all right. Exaggerating my surprise, I wagged a finger at the salt shaker. “Mickey, you are late, late, late! Where have you been all semester? You must go to the surveillant and receive a punishment.” I spoke in slow, deliberate English that all the students could understand. As they laughed in delight, I thought fast. My lesson plan for the day included the presentation of “if” and “could.” Instead of using the vocabulary words and visual aids I’d prepared—a cut-out of a guy named Jack and his trip to a local market—I could use Mickey and his trip to Disneyland.

  The revised class was a huge success. The students were enchanted with the concept of Disneyland. They needed little more besides their imagination to act it out. An eraser became a roller coaster, a duster became cotton candy. I pulled coins out of my backpack and passed them around. “If Mickey had so
me money,” a student called out, “he could buy some cotton candy.” Off they went, clamoring to hold Mickey the salt shaker and wave the duster high in the air, pretending to take bites out of it. The menacing teenagers of the past few months became excited children, cute and innocent beyond words. Except for the fact that two of the girls were pregnant and one of these boys had probably broken into my house and stolen Mickey.

  Who was behind all these break-ins? Easy to accuse Calixte first, but he was not the only one grinning in a conspiratorial fashion. Joseph, another troublesome redoublant, looked alternately pleased and guilty when I met his eye. My instincts told me he’d been the one to place Mickey on my desk, whether or not he’d been the one to steal it from my house.

  Last night’s thief had taken nothing. That they’d been in my house while I was sleeping chilled me beyond measure. Had they lost courage and fled upon hearing me move around in my sleep? Had the intention been more ominous? Who was it?

  In the end, I would never know. No student would betray a classmate. It was truly me against them, with the smirking Calixte as their ringleader. And they were winning.

  Two days before Easter Break and my trip to Libreville, I came home in the afternoon to find my back door once again hanging open. Nothing appeared to have been stolen. Drawing a slow breath, I grabbed a broom in order to transfer my helplessness and anger into something productive. While sweeping, I noticed my ballet shoes weren’t in their usual spot on the shelf in the corner. A hunt for them produced one by the back door. The other one, I concluded after an extensive search, was gone.

  They’d stolen my ballet shoe. A battered, smelly, pink leather slipper with a hole where my big toe had poked through, important only to me. I sat on the couch, numb, letting the loss and its implications play through my head over and over.

  My long-simmering unease and fear exploded into rage.

  Fuck this. I quit.

  I leapt from the couch, stomped out the door and down the road to the general store to get boxes. I’d pack my things and get out. I’d leave. I whispered this to myself like a mantra. Finally, I was going to do something. Anything to reestablish control. Inside the store, I commanded the clerk to bring me any empty boxes the store might have. He stared at me in fear. I saw myself through his eyes: the wild look on my face, the dark shadows under my eyes that came from a month of sleeping in a climate of fear and insecurity, the way my body was shaking. But he only nodded and slipped away.

  My siblings had accused me of being a quitter in the past. I’d spent ten months resisting that. Now I felt the jittery triumph of an alcoholic stomping out of a bad AA meeting to hit a bar. It was all I could do not to burst into peals of mad laughter. An older woman nearby, arms full of purchases, edged further away from me. I swung around to face her.

  “I’m getting the fuck out of here,” I announced in English with a bright smile. She nodded, uncomprehending, and ducked her head.

  The store clerk returned and handed over four boxes. I thanked him and marched out with them, trying unsuccessfully to balance them. Silence fell over the half-dozen men who were congregating around the entrance. I ignored them. But I couldn’t ignore the group occupying the base of the steps. My students. Not just my students, but the “let’s give the teacher the hardest time we can” kids. Calixte and all the usual suspects were there, from three different classes of mine. Instead of skulking away, like any self-respecting troublemaking kids would do back in the U.S., their faces brightened when they saw me.

  “Hello, Miss Fiona, how are you today?” one of the students shouted in English. “It is a beautiful day and zee sun is shining and I am verrr happy.” The other students laughed at his speech.

  “What are you doing?” Another one pointed to the boxes.

  I hesitated. It was not uncommon to speak with students outside the classroom, but a certain etiquette was involved. The teacher could appear more relaxed and jocular, yet at the same time, he or she needed to maintain decorum. I thought briefly about lying and trying to turn this into an entertaining charade, but decided I no longer had the energy. Besides, I was going to quit. How my students perceived me no longer mattered.

  “I’m packing up,” I told him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m leaving.”

  I expected gloats of triumph. Instead I got looks of incomprehension.

  “Leaving for Libreville, yes?” one of them asked.

  “Leaving for America.”

  Silence fell over the group. Jaws dropped, which would have been comical if I hadn’t gone beyond finding amusement in anything here.

  Joseph from Calixte’s class recovered first. He switched to French. “Why are you leaving?”

  I let the unsteady boxes topple. “It would appear that someone wants me to.” I didn’t look at Calixte. I focused on Joseph, who, although troublesome, was still a decent student. “My home is not safe from thieves who want to frighten me and steal from me.”

  They all proclaimed outrage at the thought, even as some of them looked guilty at the same time. From the corner of my eye I glanced at Calixte. He seemed calm, neither shrinking in shame nor rising to my defense like the others. I told the boys it had grown too difficult to teach as well. They protested, claiming they’d learned more in my class than in any other.

  “You must continue here,” one of them pleaded. “It is for you that I study.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “May we help you bring these boxes to your home?” Joseph asked.

  Sure, go on ahead, I felt like telling him. I imagine many of you know the way in. “No, thank you.” My voice had regained a crispness that pleased me. The teacher was back. “I’ll be fine. But thank you for offering.”

  “Alors… good luck, Miss Fiona.” Joseph thrust his hand out and I gave it a firm shake. They all wanted to shake my hand after that, wishing me well on my upcoming trip to Libreville, from which they all declared I must return. Even the ones who plainly didn’t like me appeared more respectful than they ever had in the classroom.

  Calixte came forward as well, expression neutral except for a stealthy look behind his eyes. “Goodbye, Miss Fiona,” he said in the chatty tone the others had used. “I hope to see you again soon. I would be very sad if you didn’t come back.” But when he withdrew his hand, he allowed his middle finger to slide along the base of my palm. It felt blatantly erotic, and shocked me speechless. I turned away from him abruptly and picked up my boxes. As I left, the students called out cheery goodbyes in English.

  “Don’t fall,” I whispered to myself as I walked away from them. “Just don’t fall.”

  Chapter 12

  While I’d been suffering break-ins, Carmen had been fending off marriage proposals. Her lack of goats, she informed a group of us in Libreville, had saved her each time. Day three of our week-long conference, a breezy forum designed to help the education volunteers decompress and realign, had ended. We women, united by our unique problems, now sat in the faded blue living room of the case de passage—the Peace Corps transit house—and exchanged war stories. “The last proposal came about after I marched over to my problem student’s house, about a month ago,” Carmen told us. “I gave this long, impassioned speech to his father. I was so proud of myself, the way the father was really listening to me. He clung to every word and afterwards, shook my hand for a long time. I thought I was making a real impact. The next day the father shows up at my door and asks me, right there on the porch, if I’d like to become his third wife. And he was serious,” she added over our laughter. “The only thing that saved me was the line about no goats to offer as a bride-price. He next asked if my father had any goats. When I told him no, he nodded, almost in pity. Finally he left and never brought it up again. Goats…” She wagged her finger at all of us. “Don’t ever buy them. Foolish mistake.”

  Being back in Libreville was a jolt, a largely pleasant one. Back to highways lined with palms alongside the vast blue of the Atlant
ic Ocean. We could take taxis, go to movies and buy ice cream again. In the company of the other volunteers, I didn’t have to struggle with my French or speak slow, careful English. I could wear shorts and go swimming. The city still had its ugly side—its traffic, fumes and chaos; its lepers and cripples hobbling alongside the bustling crowds; rotting trash piled on the sidewalks. But it didn’t detract from the capital’s relentless energy. Libreville hummed with every aspect and flavor of life. It hid nothing. Urban Africa, I decided, slapped you in the face, seized you by the shoulders and gave you a good shake. You might hate it or love it, but you couldn’t overlook it.

  “The thing I resent,” Sharon, a first-year English teacher, told the group in the living room, “is the way the male students don’t want to give you the same respect they give your male colleagues.”

  Everyone nodded. I’d been surprised and relieved to discover in the past few days how many others were struggling with the same issues as I. Almost half the volunteers had suffered break-ins. That said, no one had complained of a student toying with her, using the break-ins as part of his elaborate game of intimidation. Terror flared up in me, yet again, over knowing Calixte might have been in my house, while I lay in the bedroom, vulnerable and sleeping. Who else would have had the nerve to do such a thing? No one. Stealing a salt shaker was one thing. Robbing a person of their security was another thing entirely. I hadn’t had a decent night of sleep in that house since. The trauma of it was like an extra bag I carried around with me everywhere I went. A bag loaded with bricks, that no one else saw. It was killing me. I’d stopped doing ballet in my house; I simply couldn’t summon the muse anymore. The ballet shoe theft had clinched its demise.