Village Time - Swarthmore College Bulletin

The night before going out to site, as a celebration, Adam ate a lot of goat. Being a neophyte, he chose poorly across the board: the goat bar, the goat parts, and especially the decision to go for the mayo. Adam can’t be blamed too much--it had seemed simple enough when done by the veterans, and that is what he wanted to be, as soon as possible. There were roadside stands all over town: booths of woven cane, a skinned goat hanging from a pole, a smoky fire under a modified barrel lid, and a couple guys with machetes ready to prepare one’s order. Unfortunately for Adam, he missed some important subtleties. For instance, busy goat bars, with high product turnover, are usually safer bets. The rib meat, although perhaps coveted parts of pigs or cows, is not so good in goat. And though the made-in-Taiwan mayo appeared to be more or less plastic, it is still not a good idea in a sub-Saharan country with no reliable electricity, no matter how badly a serving of rank ribs needs a condiment. And that, speculation held, was where Adam most likely went wrong.

The result was a predictable case of the trots. Actually, there was very little trotting, as the night was more or less spent on the pot. By morning, his system was completely drained, and he felt safe venturing away from his porcelain haven. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, his buddies at the flophouse joked. Adam and his compatriots had been in-country, and together, long enough for inquiries about the state of one’s stool to become a regular part of a morning’s salutations. Everyone agreed that if he didn’t eat, he’d probably be fine, on well-established accounting principles.

He had a small mountain of miscellaneous household items to load on a flatbed. Advised that this would most likely be their only opportunity to have a vehicle make a delivery to what was to be home for the next two-plus years, Adam and his colleagues had spent the last week buying like maniacs. Much later, Adam reflected on what a shame it is that so many of life’s most important decisions are made when one has no idea what one is doing. Adam provisioned in a vacuum of knowledge. He wasn’t sure--none of them was sure--what their life would be like, and therefore it was difficult to anticipate what would be a necessity and what would be a liability. Do I need a frying pan? Will there be something to fry, or am I going to look like an idiot with an oddly designed kettle?

In the end, though, most of the items worked out fairly well. For example, the propane camp stove proved indispensable for morning Nescafé masked with powdered milk. It was a puzzle why in a country so close to major coffee-producing centers--veritable suppliers to the world--the best one could get was instant Nescafé. Anyway, the stove proved its worth, as even Staci, who initially disdained anything so 20th century with the reasoning that it would set her apart from the people, would come to admit.

The three that were moving out that morning piled all their belongings onto a flatbed Mitsubishi Canter. Africa was full of unfamiliar products with familiar brand names. The Canter was a flatbed, as previously mentioned, but of an odd size: bigger than a 1-ton but much smaller than a semi. Modified with benches, and if you were lucky, a roof of sorts, it was a staple of public transportation. Adam was with the first wave to move out, as he was pretty tired of life in the capital city. He had been hit by a rock the day before. It happened as he walked down the main street, coming back from the last health lecture. The nurse had wrapped up the session by solemnly distributing medical kits to each person. Apparently, the moment was meant to carry some symbolic weight, but any imparted gravity was diluted by the fact that the kits came in blue plastic suitcases. And this was how Adam came to find himself marching through a bustling market with a pack of white people, all carrying prim blue suitcases. I’d throw a rock at me too, Adam thought.

Make no mistake, Adam was as excited as he was ill and apprehensive. This was Africa, and all his senses never let him forget it. Birds screeched, greenness was so pervasive that it came almost as a visual assault, and the smells were so new that they were impossible for the nose to acclimate and ignore. The sun was implacably hot. Green growth exploded from every crevice; a dry-season’s worth of stored energy catalyzed by the first few drops of the rainy season. The air felt fat with potential. Fecundity was palpable.

The red dirt road snaked out in front of the Canter, and as this was near the end of the rainy season, the actual track more often than not swung wide of the roadbed to avoid puddles. Operative here was the same principle as river development--the older the flow, the more winding the path. When they drove through a village that had round huts, Adam knew that they were nearing their destination. Shuttling around the country during training allowed Adam to appreciate some nuances of village physiognomy. To the uninitiated, every village claimed the same dominant physical features: a cluster of mango trees bulging like cumulous clouds on the horizon, thatch roofs, packed red earth, acrid cook-smoke, and incessant rooster-crows. Differentiating characteristics were subtle. Balantas made square huts, with beautifully woven mats of palm fronds laid on the apex to solve the problem of waterproofing the crown seam. Round huts, on the other hand, meant Fula country.

Adam had spent some time in a village before, as a part of the training, and so he had reason to worry. First off, village time was particularly slow and had a whole new meaning--or rather, a lack of one. His three-day “site visit” was spent watching the sun arc from one horizon to the other, punctuated by excuses to go to the spring to get more water. Might as well take a shower--it’s hot, and besides, then I can go to the spring and get more water, was the way the thinking went. The meals were another problem. Adam had brought chickens, and the chief’s wives, hungry though they were, conscientiously threw every morsel of the bird in the pot. It affected him more than he thought it would, eating chicken guts. Adam was also acutely aware that not everyone suffered from such problems. He’d seen village kids with distended bellies squabble over the apportionment of the chicken’s feathers. These were then sucked on, presumably for nourishment. So Adam both went hungry and worried a lot about offending his hosts.

The Canter bounced into the village--his village, he’d come to call it--and Adam swallowed back a slight panic attack. He briefly wondered what would happen if he told the driver to just keep driving. Anxiety didn’t sit so well on an empty stomach. There is really nothing else to do but go through with it, he figured. No turning back now. Before the truck rolled to a full stop in front of Adam’s hut, they were surrounded first by kids, then the rest of the village. The chief shouldered his way through, smiling and proud. In his desire to be a good host, he didn’t know what to do first: swat the kids out of the way or shake Adam’s hand. A sea of faces competed to test Adam’s knowledge of the intricate greeting rituals. Flustered, Adam used the morning version instead of the afternoon and got a good laugh.

The driver jumped on the back of the truck, and started tossing things down. Everybody was as eager to help as they were to check out what kind of stuff the white boy brought. Look how many bowls he has, and buckets--what’s he need so many buckets for? It takes a rich man to have that much plastic. All of Adam’s worldly belongings had been passed around for inspection and were then spread out under the mango tree. Adam had been mindful not to appear ostentatious, but an extra storage container had seemed pragmatic at the time, not extravagant. This was not the way that he had envisioned his entrance to village life.

Can I have a bowl, a grinning neighbor asked? Adam didn’t get all the words, but the man’s meaning was obvious. The crowd looked at him to see what he would do. Aware of the precedent- setting potential of how this interaction would culminate, Adam stalled for time by pretending he didn’t understand. Adam wanted to be nice but was pretty sure that coughing up the bowl would be a beginning, not an ending, to this little exchange. The man pressed, hamming it up to the crowd. This one--this little bowl, give it to me--you have so many. He gestured to Adam’s belongings, which, strewn about in such a hard-scrabble environment did seem like a lot of stuff. Adam said: Tomorrow. Thinking that Adam hadn’t understood, the man tried again: Today, give me the bowl today, right now. The crowd looked to Adam. As it happens, there is a specific word for the day after tomorrow, and Adam used it. Getting the picture, this line got a big laugh from the crowd. Adam laughed, too, and thought: OK, so that’s how it’s done. What next?

Adam Browning was in Guinea-Bissau, a small country on the westernmost tip of West Africa, just south of Senegal. He now lives in San Francisco and works for the Environmental Protection Agency.