Last Newsletter -- May 1999
Hello everybody! Here is my final newsletter from the Dark Continent. I return at the end of August. Overall, life is going well - I'm finishing my work with only minor stress. Getting a lot of reading done. I hope to start War and
Peace soon. Taking these last months to look back over the past two years - long, strange, hard, glorious, boring ... I'm feeling more satisfied than I could have predicted even a few months ago. As you must know, it hasn't been the romantic African adventure I may have expected. But it was an adventure, and I'm coming back changed. I'm apprehensive about re-integrating into U.S. culture, as in the last year I have come to wear my Guinean persona like a second skin. I'm very comfortable here, and rarely think twice about my daily life. I'm sad to leave, yet I can hardly wait. That, at least, is completely predictable.
I'm enclosing here some writing I've done, thinking about leaving, summing it up. Enjoy.
Steph
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Things were going well in my village, if a bit uneventful. I could hardly wait to get back home to the States, and the thoughts of what I would do there filled my every hour. I didn't leave the house very much since my best friend Mamadou had disappeared. I still wasn't sure what to think. I had lent him money to buy large jugs of gas to re-sell so he could make a profit, but he hadn't been able to sell all the bidons and he had left them with a friend in another village. The friend disappeared and with him, the jugs. I patiently waited for Mamadou to repay my money. After all, he was always at my side, had helped me with whatever I needed; starting a garden, carrying my luggage to the taxi, passing a message to somebody, and feeding me numerous cups of sweet strong tea. He was sweet and serious and had never made any advances on me. But as a month turned into two, I started to ask for my money and none was forthcoming. I got irritable, we had words, and one day when I came back from Conakry he was gone.
I was thinking about this one day, feeling angry and hurt and sad. It had been about 2 months since he'd left, and he hadn't even said good-bye. I walked down to the market, pensive. I saw Colbert, and that took me off on a whole new train of thought.
Colbert is a smiling, well-meaning sort of chap who tries to do various things for the school and nobody listens to him. Chatting in Pulaar, I had once asked the village chief why. He started talking about how some people think that black people are all the same family but they're not. I nodded and agreed, that people are different. He seemed to think that this settles it. But, I said, confused, why don't people listen to Colbert? He rolled his eyes (or would have, if he weren't so old and venerable) at the white woman's thickness. "Some people refuse to speak Susu. I refuse to speak Susu," he said.
I was confused, because I was quite sure I had heard him speak Susu before. Then somewhere in my dumb brain it clicked in - he didn't listen to Colbert because Colbert is Susu. This charming diplomatic man with the crooked glasses, dignified mustache and cane, is a racist.
I watched Colbert this day in the market. A young man had four or five bikes that kids could ride for 100F (about 10 cents). Colbert paid the man 10 cents and took his little five year old son and set him up on this big kid's bike. The little boy sat seriously, perched up on the bike seat. His dad pushed him carefully around by the handlebars, a soft look of concentration on his face. The scene was right out of a Disney family film, and his dad's face reflected fully a father's love. Except that this was Africa, where people have 6 children and beat them all. Children are for fetching water and doing work, not for pushing around on bicycles.
I walked over towards them so that I could be closer to that wonderful vision, but when we found each other we had nothing to say. We greeted each other and smiled kindly, his son looking at the ground. But that's OK. I felt good just for having seen it.
I walked down a little further and was accosted by Lama, the weird and slightly fou taxi driver.
"Aissatou" (my village name).
"Lama."
"Ca va?"
"Ca va merci."
"Give me medicine, my head hurts."
"But yesterday I asked you to come help me fix my hut and you didn't come."
I had been spreading mud (the verb, meltugol in Pulaar) on the floor of my day hut, and my hands still smarted. Two raw spots kept me from shaking hands all day. There was a tap on my shoulder and I turned. I was looking at a shiny soccer shirt. I looked up at the face casually and it was so familiar it struck me with a strange shock. It was Mamadou.
Instead of feeling angry and sullen, which I had expected, I felt my heart lift before I could think about it. The sight of that face, shyly smiling down. The face that had been at my side through all sorts of weather. Patient Mamadou. In that instant, I almost forgave him everything. Almost.
"Hi, how are you?" "Fine. You?"
"Good. The family?" "Good. The work?"
"Fine. It's been a long time since I've seen you," I ventured.
"I was in Telemele."
"Telemele? They said you were in Nori."
"I was, but I came back. You weren't here. I left for Telemele."
He said he would come up to the house later and I said OK. "It's good to see you, Mamadou."
He smiled.
So, Mamadou came up that evening, as I was sifting on my porch writing in the fading light. I was glad to see him approach, not cringing and grouchy as I had been before he left. We greeted. We talked of his travels. Only now facing him did I realize I had thought about him almost every day. Feeling angry that he had left without a good-bye. Angry for the way my money never came back to me. Guilty that I had spoken angry words to him that might have driven him away. But mostly hurt, hurt for the way things had turned out, all because of money, stupid money, after all that we had been through.
And now here he was in front of me, telling me he had been all over, from Kindia to Telemele to Sogoiri. He had continued our work of selling Oral Rehydration Solution in the villages, and some condoms too. I was impressed, thinking of him explaining ORS in his simple quiet way to the villagers. I had to hold myself back from telling him to forget the loan, from running into the house to find things to give to him. Things to make him feel special, to make his life easier, to say I'm sorry, let's just be friends.
But I restrained myself. We had things to work out, and he needed to say the first word. I was disappointed when he seemed ready to leave without mentioning the money. I talked about my work, but he barely paid attention and kept talking about the ORS. He also planned on planting a peanut field that somebody had given him about 7 miles away.
"The tea-selling wasn't working out well, and I have this large sum of money to pay you, that's why I left. I needed to find something else," he said.
Finally, he'd mentioned the money. He said he would begin to pay me back. I said that was good. I said it was too bad his fields were so far away or else I could help him.
"All that you have done for me, God will repay you," he blurted out, interrupting me. I let that sit a moment. It felt good.
"I'm just glad to have you back," I said. I got up and went inside, came back with my straw hat. "You can use this while you're working in the fields."
He thanked me, said he was happy. I was happy, too. It was time for him to go. He got up, shook my hand, bumped his head on the sun-shade and left.
I went inside. I wasn't sure just what had taken place, but I was ecstatic. I started to fix myself a special treat of a tuna-fish sandwich, and felt good as I chopped the cucumber and mixed in mayonnaise. My best friend was back and we were getting along. I had found other PCV's who appreciated me. I had reached a good rapport with my PCV neighbor. The Health Post construction was going well, and I was getting along with my difficult counterpart, M. Camara. I had even greeted the horrid Sous-Prefet nicely today. And the bread for my sandwich had been given to me as a gift by that cute Malinke baker, Abdoullaye.
I heard little feet at the door as I was slicing my sandwich and my neighbor's toddler came toddling in holding up a plate of salad. I almost danced a jig for joy as I stood there holding my tuna-fish and salad.
"Thank you Bama!" I shouted, sticking my head out the door.
"Awa,(OK)" came faintly back.
I sat down to enjoy my nice little cold supper by candlelight on my porch. It was deliciously cool, since an exciting wind storm had swept through earlier, boiling clouds promising rain but throwing just a few drops down and leaving this cold.
How could I be any happier? I lit some incense in my room and the sweet smell drifted out. The incense had been a gift from my chauffeur friend Momine - he had sent it that day with another chauffeur who had shown up on my doorstep holding 3 packets of the sweet stuff. Nice, well-dressed Momine with the big wet doe's eyes. The cute baker Abdoullaye, who sang as he kneaded dough at night. Quiet, flawed Mamadou. Harsh Bama, sending me salad with her little girl. My long-suffering, laughing mother, Adama. The well-meaning, withered matron. The conscientious, foolish health center chef, Diaby. Beleagured, but clever M. Camara. Cocky Amadou Kante. Bore. Sanoussey, Aliou. Missira. Aissatou. M. Bangoura. And a million people along the way: taxi drivers, ice cream sellers, commercants,shoemakers, jewelers, children in the streets, children in the schools. How could I be any happier? A hundred people greet me in the streets and I am a part of this great web, if only for a time. And soon I will be home. It surprises me how much sadness I start to feel in the thought.
Afterword:
Many people have asked me, so I'll tell you how the story ends. Mamadou never paid me back. Despite my patience, and my clear statements that I wanted him to address the issue even if he couldn't pay me back, he continued to avoid me. He would bring me bread every morning, sort of a penance I suppose, and take off running down the path as if he was in a hurry (which was unlikely). He showed up at my door once when I had American and Guinean guests and he smelled like pot. He hung around like a dog on the porch and it was quite embarrassing. I told him to go away. We never became close again.
The day before I left Wawaya for good, he came up to me. He said he was sorry for what had happened, that he didn't want me to leave with anger in my heart towards him, because "who knows when we could meet up again". Since he'd finally made an overture, I told him that I would forget everything. I told Adama about it. "He doesn't get it," she said. "That's not how you apologize to someone, the day before they leave, and because you're afraid you might meet up with them again. He just doesn't understand".
I'm inclined to agree. I'm pretty disappointed in him.