From Fragile to African: Part 1

From Fragile to African: Part 1

Famorila is a village in what could be called, without exaggeration, the middle of nowhere. It had been described to me, before I had a chance to see it, as "driving to the end of the world, going a little further, and then you find Famorila." Having been there, I would say that description isn't too far off. Significantly, the NGO that I work with has a health clinic in the village, and my friend Paul used to work there.

We had talked many times about visiting but always had difficulty finding an open date or good weather. (The village becomes very difficult to reach during rainy season, so you are limited to the dry months.) So in late March, when Paul and Ecle suggested a trip during Easter weekend, I was stoked at the idea and agreed immediately. In typical fashion, our original conversation was followed by several planning meetings, in which details were discussed in indirect terms. (Read: these meetings took hours for things that could have been decided by three Americans in 5 minutes.)

The first of these details was transportation. They asked me whether I wanted to go on moto or go in a vehicle. I haven't figured out how to explain this, but they have this way of saying something very strongly without saying it at all (part of being an indirect communicator, I guess), and in this case it was abundantly clear that I was to try to find a vehicle. When several days later I told them that I could really only find a van, they balked at the idea of taking such a bulky vehicle all the way. So I told them we should just take our motos, to which they agreed, but with the caveat that it would be a long, hard trip. When I responded with a, "yup, ok, no problem," they felt it necessary to put it to me more pointedly. If I remember correctly, Paul's statement was: "I can tell you, if you make it on a moto, it will be the first time anyone has heard of a white person going to Famorila on a moto." Their putting it in the form of a challenge pretty much sealed the deal for me—we would go by moto.

Two days before we left, Paul said that I would "go down in the annals" for making this trip. To which I sarcastically responded, "And if I die in route, you can always write on my tombstone, 'At least he tried.'" Their initial burst of laughter was cut short by an awkward silence and uncomfortable glances that suggested to me that this wasn't at all an unlikely possibility in their minds. And at each new step of discussing details, they presented a mix of excitement to see me actually do these "impossible-for-white-people" things and trepidation over the thought that catastrophe could befall me on their watch.

For sleeping arrangements they were going to try to find a room to put me in. When I explained that I would be happy to sleep wherever they were sleeping, they chuckled, explaining that they slept outside, on mats in the middle of the courtyard with everyone else (which I knew already). Their reasons for not wanting me to sleep there were that I would be: A. outside; B. "too close to people"; C. bothered by noise; D. uncomfortable; and lastly, when I poo-poo'd their other concerns, snakes. They almost had me with the snakes thing, until I thought about it and then said, "So your solution is to lock me up in a room where it will be roasting hot and I will be alone, so that when the snake comes, I'm left alone to kill it, instead of having a whole courtyard of people to help me." They liked that logic and agreed not to search for a room for me.

However, their true thoughts came out, quite abruptly, when we talked about what I would eat and drink in the village. They were working very indirectly at conveying some point to me, and I was just not getting it, so Paul blurted out, "Well, you know, you are kind of fragile." I can honestly say that was a new one for me. (Especially ironic since both of them took anti-diarrheals in the village, claiming that all the meat we were eating was rough on the stomach.) I told them that I would eat and drink what was served me and leave the rest "in the hands of Cipro and God." (Little did I know how often I would ask the latter for help while eating.) I finally just told them that I would let them take care of details and do whatever would make them feel most comfortable, but that I would be most comfortable knowing that they weren't stressing over me.

The night before our trip, we got together and talked over the remaining little things. Paul and Ecle were visibly excited. I laughingly thought to myself that this might be the same type of excitement the Romans had while watching the gladiators before the lions. And then they told me that we would only be taking two motos on our trip. This is where I made one of those classic cross-cultural mistakes—I thought I understood what this meant. And after being here a year, I have reached the point where I'm quite tempted to think that I do understand things, but this place has a way of making you eat your "understanding." I assumed this meant that Paul and Ecle would ride together on one moto, and I would tie all the bags to the back of my moto. Ha…

The next morning at 4:45, I packed up some drinks I had frozen for our trip, grabbed my backpack and headed out the door to meet up with the guys, who were both there before I was. (Who says Africans aren't on time?!) Both Paul and Ecle were dressed in winter coats and expressed surprise that I was sporting only a T-shirt. I assured them that I wouldn't get too cold. We amassed all our bags, and they started tying them to Ecle's moto, which is when I realized that I would be driving with a passenger. (Now is an appropriate time to channel Dumb and Dumber or Wild Hogs as an imagination aid.)

Now without making this needlessly awkward or detailed, I feel it is important to talk about certain realities of having a passenger on a moto. First, pertaining to this trip, was the length of time. I've gotten quite used to going around town with a passenger (or as a passenger) on a moto, but those trips are rarely over 15 minutes long, and this trip would be at least 5 hours (8 on the way there and 5 on the way back). That length of time makes all of the "realities" a bit more difficult to deal with. So, you have the "added-challenge" factor, meaning that having a passenger adds to the technical aspects of driving, like balance, shifting, braking, hitting bumps, etc. etc. You also have the stretching-out issue; with a passenger there is not the space to really stretch out when you get tired of one position. And lastly, you have the issue of, can we say it: touching. Most people know that I have a well-defined "personal space." And though I think they would all be surprised at how accepting of "touch" I've become here in Mali, I'm still a Westerner with clear limits. Hours and hours of moto riding, on a bumpy, dirt road, with a rider (no matter how skilled) involves constant touching. And when you combine touching and mid-day heat, then you've got sweating… and well, need we say more. There is a reason we all laugh so hard at the images of this in the movies mentioned above—because it is weird and awkward for us as Westerners. But, I suppose, it is all part of becoming "non-fragile," and as I've done on a thousand other occasions, I decided laughter was my best coping option.

So after loading up, we took off in the cool of the morning. Because we had so much stuff, Paul and I still had our backpacks on, making the preciously small space, smaller. The first several kilometers were on paved road and we were going as fast as those little things would take us (roughly 50mph). At that speed, the engine vibrates terribly, causing your legs to have that itchy-falling-asleep feeling. As we pulled off the paved road onto the dirt road, I thought I was going to have to stop already to make different arrangements, but was worried about what message this would send my companions about my ability to survive. Luckily, Ecle solved that problem for me by popping his back tire less than a half kilometer off the paved road.

There we were, 5:15 am in the early morning dark, miles from any town, with only millet fields as far as the eye could see. We parked the motos and stood there looking at each other. Paul muttered, "What misfortune," to which Ecle added, "So much for leaving before the sun comes up." It just struck me as so funny that I laughed out loud and they joined me. And then I sat back to watch them figure out how we were going to go forward. For me, something like this is a deal breaker—I mean where are you going to get this changed? I thought we might have to walk the several miles back to town and wait for sun-up. But Malians are resourceful. They don't solve problems at all like Westerners—who tend to be preventative or try to go after the root of the problem—but they often come up with solutions to get through the problem that Westerners would never have even attempted. After a minute of thinking, Ecle said he thought there was a home a ways up and that surely someone there could repair our tire.

We walked the motos a couple hundred yards and then veered off the main road on a little path that took us another quarter mile back, till finally we came upon a little home. There were minimal signs of life, but Ecle boldly entered the compound and just started saying loudly, "Good morning, good morning." Finally, a woman emerged from one of the doors, looking still sleepy. They explained our situation and without a word, she grabbed three chairs, had us sit down, and went to wake up one of the young men. Sure enough, he came out and started working on the tire. I tried to imagine this happening in a Western country and didn't see any possibility that it would work out as nice as this.

After an hour or so, we paid our 40 cent bill, and loaded back up. We shifted the bags around on my bike and found a more comfortable solution. Soon we were cruising down the dirt road, sun coming up over the mangos and palms, breeze in our faces, and very coated in dust. But just when we thought we were making up for lost time, a short 30 kilometers after our last flat, my rear tire went flat. We had just passed a little hut about 200 yards back, so we walked the bike back and sure enough the guys there had the stuff to fix our flat. (You begin to get the impression that flats must be common on this road.)

As the young guy started working on our tire, an old man emerged from a hut and brought us tea and some tiny little biscuits. After asking for the complete details of where we were going, who I was, why I was traveling on a moto, etc. etc., the old man smiled and laughed. The young guy found two holes, so we knew it would take a while. There was a clinic in the village, so we headed there to visit and on the way ran into somebody Paul and Ecle knew (which seemed to be the case everywhere we went). After another hour of visiting and waiting, our tire was finally finished. As we were loading back up on the motos, I started to think to myself that maybe I should have come more prepared—with a pump, an extra tube, and a repair kit; or maybe I should have borrowed the better dirt bikes that some of the guys have. But, then I decided that this was an adventure and it was worth it to just "go with the flow." Can't say I'd want to travel like that every time, but it was worth it, once.

So once again, we hit the road. By now it was 8:30, and in the three and a half-hours we had been "traveling" we had succeeded in covering about 40 kilometers (25 miles, and for the record, I've run that distance in much less time). But we were nowhere near finished with our little adventure. In fact, a short 20 minutes later, Ecle popped his tire again, and we let out a collective groan, followed by a good laugh. Ecle and Paul were obviously frustrated, and I was starting to wonder if this was something out of the Odyssey, or for that matter, Jonah—a doomed trip requiring the sacrifice of one of the passengers. This time we were truly in the middle of nowhere—the last building we had seen was the shack where we changed my tire. We knew that there was a large village ahead, however, and so we decided to drive on the flat, knowing we could replace the inner tube (and tire, if need be) when we got there.

After some cold sodas (grace a my freezer), the tire was changed and we got on the road again. We made great time, and except for a brief stop for gas and some fried goat meat, we went non-stop for another 3 hours. At the gas-stop, Paul and I traded places, because being passenger is not very comfortable. This got especially interesting when we finally left the "good" dirt road, for the bad dirt road—essentially cattle paths—for our last 40 kilometers.

We didn't really know where we were going, so every village we came to required us to stop and ask if someone knew the way to Famorila. Usually, one of the men would climb on the back of Ecle's bike and take us to the other side of the village. There he would show us the path (or draw a map in the sand) to take to the next village. Outside our first village, on a path that ran through a barren expanse without signs of human life anywhere, we hit our first patch of sand. If there is one thing I absolutely hate while riding a moto, it is sand. (I've never tried a moto in snow, but I imagine it is a bit the same.) Because these motos are totally not designed for sand, and because we were two people, the patch of sand almost took us down. And this happened again and again, including once when I jumped off the bike to avoid going down with it. Finally we hit a 300-meter stretch of pure sand, and there was no way the bike could make it through with both of us. So I dismounted and walked through.

On the other side of that sand patch, Ecle, getting impatient from waiting on us, decided that we needed to switch up. We moved the bags over, and I became his passenger. We took off at a speed that was just crazy, and my knuckles went white while grasping my sissy bar. With Paul, I was nervous about falling in the sand but figured it wouldn't be too serious even if we did. With Ecle, I began to wonder if my Medi-Vac insurance covered instances of falls while driving a street bike in sand at break-neck speeds, while in the middle of nowhere. But after sailing through two or three sand patches, I began to wonder if Ecle was just that much better a driver or if his bike wasn't just better at handling the sand.

Just a few minutes after 1 pm, after 8 hours of adventure, we arrived in Famorila at the home of Paul's uncle. It was hot and we were covered in a layer of dust that you could easily write in, but the family welcomed us warmly, taking our bags and bringing out water to drink. After sitting in the shade and greeting all the various family members, we were offered the chance to wash up. We went into the small room where all our bags had been set. There, Paul and Ecle took off their winter coats, and that is when I learned to my surprise that both were wearing two pairs of pants and a long sleeve shirt over two t-shirts. As they peeled off all those layers, I realized that my experience of heat and their experience of heat had to be two drastically different things.

I was up first to take my bucket bath, so I grabbed my towel and change of clothes and was led to the outhouse. This one was a combined washing space and pit latrine (sometimes they are divided by a wall), surrounded by a mud wall that came up to my mid-to-low chest. This wasn't my first time in a Malian outhouse, or my first bucket bath, but this was the lowest wall I'd ever been behind, and I could clearly see Paul, Ecle, and the rest of the family. At this point I began to wonder if there was some unwritten list of do's and don'ts for bucket-baths, and if so, how exactly you go about finding what is on that list. I couldn't see asking any of the Malians for pointers. I mean, I understand how to get clean with a bucket of water (I'm not THAT stupid), but in the other situations where I've done a bucket bath the walls were high enough to stand; here, it was obvious that I would need to squat if I wanted some privacy. Are there other details out there that I need to know? Well anyway, the bath went along without incidence, and the fact that I was two feet away from the pit latrine didn't even reduce any of the refreshment.

After we all had a chance to clean up, we sat down for the first of 8 million meals that we ate in the village. This meal was hunks of roasted in potato in a great gravy, served with pork pieces. I still like pork (that, despite Ed and Andrea's story of cooking pork and having worms crawl out and start popping in the oven), but Paul found it necessary to throw the spleen at me. When you are eating out of the communal bowl, the "good-stuff" (i.e. veggies, meat, etc) is all piled in the middle of the bowl, and you just grab from that pile and combine it with the rice (or whatever) that is right in front of you. Occasionally, when your Malian friend thinks you aren't eating enough, or they want to give you some delicacy, they pick it up and throw it in your little area. So I was honored with a nice piece of spleen, which wasn't horrible once I decided I would just not look at all the blood vessels I was putting in my mouth. There were other pieces of pork that were good, but they also had several chunks of pig skin. For these, you chew the fat off the underside of the skin, and if you try real hard…well…no…it really just doesn't taste like bacon, no matter how hard you try. Luckily the potatoes and gravy were excellent tasting.

After lunch (#2), we drank three rounds of tea, and then went to visit the rest of the village. The village mainly consists of the workers at the clinic and their families. The larger village of Famorila is about a half mile away and is almost exclusively Muslim. They've isolated the Christians and the clinic to an outlying area. It was truly a joy to meet this group of people who live in such a remote area in order to serve health needs that would not otherwise be met, and who strive to be a tangible witness to Christ in a very unreached place. On the visits, we drank another 6 rounds of tea and ate another lunch.

And this is the way it was the whole weekend—lots of visits and way too much food. I had been told before that it was not impolite to turn down food if you've just eaten, but Paul and Ecle acted as if that was not an option. While walking between houses, I told them that I was just so full that I didn't think I could eat anything more, but they told me that that was just how it was "here in Africa" and that'd I needed to do my best. So after our three lunches, we had a couple-hour reprieve before starting our round of 5 dinners.

During one of our rounds of tea in the courtyard of a nurse's aide that works at the clinic, the butcher showed up and slaughtered a goat right in front of us. This wasn't too unnerving or new for me, but it did remind me how separated from our food we are in America. It wasn't until he had skinned and strung the goat up and then started pulling out the organs that I got uneasy. As he pulled out the small bowel and wrung out the digestive contents, washed it, and then cut it up in small pieces, I had the feeling that those organs would be back on some plate I would be eating somewhere. And sure enough, dinner number three or four, (I can't remember which) was at this same house.

Now, I feel that I'm a pretty good meat eater—I've eaten meat from a variety of animals, I've gotten used to eating meat with fat and gristle and cartilage, and I can chew meat off the bone with the best of them (including the spine, which is very tricky). I can eat liver with no problems, and I've come up with tactics for eating mystery pieces (usually balling it up in rice, chewing and swallowing fast). But organ meats still get me. And when the plate was uncovered at this home, despite the lack of light, I saw immediately that I was in trouble. It was only organ meat—small bowel, stomach, spleen(?), etc—with no rice, potatoes, or any other starchy aid. It felt a bit like being stripped naked in public—panic inducing and alarming.

We prayed to bless the food, but in my head I was speaking nothing of blessings, only "God help me!" After "amen" came "dig in," and so I cautiously picked up a piece of something I thought might be liver. But in my mouth I knew it was not; it had to have been some part of the digestive system, and judging on the taste, I'd guess it was near the colon. With heroic effort, I swallowed, silently gagged, and then smiled so as not to offend my host, who, then, immediately said, "Eat more." In desperation, I saw a piece of meat that looked like it could possibly be kidney. I snatched that up because I knew that small bowel would be the end of me. I put the piece in my mouth and the taste was better than the last piece. So—far too hastily, I'll admit—I grabbed a similar looking piece (mind you, it was dark), in an effort to keep from eating anything less desirable.

As I pulled my hand away from the plate with that second piece of meat (too late to retreat), I chewed through the piece in my mouth. It was at that time that my tongue felt the cord, and my hand felt the same. Suddenly, and with no small amount of horror, I remembered that the goat had been a male. Yes…I was eating testicle. The realization put me into a fit of gagging that threatened to end it all for me, but I regained composure, chewed three times and swallowed. I gagged silently until tears came to my eyes, and then I smiled again and set to work on the second. It was by some miracle of grace that I made it through that meal and lived to tell. After those three pieces, I was done, and luckily the plate was almost finished. I said my thank-yous, washed my hands, and wondered if everyone thought me greedy for eating both testicles.

We soon moved on to finish the rest of our dinners. At around 10:30pm, we were finally done eating, and I fell asleep in a chair for about 15 minutes, but was awakened when we all got up and headed to the Easter vigil. After a sermon, a portion of the Jesus video, and lots of singing, the dancing began. I didn't dance, and because I was tired, I returned home to go to bed at around 2am.

Paul, and one of his friends Yacouba, came with me to the compound to make sure that arrangements were comfortable for me. Ecle wasn't feeling well so he had been in bed since around 10. They grabbed a mat and asked if I wanted to go inside one of the rooms. When I told Paul that I'd prefer to sleep outside, he put the mat down in a corner. Yacouba objected and acted surprised at my request, but Paul told him, "No, he is tough. He is African." Not going to lie, I took it as a compliment and let it go straight to my head.