bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1999) — Fall 1999 // Automne 1999, pp. 17–18
Once in Nigeria we visited a CUSO couple in the small village where they had been teaching for the past two years. We travelled from Lagos in the embassy’s 4-wheel drive vehicle, which seemed to be the only vehicle in sight. Our CUSO friends were leaving Nigeria soon and they were making courtesy calls to say farewell to some local tribal chiefs; we were invited to go along
— a rare opportunity for us to see the inside of the chiefs’ family compounds. Some time later, when our CUSO friends stopped over at my apartment in Lagos en route home to Canada, they told me “Chief O. is letting it be known in the village that he will marry you — provided the vehicle comes with you.”! Best proposal I had in Nigeria. In Prague, back in the late 1950s, the days of the Iron Curtain, Canadian embassy personnel imported nearly all their daily needs from Weiden, just over the border in Germany. Fruits, vegetables, dry-cleaning, dog food, nylons whatever, the office station wagon went every three weeks to pick up supplies. Contact with the local people in Czechoslovakia was limited — but possible to some extent, and most of us had one or two local friends. Across the street from our apartment, an old man used to sit in the window all day, just looking out. Spying on us — the only foreigners in the neighborhood? No. Our part-time cleaning lady found out for us that he was almost blind, had formerly run a laundry in the vicinity, and was now retired on a minuscule pension — so little that he could afford to turn on the lights in his room only long enough to have his supper. It was so sad — but as foreigners we could not visit him, or even greet him in any obvious way. But Jrinka could — so each time our supplies arrived from Germany, she would find her way into his building, with a package of cigarettes, a banana, an orange. And the next time we walked out of our building, we would get an almost imperceptible nod, and a smile. No, we never did meet him. Being in the Holy Land was a special privilege. At the time, Jerusalem was a divided city – we needed a permit to cross over to the Jordan side, to visit the Old City, and Bethlehem. But Nazareth was on the Israeli side. So, on my first Christmas in Tel Aviv, my friends and I decided to go to Nazareth for Midnight Mass — maybe we could find overnight accommodation and, if not, well, it was only a two-hour drive to get home. Arriving in the late afternoon, we were lucky to meet two of the Sisters from the hospital. Yes, the old maternity wing was vacant just now — we could have rooms there. Seemed appropriate for Christmas Eve.
We were four – Canadian, Australian, British, plus one small cat (the cat-sitting arrangements had fallen through at the last minute). It was too cold to leave Simon in the car overnight, so we bundled him up in a sweater and took him in with us — hoping not to meet the Sisters. On the way in, we met a young French couple, also staying overnight in the maternity ward, and suggested they join us for a drink of sherry — we drank it from medicine glasses, the only thing we could find. And then we discovered that they had smuggled in a small dog. I suspect Simon’s “mother” slept the rest of the night with one ear open for any meows — and hoping for no barks from next door. If the Sisters knew what was going on, they were too polite to mention it when we thanked them next day as we took our departure, back to Tel Aviv for Christmas turkey and all the trimmings. In Ethiopia, a Canadian engineer friend was driving north to the area where he was involved in building simple bridges, which would enable the local people to get to market even when the river beds were in flood — during most of the year, the river beds were dry, and they served as a local “road” system for getting around the area – on foot, of course.
I was dropped off at a small Catholic mission station, where three Sisters, two of them Canadian, were doing social work. They also offered simple home remedies for all kinds of ills and ailments — the people preferred the Sisters’ ministrations to the government clinic because “ … your hands are blessed”.
When I asked the Sisters what I could do to help, they introduced me to a small boy who had come in with a nasty wound in his leg, showed me how to clean it with antiseptic and apply ointment — we sat on a bit of garden wall for this operation. The youngster came back next day and we repeated the process — by now the wound was much better. On the third day, just before I was leaving, he came again for one last treatment – and presented me with five small eggs, payment for services rendered. I was delighted. In the Soviet Union, too, it was not allowed that the local people socialize with foreigners. But there are ways. For instance, we took many week-end trips out of Moscow. Usually on the Saturday night, we would have a very good dinner at the best restaurant in the town-where many of the local people would also be dining or dancing. Suddenly, a bottle of champagne would appear on our table — no comment, but a smile from those at a nearby table. Then another bottle – smiles from a different direction. Russian champagne is quite good – and it was not expensive, not then anyway. And the champagne said “Welcome” from people with whom we would have loved to be friends. In Tanzania, at Mwanza on Lake Victoria, there was for a number of years a famous music festival, organized by Father Clemente, a Canadian White Father from Trois Rivières. This event lasted for several days and all night. But, Father Clemente explained, “ … no music before mid-afternoon; once the drums start, there will be no more work done that day.” When Father C. discovered that I had checked into the local hotel, he immediately checked me out of the hotel and drove me off to the parish house. It seems his one electricity generator had been turned over to the hundreds of Sukumu tribespeople who were encamped around the church, while Father made do with candles or kerosene lanterns. Some of his Priest friends were coming from other missions for the festivities, so I was not only welcome, I was essential — he needed somebody to cook. Did you ever try to prepare a meal in a primitive kitchen with almost no light and no real idea of what pots and pans, or even what vegetables are available? Adaptability is a very useful quality in the Foreign Service.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1999) — Fall 1999 // Automne 1999, pp. 17–18. Read the rest of this issue →
