100. Road to Joproken

100.

The stress-free rest, familiar American-style home cooking, pure water and easy-going fellowship at Brother Joe’s African house are making me feel healthy and ready for the road again, so when I am invited to I go with a group of missionaries into the bush to visit Joproken village I am ready.

Joe's carryall takes us thru miles of rubber trees with slashed trunks bleeding sap into little cups. There are many clots of pedestrians walking on the road dressed in yards of flamboyant cotton cloth.

We pass many “slash and burn” farms where “upland rice” is grown. This rice is the staple food of the Liberians but is grown quite differently from the paddy rice of Japan. I don’t think anything I would learn from the Japanese farmers would apply here.

My companions say there are wild elephants and other animals back in the jungle but we don’t see any.

At a rest stop a small boy offers to sell me a baby python curled up at the bottom of a fruit jar so I guess there are wild critters about.

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99.Bon Voyage

99.

Bon Voyage

I visited another missionary--a middle-aged woman living in a beautiful little white New England style cottage in a remote jungle clearing who had somehow managed to surround herself with every gadget luxury and convenience of a resident in a Los Angeles suburb.

These missionaries are all as different from each other as can be; yet all are missionaries of the same Christian denomination.

What about the African converts to Lutheranism?

I suppose different factors have attracted them too. Some needed water pumps and some needed health care and some were curious about movies and generators but I suppose most of all they were profoundly interested in some spiritual element that they hoped to find in the Christian Way.

They are, after all, not so different from you and me--and make their own earthprobe as well as they can.

So, Bon Voyage to all of us travelers -- and keep probing!

Acting with the best of altruistic motives I think, Christian missionary societies have developed schools and hospitals in Liberia.

On the other hand, the rubber produced by Liberia is essential to the American economy; so good relations are politically and economically necessary too, but I think most missionaries would rather not look too closely at this perhaps less spiritual side of their work.

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98. Rice

98.

Rice

And about missionaries themselves; well, over the days I stay I met several so what can I say about the Lutheran missionaries in Liberia?

Brother Joe is one and he is certainly a man of faith, courage and vocation.

Every time he goes out into the countryside in his carryall it is jammed with children and old people going his way with all the stuff they would otherwise have had to carry on foot.

He has helped build shelters and has dug wells and has provided electric generators and pumps for water that have certainly improved the quality of life for many of the people.

He showed some of the natives in the jungle their first motion pictures using a portable generator and an old 8-millimeter projector my parents sent him.

He and everyone in his family have learned to speak fluent Loma, the language of the people he ministers to. And serving a jungle congregation in Liberia is certainly not as safe a place to live and raise a family as in rural Nebraska for example, and serving a Lutheran church there--though this life is certainly more entertaining for an adventurous young couple!

I met a young Lutheran medical missionary living as simple a life of self-sacrifice as any Schweitzer. I was by his side as he fought for the life of a young woman dying from complications of a baby delivery in the bush—and saw him win the battle.

He begged me to go to Japan and learn how to grow rice and return to teach the natives how to do it because he had saved the lives of so many babies that were now grown children and adolescents that they were now in danger of starvation as adults!

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97. Lutherans in Africa

97.

Brother Joe drives me around town in his carryall van and I see that Monrovia is quite “westernized” though it has a lot of unpaved streets and poor neighborhoods.

There are several new government buildings and a small new university.

The people look fairly prosperous though Joe says there is some political unrest and a very high rate of unemployment.

When we visit the central market, Joe catches a teenage pickpocket trying to steal his wallet. Joe lets him go with a scolding. No one seems to take the attempted theft very seriously.

I discover that wealthy blacks and “Europeans”, as white people are called here, hire houseboys to sleep on their porches at night to discourage robbers-- “rogues” as they call them.

Brother Joe is the pastor of Monrovia’s Lutheran church and on Sunday morning I attend the service, which is quite a shock to me because it is exactly like the services I attended when we were boys in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Somehow I didn’t expect that. I thought it might be somehow more African.

Some of the music is different since the choir uses rattles and percussion instruments as accompaniment, but the worship is the same, which is kind of a disappointment to me.

Change and growth are slow, of course and a “mission”, by definition, is an insertion of a foreign element into a native culture, so I should not have been so surprised. Bedsides, I well remember the glassy-eyed devotion of the Indians I saw in the mountains of Peru to the classical Spanish Catholic Church two centuries after the missionary period of that religious body had ended, so I expect the great-great-grandchildren of these black Africans will probably be reciting Luther’s Small Catechism in English long after the enthusiasm of the present missionizing generation has faded.

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96. Monrovia, Liberia

96.

Monrovia, Liberia:

It is hot and humid at the airport.

Kim’s parents meet the plane, repay the dollars I loaned him for his stay in Dakar and bring me the thirty miles from the airport to Monrovia in their fine car.

The two-lane paved highway passes through sparse forest and poor looking farmland.

In Monrovia they drop me off at the Lutheran School where my older brother, Joe, a Lutheran Missionary, works and lives with his family.

They say that old friends are the heaviest friends, and members on one’s family are usually the oldest friends one has. They have seen our changes from the beginning and have had the task of providing models of behavior and giving us the usual cultural conditioning that gives us a better chance of succeeding in our environment.

So, though we may disagree with some details and definitions, in deep and basic ways, my brother and I understand each other and wish each other well.

For me, after the stress of months of hard-scrabble backpack earthprobing, it is wonderful to relax with members of my own blood family, speaking our own language with the comprehension that was started in our childhood.

Missionary Brother Joe has lived with his growing family outside of the United States for most of his adult life, carrying on his own “earthprobe” in his own way.

We enjoy a lot of the same things and he makes a great tour guide for this, for me, new part of the world.

...

95. Dakar, Senegal

95.

Dakar, Senegal, Africa:

From the air, Dakar appears to be a small seaside green spot at the edge of a vast tan desert.

On the ground the town is quaint and pleasant.

Since Kim and I are guests of a transferring airline, we are taken to a first-class hotel. I have an entire small cottage all to myself, with hot shower, free meals and a handy swimming pool.

We both need visas to enter Liberia so we share a taxi to the Liberian embassy in the center of town

Most of the people on the sidewalks of Dakar are slim, tall and black. The men wear short-sleeved suits or long robes and almost all wear a small, brimless cap. The women wear sari-like wraparounds and headscarves of matching material. The graceful movement when these people walk is very dignified and beautiful to me.

Kim and I must wait a couple of hours at the Liberian Embassy for the Ambassador who arrives merry and tipsy and dressed in a magnificent gold lame suit. He charges us $15 cash each for a visa which is the most I have paid for the passport stamp in any of the countries I have “probed” so far.

We return to the hotel, then explore the beach nearby. The sea is pink with tiny jellyfish and there are lots of seashells scattered around.

We check out the hotel casino in the evening but since this is off-season for tourists, nothing is happening there.

Most of the people I have spoken to speak either French or English. I remember a little of my high school French so communication is no problem.

I am very favorably impressed by Dakar, my very first African city.

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94. The Dark Continent

94.

Good morning.

Seated beside me on the plane is Kim, a young American man, traveling free on his father’s UN airline pass. Kim is personable, entertaining and broke. He spent every penny he had in South America so I loan him enough from my own small stash to get by. Like me, he is headed for Liberia but this plane and the rest of the passengers are flying on from Dakar to Europe.

I have never been in Africa before though I have wanted to explore the dark continent ever since I enjoyed Tarzan movies as a boy and read “Stanley’s Africa” in High School.

...

93.Time

93.

Time

Some days fly
Some days crawl
Some days got
No time at all.


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92. Two Weeks in Rio

92.


Two Weeks in Rio

You know, I’ve been here two weeks; I’ve had a good time, learned a bit, seen the sights and I haven’t spoken three sentences.

Learning a foreign language in order to enjoy a country may not be as necessary as I have thought.

I get a night flight to Dakar, Africa.

The friendly hostess gives me a warm blanket and I sleep with a cargo of lead clouds in a silver fog.

And that’s the truth!

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91. Exploring Rio

91.


Exploring Rio

I walk by a downtown movie theater--Kubrick’s “2001” is playing. It’s one of my favorites so I pay and go in.

The film has Portuguese subtitles and is badly worn with significant passages simply missing. The film breaks twice while I am watching and I suppose that every time it breaks the projectionist’s repairs makes the film a few feet shorter so this mysterious movie will become ever more mystifying, especially to the Brazilians!

I visit the new Museum of Modern Art where the Brazilian painter Ivan Serpa is featured in an exhibition. I appreciate this genius who seems open to the highest inspiration of The Flow, courageously communicating his humor, his fear, and his sexuality.

The ocean at the Copacabana Beach smells good to me and the tourists smell rich. It is enough like Waikiki that I know the scene; the fine jewelry shops with their expensive trinkets, the exclusive boutiques with their expensive clothes, the restaurants with their expensive viands.

There are miles of high-rise apartments and hotels with a green mountainous backdrop.

An enormous white statue of Jesus tops a peak above the town and He looks quite spooky hovering over the city at night when He is lit up.

Rio has a good natural history museum and a grand zoo including such life forms as turtles, elephants, bears and camels. To me mankind seems not the top animal of an evolutionary chain but perhaps one of many creative experiments conducted by life on this planet. We are no doubt the best vehicles for the “human Spirit” and if Homo Sapiens become extinct along with the other failures of biological design that are biting the dust in our time; the human spirit might have to wander off into the cosmos to find another suitable means of physical expression.

I take a city bus across town to the famous Ipanema Beach. A major sewer renovation is under way and the beach is a stinky mess though teenyboppers in very abbreviated bikinis enhance the view.

Ipanema is as good as Waikiki and that is my highest compliment!

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90. Running in Rio

90.


Running in Rio

It’s raining.

I stand on a sheltered street corner watching the water and the crowds of people stream past.

They are playing the “Rio Game” for all they’re worth and they’ve got it wired.

It occurs to me that at this very moment children are swimming in San Jose, pigs are rooting in Pucalpa and butterflies are fluttering in Aguas Caliente.

I accept my temporary environment as I apparently must . (Don't you?)

My trip is wired too. Though the bit of reality I am up against at this moment seems the most urgent for me—the whole cosmic program is full on all over and everywhere! (And the whole cosmic program matters at this moment to you and to me.)

It seems that with luck and in the best of circumstances and with some fairly imposing limitations, you may simply choose where you want to be--and I am temporarily standing on a street corner in Rio de Janiero in the rain.

This city around me seems designed to keep people on the move. The hurrying humans grab a bite to eat at a stand-up counter and then dash off to their next destination. Run or else in Rio!

The pressure is intense to conform and compete.

I look at the clothes in the fancy shops. They have the latest style of pre-faded denims, which is apparently a global fashion trend, but there is nothing I really need.

Passing by an expensive restaurant I gaze in at the beautiful, very beautiful people dining. Customers rush in and out thinking as they have been trained to think by their culture and, in their conformity, urging me to adapt and conform. Their loud and clear message is “Be like us and we will accept you—maybe even love you.”

It’s tempting—very tempting; but at this stage in my particular game, earthprobing is my Zen thing and I have made my choice.

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89. Rio de Janiero

89.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

I find a cheap old hotel on the wrong side of this famous town and go exploring.

This is a fine city with a healthy mix of old and new architecture. My favorite is a high-rise that looks like an inverted hot drink cup.

The people come in all sizes and colors and are all dressed to kill. My own costume is still presentable but I feel pretty shabby compared to the elegantly dressed men all around me. As a traveler I always feel this way in a glamorous city. I can’t shine in a backpacker’s wardrobe and I stare at the beautiful clothes in the men’s shops with longing. Well, I can’t be a clotheshorse and a backpacker too and I’ve made my choice. But...

I come to town dressed up so fine
With nothin’ much going on in my mind.
A pretty city girl says she’ll be mine,
But it’s “Money, money, money.” all the time.

I give her pretty clothes and a heart so true...
But The Joker gave her those and a Cadillac too!

I go back to the country when I’m broke,
Thinkin’ that life is a cruel, stale joke.
She stays in the city with my clothes on her back
Ridin’ with the Joker in her Cadillac.

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88. Brazilia, Brazil

88.

Brasilia, Brazil:

This city is like a cemetery park filled with immense concrete tombstones--a bit sterile and scary.

There are rows of identical apartment buildings perhaps suitable for bureaucrats but not for passionate Brazilians like those I have met.

I like domes and pyramids but I don’t care for these monotonous rectangles very much.

I arrive on a weekend and the city seems deserted. I have heard that everyone who can leave on the weekend does and now I see it is true.

Still, this pre-planned and rather artificial city is unique and a whole lot of creative energy has been used in building it. Maybe in two or three hundred years when the place has had a chance to mellow it will be more habitable.

In the high-rise shopping center of town I notice that the products for sale are similar to those for sale in Honolulu and Ventura. Even the paperbacks in the bookstores are the same—Portuguese translations of Lobsang Rampa and Carlos Castaneda for example.

A pretty young woman walks by wearing a t-shirt with a printed picture of a chick looking out of a cracked egg and the words (in English, of course): “I just got laid!”

Not me.

I board the bus for Rio de Janeiro.

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87. Southern Cross

87.

Southern Cross

Sometimes it is hard to stay alone when traveling.

For example, a young Swiss fellow attaches himself to me aboard the Anna Nery and follows me off the ship into Belem. He is very persistent and wants to go with me to Rio and then to Africa. He uses me for moral support and tour guide but for me it is like free baby-sitting. I finally have to go through an elaborate deception to ditch him. I pretend to be going on a sightseeing bus with him and when he is safely aboard, I jump off and disappear.

“I vant to be alone.”

Belem to Brasilia, Brazil: the bus is air conditioned and first-class; the highway is paved and level all the way. The prices are higher than in the other parts of South America I have sampled, but the journey is far more pleasant. My companions on the bus are two young English teachers and an entertaining young boxer. The trip takes a couple of days as we pass from jungle to forest surroundings.

During a night rest pause I see the Southern Cross clearly for the first time. Somehow I feel I have seen it before.

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86. Cruise Ship

85.

Cruise Ship

Tonight is “Hawaii Night” in the ship ballroom. The women are given plastic leis and the host wears a lava-lava. I wear my yellow “Fah Out Hawaii” cartoon tee shirt and dance all night.

The ship’s “off watch” provides the music. They make up a fourteen-piece samba school and these sailors are all musicians! A police whistle sets the beat and then, one by one, each adds the sound of his particular percussion instrument. Their driving rhythm moves the dancers around the room in a slow elbow-flapping shuffle. It is hypnotic and great good sensual fun. The closest thing I have ever experienced to this dance is the sexless Ananda Marga Yoga circle dance and chant in Honolulu.

I like this a lot better!

The days pass plowing steadily down the brown river. Hooting women and children paddle canoes from the shore to ride the wake of the ship like surfers riding the waves over the coral reefs in Hawaii. It looks like quite a thrill. We pass villages and islands and the Brazilians photograph everything.

“Attencao!” on the loudspeakers again and again, followed by some to me incomprehensible message in Portuguese.

Well, more meaningless communication doesn’t bother me now. If anything is really important, I get the word--so I relax and enjoy the ride.

...