115.Second-class in Africa

115.

I wouldn’t think it was possible, but every time the train stops at a village more passengers squeeze aboard and it does not seem to me that any get off.

It is as crowded as the Tokyo Metro where professional “pushers” mash passengers in at peak commute times.

I couldn’t fall down if I tried.

In the end, I am squashed up against some cardboard crates of bananas. I am so exhausted that for the first time in my life I fall asleep standing up.

My backpack is buried somewhere under the mass of bags, bundles and bodies.

My mind flashes on the refugee scene in the movie “Dr. Zhivago”—only, they had snow. Here it is hot as hell.

This is not an easy ride.

Early next morning an old man carrying a club and leather bag with the fur left on squeezes in beside me.

As soon as there is a square inch of space he squats down and, shoving other people away with his club, gestures for me to join him. He pulls a small pineapple out of his bag and gestures for a knife. I have a pocketknife and using it to slice the fruit, he shares it with me. I share some of the three-cent bananas I bought in Abidjan for the trip with him.

It is much more comfortable squatting on the filthy floor than standing.

I am learning some important second-class coach-in-Africa lessons: get as comfortable as you can and look out for yourself. Be considerate, perhaps, but don’t give an inch if you want to survive. There are no gentlemen of the old school and no “manners” traveling second class on the train in Africa.

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114. Sardinesville

the Golden Man

114.

Sardinesville!

I can barely find a place to put my feet on the floor, let alone sit. But somehow vendors keep forcing their way through the crush of bags and bodies selling cheap watches, bread and plastic “Havoline Oil” containers filled with greasy water.

The train stops frequently and every time it does people swarm off to relieve themselves near the train tracks. It gets pretty slippery climbing back up the slope to the coach.

Some of the passengers are Moslem and they throw down small rugs and genuflect toward Mecca. It is a fight to get off and another fight to get back aboard

I do have one person helping me.

There is a young man wearing a gold fez who brings me a cold soft drink from the first-class coach where he is riding. (A “Sprite”, no less!) He speaks excellent English and appears to me to have a pleasant golden glow. Every time the train stops, he comes back to make sure I am OK. He tells me a little about the haystack villages we are passing and some of the history of the country. It makes me feel a lot better to have him traveling on the same train!

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113. Abidjian, Ivory Coast

113.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast:

The only pretty woman aboard the bus offers to share a taxi with me from the bus depot and she soon drops me off at a nice western-style hotel. The room--with hot shower and clean sheets--costs eight dollars a night, which is more than I want to pay but I am too tired to seek out a cheaper place. I sleep peacefully in this comparative luxury!

In the morning I go to a nearby very modern bank with whole ivory elephant tusks for door handles to get some local currency. The part of the city I am in is very neat and modern. There are no beggars and the people on the streets are well dressed and look content. Many of the men have interesting tattoo patterns on their faces.

I locate the Upper Volta Embassy and since I am the only tourist around am given VIP treatment. This visa stamp costs one dollar US.

I find the train depot and learn that a train to Upper Volta will leave in the afternoon.

I am the only white person in the depot--in fact I am the only white person out and about in this whole town.

A tough-looking guard leads me to the head of the line of about a thousand travelers and helps me buy a second-class ticket that costs exactly half the first-class fare. This guard carries a three-foot length of fan belt as an encourager and gets lots of room and respect from the waiting crowds.

Nobody is buying first-class tickets.

With my ticket in hand I am able to force my way into an already jammed second-class coach. There is standing room only. I guess the hopeful travelers remaining in the station are out of luck because you couldn’t get another passenger on this train with a shoehorn!

We stand crammed together all day until sunset when the train finally starts to move.

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112. Ivory Coast Border

112.

Ivory Coast Border:

I give the border guards a “Playboy Magazine” centerfold bribe and they wave me through with smiles.

There is an official-looking Chinese in the Ivory Coast Customs House though, and he eyes me with suspicion.

I spend the night in a small hotel and next morning he is on hand to see me off when I take the first bus out of town.

The natives on the bus speak French. Way back in my head is a year of High school French. I only took the class because the cutest girls were there so I didn’t learn much French--but I find I can communicate somewhat with the other passengers who probably speak French as a second language too.

Actually, when I use French words, I feel like I am just like a dog barking in a friendly way—but the people I am barking at, bark back at me and some of the noise I understand so I guess that is what communication is!

My conversations in “French” are short but sincere.

I am carrying a bag of unshelled peanuts, some canned sardines and a bottle of sweetened tea so there is no problem with food or drink on the daylong trip.

The bus itself is a very small open-air jerry-rigged sort of thing—my knees are jammed together and there are the usual chickens underfoot. The rest of the passengers are in a high good humor and there is a lot of laughing and joking.

The road is dirt and the dust is red, so though I am the only white man aboard, we are all soon the same color: dusty red. We only pause occasionally to pee in the cane-fields bordering the road and at midnight we rattle into the capital city of Ivory Coast, Abidjan.

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111.Tappita, Liberia

111.

Tappita, Liberia:

This town is on the border of Ivory Coast; a day’s ride from Monrovia in an old taxi.

I find a night’s shelter and a good Lebanese meal in the home of one of my brother Joe’s friends.

The over-the-dinner talk is about how good married life is. The best part is that there is always someone to take care of you when you are sick, they say.

I have most unusual dreams. I am visited by African animal spirits and when I wake a dream-song lingers in my ears:

“This is the answer,
The secret of the heart;
That love is touching souls,
And that touch is the start…”

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110. Flip A Coin

110

Flip A Coin

Back in Monrovia I visit the young man I met on the plane from Brazil, Kim, at the “Playboy” pad of his UN employed father.

It is all here: mahogany pool table, refrigerator full of imported delicacies, stereo tape deck—all the pleasures of the best of American/European civilization—and a day's journey away—the stone age.

If you could flip a coin and take your choice, I wonder which would bring you closer to real understanding?

Both life styles seem to get people through and people are certainly very different.

Kim’s father would probably feel pretty silly drumming and dancing in Joproken and one of the Joproken villagers would probably not enjoy playing pool here in Monrovia all that much.

I’ve had a great rest and a very educational visit. It’s time to move on— so farewell, Brother Joe.

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109. Bush Grebo Photo

1972 Bush Grebo Naming Ceremony
(near Joproken, Liberia). (photographer unknown)

February, 2010.

The photograph above is, I believe, the only surviving photo documenting Starship's (Thomas F. Wold's) "Earthprobe" a quarter of a century ago.

It was discovered by brother Joe in his collection of family photos which survived his flooded house in Michigan in 2009.

The same photo was published as a pen and ink drawing in the original paper publication of "Earthprobe" in 1976 and was included in this Internet blog on page 108.

In the foreground, the native mother holds baby "Tom". I stand behind the mother and baby. The other white man is missionary brother Joe (Joseph Conrad Wold).

I was known by the nickname of "Starship" by friends in those days.

The little boy on the far right holds up a pet turtle to be included in the photo.

About the baby boy named after me, Brother Joe said in a recent letter: "Who knows if he lived through the war. (The Civil war in Liberia which cause so many deaths.) If he did he would be about 39 years old. Probably a grandfather. Waiting for his grandson to be born , hoping a mysterious stranger with a beard walks into town on the day he is born so he can have good luck like his grandfather did--Hey, surviving the war is the best of luck!

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108. Baby Tom

108.

As we hike away from Joproken I leave the main party behind and walk along the jungle path as quickly and quietly as I can—like Tarzan might have done--but I take a wrong turn, get a bit lost and have to backtrack to find the other walker’s footprints, then sheepishly I rejoin the missionary's group at the hut where the naming ceremony is scheduled.

The new baby and his family are there to meet us and I am guest of honor at the rite.

We sample the traditional salt, cola nuts and sour palm wine-- then the host family gives me a white chicken, which Brother Joe says is a symbol of great respect. The only things I have to give them as return gifts are a Liberian dollar, an American dime and a can of sardines, which they graciously accept.

I place my hand on the little head and say: “Baby Tom.” and the baby smiles! Everybody is delighted with that—especially me! So there is another Tom in the Liberian jungle today.

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107, Leopard Men

Leopard-men Post, Joproken, Liberia.

107.

In the morning the young man with the secret leads me across the village to a wooden pole about ten feet high, standing alone, weathered and covered with ancient slashed cuts.

He tells me the story of the pole: about sixty years ago some of the men of Joproken became “leopard men”--this was a sort of werewolf change which came over them at night--then as leopard men, they would roam about killing chickens and goats. Apparently this was sort of an accepted practice in this part of the jungle, but when the leopard men started raiding the neighboring villages for prey, finally including children, the neighbors decided things had gone a little too far.

The neighbors joined forces to make up a war party, which attacked and destroyed Joproken, killing most of the inhabitants.

These vigilantes left the mutilated center pole of the old chief’s house as a reminder to future Joprokeners not to become leopard men. I guess they did not plant a bombax tree on this occasion, but the memorial bombax trees and the scarred pole are these African jungle dweller’s Macchu Picchu and their Pyramids--their pre-literate message to generations unborn.

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106. Technology's Reach

106.

After nightfall a drum calls all the villagers to the chief’s house where Brother Joe preaches a sermon in their Loma language on “The Lord’s Prayer”.

One of the villagers records his talk on a portable Japanese tape recorder. This evidence of interest in high technology and global commerce in this more or less Stone Age village makes me more aware of the complete overwhelming saturation of the stuff and nonsense of our global civilization.

After the sermon there is a lot of singing and dancing. I dance along to their very complicated drum rhythms showing the villagers how it’s done in Waikiki to their great amusement.

After every dance villagers surround me wanting to shake my hand in their own peculiar way-- with the right hand as we do in America but finishing the handshake by pulling their fingers against mine and releasing them in a rapid, sliding motion that produces a loud popping sound. Its original and fun!

As the evening ends, one of the young men tells me he has something interesting to show me in the morning.

I fall asleep listening to distant drumming, singing and mysterious noises from the jungle.

No electricity, no TV, no radio--not yet, but soon.

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105. Bombax Tree Memento

105.

From the martyr's grave, we go to a formal ceremony in one of the larger huts where we are treated to the special welcoming foods for guests to taste: salt, cola-nut and palm wine.

Then, while the men begin their more serious talks, I am free to wander about— trailing most of the children of the village—some naked, some with only parts of a tee shirt and some in ragged shorts. It seems to me that only these children and I are free people. We have little to lose or gain and there are few rules to our game.

There are several gigantic bombax trees growing in the otherwise bare-earth cleared village. I am told these trees were planted long ago to commemorate some treaty or special event for these pre-literate jungle folk. As long as the tree lives, the event will be remembered. I suppose they will plant a bombax tree on the upstart's grave some day soon.

104 Joproken, Liberia

104

Joproken, Liberia:

The goal of our trek, Joproken, is a village of thirty round huts like the one I described in Fishtown plus a few zinc-roofed houses collected randomly in a jungle clearing.

Our first stop in Joproken is to a memorial mound of earth decorated with shotgun shells marking the grave of the first Christian in this village--who was murdered by person or persons unknown exactly one year ago.

This progressive nonconformist was also the first person in the village to put a zinc roof on his house. He had even expressed his desire to leave Joproken and go to school in Monrovia to find out more about the outside world but, for someone, this was the last straw.

Poison is the traditional way of dealing with such an upstart in this culture and he was duly terminated.

Soon after his death, as is sometimes the case with visionaries, the zinc roof became popular since resident snakes and bugs are not such a problem as they are in thatch roofed huts--and zinc doesn’t burn as well as seasoned thatch either.

Even education and perhaps even Christianity were becoming tolerable for the Joprokenites as you can see by our presence here on this requested visit from Lutheran missionaries.

So Joproken has its own Zinc-roof /Christian martyr while the nuisance himself is safely dead and buried.

The shotgun shell grave decorations show the high regard some of the the people now have for their hero since firing a gun salute over a grave is an expensive bush tribute.

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103. Welcoming Party

103.

Welcoming Party

After a hearty breakfast of soup and rice our party of about ten men is walking single file along a narrow, swampy path through the dense dark jungle toward our final goal, Joproken village. An old man carrying an antique shotgun follows us as guard.

After a four-hour trek we approach, in a sunny clearing, an isolated grass and bamboo hut. A young woman with white clay patterns painted on her face comes to the door opening and Brother Joe warns me to stay back because these marks are bush medicine and there may be sickness in the house. He confers with the woman and soon declares, “There is no sickness. This is a happy occasion! This woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy yesterday.” He asks the mother if she has named the baby yet and when she says, “No.”, he suggests that she name the child “Tom” after me since I am, he says, a good man.

The woman is delighted with the suggestion and says she will gather her family and meet us here for a “naming ceremony” when we return from Joproken.

After another hour’s march I begin to hear drums in the distance. Soon thirty dancing, singing, gesticulating adult Africans intercept us and lead us the last half-mile into Joproken. It is such a thrilling, unexpected and Tarzan-movie-like experience that I taste popcorn!

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102. Fishtown, Liberia

Prize Winning Home in Fishtown

102.

Fishtown, Liberia, Africa

We arrive after sunset and are hustled through the darkness into a gas-lamp lit room by a serious group of men.

The headmen of the village are waiting for us. They sit on wooden chairs on one side of the room and the missionaries and I are invited to sit with them.

More men women and children crowd in and soon the room is completely jam-packed filled.

Missionaries and headmen deliver dignified speeches alternately.

When the headmen speak, all the men in the room chant phrases in unison at the end of their short remarks which sounds quite musical—like a litany perhaps, or an abbreviated Greek chorus.

All of the important men are wearing suits cut basically on the western style but with practical short sleeves. It is hot here.

One amiable village elder dressed in a bright pink suit has had a bit too much palm wine and is soundly scolded by one of the black missionaries. (All the Lutheran missionaries with us are black except Brother Joe.)

The Fishtown village schoolteacher graciously invites Joe and I to sleep in a bedroom in his house.

I sleep without the cargo of lead clouds or silver fog I mentioned before and wake very refreshed.

In the early morning sunshine, Fishtown is revealed as a hamlet of some twenty circular huts with thatched roofs like big coolie hats. There are also two or three huts with rectangular floor plans and zinc roofs. The teacher’s house is one of the newfangled dwellings.

Our host brings a bucket of hot water for a morning shower at his private “bath fence”, an open-air enclosure for ablutions. The slit trench commode is nearby— enclosed in a bamboo framework covered with banana leaves. These simple hygienic facilities are primitive but perfectly clean and very suitable for the climate and locale. I notice no unpleasant odors, flies or mosquitoes.

In fact, I like the natural classic African architecture Fishtown so well I award one of its houses my own:

First Prize Private Dwelling; Fishtown, Liberia, West Africa

Construction details: The floor is covered with a plant juice/dirt mixture that hardens like cement. The walls are made of adobe clay spread over a bamboo framework and dried. The roof is thatch resting on supporting wooden poles. All of the construction materials have been gathered nearby and no metals, plastic or manufactured materials have been used.

The only furniture is a clothes trunk and a simple bed. The house contains no knick-knacks or appliances.

The homeowner has used black, white, red and blue colors made from local plants and minerals to paint murals of an alligator and a fish on the front porch wall of his residence.

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101. Soup and Rice

101.

Soup and Rice

Here is a thatch-roofed village beside the road.

One of the huts is a restaurant where we order bowls of the Liberian favorite, “Soup and Rice”.

The “soup” is a sort of stew, which contains anything edible, and the “rice” is plain steamed rice.

There are smoked monkey carcasses hanging outside the restaurant with their pathetic little blackened paws looking exactly like baby human’s hands.

I assume the soup and rice we eat contains monkey meat though I don’t much like to think about it because such food seems too much like a cannibal feast to me.

I know my negative reaction is only a culturally induced prejudice and the long-time missionaries with me eat with gusto.

I carry some emergency rations in the form of tinned sardines and a small bag of peanuts in case I cannot eat what my hosts provide.

After a long ride on hard dirt (the missionaries call it laterite) we arrive the end of the bulldozed road: the village of Fishtown.

Fishtown is the end of civilization as I have known it and the beginning of civilization as the native jungle-dwelling Liberians know it.

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