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!

...

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.

...

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.

...

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…”

...

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.

...

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.

...