Vernon Mooers writes

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVEYARD

chapter 7 (2)

The next morning, he was riding the machine bike like a dirt-bike up a washed out road into the hills. Hussein had told him about a bush tribe up there, the Daode, who had probably never seen a white man. "They just started to wear cloth a couple of years ago when they'd come down into the market here," Hussein had said and told him of the track past the town's water tower which led up into the mountains. "Not more than 10k in," he'd said. "They might hide from you."

He'd driven over an hour, once taken a fork on the trail but stayed right as Hussein had advised. There were truck tire tracks but he had met no one. He came to a clearing where it looked like a village had once been, but the tracks led on and he continued. He convinced himself he was on a National Geographic expedition. He would take photos, write an article. The idea drove him on without fear.

He kept climbing the high ground and spun around a turn in the trail past, around a large boulder and stopped. A village with two large avenues flanked by huts spread out before him nestled among the mountains. He shut the bike off and stood before kiosks stocked with minerals, omo and tinned milk. Women drew water in a rubber-tire-tube buckets from a community well and beyond that he could see a Toyota truck and the green and white colours of a primary school. A tattered Nigerian flag hung from a flagpole. 

There was a small building, cement block and wood had a large cross affixed to it. Nobody seemed it strange him being there.

"You are in on the trail from Kano," a young boy about 14 came up.

"Is this the Daode tribe? Where did you learn English?"

"Secondary school. I am a student home from Easter vacation. I can show you around."

"Thank you. I thought the Daode tribe lived here."

"This is the main village. My people live all over these hills."

"Is that a church?" Andrew queried.

"We are Christians. The missionaries came here many years ago. My sister is in Denmark studying with them now. See, there is the house they built there over the hill. There is a white woman staying there now. We have our own minister."

Jesus. He couldn't believe it. Here was a pocket of Christianised tribes way up in the hills of Islanir state. He guessed they could stay that way too. No jihad would carry up into the mountains.

They walked around the village. On the outskirts, weaved cane huts nestled right into the boulders like beehives. Paths led from the village over the hills in all directions.                      

"The England woman will be back later," the student, whose name was Gabriel, said. "You will sleep in the medicine hut. We have no sick here now." He was shown to the hut and looked inside.

 

The boy started a fire in the pit and smoke rose up to the intricate roof and out a hole. It was bigger than he thought. 

There was a mat to sleep on. He just hoped there weren't scorpions. They liked the rocks. He lay there on the mat, half-afraid to walk around the village for fear of scaring someone who hadn't seen him in the daytime. He put two sticks on the petrified wood on the fire. The wood would at least keep the mosquitos away.

In the morning the boy came around to tell him his friend was back. He did not bother to explain that he had never even met the person. They assumed you always wanted to see your own tribe’s people, your brothers and sisters. They didn't realize that you might have come to Africa to get away from them. Still, he had been travelling for a few days and hadn't talked to any white people.

He walked up to the missionaries’ house. It was run-down but it had a long porch, glass in the windows. A fireplace had been built for the cold nights during Harmattan. There was no electricity up in the village and an empty propane tank for cooking sat outside the door. A mosquito net was hung on the porch as if someone had been sleeping outside. It would have been warm enough.

He knocked on the door and a voice said, "Zo," so he went in. Inside a woman was working at a table amongst trays of clay jugs and artifacts.

"Oh," she looked startled. "I thought you were Zack, my steward. What are you doing here?"

"Andrew. Canadian teacher from Borne State. Just travelling. We're on Easter break. I came up here on motorcycle and slept here in the village last night."

She looked him up and down, reserving judgement. "Elizabeth Davis, from Britain, doing my anthropology doctorate this last year. Art history if you hadn't gathered." She smiled slowly. It kind of grew on her, warming the shadowy room. "I live here. Daode art is what I'm working on. Say, forgive me for being so impolite. Would you like some Nescafe?"  She headed for the kitchen area and he followed.

There she set out two cups, poured some hot water from a thermos in them and brought out a box of sugar cubes and a tin of milk. He watched her. She was young, not all that bad. Her hair was tied back. She wore a halter, which bulged fully, a wrapper around her waist. Maybe he had been in the sun too long.

“Would you like it white?" she asked, studying his face.

"Yeah, I haven't had a cup of coffee in 3 days. You can't trust the roadside kiosks," he said.

"It looks like you're fairly well set up here... I mean you have everything."

"I'm not here all the time. I was just into Kano, to the museum. Tomorrow, I have to go across to another village quite far away where I'm doing some work."

They chatted over coffee. Then he felt it coming on and made a dash for her latrine. He'd had diarrhoea. His ass burned and his stomach was filled with gas.

"Take two of these now," she said. "Mexaform. It will help you. I know. I've had dysentery many times. In a day you'll be alright. Say, you had better rest. You can sleep here tonight."

"Thanks." He didn't know if it was an invitation or not. 

Surely, she would be lonely up there by herself. She looked more

attractive by the minute or maybe because he felt so sick and he

was hot and tired and needed some mothering. She was quite hospitable and kept feeding him Mexaform. "Stay away from the minerals," she said.  So he drank tea all day and she worked some and he wandered around.  She took him over for a small walk over to the next hill towards evening and it was quite beautiful as the mountains turned purplish at sunset.  He had wanted to kiss her when they sat on a rock there, just for a taste of a woman's soft lips again. But he didn't. He was afraid she'd think it was crazy. She'd been so civilized. Perhaps she had a boyfriend in Kano or somewhere anyway. They were close, friendly but it was a platonic relationship, very polite.

Back at the missionary house she said they should sleep on the veranda as it was too hot inside and dug out an extra mosquito net and blankets. She asked if he wanted to have a bath and said to go ahead and he did and changed, put a fresh pair of shorts on and a clean T-shirt. He felt better, refreshed. She wanted to have a wash to cool down and went to the bathroom to bathe. He thought about her there naked, so close, water licking her body not 10 feet away. Then she came out, her hair long and wet, skin glistening, only the wrapper tucked around her waist. Her breasts were full and he stared at them. "I never wear too much clothes here," she said, "You can't in the heat. The natives have the right idea."

"Yeah, they do," he laughed. Why did white people have such uptight morals? They were only breasts. He saw a hundred bare breasts in the market in the run of a day.

“Oh, that's refreshing," she said. "I can hardly take the heat this time of year. How do you feel?"

"Better," he answered. She was standing over his chair, her breasts looked monstrous. He wanted to take them in his hands, hug them, kiss and caress them, then he did not feel sick at all. It was as if she placed them there for him like grapefruits to be sucked sweetly, the moisture quenching his thirst. She combed her hair and her breasts heaved with every breath. He was conscious of them and tried to look away but couldn't get the vision of her naked from the waist up out of his mind. He tried to be nonchalant but the heat and her wet body melted his inhibitions, in a second she was closer, he was holding her, her wet hair with some strange scent in against his face. They were kissing then and he was holding those luscious breasts, nipples hardening, their bodies caressing.

They slept under the mosquito nets under the blanket of African sky. She snuggled up to him. He clung to her like she was a goddess.

But in the morning, Elizabeth had to leave. Why, he didn't know. She had to go somewhere, some place far over the hills. Her projects. Something for herself she had to do. There were schedules up there so far from the world where there were no schedules.

The motorcycle spun faint through the sand down into ditches and around logs on the trail. He felt good. He drove more quickly out then, where he went in, and constantly feeling for the passport pouch stuck down inside the waist of his jeans, her address back in England securely tucked inside.