Vernon Mooers writes

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVEYARD

chapter 5 (2)

Alex continued on to his house. He wore only thongs and even then the sand was hot as it slipped around his feet. The dog, the mean one, a kind of mutant bull-dog type, lay on the ground on the porch of the Principal's house. It didn't bother to growl and bark at him any more and he was glad for that. One of the Principal's entourage of helpers, extended family or tribe members given jobs there, looked to be asleep on a mat on the porch. Alex cut across the yard and across  the  gravel road and into his own driveway.

The castor oil bushes were spread high around the front side of the porch. It was here he stepped carefully. Once, there had been a three foot skinny green snake there and he'd had to call for Shafeeq and the m'guardie. Shafeeq had reached over and poured a kettle of water on the snake as it stood motionless on a branch. Once stunned, he deftly snatched it by the tail and whipped it, the snap breaking its neck. Alex quickly stepped up onto the porch and to the door where it was safe. He hated walking in thongs, because he never felt secure, but they were the only practical footwear to use in the heat and dusty, sweaty feet were easily rinsed off at any tap.

Alex quickly turned the key in the door, pulled on it like he had to, and disappeared inside his little refuge at the school. Students never bothered him and few people visited him, especially in the hot afternoon. It was always dead quiet in the house, like a vacuum. It was space inside the rest of Africa, a lair he crawled into, but it was still  never far enough anyway. He was still surrounded though, still not hidden from it all. But he had curtains up now, and bars on the  windows, and they had their own business. Inside he tried to shut it all out.

Alex took a cold bottle of water with him and made a coffee and sat at the living room table. Time was one thing he had too much of.

He thought back to all the things he'd imagined in his mind it would be like here, from reading the literature they'd sent and articles he'd read. He had had visions from information provided and a recent National Geographic article. It was never the same once you got somewhere. To read about temperatures and hunger and over-population and disease was one thing. To be thrust into it was another. The education system was only developing. It looked good on paper, but it was a complete mess. He had all but ceased trying to fight it, trying to straighten the system from the frame of reference he was coming from. He had to accept things to keep his sanity, to survive the experience here.

Alex decided to write home again. The letters had become dissertations really, ways of expressing frustrations and venting anger. He had a stack of air mail envelopes and though the letters had petered off a little, he still wrote diligently every second day or so. It was a means to try to tell them what it was like, to communicate with someone, anyone.

Alex wrote, squeezed in his tiny concentrated handwriting, onto an aerogram:

                                           October 14/Thursday

Dear Mom,

I got your letter 3 weeks ago and hope you enjoyed Victoria and Vancouver. How is everyone? I've been sending cards regularly, but seldom been getting some back, maybe lost or something? 

I had a bit of a rough time up here at first, but getting settled. The principal comes and goes. No preparation is  done. The Form I students don't come until Xmas as they help with the harvest. There are few textbooks -- not enough, no guidelines except one syllabus for all the Forms. Nothing is organized. None of the houses were ready. About 10 of the teachers are Nat'l Youth Service Corps (compulsory to serve for a yr. after university.) Anyway -- this is how things are done, or have been done, as in all other affairs -- banking, etc. -- everything will be "tomorrow" or "when you come", as they don't seem to be sure anything will actually come or happen the next day.

 

I'm teaching Form 3 & 5 and there are many problems compared to the functioning and organization of our system. This is a boarding school, mostly students from other villages. Students stay in dorms and live here until vacation. I'm receiving approximately N 400 a month out of which I have to pay electricity, but should be able to live on it, and maybe still save some.

School starts at 7 a.m. for classes and ends at 1 p.m. There are eight 40 min. periods a day and only half on Fri. & Sat. So far, I'm teaching 22 classes/week but also have House Master duties. Have to get up, believe it or not, at 5:30 AM, go to bed by 10 pm. There are three terms: Sept. 15 - Dec.13; Jan.5 - Mar. 27 and April 20 - July 10, with three weeks off at Christmas, 3 weeks at Easter and 9 weeks or less in the summer. We only get Sunday off. 

I've planted a garden out back, am hoping it will grow, as food variety is scarce. You could send (mail any seeds -- herbs or broccoli, green peppers, wax beans, zucchini, peas, turnips, beets -- I can't get those seeds here, if you have time.)

I am fine really and adjusting to life here. There is one  other Canadian -- Jeannie -- here, teaching at the Women's Teachers' College. She went to Potiskum with a basketball team for a tournament. Last weekend we had a party at a Filipino Doctor's house -- good time -- eight Filipinos here on overseas contracts. This weekend is a holiday -- Muslim celebration that is going on in Mecca. Learning Hausa and also some Arabic. There are 4 doctors in town now. Some students have yellow fever but mostly just malaria prevalent.

Am running 2 miles every day (17 minutes) on the track by my house at dusk at 6:30 pm. Eating well -- only cucumber and watermelon plants sprouted in my garden so far. Life's pretty mellow here, except busy at school. Continuing to take some pictures and colour slides should be returning to you. There is really no rush for anything I asked sent -- mostly was suffering from alienation but everything is cool now except the weather. Wednesday is market day -- camels and donkeys come and various tribes -- it's a good 20 min. walk through the maize fields to the market. The cool season is starting now through till January -- hottest time is Feb. to April, then rain from May to August. The long weekend is only announced by the radio for the Muslim holiday. Some times I can pick up Radio Canada, always BBC, also Time and Newsweek in Maiduguri. I go to market every 2 or 3 days to shop, take photos and get a change from the school as it's pretty interesting.

Hope you are well and let me know what is happening. Say hello to everyone and give my best wishes.

Take care.

                                                Love,

                                                Alex

After that he marked papers. He had the Form 5's working on essays. They had their language, British idioms they'd managed to Africanise. Alex had even started to talk using their expressions -- strange how they could colloquialize a language. He went through the stack of Form 5 Exercise Books and put the marks in his file. The same students hadn't handed them in. He would seek them out in the hostels if he had to and confront them with their owing him the work. He did not mark every mistake. Several girls were semi-illiterate and managed to sit in class everyday hardly knowing what was going on. He tried to help them, gave them passing grades for effort to encourage them. Then he wrote down plans for the next day's classes. He hated going in unorganized. They would sense it, try to disturb him and he'd get flustered. He had to be organized, come down hard, attack with a plan, keep them busy, push on. 

Then he was finished. His watch said two five. The heat outside was almost unbearable now and the afternoon was still long. He would wait it out, wait for just before sunset, and run on the track, show them how disciplined Canadians were, how they should follow his example. He felt pressure, had a responsibility to do just that, just to prove it to them the way they had to use discipline.

 

But before that, he would rest, try to sleep for an hour, or at least just lay on the bed in his shorts and have the fan draw the sweat off his body and cool him off. That was all he could do in the heat, just hide from the sun, his energy sapped, try to make it through to evening.

He took a shower and in a few minutes the water evaporated off him and his hair was bone dry again. He switched on the fan and lay on the now perspiration stained sheets. Life was not so bad here now. He had water and NEPA had not gone off much for a couple of weeks now. Some postings had little of either. And he had not gotten sick yet, not had to go to the hospital and perhaps die there. It was just the loneliness that got to him, the isolation. He could never be completely acculturalized. But he had to stop fighting the process, had to learn to accept their ways.   

Alex dozed off to the sound of the fan whirring like a helicopter over his head.