From the Village

The phone rang. It stopped. A few minutes later, it rang again. The number was not familiar. It rang again. Tired, I picked it up.

Crackle "Mr. Ellison. Good evening. How are you?" Static.

"Ok. Is this Sayouba?" Sayouba is one of my favorites. He use to be on the shorter side but he's grown into average. He's smart in the way that hides just enough to keep from being the class nerd. Thus he retains some status of cool. He'd pee his pass if a girl actually talked to him though.

"We are coming to your house." Static and fade. It would be into the next morning till I fully understood his plans, not too long before they arrived.

Sayouba, Abdoulaye, Boureima, Moussa and Issouf showed up on my phone as Rambo Kids the next time it rang. The call was simply, "we are at the round point."

I'd had enough warning to clean the house and figure out a rough game plan. I wanted to show them Kongoussi but not show off the rich glare of my concrete-floor house or the running faucet in the shared courtyard. I did not want to out pace the village image of myself.

Pedaling towards the round point, I immediately recognized my kids. It'd been only a few months but sweat, dirt, distance and strange surroundings can change faces. Luckily, it couldn't change their beaming smiles. Mostly white teeth, chin to ear. I returned the gesture, shook their hands and asked if they were hungry. It was a resounding and surprising "no". So, Fantas it would be.

Over the orange, sparkling liquid, the kids recounted their morning ride. 40k. It should take two hours. They left at 5 a.m. I saw their boyish grins at 11. Sometime between the chain on Sayouba's bike splintered and snapped. Uneducated mechanics rattled it and twisted it enough to get it to Kongoussi. It broke before the first Fanta was poured, unleashing the first round of the day's laughs.

Tired from the road, we headed towards my concrete bunker. The road spewed dust and grit into their teeth as they trailed timidly behind my bike. Their usually teenage aggression and angst were turned into slight panic. The road was full of cars, two or three of them. Trucks passed. Mopeds passed. It was average day chaos. It swallowed them. I slowed my pace to provide their shield. If I had not already known, I would then: this was their first time in a town. Calm village life was showing itself in their soft underbellies.

It became the joke, the type of joke that runs through the entire day, defining a trip. They tripped over each other to make fun of their own village natures.

"Look at the villager lost in the big city."

"What, you don't know? Of course not, you're such a villager."

Once I turned to tell a friend about this being their first time in a town. I caught the fear in their eyes. I recovered by adding that they were used to old grand cities from America. They suddenly became my foreign exchange students from America. The held onto the joke. They kept it, making it theirs.

Sayouba's bike was slowly repaired and it was off for omelets, yogurt and a lake. The boys kept asking the price of things, pushing to release my refusal.

"You've paid too much for our stuff. This yogurt has to be $0.75 or more! That's too much, sir!"

To Americans, that appears as mockery. To my boys, it was sincerity. They worried over my pocketbook when it had been depleted by what they guessed to be $10. Suddenly, I understood the times when Grandpa grabbed my wrist and pushed back my hand from the bill at Clear Creek Springs Cafe. Paying was something you do. It cost you nothing. It was how you said you cared.

The lake was their first as well. We waded out and talked about how it was possible that water stayed in this spot forever. My mind flashed over every field trip I ever took. If I had planned this as educational, it would have shattered under the bludgeoning of boredom. Something told me to not be so foolish. Soon, I found myself explaining how the irrigation systems worked. We talked about pumps and water flow. We talked about renting fields and co-ops. It was a small agriculture workshop that came via their curious casual questions.

The fields along the lake shore were soon underfoot. The boys began searching for the rare treat of potatoes. They knew potatoes by reputation and small bites. They wanted to know more. Their tromping through fields led them from farmer to farmer until 2 kilos lay in their sack. They played my game; I never saw the bill. It was not until too late that I learned they paid a slight amount over market price. I didn't have the heart to tell them.

When I had left Rambo, I gave my kids a gift they had hounded me for over my two years there, a radio. It would play from the early morn to well past the last flicker of flashlight. It was the background of every conversation, always tuned to Le Voix de Lac (The Voice of the Lake). The Voice originated in Kongoussi, perhaps a driving force behind their visit.

We climbed the steep hill towards the two towering radio antennas. The boys were quiet and unwilling to show their obvious exhaustion. In the small concrete building, a man stepped forward. I explained myself, my kids and their trip to him. Within two minutes, they were On Air, greeting their families and friends back home. They had on the comedic large headphones. They scooted the chair closer to the microphone held by a metal arm. I watched as they turned from restless youth into well mannered young men. Their knowledge of the world expanded, following their broadcasted voices across the horizon. They were quiet as we left, drawn into themselves.

Back at home, we tossed through games of Uno, laughing each time Issouf got caught with one card. In the shout of "Uno!" from the boys, Issouf would giggle, pick up five more cards and the game would continue. As the day closed, I invited them to stay. It was ludicrous to think they would ever make it home in the evening. Through tired eyes they saw my logic. I called Husseini just to make sure the parents were informed.

As dusk hit, they pushed a sack of potatoes towards me with expecting eyes. I asked how they wanted them cooked. Their small tastes of potatoes never gave them a chance to discover their cooking origins. They were waiting for my lead. Mashed potatoes, it was.

A few struggles with a potato peeler and a giant pot of boiling water led to a communal meal. Hands scrapped along the sides, balling up the mounds of squashed taters. The day had worn on them and the meal quickly turned them to sleep.

I had slept a number of nights only a few feet my students. It was nothing, back in Rambo, for them to fall asleep while studying and for me to nod off while reading. I, however, have never quit being amazed how tightly they sleep. Even in the warmer nights of spring, they wrap arms around shoulders and place heads against neighboring backs. Even when sprawled out on mats, I'm amazed at how comfortable they seem to be. In Kongoussi, that amazement continued, though the mats were replaced with foam mattresses (I took the cot).

In the morning, I snuck out and bought millet cakes. They yawned, scratched and stretched before eating. Then they were gone, back to the road. The dust settling around my house still held echoes of "villager", as I returned home.