Under the Shade of the Mango Tree

I was still jet-lagged, but it was in my favour, I actually enjoyed waking up at 4am every day. In Accra I had 4am to myself, even the drunks and street urchins were asleep by 4am, but here in the village the roosters were already working hard to stir the people.

I sat on the stoop of my little hut, grateful for the kettle and instant Nescafe. One by one women began emerging from their huts, their grass brooms in hand to sweep the dirt patches out the front of their doors. They all greeted me with “nudinawe”, and assuming it just meant ‘good morning’ I would say “nudinawe” back and they would laugh and leave me with a wave. After the third or fourth repeat time I was laughed at, I began to think that maybe I am not so clever after all, and that perhaps I should ask for some language lessons later.

Two children sat beside me, they had a tin of tomato paste each and were grinding it furiously on the stone step. Then another child came over with a machete and they all took it in turns to pry the tins open. Seeing these kids handle the machete so recklessly made me squirm, even though I am sure it was quite blunt. I watched the process with great interest until I realised that they were the tomato tins I had bought the day before at the markets. It seemed Elaine needed them for my breakfast. Argh! I felt so bad for causing such stress, I didn’t even consider the logistics of opening a tin in a place where a can-opener realistically isn’t on hand. That constant feeling of guilt I’d nursed for the past week and half just reached another crest.

The guilt turned to embarrassment when a small group of adults circled me.

“E-f-w-a-h” they slowly enunciated at me.

I was feeling a little more than just confused.

“A-y-e” they would say even slower pointing a finger at my chest.

“Aye” I would reply as instructed and the group would cheer encouragingly.

“P-r-e-m-a-t-o-r-e” they would attentuate.

Pointing that finger back at my chest they would say “e-d-o” and I would dutifully repeat “edo” to the group’s great approval.

More comfortable in my presence they began to scrutinise my body. They touched the tattoos visible on my arm, peered through the 12mm hole in my ears and pointed to my lip piercing trying to figure out what held it in place. I turned up my lip to reveal the back of the piercing and they gasped in horror.

I had just began to relax when another finger pointed at my chest. ‘Shit what was I supposed to say now?’ I wondered, until I looked down at the finger’s tip to see that my button up shirt was on inside out. They all giggled at me.

‘Stupid white person’ is what I am sure they would say if they could speak English… that is definitely how I felt!

In a feeble attempt to fit in I had put on my bright new shirt, the one I had made for me in the market place in Accra. I had also worn it cause Sunday’s were special days – church day. When I had arrived the day before Sammy had asked me what religion I was. Considering my options I decided that Atheist or Agnostic may not be the best reply, so I settled on Catholic, knowing that if prompted I could recall details from my Catholic schooling. Sammy was Presbyterian but told me there was a catholic church in the village. I told him I would rather go to the Presbyterian church with him, despite being confused he said that I could, maybe he was hoping for a convert.

Three different churches in one little village that didn’t even have a shop or a phone line, they did however have electricity, unlike the neighbouring villages, and they had two working water pumps.

I picked up some rocks and started juggling them for kids. Boy did this draw some attention. Kids and adults gathered around in awe. The kids ran around the village collecting stones and throwing them all up in the air at once. Great! All I needed was to be blamed for setting a bad example for the children whose heads were cracked open from raining rocks. This circus act continued until Sammy came to collect me for mass.

The church was a simple solid cement room with a straw roof and furnished with wooden benches that could fit twenty people. The Catholic church I was shown the day before was just a straw roof held up by thin tree branches, I had liked that one better, at least I could have stared out the sides of that one to relieve some boredom.

I was told to sit in a chair up the front awkwardly facing the congregation. Sammy even told me to get up and say a few words, considering I don’t think anyone else there could speak English I shouldn’t have really minded. Sammy translated my words for me, I hope he improvised, cause I am sure my few short sentences about ‘feeling so welcome and appreciating the opportunity to pray with everyone’ was not the most moving of speeches.

I really enjoyed the singing where some of the women did a bit of a dance up the front whilst three boys in the back beat away at drums and Sammy and the school teacher who both led the service, shook some maraca-like instruments. I stood up and clapped along to the rhythm.

Sammy had marked today’s readings in an English bible for me, so that even though the service was said in Ewe, the local language, I could follow along. My favourite one of the readings was Genesis 17 about male circumcision. It said ‘anyone of your seed or in your house or purchased with money from you must have his foreskin circumcised or his wife will be barren’: a lovely lesson to teach a culture where family and child birth is so intrinsic to life purpose (please note the sarcasm).

Of course there were two money collections. I was told one collection gets sent to the Presbyterians in Ho (the nearest city) and the other stays in the village to go toward constructing a new church. This church seemed fine to me, and I think the money could be used in a hundred more useful ways, but I put some money in the collection baskets anyway.

Sundays is rest day. And really there was nothing to do. I sat idly under the mango tree with Sammy for most of the day. Other people came and went but everyone seemed to not have much to do other than just sit. Occasionally Sammy would tell one of the children to collect us an orange, or to climb up the coconut tree and pull a couple down. I sat in the shade and mindlessly sucked on my orange or drank my coconut water.

Joanna, a seventeen year old girl with proficient English was very keen to befriend me and I liked her instantly. She was in her last year of school and wanted to be a soldier. Over the next few days before she went back to boarding school in Ho I worked with her making banku (flour and water mixed together over the fire until it solidified) for the younger children’s dinner and crushing beans to get them out of their shell. That day under the mango tree she gave me Ewe lessons and I scribbled down notes eager to be able to at least greet some people the next day.

Greetings here are a lengthy process. When you greet an equal or an elder you say good morning, and wait for a reply, then you ask how they are, wait for a reply, then how their family is, wait for a reply and then how their house is and wait for the reply. Then the whole process is repeated but in reverse. It’s lucky no one here has to race off to work in the mornings.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored sitting there under that mango tree all day. I was grateful for a short but theatrical thunder storm in the late afternoon that broke up the mango-tree monotony. The power went out as a result but I didn’t mind. I hovered in the doorway of my hut and watched the goats and chickens scamper off for shelter. I watched the coconut trees writhe in the fierce wind and the children drowned in the rain whilst they the fetch buckets of water from the pump and carry them off on their heads, bracing their skinny little bodies in the face of the wind.

Dinner was rice with beans and a spicy oily red sauce that was very tasty (thanks to the tomato paste). I ate my dinner alone in my little hut and went to bed not long after sunset as the rain was dying down, there didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

the catholic church