I Could Not Grind It Out

The collision occurred very suddenly and very slowly as all split-second things do. When we hit, the motorbike went down beneath me but I was left standing so that it felt as if I had dismounted very nimbly. I did not see if the motorcycle taxi driver and his passenger went down but, if they did, they were both on their feet when I next saw them. Neither wore a helmet and both looked very young and very scared.

         From the corner of my eye, I saw a man approach quickly from the sidewalk. We were collided on the yellow line between the opposing lanes of traffic and, for some reason, at that moment I was very conscious of not being the one who holds up traffic while he throws a fit. If there was any fit in me to throw, the man who came from the sidewalk stole it all away. While I bent and lifted the motorcycle from the ground, he began to hurl abuses at the motorcycle taxi driver.

         ‘You mother fucker! He was clearly in the right!’ he said. ‘You go the wrong fucking way! You cross the street the wrong fucking way. You are not fucking looking! You should be fucking dead! One less fucking pem-pem driver would be OK!’

         The pem-pem driver looked very scared. He did not try to explain or defend himself and, as the man continued his harangue, I reviewed my motorcycle. It was scratched in several places and the crash-side mirror was wrenched out of place. The crash bar was bent near the frame but it had done its job and absorbed most of the collision. I slipped between gears to check the transmission and I found that the shift lever was bent inward but the gears changed smoothly enough. Then I started the engine and listened but heard nothing troubling as it revved to life.

         The man from the sidewalk shouted all through my revisions but he stopped when I looked up as though realizing he had taken something that was not his. I looked at him and then I looked at the pem-pem driver.

         ‘Are you alright?’ I asked.

         He nodded and I turned from him to his passenger.

         ‘Are you alright?’

         He nodded.

         ‘Alright. Get out of here.’

         The man from the sidewalk slinked away as though I had commanded him as much as them. I did not look at either of them again. I mounted as the boys lifted the fallen motorbike and pulled it out of my way. Then I merged into traffic and continued as I had begun, riding towards downtown. Usually I went uptown but this morning I had a meeting in the other direction.

He just had venom to spit, I thought, thinking of the man from the sidewalk who had stolen the fit that was mine to throw. It certainly wasn’t to help me and it probably wasn’t about the pem-pem boy either. It was just the excuse to spit bile. That thought made me angry with him but not very and pretty soon I thought no more about him.

But what about me, I thought as I drove, not thinking anymore about the man from the sidewalk. How could I not get angry at all? A collision is no small thing and that boy was at fault, and I felt no anger at all. The thinking about not getting angry began to make me angry with myself. You spent a long time training yourself to be a fighter and breaking the meekness in you. All that work sharpening your edges and now this and feeling no anger and a ‘Get out of here’ and then you drive off? The old you would not have been so stoical, I thought. The old you would have shown some gravel!

         I thought this rapidly and angrily for several blocks until the adrenaline peaked and I could not control feeling less angry. They all do it, riding recklessly, and it was bound to happen, I thought. If it wasn’t him, it would have been any other one of them. You’re alright and you can’t expect anything of them, I thought. They aren’t worth your anger. I thought it again and then I thought about what it meant to think it.

Doesn’t it mean to get angry that you expect the person to know better, I thought. That might be true, I thought, at least in some cases. Well, it feels true in this case, I decided. So, if you expect nothing of them, then what respect can you have for them? So, maybe to get angry is actually to show them some respect, I thought. But you expected nothing and so, when it happened, you felt nothing. There was no anger because there was no respect to injury.

It could be, I thought, or it could be something else entirely. If it is that, I decided, it is bad thinking and a very ugly thing. It was a prejudice I had discovered and, usually when I uncover a prejudice, I cannot rest until I grind it out. The realizing it – that it is bad thinking – is always enough because I expect myself to know better. Failing my expectations, I get very angry with myself and the anger compels me to grind it out. But now, as I rode from the accident and towards a meeting that would be about helping these same boys and girls that I discovered I did not respect right now, I realized that the bad thinking was still true for me in that moment and, it being true, I could not grind it out.

The Will Behind It Remains

He is tall and slender and today he wears a black suit jacket as he has worn every Wednesday before. The jacket is very slick and shiny so that he looks as if he might be a pimp or a gambler or a traveling salesman. He is a preacher. The jacket is poorly tailored. It is too broad at the shoulders and then it pulls too tight where it single-buttons at the stomach.

When I arrive he is arranging plastic chairs into tight rows in the small courtyard. The courtyard is an accidental open space that is behind the table tennis hall and in front of the boxing gym and beside the shanty houses. As he arranges the chairs, two women sort shelled nuts that they will sell on the sidewalk tomorrow and three small boys stand soapy and naked as they wash themselves in a large basin.

Inside the gym I change from my work clothes. I stow my backpack and my crash helmet under the bench and I wrap my hands in the thick cloth band that will protect my wrists and knuckles. As I wrap my hands, I watch the preacher through the window grating. He is young. Probably he has only recently finished his catechism or apprenticeship or however someone trains to be a preacher, I think. He starts the small generator that sits beside the wooden podium that is at the head of the plastic chairs. The generator powers the amplifier that, I think, he only needs because the generator that powers it is so loud.

With my hands now wrapped, I skip rope. I start lightly at first, holding my gut firm to exercise the muscles as my body goes up and down. As I warm up, I begin to skip faster. When I am warmer still, I cross my arms so that the rope crosses on the way down and then I uncross them on the way back up. This exercises the arms and the lungs and builds fighting rhythm. When others skip, they watch themselves in the full-length mirror but I watch what is happening in the ring.

The coach is in the ring. First he is jogging small laps between the ropes to warm himself up. Then he is working the mitts with the Lebanese who always arrives before me. He must work close by or else he leaves work early. He is older and heavier and slower than me. He places his phone on the table beside the ring timer. When the phone rings he stops to answer it. He never leaves it to be called back later and he is never too out of breath to answer it. The sound of his gloves against the coach’s mitts is dull, I think as I skip rope and watch them.

The one day I bring my camera, the preacher ditches
the suit jacket for an African casual long-shirt

Outside I hear the preacher speaking in tongues.

‘In the name of Jesus! Bfunnununun ahdaddada jabala-labala-labala…your compassion… gogala gogala golgadala…for the love of the father….romaramanara ahdaddada…show us your mercy!’

There is no audience and his service has not yet begun. He too is warming up, I think.

After ten minutes I finish skipping rope. This has loosened me so that now I have to urinate. I go outside to the end of the courtyard where a hole has been made between two shanty houses. Afterwards, I watch the preacher as I stretch my muscles, preparing for the real work to begin. Now he has an audience. They are three boys and an old man and they nearly fill the first of the three rows of plastic chairs. The old man lives in one of the shanty houses behind the gym. He cleans up around the courtyard sometimes and he has attended the preacher’s services every Wednesday since they began some months ago. For a long time he has been the preacher’s whole audience. I imagined that this must have been discouraging. There were many weeks when I expected that the preacher would not return. Now there are three new boys. Now he has an audience, I think as I finish my stretches and tighten my hand wraps.

I am warm now. I feel light and loose and there is just a hint of that deep soreness. It tells me that yesterday’s early morning workout was a good one. I bend my neck side to side, which is what I do when I am finished warming up, and now I am ready to be serious. The end-of-round bell rings and the coach shouts from inside the ring.

‘Gloves!’

I enter the ring to the sound of the preacher’s singing. It is distorted by so many other sounds: the pounding of gloved fists against the heavy bags, the creaking of the roof beams from the strain of the impacts, the traffic from the main street that is not far away, and, of course, the thundering of the small petrol generator. I, who have no appreciation for church singing, hear only a cacophony as I enter the ring and the start-of-round bell rings. I adjust my hands inside the 16-ounce gloves and then I pound them together as I advance to meet the coach at center ring.

‘Jab!’ he calls out.

I throw a left and the sound from his right mitt is full but does not resonate.

‘Jab!’ he calls again.

I throw another left and this time there is a sharp crack from the place where it connects harmoniously with the mitt.

‘Jab-jab!’ he shouts and my left extends rapidly twice.

Crack-crack

‘One-two!’ the coach calls out and I release a left and then a right.

Crack crack

We move around the ring and as I get warmer he adds hooks and uppercuts and the combinations he calls become longer and more complex. Outside the preacher is singing louder but I do not hear him. My world extends only to what the coach calls out, the crack of the gloves against the mitts, the weaving of my head as I avoid the punches he returns, and the working of my lungs as I synchronize labored breathing with body movements. When the warning bell rings, I am as fast and as strong as I can be. I have worked out the stiffness but I am not yet fatigued. When the end-of-round bell rings I pace and do small jumps in my corner. I am on the balls of my feet and I work my arms like pistons, and I feel all the fibers begging to be turned loose again.

Right now there is nothing else that exists in the whole world, not even you, and I love it.

When the start-of-round bell rings I come charging in. The sound of the gloves against mitts is clear and sharp and captivates the gym as if right now it has conquered all other sounds.

Between the second and third rounds the gym is silent while everyone is resting. Outside, I hear the silence too. I glance out the window and I see that he is finished singing. His papers are in his hand and I hear him begin the sermonizing. He is getting serious now too, I think.

When the bell rings again I forget all this about the preacher and my world wonderfully narrows again so that there is no gym outside the ring, and no you, and no preacher in no courtyard outside that. For the third and fourth rounds I am very strong and I am very fast. The sound from the mitts is the only thing I or anyone else in the gym can hear. Between the rounds I notice that the preacher is strong too.

‘Remember his word and live by it,’ he shouts to his small audience. ‘There is only his word! Do you get me? Halleluiah!’

The bell rings and the fifth round begins. As I advance to meet the coach, I can feel that my arms and my legs are suddenly very heavy. In center ring, the coach raises his mitts and he calls for a combination. I swing my arms and I can feel that my strength has deserted me. It is as if the air has been stolen from my lungs and the blood from my fibers. Now I miss my combinations and I become frustrated. The coach sees my frustration and he is emboldened by it. He swings his mitted hands at me more fiercely between my combinations so that I get struck in the face or upside the head if I do not pay attention. When the warning bell sounds my chest is heaving and I am pleading with my sinews to hold together. At the end of the round, I drop my hands and I slink back to my corner.

‘One more,’ the coach says after me.

I am in my corner and I throw my arms over the ropes and let my body and my fists hang limp on either side. Outside I can hear that that the preacher too is struggling. There are more pauses between the things that he says and he repeats himself over and over as if he has only heart and will and he has lost his strength of vocabulary.

‘Do you get me?’ he shouts. ‘Praise Jesus!’

A few moments pass.

‘Halleluiah!’

A few more moments pass and I unhook my arms from the ropes.

‘Praise him! Praise Jesus!’

My eyes widen and focus.

‘Do you get me? Praise his name!’

I swing my arms once to loosen the rotation of my shoulders.

‘Praise him! Halleluiah! Do you get me?’

My breathing begins to normalize.

‘Halleluiah! In the name of Jesus!’

I rise to the balls of my feet and I bounce.

‘Do you get me?’

I bounce again.

Do you get me?’

The bounces are heavy but now I am on my toes and I am bouncing over and over again, and throwing my arms out to circulate the blood.

‘Praise Jesus! In the name of Jesus! Halleluiah!’

I bend my neck side to side and I pound my gloves together.

‘I say praise him! Do you get me? Praise him! Praise his name!’

The bell rings and the sixth round starts and I am leaning forward as I advance to the center of the ring. Much has been taken and I am lesser now. I am not that speed and strength that I was in earlier rounds, but the will behind it remains. I am on the balls of my feet and I am bouncing and my hands are up and my head is weaving to avoid anything that is thrown.

‘Jab!’ the coach calls out.

I throw a left and the sound is full but does not resonate.

‘Jab!’ he calls again.

I throw another left.

Crack

It is not the gym-conqueror that was before but it is a true sound.

‘Double jab!’ the coach shouts.

Crack-crack

‘Jab-two-three!’

Crack-crack crack

‘Praise him!’

Crack-crack

‘In his name!’

Crack-crack crack

‘Halleluiah!’

Crack crack-crack crack

‘Do you get me?’

Crack-crack crack crack

‘Jab-jab-three-four!’

Do you get me?

Note: During the couple weeks between when I wrote and posted this, the preacher is now using an Acer netbook rather than written pages for his prayers and sermons. It’s a wonderful, modern world we live in!

A Shortage of Clotheslines

‘There seems to be a shortage of clotheslines in this country,’ I said.

         For a moment there was no response from the three others in the car.

‘What now?’ Lachlan said.

         ‘I say, there seems to be a shortage of clotheslines in this country,’ I said.

‘Explain,’ he said.

‘I’m observing peoples homes as we’re driving,’ I said. ‘Now my observations are not scientific, but I’m noticing a trend.’

‘About the clotheslines?’ Nik said.

‘Yes, about the clotheslines,’ I said. ‘You see, about half of the homes have put laundry out to dry. Of those, about half are using a clothesline or a bar suspended between two poles. But the other half – again this is not scientific – have laid their laundry to dry on the ground.’

‘Or on the zinc roof like these people,’ said Richard.

Richard is a teacher at the American school and Nik’s friend who she met some years ago in Ghana. He sat beside me on the driver’s side of the back seat. We all looked to the small huts that flew past along the driver’s side and we saw the hut where the clothes were partly draped on the corrugated roof and partly hanging off it.

‘I noticed that too,’ I said. ‘Maybe 10 percent of the homes without clotheslines dry clothes on the roof.’

‘But it’s not scientific?’ Lachlan said.
'No, it's not,' I said.

It was late in the afternoon and Lachlan was driving us fast along the mostly good highway between Gbanga and Kakata. We had left early in the morning from the Ma Ellen’s School beside the village of Duazon where Nik is the school administrator. We took the Ganta highway northeast past Kakata and Gbanga and from there along a secondary road to where there are a series of small waterfalls at Kpatawee. It was four hours on the mostly good highway and then an hour and a wrong turn on the dusty secondary road to the ‘Eco-park’.

At the waterfall, Lachlan followed a path that led up to the top step of the falls. Nik and Richard took photos looking up from the pools below and I skipped along the rocks to an island between the two sides and I recorded a video-gram to Jess. I narrated in the silly, awkward way that most of our video-grams go because neither of us performs well speaking to the camera.

‘Hi Jess,’ I narrated. ‘This is the waterfall at Kpatawee. See, the water starts there and goes down to there and then it keeps going. Wish you were here…’

After we had a look around, we brought the cooler from the car to where there was a bench beside one of the pools in the river. We ate a lunch of meat and cheese and chips and cookies and we drank mostly cold water and soft drinks. While we ate, a missionary family arrived in a white hardtop Land Cruiser. When it was parked, the missionaries’ children and some local children filed quickly out. They went down the path and over the rocks and dipped into the pool beneath the main falls. The missionaries applied sunscreen and one retrieved a camera with a telephoto lens. On the doors of the Land Cruiser was the decal of a red cross being suspended from a long horizontal bar as though to resemble a helicopter.

‘Maybe they are the Special Forces missionaries,’ I said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Nik said.

‘Maybe that’s their shtick,’ I said. ‘You know, repel in through the roof, blow everyone away with a sermon and some bible verses, and then bugger off to the next village.’

‘Come on,’ Lachlan said. ‘They helicopter into a remote village to evangelize for Sunday mass and they are back before dark for a cold drink and a hot shower.’

‘Shock and awe,’ I said.

When we finished lunch we loaded the car and we left along the dusty road that circled a forested hill beyond a burned field.

‘I think they lay the clothes to dry on the grass because it gives a fresh smell,’ Richard said after he had considered the question of the shortage of clotheslines.

‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Let me take a few observations.’

‘It’s not scientific though,’ said Lachlan.

‘No it’s not,’ I said.

I announced my findings as they came.

‘Laying on the grass. Clothesline. Clothesline again. Laying on the ground, no grass. Laying on the ground. On the grass. On the grass. Clothesline. On the grass. No grass that time,’ I said.

We sped past a few more huts and I noted what I saw.

‘No, I’m not convinced,’ I said. ‘In some cases they are on the grass but just as many times they are on the dirt or a rock or something else.’

‘We’re coming up to a checkpoint,’ Lachlan announced.

‘Places everyone. Be cool. We’re rolling,’ I said.

Then I narrated for the video, speaking in a hushed voice that was just as awkward as when I had been recording the video-gram at the waterfall only different.

‘It’s, uh, Sunday, uh, date is, uh. Anyway, we’re driving south on the, uh, Monrovia-Kakata highway. We’re doing a sting to catch a police asking for a bribe. This is our fourth attempt today. We’re approaching the checkpoint. The gate is being raised. We’re being waved through. We’re through. Damn!’

I switched off the camera.

‘I just want to get it on film once,’ I said.

‘Bad luck,’ Lachlan said.

‘It’s probably because we’re taking the green four-wheel drive with the NGO plates,’ Nik said.

‘Probably,’ Lachlan said. ‘The white jeep with the private plates is a magnet.’

After the checkpoint we continued along the mostly good highway. The sunlight was very warm coming through the windows and we grew drowsy and we were quiet for a time.

‘There’s another one with the clothes drying on the ground,’ I said.

Don't Make Apple Sauce out of Us

‘I don’t know how to explain it without it sounding silly,’ she said.

         ‘Do you think it’s silly?’ I asked.

         ‘No!’ she said. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’

         ‘So, why should it sound silly?’ I asked.

         ‘I just don’t feel like things are any different than they were before,’ she said.

         ‘Do you think things should be different?’ I asked.

         ‘People expect things to be different so I feel silly to mention it since they aren’t any different,’ she said.

         ‘Do you not want to tell people?’ I asked.

         ‘I do want to because I’m very happy,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to tell them if they are going think it’s silly.’

         ‘I don’t think anyone can take anything away from it,’ I said.

         ‘I know and I want to tell people,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to tell them if they’re not going to get it because it’ll make me sad.’

         ‘How will they not get it?’ I asked.

         ‘Maybe they will think you don’t really care because you didn’t make a big thing out of it,’ she said, ‘or they will think I don’t really care because I don’t feel like things are any different now.’

         After this there was a pause and I waited for her to say more but then I realized that the call had dropped. I redialed but I got a busy tone because she was dialing me. I tried twice more and then I stopped and a moment later my phone rang.

         ‘We’re getting 20 percent now,’ she said.

         We had registered for a calling plan that gave certain discounts based on the day and time and location of the call. We were spending enormous amounts of money on airtime since she had moved to Zwedru and it had become our habit to start each call by announcing the discount even though it never influenced the duration.

         ‘Do you wish I had made a big thing out of it?’ I asked.

         ‘No. I like how you did it,’ she said, ‘and it’s not a big thing to me except everyone expects it to be.’

         ‘So you like the way it is and you want to tell people about it but you don’t want to tell them because you think they will think it’s silly even though it’s exactly how you want it to be?’ I asked.

         ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘That’s it exactly.’

         ‘You’re exhausting!’ I said.

She moaned and I continued.

         ‘Really I think you’re comparing apples to oranges,’ I said.

         ‘What do you mean?’ she said.

         ‘We all need excitement, right?’ I said.

‘Sure.’

‘I think it’s very hard to do exciting things because it takes lots of time and effort and certainly courage – like that friend of yours that’s mountain biking through Rwanda. I think it’s a lot easier to create excitement out of celebrating what we already have. Does that make sense?’

‘I guess it does,’ she said.

         ‘For me, I want us to celebrate what we have done – together,’ I said. ‘And I want us to make a life that will have plenty of things to celebrate.’

‘That’s what I want,’ she said. ‘I want us to have many, many doing things to celebrate. That’s what I’ve always wanted.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘So maybe that’s why you don’t feel like it’s a big deal and nothing has changed.’

         ‘Ok, love,’ she said. ‘I’m with you on it.’

The line was silent. I thought she was thinking more about it was actually that the mobile phone network had cut into her end of the line.

‘It’s telling me I only have one minute left! Call me back! Call me back!’ she said and she immediately hung up.

I dialed her number and she answered before I heard the first ring.

‘You know you have a whole minute left when the message cuts in. You don’t have to be in such a rush,’ I said.

‘I know. I like to save it in case I need it before I have a chance to load new airtime,’ she said and without a breath she continued. ‘So I’m with you that it’s not a big deal and on the celebrating the doing. But what do I tell people when they ask why we’re not making a big deal of it?’

         ‘Tell them we’re oranges,’ I said.

         She thought about this and then she said, ‘Yeah, we’re oranges!’

         She thought about it for another moment and then she said, ‘But that’s not enough to tell them.’

‘I think you’re struggling with this because you’re trying to make our orange thing conform to an apple’s expectations,’ I said.

         ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing,’ she said. ‘I’m a closeted orange!’

         ‘Maybe you are,’ I said. ‘If you try to make it conform or you make excuses for it, it sounds like you don’t believe in it.’

         ‘But I do believe in it,’ she said. ‘It’s exactly what I want it to be.’

         ‘I believe you,’ I said.

         ‘So what should I do?’ she said suddenly sounding very tired.

         ‘Tell people or don’t tell people,’ I said. ‘Just don’t make apple sauce out of us!’

Usually When They Leave They're Gone

‘How often will she come back?’

‘She’ll be back for a week or so at the end of February and then about every five weeks after that,’ I said.

‘That’s not so long, I guess,’ he said.

‘Sometimes it seems very long time,’ I said.

He looked at me and I think he understood both my meanings.

‘Anyway, it already feels very long,’ I said.

Then my phone made a sound like a telegraph.

‘We’re going to spend a ton of money on text messaging,’ I said.

I retrieved my phone and read the message: ‘I’m getting a kitten here!’ I thought for a moment and then I typed out a reply with my thumbs. When I was done, I waited until I heard the sound like a rocket ship taking off and then I put the phone back in my pocket.

Lachlan sat on an upright wooden chair and he drank a cold beer and his boots were off. He wore shorts and a straw hat and dark sunglasses. It was just past midday and it was very hot but there was a nice breeze off the ocean, which we could see beyond the sand.

‘Is this where they go surfing?’ I asked.

‘It’s down that way past the trees,’ he said. ‘You go past the trees to Nana’s Guesthouse where there is camping and then past that there is a cove and that’s where they go surfing.’

‘And the surfing is really that good here?’ I asked.

‘Hell if I know,’ he said. ‘But these guys are from California so maybe they know something about it.’

He motioned to the other side of the long balcony where the owner and his few friends sat on a bamboo sofa with cloth covered foam cushions on it. The owner was dark with thick, wavy hair and a dark, thick growth from not shaving for several days. I thought he looked like he had slept on many sofas and in many youth hostels and even though he was a little older now he did not look any different. His friend was taller and much lighter with a heavy but very well manicured beard. He had a boy’s face and a hairless chest and then you saw the manicured beard and you thought that he wanted to appear rough but also not be. There was a woman who sat between them and she was lighter than the one but darker than the other so that she looked like she was put there intentionally to tie the room together. She sat there with her legs crossed and her big eyes and her many freckles all seemed to be focused intently on the blond one. He had been reading a book about the war in Vietnam and now he was talking about what he had read.

‘We could have gone straight for Hanoi in the first place and the war would have been won,’ he said, ‘but the military industrial complex had other ideas.’

‘He’s from California?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Lachlan said and I could tell that he was restraining himself as he listed to their conversation.

‘Actually, you know I’m from California and I really don’t understand surfing,’ I said.

‘Is it that complicated?’ he said.

‘I suppose the mechanics of it are straight forward enough,’ I said. ‘It’s the enjoyment that I don’t understand.’

‘Says the one who rides motorbikes in Liberia,’ he said.

‘OK. It takes all kinds,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I took surfing lessons a few years ago and I was quite disappointed.’

‘You grew up in California and you only just learned to surf a few years ago?’ he said.

‘Not all Californians are like this joker,’ I said.

‘So you learned to surf?’ he said.

‘Or took a few lessons, anyway, I said. ‘Here’s what I took from it. You paddle like hell to get out past the breakers, taking one face full of water after another. When you finally get out there, you’re too exhausted to do anything so you just float around for while. Then, when you’ve got your wind back and probably you’re starting to get bored, you paddle in and maybe you catch one. If you don’t, you’re in no man’s land and you’re going to get pounded by the next one so you’ve got to turn around and paddle your ass back out pretty fast. If you catch it and you can stand up, then maybe you get a ride and I suppose it’s fun enough and then it’s over. Then you either go in or you paddle like hell back out there and do the whole thing over again.’

We drank from our beers, which ran with condensation down the sides of the bottles and dripped on the floor. I untied my boots and pulled them loose at the ankles. Beneath, I saw that my socks had red stains where the sweat and the road dust had combined. We had arrived an hour or so before and I still wore my jeans, which were covered in the same red highway dust as my boots, my shirt, and my arms.

We had left early in the morning to avoid the traffic in the capitol and to have as much of the day here as possible because we would only stay the night. Lachlan and Nik drove the four-wheel drive with the NGO plates because it would have an easier time passing through the checkpoints. I drove behind on the motorbike because they had a full back seat and because I preferred to ride. From my apartment we went through downtown and across the bridge. After the bridge we drove through Bushrod Island where we passed through Vai Town and Clara Town and past the brewery, following Mamba Point Road with only a detour to avoid Duala Market. After the Brewery the road crossed another bridge and opened onto a highway. It was good tarmac and it was straight most of the way until we reached the immigration checkpoint at Klay.

Nearing the checkpoint, Nik slowed and, she slowing, I pulled alongside as though to overtake. This is how the motorcycle taxis drive here and I had mimicked them so that maybe the four-wheel drive would obscure me from the immigration officers. There was nothing to hide because my papers were in order as well as they can be in a developing country, but a white man on a motorbike is a target and the ride had been very pleasant thus far.

After the checkpoint we turned left and followed this new segment of good highway over another river until where it split off southwest. Then we passed another checkpoint and at the junction we pulled off so that Lachlan could take the driver’s seat.

‘The tarmac ends up ahead,’ he said as I pulled alongside. ‘Do you want to lead so you don’t catch our dust?’

I nodded and I accelerated ahead, over a rise, and down the other side, slowing just before the tarmac ended and the road became graded dirt and pebbles. It can be very tricky to drive a motorbike at speed on a dirt road and it was my first time on this one. Motorcycles that are made for this are usually quite light, have a high center of gravity, and almost always they have a long suspension and deeply treaded tires called knobbies. My motorcycle was light enough but it had very little suspension and street tires with only enough tread to channel the rain away.

I ran it at near 70 kmh and I saw in my mirrors that Lachlan maintained plenty of distance. As long as I stayed straight and perfectly vertical the bike skimmed fast over the pebbly surface. At bends in the road, I kept the front wheel straight and I steered with slight shifts of my body to influence the rear wheel. After some kilometers, we took a short break at a clearing beside Lake Piso. Then, afterwards the road became more gravelly so that the pebbles acted like ball bearings under my tires. I cut my speed to 40kmh and this helped but not completely. The gravel covered the whole road and it was hard to find good lines particularly where the bends were flanked by dense vegetation. After an hour we arrived at Robertsport where the tarmac resumed. At the intersection by the petrol station we turned away from the downtown, which was only a narrow street of small restaurants and storefronts. At the next street we turned seaward and we continued straight until we reached the guesthouse.

‘How was it?’ Lachlan said when we both had parked.

‘Good fun,’ I said. ‘There were a few hairy moments that you might have noticed.’

After lunch we walked into town and took beers at a small entertainment center beside where the lake joins with the ocean. We sat around a large plastic table and we ordered Club Beers that were served cold and in extra large bottles. It was a typical place with African hip-hop playing too loud over a too weak sound system and further distorted by the thundering of a nearby generator. The noise made it so that speaking was a chore. One person might raise his voice to make a passing observation but most of the others around him would not hear it. So, he might repeat himself with more effort or another might relay the message. Then, the others would smile and nod and decide that responding was not worth the exertion.

         On the way back to the guesthouse, we stopped at another entertainment center where the music was quieter and the generator was better removed from the sitting area. The others, which were Nik’s visiting workmate, a friend, and the friend’s houseboy, decided to continue back to the guesthouse and then to enjoy the beach during the hot afternoon. We order beers and we sat a little easier because it was quieter and there were fewer people to try to include.

         ‘I haven’t made a decision about her yet,’ I said, ‘but she has one of those tone deaf voices that is always loud and never changes its pitch.’

         ‘I guess it’s really been OK but it feels like it’s going to be a long five weeks of having her in the house,’ Lachlan said.

         ‘Mostly she’s been doing her own thing but for things like this it’s hard to tell her we’re taking a trip and not invite her along,’ Nik said.

         ‘Is she helping out at the school at all?’ I said.

         ‘She pokes around in the classrooms and tries to give suggestions,’ Nik said. ‘The other day she spent some hours barefoot at the river and she came back wanting to put on a musical or puppet show or something.’

         ‘Well, send me an invitation,’ I said.

         ‘Maybe you’ll want to sponsor it,’ Lachlan said.

         ‘Now there’s a thought,’ I said.

         After the beers we walked back to the guesthouse. The sun was still strong but it was lower and the breeze was nice. We changed into our bathing suits and laid our towels at the top before where the sand slopes into the water. I listened to an audiobook and then I fell asleep for a while.

         ‘I slept,’ I said when I woke up.

         ‘Yes you did,’ Nik said.

         ‘I didn’t snore, did I?’

         ‘You did a little,’ she said.

         ‘I don’t snore and don’t tell Jess that,’ I said.

         The sun was very low now and it was becoming dusk. Nik and Lachlan went back to the guesthouse and I stayed a while longer and put my feet in the water. At the guesthouse the lights were on now and the guests had returned from the beach and others had come just for dinner. The guesthouse felt a lot like a youth hostel and the conversation seemed to fit only most were probably too old to stay in youth hostels.

‘It’s a lot to pay for not having flushing toilets or running water and to use a solar camp shower,’ I sent in one of my text messages to Jess when she asked how it was going.

‘Look at who has become so particular,’ she replied.

‘It’s just a lot to pay for that,’ I sent back to her.

The dinner was rice and sauce and fried plantains and grilled barracuda. It was quite good and I added local chili sauce to it so that the rice became very spicy and the sweat began to drip from my forehead. ‘Are you happy now?’ is what Jess would have said, I thought, and I missed the ribbing that she would have given me. We drank Tiger beer and after dinner we moved to the balcony and we each took another bottle. Soon the guesthouse quieted and the generator went off and we sat on the balcony in the white light of a solar lantern.

         ‘The house belonged to an NGO before they took over the lease,’ the houseboy said. ‘I was a beneficiary of the NGO when they were here. They helped to put me through secondary school when I came back from Sierra Leone after the war. Last year they closed the office and went back to Texas. They brought some of the beneficiaries with them to attend university. When they took over this place to make the guesthouse they gave me a job. It is good but I am waiting that soon the NGO will bring me to Texas for university with the others.’

         ‘I wonder if they’ll send him to university,’ Nik said when he had gone to fetch something.

         ‘I hope so,’ I said but my thoughts were less optimistic: usually when they leave, they’re gone.

The next morning, Nik and Lachlan took a stroll on the beach before breakfast. From the balcony I saw him put his arm around her and then they held hands. I thought it looked nice and it made me think about Jessica and I sent her a text message.

‘It’s really nice of them to invite me along but somehow I feel like it’s too soon,’ the message said.

Better that than sitting around the house getting drunk in your underwear, I thought after I hit send.

When they came back the others in their group were ready to go.

‘I guess that’s the signal,’ I said to Lachlan when they returned.

‘Actually it’s just as well,’ he said. ‘I got a call from my boss early this morning. He needs me to put together a presentation for some investors. It’s the usual pitch but it needs some attention.’

When they left I walked along the beach to the cove where the surfers go. There were a few of them clustered at the far end of the cove near the rocks. The break did not look so good and when they caught a wave they had to peel off before long to avoid the rocks. I stood and I watched this and I stopped listening to the book that was being read over my earphones.  It was a nice beach and beautiful day and I felt very alone. Then, in a moment, I felt my pocket vibrate and I heard the sound of a telegraph.

‘Good morning, love,’ the message read. ‘I will be coming back at the end of February when the supervisor goes on vacation.’

I started to type a response and then I cancelled it.

‘I was just thinking of you!’ I said after I dialed her number and the call connected.

‘I’m always thinking of you,’ she said.

‘Well, I’m always thinking of you more.’