I went fishing the other day and it was awesome. Sitting in solitude, a worm on the line. I was starring into downriver when the line yanked and the cork went under and it wasn’t long before I had an African mudcat the size of a forearm flopping on the rocks. I tossed another worm on the line hoping to continue my “luck” when I spotted a two-foot head slowly float and rest at the surface of the water. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the visitor was a rather large croc popping up for some fresh air and to let me know that he knew I was there. He stayed up for a few seconds before going under again to rest at the bottom of the river. I thanked him for the visit and apologized for not introducing myself. After all it was his river.
The mudcat stayed alive longer than I expected. I rolled it up in the “Washington Post” Alex had sent me. Packed it in my bag and hoped on my bike, anxious and giddy to get back to village to show my catch to my homolouge and his family. I arrived with a smile and Mama could tell that I had been up to something. I started unrolling the paper on a table and as a group of kids had gathered around creating a suffocating human semi-circle that I’ve gotten so used to. I opened the paper and the fish jumped to the ground sending all the curious children and Mama running away screaming. Despite the amount of fish people eat, seeing a live fish is something that is pretty rare, especially a fish that had been “dead” for an hour. I chopped up the fish to put in a sauce for Mama to prepare. It was still moving even after I chopped it up. I’ve never seen Mama so scared to cook something. I think she thought the fish was under some spell. I don’t think she ate any.
Around lunch today I went out to walk around a bit. Its planting season so its not rare to only see, say, three people on any given morning, especially mornings after a thunder storm. I walked over to the huge mango trees that for the most part, serve as the central meeting area for the village. I walked into the shade and spotted my homolouge lounging against the base of the tree. I noticed he was wearing his tatered, dirty, champ clothes, which are about as identifiable as a police uniform and asked him about the work on the farm. He said everything is good as I picked out a protruding root and sat down. Now there were three of us--Gbandi, my homolouge, to my left and a very old, old man to my right.
This old, old man doesn’t do much. In fact, the most I’ve seen him ever do, and I see him everyday, is stand up out of his chair and scoot over to a fire in the middle of a crowd of people, walk into it, and dance. Other than that he doesn’t do or move much and when he does its always across the path over to the “bar” where he gets what I suppose is sympathy shots of sodabe’ to continue his perpetual state of deteriorating drunkenness. He drinks, sits, and sleeps, but occasionally, if you’re lucky, you can spot him chasing around the Dennis the Menances of Bikotiba with a stick, or throwing rocks at dogs or muttons.
I sat under the mango tree next to this lifeless old man as a sickly goat walked by, with its head down and chomping at the fallen mango leaves. The old man reached to the ground and curled his ghastly fingers around a marble sized rock. He picked it up and launched it at the sickly chevre. It plopped down and bounced over to where the goat was eating causing him to scurry off. The old man let out a chuckle and I let out a chuckle as there is nothing more justifiable than sharing a laugh with someone to break the monotony of day to day life in a Togolese village.
