Dogs in the Sun

Chapter Two

11 Dogs in the Sun Chapter Two A ll these things I’m saying I’m saying in the white man’s talk but in the way we talk in our own talk. When I talk our own talk in the white man’s talk like this anyone who knows our talk will say this is not the white man’s talk but the way they talk in Nwemba which they are now trying to put in the white man’s talk. Which is true. My head is a twin kolanut, one half the white man’s talk, the other half our own talk in Nwemba. Since I want to talk with you who are not people of Nwemba, I will use the white man half of my kolanut head. That white man half is very small. There are many, many things I will want to tell you but cannot because I do not know them in the white man’s talk which is very small in my head. Those things are there in my head, many, wanting to be told. But how do I? They are there, sitting in the half of my head that only knows how we talk in Nwemba. If all of you understood the way we talk in Nwemba, I would say these things to you with all their roots. The white man’s talk calls those roots details. They are important, those details. If you cannot talk details in a talk, then you cannot catch a person’s heart in that talk. And why talk to a person when his heart is standing somewhere and laughing at you and saying what is that one saying? He will just throw you and your talk without roots away. It is only through a man’s talk that you can reach his heart, where he laughs, where he cries, where he smells the food, where he likes the girl, where he sees the sun, where he knows his brother. 12 G. D. Nyamndi Details. The kerosene that gives light to the bush lamp. The roots that keep the tree in the ground. What is a tree without roots? Roots. Details. Take our food. Kehdjeu nann-nann Kehdjeu nton-ton Kehdjeu nkan-kann Sam-kehdjeu Senngwi Nkann Mbap-nduun Makala Nton Nku Mpa Ghghann Sanjap Ngnn Boh-lam Tchuh Tita-tchuh. Mboh Njanga-bann Njanga-bonsuuh Mlolo Vuup Kasinga Nkoun-mali Nkoun-fufuu Wah Njeh Llann Kuh-ntatitati Kuh-ntonton 13 Dogs in the Sun How can I talk to you about them? How can I bring water to your mouth? Even as I name them water comes to my mouth. My heart leaps. I smell the smell. The smell enters my nose. The pepper slaps my tongue. I wipe away the sweat. Ngeng with bonsuh in ngwet-bann. Sounds. Yet that’s where the heart is. A girl who puts ngeng with bonsuh in ngwet-bann before you does not open her mouth again. She has given you her heart. How can I tell you all this? Will the white man too have his own ngeng with bonsuh in ngwet-ban? I’m asking this question like this, maybe he has even talked to me about it and wondered that my mouth remained dry and my heart did not jump. He has. Otherwise how did Lucy talk to him? She must have placed something full of power before him and watched him quietly as he circled it with the eyes of a man after a heart…circled it, so that eating it became like taking the heart and putting it in his own heart for the two to become one. If you see a man and a woman together, then their talk has a heart. Wherever. Whenever. You may not understand that talk, but it has a heart, roots. The heart is in the talk. And the talk is roots. The white man half of my kolanut head is small. But I will use it. Or how do I talk with you who are not of my people? I may not be able to deliver the tree to you with its roots. Only bough and branches. Just take what I give you. That is all the white man half of my kolanut head can deliver. Maybe someday the way we talk in Nwemba will be the way we talk everywhere. When that day comes, I...