Stranger in his Homeland

Chapter Thirty

233 Chapter Thirty B efore Antony went to bed that first night he had been told that classes began 8 o’clock every morning. At half past six the following day he was up. Twenty minutes later he was dressed for school. Zaché was not to appear until half-past eight. He came out of his room in pyjamas and told Antony that he would be taking his children to the “infants’ garden” (which turned out to a nursery school) at 9 o’clock. On his return, he said they would then go to see the authorities of the town. By authorities here he meant the Senior District Officer whom they called the “Prefet”, the Medical Officer, and the Traditional Ruler whom they called the “Lamido”. When Zaché eventually left Antony went out to stroll round his large compound. There were some labourers digging holes and cutting grass. Their look struck him as people from the South. He went up to them and inquired. He was right. They were Southerners who had spent most of their lives in Sigili-Mundu. They were very happy to hear that he too was from the south, and that he was coming to teach English. They told him that it was very great pride to have him there because the “directeur” had created the impression that he was the only and most educated man from the south. Whey they asked him where he studied he told them that it was the white man’s country where electricity washed his body and combed his hair. Here he knew he was just cracking a joke. He knew that it would sound ridiculous in the ears of any right-thinking man. He did not actually expect to be believed, and expected them to express some surprise or ask him to explain what he meant. But did not. Instead, when he asked about housing, he was told that there were several built by the government, but that there was only one he could live in – one with electricity. 234 Linus T. Asong One of the men, a carpenter, led him to the house that contained electricity and they inspected it. The man told him that the electricity had not yet been connected because he had not yet come. He said he would talk to the Prefet about it. *** When Zaché returned they had breakfast: three large loaves of bread were served in a basket. Zaché took two, cut one into two and gave Antony one half. There were five boiled eggs. Zaché took four and gave Antony one. he actually opened the tin of Nescafé and measured half a teaspoon which he put in Antony’s saucer beside two loaves of sugar. Antony was still on his first cup of coffee when Zaché emptied his fourth and ordered them to leave. They were going for the “presentation” as Zaché called the trip to see the authorities. They were to begin with the Prefet. “Look et hieur” Zaché pointed to either side of the road as they ploughed through the dusty street. Ugly clusters of must huts in the last stages of dilapidation, slumped, each one half-hidden behind the other as if ashamed to show its face. Here and there in front or behind a hut, a gutter rose and disappeared again, reeking and fuming with the excess of human and animal waste. Here and there were children, already past school-going age, buried in dust-ridden verandas or in stinking muddy gutters, lost in amusements for infants of two of less! Adults, the sick, the blind, the healthy, clung together on every veranda, either striking down and bruising their foreheads in endless prayer, or playing cards over which they cursed obscenely, and even fought. “Zhey eur zhe viry fooliss end lezy peuplz,” Zaché growled, cleared his throat and spat out a vicious glob of accumulated mucus on the dust as they went on. Antony made no comment. He instead thought of his needy tribesmen back home in Small Monje. He tried to understand the North for the first time, and com pare it with the South. The first thing he noticed about the place was its peculiar slaughterhouse smell. Everywhere he went the stench of half-decaying, half-dried, or even wet hide and skin hung in the air. It was not as busy as city as Likume, even though it might have been the same size and might also have contained the same number of inhabitants...