Salvation Colony

Chapter Twelve

65 Salvation Colony: Sequel to No Way to Die Chapter Twelve Dennis Nunqam Ndendemajem T he following day began with prayers, compound care, breakfast and then Human Investment. During the Human Investment period occupants of the Colony broke up again into business groups, or groups of common interest: gardening, carpentry, wood carving, basket weaving, music, drawing and painting. I spent that first morning going from one group to the other, studying them to see into which one I could easily and conveniently fit. Members were permitted and even encouraged to belong to as many groups as possible. We had lunch at noon, rested for two hours and then broke up into human investment groups. We went for prayers at six, had supper at seven and then broke up into choir groups. The same activities were repeated each day. Before I went to bed that first night I was given a tooth brush and tooth paste, a tablet of soap, a pair of rubber slippers and a towel. The following day I was given 10,000 francs to do my purchases from the Colony Canteen whence I bought two pants and a few other items. I was especially amazed by the degree of tolerance exhibited by members of The Colony, most of whom were physically deformed. They all called each other by outrageous nicknames. The totally blind man was called “blackboard.” If there were two or three of them, they were called “blackboard 1, or blackboard 2, depending on the order of arrival. The same applied to residents with other disabilities. The lame man was called “Crab,” the one-eyed 66 Linus T. Asong man “cyclops,” the albino “redcross,” “bonblanc,” or “mbobong”; the divorced woman, “ex-service,” the barren woman “roadblock.” The dwarf was called “inches,” and the fingerless lepers “fingerprint.” Each called the other and very cheerfully received these names in return with a smile. One of Shrapnell’s writings on the wall of the dining hall read: IT IS NOT MISERABLE TO BE BLIND, OR LAME OR UGLY. IT IS MISERABLE NOT TO BE ABLE TO ENDURE BLINDNESS, LAMENESS OR UGLINESS. Inhabitants of The Colony found this a very useful philosophy. The main problem was with the deaf and dumb. There were some very sad cases: a certain woman was deaf, dumb and blind. There was also a male cripple who had lost his hands and an eye in a motor accident. And there was the very intriguing though pathetic case of Mammy Nyanga, a certain woman whom they also called “bundle”. She was born without any limbs. She was not up to a metre in height and her hands from birth, were only two fingerless stumps that terminated at the elbow joints. Nobody ever knew what her under parts looked like because she always wore a gown that dragged on the floor as she hopped by. She could do just about anything with the stumps. For instance she could take snuff, serve a drink and even write with a pen. She was always the centre of attraction whenever they went out on a crusade. Probably not more than forty, she had a very beautiful voice and was the leader of one of the choir groups. She was the first to poke fun at her disability. She would tell the others that she was ready to enter heaven because she had made the necessary sacrifice, for it is said that if any part of 67 Salvation Colony: Sequel to No Way to Die your body offends you, cut it off. It is better to enter heaven without that part than go to hell with all parts intact. Her pet expression was “I swear by all my limbs that what I am saying is true.” One of the startling revelations was made when at a SOUL TO SOUL she said she had once mothered two children both of whom had died in infancy. *** I checked in on Sunday evening, ailing. By Thursday I was already feeling relieved, thanks to the drugs administered by a resident nurse. I called on Pastor Shrapnell everyday to inquire more and more about The Colony. I felt more comfortable asking Pastor Shrapnell himself than the Keepers. On Friday morning Pastor Shrapnell informed me that we would be having a SOUL TO SOUL that evening. He told me what that meant: five members of the Colony would be called upon, each in his own...