ONE DAY IN:


It was a unique day.

I had been assigned to be a “big sister” to a girl who lived in the West African country we were visiting. This girl was a volunteer on our ship while we were in her country. I was really timid about my assignment; in fact I was terrified.

My little sister offered one day to show me around her country and take me to the beach. My first impulse was to say “no”. I was scared of going out into a strange country in a strange culture accompanied by a girl I barely knew and who’s English I struggled to understand. I didn’t tell her that, though. I really did have an excuse – I was on standby and was not allowed to leave the ship.

A friend, however, wanting to push me out of my comfort zone, took my standby and insisted that I go with the girl. I tried to get out of it. When every available hand on the ship was summoned to help with crowd control I thought I might have my ticket out of going. There was a huge line of people waiting to get on the ship and buy books.

Somehow my excuse did not work and I found myself with my little sister walking past the crowds of people waiting to get on the ship. A bunch of my shipmates, wearing orange security vests and holding hands, were making a human fence to hold back the crowd.

It was a long walk out of the port. About two-thirds of the way out I passed a sign that posted the wait time for the people in the line. It said “4 hours to go”. I passed more of my shipmates along the line keeping the crowds in order. They yelled out teasing remarks about how I was getting out of work. I couldn’t tell them that I wanted badly to stay home on the ship.

The whole day was rather surreal. I think it was really what they call culture shock. I felt like a child again seeing the world for the first time and trying to make sense of it.

We took the bus. The “buses” were really what we in the States would call broken down vans. But these were normal buses in West Africa. Sometimes they packed six people to a bench seat intended for only three. Most of the time they didn’t even bother to close the door; some of the buses didn’t even have a door.

I had no idea where my little sister was taking me. I felt very conspicuous and, consequently, very vulnerable. I didn’t see a single white person besides me all day.

I tried to talk to my little sister but I was never really sure if I was being understood. The official language where we were was English but I struggled to understand what most people said. When my little sister talked to me, what she said was rather broken English. There was one verbal exchange she and I had that stands out in my memory.

As we drove along in the bus I began to wonder where all the houses were. I had been in several W. African countries and had noticed some neighborhoods of cinder block houses. I had even seen mud huts. They were always very small but at least they looked like houses to some extent. Now as we drove along in the bus I realized that I wasn’t seeing anything that looked like a house.

There were many buildings around but they were hardly much bigger than my cabin on the ship and most were made of corrugated steel and scraps of whatever. Many of them where missing a wall or two. At first I just thought they were shops and didn’t think much of it. But they were everywhere. Slowly it started to dawn on me.

Turning to my little sister I asked, “Are those houses?”

“Yes,” she said.

But the look that accompanied her reply said more than her one simple word. Her look was blank like she couldn’t figure out why I would ask such a question. At first I didn’t think she understood my question. As I thought about it, though, I realized that to her it must be a silly question. Imagine if someone visiting the States were driving through a residential part of town and suddenly turned to you and asked, “are those houses?” You’d probably give them a blank stare, too.

Like I said, the day was rather surreal. I remember standing in a trashy dirt patch with a bunch of people waiting for another bus. I remember riding on various buses for a long time. I remember it was very hot. I remember my little sister wore a beautiful blouse and carried a handkerchief which she used to wipe the sweat off her beautiful black skin. I remember the gutters along the streets were choked with trash. I remember that wherever we went people were selling food on the street. They had trays on their heads piled high with oranges (which are actually green in Africa) or breads or sweet snacks or even bags of water. I remember thinking how strange it all was and wondered what it must be like to live like that.

Finally we made it out of the residential areas and drove along the coast. We drove along the coast for a long time. Finally we made it to the beach where we met up with some of her friends.

At the beach my little sister introduced me to her boyfriend. Physical contact is as normal in African culture as breathing. In fact they think nothing even of men holding hands with men; it means nothing more than friendship. Apparently it is normal, at least in this part of Africa, for guys to hold hands with a girl, too, even if she is not his girlfriend. Her boyfriend came right up to me and grasped my hand. I was not sure what to do when he started pulling me around the beach and introducing me to the rest of the group of mostly young men. It really unnerved me the way the guys came and held my hand while they talked to me. But my little sister didn’t seem to mind that her boyfriend was holding hands with another girl so I figured it must be ok.

I remember swimming at the beach. Swimming for me is a great way to escape and relive stress. It was great and when I finally came out of the ocean I felt much more at ease with these people and was able to joke around a bit with the young men. (I was glad that none of them proposed marriage to me – a common way for African guys to flirt.)

I don’t remember much about the journey back to the ship. I just remember arriving back at the ship and feeling like I had survived a huge battle in an unknown land. I wasn’t sure yet if I had even enjoyed the whole experience. I had been so scared and uncomfortable the whole time. As I took the long walk back through the port area alone, though, I realized that I had a bit more of a skip in my step. The skip was in my step because I had just won a personal battle. I had gotten out of myself and done something I was terrified of.

(Photo: people waiting to board)

It was getting close to sundown but there was still a good sized line waiting to get on the ship to buy books. There were still a number of crew members outside doing crowd control. I waved to my friend who had arranged things for standby so I could go. He smiled back.

“Glad you went?” he asked.

Yeah, I think in the grand scheme of things I am glad I went.