turned into a 3 day trip of which 90 percent was spent sitting. I could just feel my muscles wasting away (or what is left of them anyway). The Prior’s mother died in December and “down, spend a night and come back” trip definitely took a little longer than expected.
The morning after the first night spent at the Parish house in the roadside town I got all packed up and ready to roll for the day. The funeral was supposed to start at 9 and as African time would have it we spent the first hour sitting around waiting for everyone to filter their ways into the church. After that came the 3 hour ceremony, which was mostly in Kabiyé (I spent a better part of it daydreaming and wondering when we were going to eat), I spent 1½ hours sitting on a truck fender going through the always awkward “who is this random white kid?” stares by all of the locals and friends of the prior who had yet to meet me. My decision to sit on that truck fender as opposed to walk to the cemetery in a cloud of dust, turned out to be well made. The casketbarrers danced with the dang thing all the way down the road and overshot the cemetery, but decided to dance their way back. Not only that, but there was a hoard of people following them = mass confusion. I figured that seeing a big box get put in the ground was gonna be pretty similar regardless of which part of the world I am in. Plus there were some villagers selling Solja (local soy cheese) and my stomach was eating itself.
Once the procession made its way back to the church more mass confusion set in as there were 500 hungry people. Lucky for me, being white puts me at the table of honor just about everywhere I go. We ate and drank for a little while before I was ready to call it a day. Nap Time. Nope, more like time to find something to do for the next few hours before the bus leaves.
Little did I know – I had ordered a bottle of honey from some order of nuns the week before, but never clearly heard the location of their house – that it was the sisters at Kazaboua who made the honey! Little travelers tip, local honey does a fairly good job at quelling allergies (bees, local pollinators, pick up the plant and dust allergens while pollinating and those in turn get dropped off in the honey a.k.a natural Allegra/Zyrtek/choice of name brand allergy medicine) and it is much cheaper than the alternative. I was approached by one of the sisters holding a liter bottle of the gooey goodness before being escorted by her and some of the monks to the cloister to have a look around. All wonderful, but when the heck are we leaving? Once I got to the house and had a chance to look around I found out that we were spending the night…no problem except that my ride back to the Parish house over 10k away left 3 hours ago. Thank god for Togo being full of moto taxis. The sisters found me one and acted exactly as you expect from some middle aged women who have devoted their lives to serving others “(to the driver and translated) now don’t you go changing the price on him when you get there. (a different nun) And you drive slowly! (another) You make sure he gets back safe! (the previous one) Slowly, slowly, slowly and carefully!...” It went on until I was down the road and out of site. I was giggling, but I am sure the driver was happy to finally get away.
I made it back in time for supper and to the surprise of the Polish curator. And I thought I was the last one to find things out. Luckily there weren’t any other visitors coming that night and my bed was still open. Sleep finally.
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