I grew up in a home of people who love food. Every holiday,
birthday, and special homecoming I find myself gazing over a smorgasbord of
delectable treats a la my mother. As I write this very blog, my mom and
grandmother are busily preparing arguably our biggest meal of the year,
Thanksgiving. I can just envision myself standing in the kitchen of my
grandmother’s log cabin in North Carolina, best china plate in hand, and mouth
watering over the outstretch of platters before my eyes. Never really knowing
my limits when it comes to eating mom-made food, I pile on generous heaps of
creamy mashed potatoes, slices of thick watery turkey, and cap it off with a
spoonful of cranberry sauce.
After the plates have been scraped clean and the leftovers
saran-wrapped, I generally melt into a food coma on the couch as I watch the
ending scenes of It’s a Wonderful Life
over and over and over again. Did you know every time a bell rings an angel
gets its wings? Next, the sleepies set in. Eyelids heavy and tummy bulging, I
normally have to push myself off the couch to make it to our annual Christmas
movie at the theaters. It’s a pretty spectacular day, even though stomach
cramps and questions of, “Did I have to
eat that second piece of pecan pie?” drone on in my head.
Despite what you might think, I do have a reason for telling
you about my experiences in a food-induced coma. While I thought that this type
of gorging was reserved for only Americans, I was mistaken.
This past week my team and I found ourselves deeper in the
African bush than I ever thought possible, walking along dusty paths doing
hut-to-hut visits. Not house visits, but grass and mud-hut visits. Again I say
to you, this is my life. After one particular hut visit, Tommy, Emily and I
noticed a giant mango tree about twenty feet into the distance. The huge
branches were arching over the tree trunk and casting shadows on the rough
African clay. As we neared the border of the shaded ground, we noticed the
outlines of what looked like small children sleeping.
As we approached, we saw that there were in fact two young
boys lying under the mango tree. Each one was about eight or nine years old. They
were outstretched on their bellies, each little face resting his left arm, and his
right arm strung down his side. We approached the unnamed bodies, and stopped
to investigate. First reaction: “Are they dead? Are they hurt?” Upon further
investigation, I saw that there were scads of mango peels strewn around the
boys. There must have been the remains of about ten mangos. One of the guys
from the ministry we are working with, Wanangwa, chuckled and said in his thick
Malawian accent, “Dis is what they do. They eat so many mangos that they fall
asleep before they can clean up the mess.” As he said this, he found a long
stick and poked one of the boys in the ankles. Nothing happened. He jiggled his
foot a little bit with the stick again, and the boy gasped awake like his alarm
went off and he had overslept.
I can only imagine what picture played out in the boy’s mind
after that. There he was, peacefully sleeping under the shade of a giant mango
tree, dreaming of the tender mangos he just devoured. He feels a little prick
on his ankle, and shakes it off as if it is a fly. The annoyance continues, and
he finally perks his head up to see what could be keeping him from his peaceful
slumber. He looks up, and there he sees three oddly colored people standing
over him, trying to mask smirks and questioning stares. Aliens! Since he has
never seen people of such strange color before, he thinks that they are indeed
from another planet.
As the real scene played out, he took one look at us, and
jumped up as if someone had pulled him up by the nape of his neck, and took off
screaming. He spun around like a tornado, arched his chest out and spine into a
‘C’ shape, and ran like the wind. His legs worked so fast that it looked as if he
was the Road Runner from Cartoon Network and they were running faster than the
speed of light. He made it to a thick tree about thirty feet away from us,
stood behind it, with head poked around and tears streaming down his face.
Shortly after this, the second boy woke up and followed suite with his friend
behind the tree.
As terrible as this situation was, I couldn’t help but laugh
softly at the boys’ fears. I mean, what would you do if a blue person woke you
up? I know I would probably do the same thing as these kids; run for the hills.
After Wanangwa comforted the boys and told them they we were not aliens but Americans coming to their village to
help with the crusade, the sobs of terror subsided. This experience, among with
many others this month, has shown me that we are actually in the wilderness.
The African bush is not just a stereotype, and there are in fact people who
have not laid eyes on a white person. Moral of the story: if a person of
strange color ever wakes you up, have no fear; it’s probably just the after
effect of a mango-induced coma.
