African Mother Medicine

Annie and I spent 7 weeks in Mozambique after our wedding. We were teaching English among other projects at a small teacher's college near the capital city of Maputo. Our accommodations were austere by most western standards. Sporadic running water, rickety home-made beds with old foam mattresses, difficult public transportation, no phone, etc. Not really austere, but remote. Annie was in the process of shooting a documentary style film about the growth of the LDS church in Mozambique, and as a new husband, I found that a great deal of my time was focused on lugging around camera equipment and running errands.
On one such errand I was running along a dirt road with a camera in my hands that Annie had sent me to fetch. There were eucalyptus trees planted along one side, presumably or shade, and brush on the other. I liked to take my time walking this road because earlier I had found a flat chameleon that had been run over by a tire. I have never really recovered from my boyhood fascination with snakes and lizards, and the discovery of the chameleon filled my with wonder and hope that I might happen across some interesting African wildlife.
On this particular day, I was running. I don't remember why I was running, but I was. On my right, several women were walking along the path with heavy loads balanced on their heads. Fruit, laundry, groceries, balanced with perfect skill as their dusty feet shuffled along in bright flip-flop sandals.
As I ran, the setting sun glared in my eyes, and the insects of the evening began to swarm. I felt them pepper my skin as I ran through clouds of small black gnats. Soon my hair was an ecosystem of insects and I ran my hand through to brush them away. It was bound to happen and it did. One of the little blokes went directly into my right eye. Now, all of you have had a bug in your eye, but this one was different. As my blinking eye mashed the poor fellow into mud and my tears began to flow, I felt one of the most intense stinging sensations I have ever felt. Almost in a panic I rubbed and pushed on they eye. The insect must have had some venom that punished runners, for ten seconds hadn't passed before my eye was so inflamed and blurry that I couldn't see out of it. Of course this slowed my pace. I walked for some distant and was really quite alarmed at how intense the sting was, but I couldn't dislodge the black blur from my eye.
I had no choice, so stopped one of the passing women and said as politely as I could in Portuguese, "Excuse my could you help me please? I know this is odd but I have something in my eye, could you see if you can get it?" She understandingly lowered the basket from her head and approached. This is where it got weird. Without a word she grasped my head quite firmly with one strong hand in back and one on my forehead, one thumb on each eyelid upper and lower. She forced my eye open with the force of a seasoned mother and looked. "Eu acho bichinho." She said assertively, (I think it's a bug). "Yes it is a bichinho," I said, "can you get it out?" Then without any warning, she spat, powerfully, but with pinpoint accuracy. I felt the spray on my face and a wet gob in my eye, and the black blur....gone. Like salivary artillery she had honed in and spat the bug out of my eye! She released me and I could see through the blurry tears her hand on her hips and a satisfied smile. I was stunned. Did that just happen?What could I say? "Obrigado minha senhora" I stammered. (Thank you Miss.) She gave a polite bow and said, "Nao a de que." (It was nothing). I wiped the spit from my eye and trotted on, trying to process what had just happened. Although grateful, I confess I was looking forward to splashing some water on my face, perhaps even with a bit of soap. To my amazement, the stinging sensation immediately dispersed. Once recovered from the shock of the spit wad in my eye, I couldn't help but smile and finally laugh. It was a strangely exciting and not altogether unpleasant dose of African mothers medicine. And as I trotted off into the sunset and through the bugs, I couldn't help but think, "Can't wait to try this one on my kids."

BB Gun Fight

Brandon and I had made an exquisite raccoon trap out of plywood. It used a mousetrap as a trigger and slammed tight when anything crawled after the enticing tuna fish we had laid as bait. One day while checking our trap, we encountered a squalid gang of notorious neighborhood bad guys poking around our trap. They armed with BB guns and we with slingshots. Two of us, four of them. They were a villainous group. Lazy, outspoken, obnoxious bullies who we had little contact with because they were two streets over and not immediate neighbors. But, we knew them well enough to know they were foes not friends. I don't recall exactly how it got started, but I guess it was something like this. "Hey, get away from our trap." "Oh, its a trap is it?" The conversation escalated. "You guys stay away or I'll shoot you with my wrist rocket." When one of the boys gave our trap a little kick, it was like the shot heard around the world. I took aim and let a rock fly which pelted the pudgy 10 year old in the fleshy part of his lower back and I watched him squirm at the sting. They returned fire with a volley of BBs from their pump up guns that sent Brandon and I ducking for cover as twigs snapped around us. Brandon and I split up onto opposite sides of the canyon above our enemies and lobbed pebbles in from above, a good military move. After a few minutes of this relentless barage the bullies scurried down the trail in retreat. Brandon and I though it was a final retreat, but we were wrong and we made a crucial mistake. We chased our enemy.
100 or so yards down the trail, the enemy launched a counter attack and caught us by surprise. One gunner on my flank and the other dead ahead near the creek. I was pinned down. I was shocked to see them pumping their guns with 10 pumps for maximum velocity. I was taking heavy fire and the BBs were hitting the rocks I was hiding behind with enough force to shatter dusty fragments in my face. This was serious. I tried to return fire but couldn't find any rocks small enough for my slingshot among the boulders. Just then I felt a terrible sting in my side. There was blood soaking up the fruit of the lomb cotton T-shirt on my left side under the armpit. The gunner on my flank had moved into a clear shooting position and was now making contact. The sting of the BB felt like a wasps sting, but was dulled by the adrenaline rushing through my skinny body.
There was only one thing to do. Brandon had been captured and was being held at gunpoint. I waited for the pudgy one near the creek to fire and begin to reload. Like a lion seeking out the weak or elderly among the heard I fixed my eyes on the fat one who was now frantically pumping up his gun for another shot. I charged with the speed of a tiger, my 14 inch waist and bony arms in a blur of ferocity. Tackling him into the cold water and pinning him down, he squirmed and fought as I wrested the gun from his hands. He started to bawl and the shooting stopped. Everyone saw the blood on my side and began to fear their mothers intuition. "Your the ones that started this hell." he blubbered. We had a short argument about who started it, and then meandered off as if The Lord of the Flys had a different ending. I still have a scar in my side.