Commentary: What they have

This is the second of a two part article started last week about my visit to an African village.

By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor

After walking more than a mile from the village center, we arrived at the village school. It was made of the same mud bricks as the houses, but with a sheet metal roof. I counted 10 classrooms. We followed Kea into a classroom. The children stayed outside, laughing, playing, shouting, much like a group of American kids would have done. The classroom floor was concrete.

One of the teachers told us there were eight grades and 10 teachers. They taught math, English, Swahili, art and music, he said. I thought of our schools in the United States that were eliminating art and music from the elementary school curriculum. Music and art flourished all over east Africa. Are art and music more important to the poor?

The teacher told us there were about 1,500 hundred students in the school. For most it was all the education they would get. After the teacher’s presentation, we looked around the classroom. The books on shelves in the back, except for math and English, seemed almost random, donations, I assumed, including many novels, some classic — Ivanhoe — some not so classic — Danielle Steele — for children? I saw no children’s books. The children’s art hung on the walls, much like an elementary school in the United States. They depicted mostly village and family scenes. There were no computers in the school. There was also no electricity for air conditioning, despite the sweltering, humid heat.

As we left the school our child companions rejoined us, shouting, “Hi,” laughing and holding our hands again. We visited the village hospital. By the time we went outside to join the children, it was even hotter. They still laughed, skipped and chattered as we took the long walk back to the village center.

When we returned to the village, there was a large red and blue blanket on the ground, and about 20 yards back a fire under a grill flared and smoked. Kea asked us to sit. Men and women set down large bowls of food and brought plates, spoons and forks. Others handed us bowls of soup — sweet potato, Kea said. The women dished chicken, beans and rice from the steaming bowls onto our plates. The food was spicy, similar to the spices in Indian food. We were served bread made from cassava flour. It all tasted good. The portions were huge. I feared embarrassment from wasting food I couldn’t finish. We all left a lot on our plates, especially chicken. When we finished eating, adults handed the children our plates.  They gobbled the food quickly.

Some of us gave the children pens and paper, which we had been told were in short supply. They grabbed them with glee and started drawing. A little later, drummers appeared and started playing. The children got up and danced and sang and invited us to join them. They tried to teach several of our women how to do the traditional African dance. The village men laughed and beat their drums. Whether they were dancing, singing or just talking, they reverberated a vibrant energy.  The joy was contagious. We danced with them.

It was easy to focus on what the people of Mbamba don’t have. They don’t have vehicles of any kind; washing machines, dryers, refrigerators or any other appliance; electronic entertainment, such as radio, TV, Walkman, IPod or computers; showers, bath tubs or toilets; animals or machinery to help farm; diapers; modern toys; telephones; air conditioning or heating; make-up; deodorant; tissues; glasses; dental care; flooring; curtains; electric lights or any means of irrigating their crops. Instead of lawn mowers, they use machetes to “mow” during the wet season when the grass grows high. As best I could tell, they had no underwear. At least, the children didn’t. The list of what they did not have seems endless.

What they have is less obvious and concrete, but defines their lives: joy in their everyday lives; a sense of community; the pleasure of helping someone in need; the gaiety of lives filled with music and dance; the fulfillment of creating music and art; the satisfaction of eating what they planted, grew and nurtured with their own hands; the natural peace of connection with the land; living surrounded by the natural beauty of the landscape and wild creatures of Africa; the love of an extended family and clan; small, simple pleasures; the accomplishment of making with their hands things they need to live; the time to enjoy the company and comradery of each other and their children; real human communication with those they care for; respect for and from each other; the incomparable enjoyment of watching and nurturing children; knowledge of what is really necessary; I suspect, the joyfulness of sex without it being promoted endlessly by media; the ability to distinguish the important from the unimportant; acceptance of life; acceptance of death; thankfulness for what they have.  These people, desperately poor by our standards, lacking every comfort, convenience and entertainment that we deem necessary, are alive in the most human sense of the word.

In every village, town and city we visited or passed through in east Africa, most people we came within hearing distance of waived, smiled and said hello. Many said, “Welcome,” asked where we were from. Never before in any other place have I had so many conversations with strangers. They were curious, as well as extroverted. They asked questions. They wanted to know about us. They were interested in other human beings, and they took the time to show that interest, and to try to relate to all of us.

I remember a similar openness, friendliness and zest for life when I was growing up in a small town in California in the 1940’s and 50’s. It no longer exists in the America I know today.

It has been said that all other things being the same, it is better to be rich than to be poor. I suppose that if you isolate those two conditions, that is true. But life is more complex than that. It cannot be isolated into rich or poor. Life involves a complex set of conditions, relative wealth being only one. The villagers of Mbamba taught me that wealth is not the most meaningful condition and may even distract one from real human fulfillment, as it has many Americans. I don’t mean to imply that the people of Mbamba do not suffer or to minimize the hardships they endure. But many Americans could learn something valuable from the way they live with what they have.

The people of Mbamba taught me that if you have the bare necessities, you don’t need anything else. You don’t need what many Americans strive for, so desperately that if they don’t get it — and they never have enough — they numb the effects of their perceived failure with pills and alcohol.

When the singing and dancing in Mbamba concluded, the children who had accompanied me on our tour ran over, said good-bye and hugged me. I hugged them and turned my head away so they couldn’t see my tears. My tears were not for them.

— Boyd Lemon is a retired lawyer, who re-invented himself as a writer, living in Ventura. He recently returned from a year in France and Italy. His memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” has just been published. It is about his journey to understand his role in the destruction of his three marriages. He believes it will help others to deal with their own relationship issues. Excerpts are on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com