[The Occurrence of Blue]
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away – known only vaguely by its name of Kiffa, Mauritania – a strange thing happened early one morning. Leah on that day she found herself at Maggie’s residence, doing whatever one does at Maggie’s residence. The day was warm, sunny, pleasant; things, however, were to take a turn for the not so better.
Not much time having passed since her arrival, Leah soon heard the sounds of yelping off in the distance. She grabbed herself from her busied work. “I think someone’s hurting a dog!” Maggie looked up her book as Leah flew out the door. Leah no sooner came across a group of young boys with “Children of the Corn”-like looks in their eyes. They were surrounding a blue and brown colored dog tied to a post. She asked, “What are you doing?” and they replied smilingly, “We’re killing him,” pointing to the canine. Leah in a flash threw herself in-between the dog and children and screamed for Maggie.
{Maggie later commented that when she heard Leah scream, she thought Oh shoot! They’re killing her! – Such was the horror-struck tone of Leah’s plead for help.}
Maggie dashed out of the house and toward Leah’s voice. She found her surrounded by dark-skinned children, with her arms clasped around a bruised and injured dog. Maggie pushed her way to Leah and with the exchange of only looks, understood the situation. She helped her free the animal. They told the children, “This is our dog now.” The children, naturally, started negotiating for a price. Leah and Maggie, wide-eyed in disbelief, glanced at each other and then the dog. The looked at the children and said again, “This is our dog now,” and walked away, with the battered animal in their arms, to Maggie’s house.
At the house, the two realized that the boys had colored the dog with blue dye, evidenced by its blue-splotched coat and blue-tipped ears. Leah proceeded to wash off as much of the color as possible while the canine, still terrified, tried his best to flee from her. He soon calmed, however, and lay down. Leah, and later I, soon fell in love with the dog. She named him while he slept, and that is how it came to be that a dog named Blue lives on in Kiffa.
[A Car Chase]
Once upon a time, Maggie found herself wandering through the Kiffa city market. Perhaps Clarice, a fellow Kiffa volunteer, was with Maggie, but I – being neither present at the time of these occurrences nor having a fully functioning memory of the tale Maggie narrated to me some weeks ago – tend to forget details.
In any case, it was morning and the place bustled with activity. The streets and alleys overflowed with people: individuals drifted through the scene, greeting friends and neighbors with toothy smiles and jostling one another as the hour climbed and the need to finish daily tasks mounted. Young boys with wooden planks balanced on their heads – the boards covered with thin loafs of bread baked earlier that morning – weaved in and out of the crowd; women dressed in mulafas sat on sidewalks, their fruits and vegetables arrayed before them, greeting and bargaining with passerby’s; and neighboring butcher stands displayed fresh cuts of meat already being swarmed by a sea of flies.
Maggie, completely absorbed in the wondrous commotion of it all, was suddenly stopped in her tracks by a white Moor man with whom she was previously acquainted. He was in his car and asked if he could give her a ride. Maggie stood for a moment, undecided. The sun was high in the sky and her fatigue considerable. Eventually, heat and tiredness combined and reasoned Maggie to accept the offer.
Not much time passed since she entered the car, that while momentarily parked in the crowded street, a man in a yellow truck pulled up beside them. He shouted, out of his window, asking Maggie if she knew Spanish. He was pleasantly surprised when she said “Yes.” Their exchange of Spanish pleasantries was rudely interrupted, however, when the car in which Maggie sat lurched forward and noisily hurried away. Confused and angered, she turned to the white Moor driver and said, “The man in the truck wanted to talk to me.” He did not respond and continued to drive. Maggie soon thereafter surmised that they were being followed, tailed in fact, by the yellow truck. “Oh shoot,” she nervously mumbled to herself.
The white Moor, viewing this action as a challenge to his manhood – and that in the presence of a beautiful American female – pushed down on the gas and drove faster yet. Pedestrians and donkey carts dodged and darted out of the speeding vehicle’s path. Maggie frantically screamed at the Moor “You don’t want to share me?” He responded “No!”
Soon, with enough space between himself and the truck, the white Moor pulled into an alleyway and watched a yellow blur zoom past. He pulled the car out onto the road, and Maggie asked if he was taking her home. He shook his head. “Oh shoot,” she nervously mumbled to herself, again. She felt her stomach fall. He said needed to fuel first and started driving towards the gas station. In the meanwhile, the yellow truck had turned around and was driving back from in the direction of the gas station. The two men soon spotted each other. What followed was some crazed game of chicken as the two speeded towards each other. Suddenly, the truck driver swerved his vehicle sideways such that to block the Moor’s car from passing. Maggie sat terrified, white-knuckled hands on the door handle, ready to jump and roll. The Moor, being ever so clever, jetted off of the paved road, onto the sand and, having bypassed the truck, back onto the road, and all this at some rather maddening speed. A small smile spread across the Moor’s face. Maggie continued to sit, unflinching and dry-mouthed.
The Moor bought gas and drove Maggie to her house. She did not speak. He said good-bye. She quickly opened the door and, without looking back, walked through her front door.
[To Lose a Phone, and a Rake, in a Latrine]
It was a relatively well-lit and not so stormy night in Kiffa. Still unaccustomed to the desert heat, Ritesh – a somewhat tall, dark and rather handsome young lad – had spent the evening gorging himself on water. I love water, he thought to himself. Water, however, was not to return the sentiment. Most likely because water is an inanimate object incapable of humanly emotions, but I suppose that’s getting too technical about the whole matter. In any case, not much time had passed before Ritesh needed to use the facilities. Lacking a flashlight, the all too clever boy decided to use the light on his cell phone to guide him to the latrine, located outside behind the house.
He dashed out towards the hole-in-the-ground, as he liked to call it. As soon as he closed the door to the small room, he found himself marveling at the amount of light given off by the moon. “I don’t even need the phone tonight,” Ritesh mumbled to himself. At that precise moment, without concentration or thought, he opened the hand that held his phone and watched it fall silently into the dark and deep hole. The phone landed vertically, with a splat. It stuck into whatever one finds in a latrine and was held there. The light from the phone continued to show brightly, mockingly. A light at the end of the tunnel, Ritesh momentarily thought to himself, before breaking out into a long series of “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my...” while running around in circles.
After calming some, he uttered out loud, “Oh shoot! Where’s the rake?” The boy was determined to retrieve his phone, and he had a plan. He ran into the house and grabbed the rake out of the utilities room. He ran back to the latrine and managed to push the length of the rake into the hole. “Oh shoot! This latrine is deep!” The rake reached only midway. Ritesh ran back to the house and after a few frantic moments, found a lengthy stick. Ingeniously, with the use of duck tape he attached the stick to the rake. He ran back to the latrine and stuck his new device into the hole. It’s rather hot and humid in here, Ritesh thought to himself as he put his arm into the hole. The new stick barely reached the bottom. The boy tried and tried to retrieve the phone, in the process knocking it over and submerging it slightly into the darkened sludge, but he could not get it onto the rake. Eventually, somewhat angered and frustrated, his maneuvering of the rake device became, in a word, violent, and in a matter of seconds, the duck tape failed. He watched the rake fall silently to the bottom of the latrine, joining his phone. “Oh shoot! I lost the rake.”
Ritesh, not knowing what else to he could do, walked back to the house and took a shower.
A cautionary note: These stories are only “based on true stories,” not unlike similarly cautioned Hollywood screenplays.
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