Thursday, March 3, 1977, 5:00 pm - Day 401, Part 1

I got one of Otis, one of that planted head, and one of some of my favorite Kamiendor ladies. I went with them to market. I got there, still feeling good. I was, I thought, where I wanted to be and with whom I wanted to be. Just as we were coming into the market area (we walked the 2 miles from Kamiendor) it sort of hit me. The two mile walk in the sun got to me all at the last minute. All I could think of was finding a cool place in the shade and getting some liquid in me.

Any little bit of work would make me feel like I had just finished running a mile. I ended up picking shady spots where I spent most of my time, and I would try to relax completely and think "cool" while I was resting. When I would finally get my energy back, I would plan out what I needed to buy, where it was, and where a likely looking spot was where I could go afterwards to recuperate. I would then get up very slowly and walk very carefully to the trader stand of my picking, buy what I needed, then go over to my shady place to recover.

It wouldn't take more than my getting up suddenly or twitching my head to exhaust me for a few minutes. I was dreading the two mile walk back here to Kamiendor.

I made it back alive, and did pretty good even. I put my t-shirt on my head so that it covered my head, shoulders, and the back of my neck and upper back. It was like walking in the shade. I took my steps slowly and thought about each one in advance. I was in conscious control over each step, keeping sure contact with the ground to avoid the possibility of mind-shattering quick jerks from a slip or stumble.

Anyway, back in Kamiendor, after I took two asprin and recovered a bit, I went to watch my ladies beat rice. At the end, the thing that caused me to say that I felt very much down, was that I was sitting there, she finished her rice beating and was just sitting there also, and neither one of us said a thing. I was sitting there feeling very bad about it, but I just couldn't think of one thing to say. Not one word! A complete relapse!

Anyway, I still want to try and put in all of my thoughts from before, because some of them are pretty amazing and unbelievable, especially my looking back on them.

Going back to yesterday, I finished Otis and inspected the planted head. The next thing that I did was go take my bucket bath. It was during this bath that I realized that my shyness was gone. The bathhouse doesn't have a door, and so I always manage by hanging my towel and clothes over the nails above the door. This acts more as a sign that the bathhouse is occupied than it does as a screen. I usually feel a bit self-conscious while I am there, but not this time. It didn't phase me a bit this time. I told myself that I could walk right out that door then, without feeling a bit of embarrassment. I did not go out, by the way.

After my bath, being now super-clean and presentable, and knowing that my shyness was gone, I went out and visited with all of my usual people, talking up a storm, holding my own on a normal conversation. It was after this that I came back to the house to start my non-stop 6 hour writing session.

Spread throughout yesterday, I had lengthy conversations with one of the kids. He was getting on my nerves all of the time, because he kept insinuating things like "white man thinks that black man is like a dog". I didn't like him because of all that he was saying, and so I would counter and we would have a big debate going. I didn't like any of it at the time, but later last night, I realized that this was one of the factors contributing to the "change of my life".

Another point happened on Tuesday evening, March 1st. The old lady next door came to the house while I was out front. We exchanged the standard Kono greeting, which covers about 100% of my Kono vocabulary. I have it down pat. All of the other Kono has continuously and forever all gone in one ear and out the other, with not one word that I can remember. This is the way that it has been since I came to Kono country. I just wasn't able to learn Kono. Anyway, the lady came to the house, we did the basic greeting, and then she threw in a word after. It was "ye", and just then I realized that I knew that that word meant "water", the first word that I was able to pick up in ages.

It felt to me that I had just found the key to my language difficulties, and that from this one word I would be able to build up around it. I was thinking up things that would be useful, like learning how to say, "give me water". This led further to my thinking that I had never got past lesson #1 in Kono lessons. I am referring to my Krio lessons, and lesson #1 was "greetings". I figured that if I dug out my Krio lessons handbook and looked at what the different objectives of each lesson were, then I could use the same objectives to learn Kono.

I never got around to following up on it yesterday, and still haven't. At the time though, when the lady said "ye" and I understood, all of these thoughts occured to me, and I was sure that my language problem would be quickly solved.

I would now like to cover my three concurrently running illnesses that I had just previously to my "change of life", and which I am still getting over. The three are: 1) my cuts and sores, 2) my shitting situation, and 3) my fever and headache. I feel that these illnesses played a very important role in what took place in my thoughts the last few days.

You can get alot of information by going back to Day 397 and re-reading what I wrote last Sunday. I would like to expand on this according to how I thought about it last night. Going back to the week before last Sunday, I was in Saiama. We were bush clearing on Friday, and during that day I added quite a few scrapes, aches, and pains to my already abundant supply. I think that on last Saturday I counted up something like 30 different spots where I was in varying stages of healing on my body. My hands and arms were all nicked up. My basic theory to getting them to heal is to just wash it clean and then leave it on its own. In most cases this is sufficient. Sometimes infection sets in and then I have to step in and sort things out for my body.

That cut on my foot that I said was bothering me, was just about the only spot that got infected. I got that cut on Friday, and my foot was fine during Saturday's 10 mile walk back to my motorcycle. On Sunday it was tender and a bit puffy so that I had to limp on it when I moved around. On Tuesday I realized that it was infected, and so I sat myself down and played doctor. I figure that when a scratch gets infected, it will no longer heal. To cure this you have to open back up the scab, getting back to the wound itself, and cleaning out all of the puss. After this I applied some of my purple liquid, which has proved itself time and again, that it inhibits infection. With this done, I felt pretty good, proud that my operation was a success. I still limped on it that day, but I knew that the soreness was from the operation.

On Wednesday morning the puffyness was still there, but all of the soreness was gone. I knew that the cleaning out of the sore was a success and that it was now safely on its way to being healed. This was Wednesday morning, and it helped greatly to put me in position to have a great day. A day that I later reffered to as the greatest day of my life.

The second illness was with concern to my stomach and my shitting situation. On Saturday, during my 10 mile hike, I had my backpack on my back with my belly-strap in place. For the first 8 miles from Saiama to Gborgborma, I felt fine. Once in Gborgborma, though, things started happening. I had brought two grapefruits from Saiama, and had just finished eating the first when I strolled into town. The paramount chief happened to be there, and he gave me two more grapefruits and a bunch of bananas. I accepted them, not quite knowing where I was going to put them.

I put one grapefruit away in the spot that was left vacent by the one that I had eatten. The rest of my pack was full, so I had to hold the other grapefruit and bananas in my hands on the way out of town. I had an urge to eat the grapefruit, but I could not while I was holding the bananas. Therefore, I had to eat the bananas before I could get to the grapefruit. I think there were 8 bananas and I managed to eat all but two, which I then found room for, balanced on top of my pack. I was now ready for the grapefruit.

All of this was done while I was walking along. You cross two or three good drinking spots just outside of Gborgborma, and I stopped at each one as I came to it, and got a drink. I was at the last one when I came to the grapefruit which I still had an urge for. I was still only maybe a half mile outside of Gborgborma. As I went along, I felt my belly-strap getting tighter and tighter. It only has one setting, so I had to just put up with it. I ate my grapefruit and it put me over the top. I ate too much, and my belly-strap was just making it worse by putting pressure on my stomach.

I made it the last 1 1/2 miles to my motorcycle in great discomfort where my tummy was concerned. This was why on Sunday, when my stomach was sore, I thought that it might have been from my backpack's belly-strap. I said that my shits on Sunday were good and healthy looking ones, but the 4 or 5 in the one day isn't normal.

On Monday, it was 4 or 5 shits again, but now they were very fluid. On Tuesday, I felt that my stomach and shits were under control and back to normal. On Wednesday I was sure, so I was very happy about that. This was Wednesday, the big day, and this thought of being well again helped to make it a great day.