“Um…thank you.” She felt wary and embarrassed, remembering her last encounter and her state of mind. He must think she was a wreck. She looked up at him and noticed, in the bright African sunshine, his brown curly hair had hints of blond.
“It’s bloody hot, isn’t it? How about we go inside get a drink?” Ayo said.
She couldn’t help feeling drawn to him—his towering height and athletic physique, the jaunty, masculine way he moved, the deep brown of his skin. She followed him even though she knew she shouldn’t.
They walked into the cool, air-conditioned supermarket across the street. Its large sign
, Kingsway
, seemed to boast of its superiority. The one Western supermarket chain in town, owned by a Lebanese family, it flaunted an interior lined with chrome shelves, metal carts, and German-made freezers. Perched on those pedestals were imports from the UK—jars of marmite, bottles of blackcurrant Ribena juice, cans of Spam, butter cookies as well as chocolate and champagne. In 1973, the shelves were stocked full of imported items. Nigeria, drunk on its newly discovered oil, embarked on a shopping spree. Still, Sylvia rarely found anything to buy at the supermarket. It was mostly coveted Western food, nothing she found appetizing. She rarely came into the supermarket, preferring the far more “superior” market outside.They walked up to the lunch bar located at the back of the store. Sylvia sat down on one of the torn plastic yellow stools at the Formica bar. She felt uncomfortable, wondering what she was doing here with this man. She unfolded a sandalwood fan that she kept in her purse and fanned herself nervously.
“Two cokes and some chin-chin, eh? Bring it fast fast de lady is hot and thirsty,” Ayo said to the barman in the local pidgin English. Born in two different worlds, he could easily switch between the local pidgin to perfect BBC English.
“Most of the other wives are bloody frightened of coming out of the compound,” he said with a laugh. “That lot can’t handle the dirt, bits of rotting garbage, throngs of people. But you, you don’t seem to mind.”
“It’s not that different from where I’m from. We’ve got markets just like this in Hong Kong.”
The barman brought their drinks and chin-chin. She wiped the top of the coke bottle with a napkin from her purse and took a long sip.
“So I take it, you’re surviving here then?” Ayo ate the crunchy sweet squares known as chin-chin, a popular local snack made from fried dough.
“I suppose…,” she paused.
“Suppose it must be hard for you with your husband gone all the time,” he said.
She pushed stray strands of hair away from her face, embarrassed that she was such an open book to him.
“Look, is everything alright?” Ayo asked. “Pardon my prying, but I’m a doctor, and I must ask.”
“Oh no, I mean yes. My husband’s a good man.” She realized as a doctor, Ayo probably had protocols for dealing with wives running away in the middle of the night.
“Right, I’m glad to hear that. But honestly, if you need anything, anything at all, even just someone to chat with, please do call.” He took out a worn business card from his wallet and handed it to her.
“You don’t need to worry about me. You probably have other lives to save.”
He suddenly looked as if he were in pain. “I might save one or two, but the rest I fail,” he muttered, looking down, the muscles in his arm clenching the sides of his chair. “It’s the novice doctor in me I suppose, still unused to the inevitable deaths on my watch.” She guessed he was probably in his late twenties, and this was his first assignment out of medical school.
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” Sylvia said, her voice resigned as if the dream was in the past and would stay that way.
“You should come to the clinic some time and volunteer. We’re always short-handed and could use an extra pair of hands.” He looked straight into her eyes.
“I don’t know…I can’t…I can’t leave my baby just yet,” she said, but he had stirred something in her long forgotten.
“Of course. Whenever you’re ready, we’re always here.”
“I have to go, but I wanted to thank you…for everything.” She suddenly got up from her stool. She held his business card tightly in her hand, the paper getting damp from her sweat.
“No need.” He touched her bare arm.
Hours later, as she bathed, she would remember the brief touch of his hand, the spicy aromatic scent of the sandalwood soap reminiscent of her fan, and the promise of something.
WINSTON
Chapter 5Winston drove down a nameless dirt road through the jungle, the vines and branches striking the sides of his Landrover. He glanced into the forest, the shapeless trees covered in thick vine seemed dark and claustrophobic to him. As he made his way deeper into the forest, the foliage closed in on him, an invisible army camouflaged in leaves. He felt a nagging sense of fear that the road was leading him to a dead-end, a trap from which he would never escape. He pushed this thought from his mind.
Behind him, a small pickup truck followed, carrying bags of hybrid maize seeds. The bags were printed with the insignia of a maize plant, the iconic logo of Cole Agribusiness, an American multinational. As the truck drove over deep potholes, its contents were thrown around. A bag toppled off the truck, yellow seeds spilling onto the dirt road.
He came to a painted house in the middle of the forest. Its mud walls were decorated with red, black, and white geometric patterns. The design had a dizzying effect as if it were an illusion. Winston wondered if it was a symbol or if it was meant to ward off something. The decorated house, perhaps belonging to the chief, was surrounded by a cluster of plain mud huts. Winston and his colleagues approached the house. Children with flies clustered around their eyes
shouted out
O’Ebo
. Their screams served as a warning, and other villagers started to appear. Women, with babies wrapped on their backs, stopped pounding yam and stood by their large, mahogany mortars and pestles, staring at the newcomers.A rag-tag group of villagers dressed in torn t-shirts and batik wrappers started to congregate. A woman with a baby on her back tripped on a small stone. Winston tried to steady her, but the woman regarded him with suspicion.
Winston thought of his own wife and baby. He knew he had fled them, feeling confused and helpless. He had married Sylvia because he thought she had understood his work, its significance to the world and to him. But since the baby’s arrival, he felt she had changed. All her focus went to the baby. She had lost interest in his work, in her dream of nursing, and only seemed resentful of his travelling.
He felt betrayed in some small way, making him retreat. Everything he had learned in his life programmed him to protect himself. He thought of his mother, those dark days hiding in the broken building, the terrible way he had lost her. He had vowed he would never feel that way again. It had become his mantra, a mantra-building wall, monastic-like, holing his heart up in a small, six-by-six foot cell.
Winston’s Nigerian colleague, Tunde, explained to the villagers, “Dese men are here with an international NGO. The Agriculture Development Agency, the ADA 2000 project. Dey are working to improve farming in Nigeria. Dey have new solutions. Can we meet with you and your chief?” Tunde was a local agricultural extension worker, a position newly created by the national government to support the project. But Winston noticed the villagers seemed to regard him with caution.
The ADA 2000 project in West Africa was funded by a major philanthropic foundation in New York and donor governments like the United States and the United Kingdom. By distributing free “Starter Packs” with bags of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides to small rural farmers in Nigeria, the project leaders hoped to jumpstart high-yielding hybrid maize production. The goal was to find an initial group to cultivate their land as a demonstration plot and then scale up throughout Nigeria and West Africa. As a partner in the ADA 2000 project, Cole Agribusiness supplied the hybrid maize seeds while the ADA was tasked with distribution, outreach, and training among local farmers.
Winston and his colleague Richard, a thin, sunburned Englishman, sat down with the male villagers, even though he would later learn, it was the women in Nigeria and West Africa who did the bulk of the farming—tending to the crops every day, planting, and harvesting. The men helped seasonally with the hard labor such as clearing new land or making the mounds of dirt to plant new yams. But the women were not called to the meeting, and Winston, not fully understanding the roles of women in farming, did not request their attendance.
Winston and his colleagues sat on a bench on the side of the painted house, their backs leaning against the geometric patterns. In front of the house, a man sat in a pile of wood shavings, holding a large knife. He wielded the knife adeptly, carving a stool from a single piece of wood. They sat waiting for the chief. The villagers assembled around them, staring at the
O’Ebos
or foreigners, and Winston didn’t feel entirely welcome. But he noticed one man, wearing a Nigerian All Stars soccer T-shirt, grinning widely at him, seemingly eager to talk.“My name is Simeon Balewa. I’m de chief Balewa’s son,” he said, pointing at himself. He was a stout man with a round face, friendly eyes, and like his fellow villagers, three scars engraved into each cheek, the identity marks of his tribe.
“Where are you from?” Simeon looked directly at Winston. “I know de English, but neva seen a man like you.” He seemed more educated than your average villager.
“China,” Winston responded.
“China? What it look like in China?”
“Much like this but rice paddies,” Winston said.
“Like dis?” Simeon said, seeming curious and surprised.
Finally, the chief came out of the painted house. He wore a flowing
agbada
, and Winston felt somewhat intimidated. The chief sat down on a wooden stool held up by ornately carved elephants. A woman poured palm wine from a bright yellow plastic container into an enamel tin cup. Winston winced when he saw the old label for engine oil on the side of the yellow plastic container.“Please,” the chief said as the woman held out another cup to him. The chief wore a fake gold Rolex watch, but Winston noticed the hands of the watch were frozen in time, either broken or the battery needed to be replaced.
Winston took a polite sip of the thick, milky drink. “We’re doctors of the soil and plants,” he explained.
“Is that so?” the chief retorted, and his eyes narrowed in disbelief. His attitude reflected his thoughts; no doubt he had met many a white man coming to his village promising magic—first it was their God, then their doctors, and now doctors of the dirt.
“These are improved seeds, hybrid seeds. We crossed two different breeds to produce a new, stronger, and healthier plant. You’ll get two or even four times more harvest with this improved seed,” Richard explained, waving the seeds in his hand with a flourish. It all sounded like a modern Jack and the Beanstalk.
“Eh, what is dis? Dis I neva heard before. You white people, always coming wit something. Promising miracles.” The chief let out a loud, raucous laugh.
“We’re part of the Green Revolution. Scientists in America made these seeds. They were successful in Asia, where I come from. Before, people were starving. Now, everyone’s belly is full,” Winston said, patting his own stomach for effect.
“Ha! Da Green Revolution, eh! Dis is new; I haven’t heard of dis one. Who is it going to make rich dis time?” The chief clapped his hands loudly and rubbed them together, but Winston noticed Simeon listening intently.
“This Starter Pack we will give each of you for free,” Winston continued. “It should be enough to plant a one hectare plot.” He showed them the contents of the Starter Pack—a ten-kilogram bag of hybrid maize seeds, a fifty-kilo bag of nitrogen fertilizer, and a small pesticide backpack containing a hand-pumped sprayer. The ADA 2000 Starter Pack program was part of the American aid package to West Africa, millions of dollars pledged, then used to purchase the seeds and inputs from Cole Agribusiness.
“Free, eh?” the chief looked even more suspicious. “What you tink I am? I am not stupid. Noting is for free in dis world.”
“Can we look at your farms?” Winston changed the subject. He could see they weren’t making progress with the chief. He thought they might fare better talking to the individual villagers, and he wanted to talk to Simeon directly.
The chief waved his hand dismissively. He said to Simeon, “Son, show dem de fields.”
The “fields” were small, random, slash and burn clearings in the forest, each one full of tomato, cassava, cowpeas, and okra. In between the plants were piles of dirt, some three feet tall. Simeon dug into one of these mounds with his machete, producing a large, gray-brown tuber.
Without the chief, the men were more talkative.
“Don’t listen to my fatha. He is of de old way. But not me. I practice de new way. I go to missionary school. Ma wife and I, we practice family planning. You know dis? Family planning? We only have four children,” Simeon said.
“He only has four children because he has problems…you know da kind I’m talking about,” another villager laughed.
“How was your last harvest?” Winston asked the villagers.
“No good, sah. We had small small rain last year,” Simeon said.
Winston opened a bag of the high-yielding maize seeds. He scooped up a handful and showed the villagers. These were the seeds of plenty, manufactured from the good intentions of Western science. Winston, the bearer of these seeds to Africa, on that first sunny day, was himself bewitched by their promises.
***
After several months of peddling the seeds, Winston’s truck of seeds was still just that—full of seeds. Of the small number of Starter Packs that had actually been distributed, half had been left unused and pecked by chickens while industrious wives had sold the other half at the market. These same wives poured out the pesticide and used the empty metal canisters and backpacks for carrying water. Winston estimated that some of the buyers at these industrious wives’ stalls might have planted some seeds. But without the fertilizers and pesticides, he didn’t know if the laboratory-bred seeds would work their magic.
All in all, Winston knew, the last few months had not been particularly successful. But he told himself, it was only the beginning, although he had envisioned a different kind of beginning altogether. He dreamed of being a hero of sorts, saving the world from hunger and all that. But was he really after saving lives or was he trying to salvage his own life? The question waged a quiet tug of war in the back of his mind.
Winston and Richard drove to the same painted house in the forest outside the town of Ife, about fifty miles east of their compound in Ibadan. Simeon greeted them, smiling, “My fatha is at a funeral in anotha village. But please, please, welcome to my village.”
Without the chief around, Winston hoped they would have success with Simeon and the younger generation of the village.
Simeon showed Winston and Richard his home and introduced them to his wife, Abike. Winston squinted as he entered the dark, smoky mud hut. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out a small fire in the middle of the hut and some straw sleeping mats in the corner. Simeon seemed somewhat embarrassed by his living quarters.
“Your hut is nice and cool,” Winston complimented Simeon. “The palm leaf roof creates a breeze unlike the tin roof bungalows the British built. It’s so hot in those.”
“You tink so?” Simeon said, confused. “I like de British house betta.”
“Well, then you’ll have to get air condition,” Winston said, and Simeon grinned.
Winston stepped out of the hut and stood in the middle of the village. Flies buzzed around his shoes, attracted by the animal dung from the cattle and goats kept inside the village walls at night. Women with babies strapped to their backs crouched on the ground crushing alligator pepper to flavor their stews—reddish brown seeds from the pods of trumpet-shaped purple flowers, a cardamom-like peppery spice known by Portuguese traders as the grains of paradise. Children with protruding navels, the telltale sign of malnutrition, clustered around him. Although the Western media concentrated on famine in their stories, Winston knew the lack of protein in growing children was the more insidious killer on the continent.
Simeon led them to the fields bordering the village.
“Can we take some samples of your soil?” Winston asked. “We need to test its nutrient levels in order to decide how much fertilizer you will need.”
“Yes, yes of course,” Simeon said.
Winston set to work with a group of villagers watching. He put on rubber gloves to avoid contaminating the soil sample with the calcium chloride in his own sweat. He first scraped leaves and manure from the surface of the soil. Then he pushed a long metal probe into the ground about a foot deep. The probe pulled up a core of soil in its tube, which he emptied into a clean, plastic bucket. He did this several more times, then carefully put the soil samples into plastic bags, which he placed in a cooler full of ice for transporting back to the lab. The ice kept the soil cold to avoid mineralization caused by the heat.
After he was done, they walked back to the shade of a thatched canopy made of dried palm leaves, built at the center of the village. A group of villagers followed them and sat down, the group quickly increasing in size.
“I will bring stools to sit on,” Simeon said to Winston and Richard, embarrassed that his countrymen sat on straw mats on the ground. Simeon returned with intricately carved wooden stools for them.
“I don’t think your father will notice we took the samples, the cores were very small,” Winston said.
“No problem, no problem. My fatha is backward. If we follow him, we no move to de future.”
“My father was like that too. He didn’t want me to study science and come to the West,” Winston said.
“We can’t listen to dem. Dey are of de old ways.” Winston recognized that impatient, dissatisfied tone of youth in Simeon’s voice. “I want to be like de English wit lights and TV and air con.”
Winston understood what that glimpse into the modern Western world could do, how it made you look at your own people, how it drove you to want something more. He had felt that same longing when he first saw a visiting American professor’s house in Taipei. In the professor’s house on campus, there was a flush toilet with a seat. It was so clean, Winston was impressed; he was obsessively hygienic. After that, he couldn’t use the Chinese latrine, that reeking hole in the ground. He was embarrassed at how backward his people were. They used to be the Chinese Empire and they had fallen to this.