I have a son in Africa.
In hindsight it was prescient; which
I guess is how prescience always reveals itself.
It was the summer of 2010. We had
been making regular trips to the “upper Choccolocco” (the first upstream shoals
from the Hy 77 bridge) and decided to walk the Rita 2 over the rocks and see
what lay beyond. What lay about a half mile beyond was Jackson Shoals. It was
late; we were tired and as far as we could see up stream were rocky waters. A
subsequent inspection from Google /map/satellite indicated we chose wisely.
On the return, as we walked the canoe
down upper Choccolocco shoals I reflected upon absent hazards as what we were
doing you couldn’t do safely in Africa; the waters looked a lot like places
hippos and crocodiles might be. Of the existent menaces my concern was a
cottonmouth coming at me stomach level. Shaving 4 was more worried about underwater
turtle attacks on his “privates”; possibly an age thing.
Well he graduates from Eckerd College
with a double major in physics and East Asian studies (he’s an “old China hand”
by this point), joins the Peace Corps, and gets assigned to Africa! He flew out
of the Birmingham airport with a fresh buzz cut, two passports (one regular,
one US government) saying he was starting to feel like Jason Bourne.
The first month, in the general
vicinity of Lomé with a guest
family whose mother felt he was not eating enough, was orientation: customs, language, open a Togo bank
account. He had started working on French right after the Peace Corps indicated
he looked like their kind of skill set and said “start learning French”. I’m
not sure if he has a gift for other languages but he likes learning them and
works hard at it. It is not true that “you can do anything you set your mind
to” but it is true that you can do a lot more setting your mind to it than not.
During this first month the new Togo
Peace Corps volunteers had to deliver a technical speech in French. Since
Eckerd, he has taken to memorizing his presentations, e.g. no note cards, and
it had gone over well. After he delivered his talk, in French, he noticed that
Peace Corp officials he did not know seemed to know who he was.
This is the 50th year of
the Peace Corps and the 50th year of the Peace Corps in Togo and there
is going to be a celebration in the capital attended by Togo’s President, other
dignitaries and the distant refrain of Madame Classé –“I told you French was important” –because guess who gets to deliver
some remarks on behalf of the new Peace Corps volunteers? While his French is
not technically the best of the groups there seems to be something about his
delivery that is well received by the Togolese.
So if he isn’t waylaid by a lion,
elephant or mamba (or turtle), on September 7 ol’Shaving 4 is going to make his
television debut. Togo is only 5 hours ahead of USA central daylight time but I
have yet to find anybody that gets Togo TV no matter how many channels their
provider brandishes. Well that’s what YouTube’s for, right?
ML
8.31.12
