Feeling Naked
Adapting to a New Home
The dirt road approaching the falls had huge, ancient mango trees on both sides forming a lush, shaded passageway to the pool. The pool was beautiful, a deep swimming hole in a smooth sculpted stone basin, clear and calm. There were no other people there. At one end of the pool a waterfall, “les Cascades de Banfora,” splashed down from a rocky cliff. I didn’t waste any time getting my dusty clothes off and going for a swim. The water washed away all my tiredness of that day’s trip along with the red dust caked in all my pores, and I felt renewed.
When I got out of the water and was looking at the beautiful falls, a troop of baboons who had probably been visiting the mango trees, walked across the top of the falls. There were old grandmas and grandpas, fathers, mothers with babies on their backs, and their young children. They were walking in a line, and when they were right above the pool they just stopped and stared at me. I stared back, and then I felt conspicuous and self-conscious. I felt like they were watching me as if I was some kind of zoo exhibit, completely out of my natural setting, I was a strange curiosity – a hairless ape.
After a year in the village of Sirasso I no longer felt “naked.” I belonged, had a life there, friends, and was fitting into the community. My partner, Bill Gaines, and I were each given a Senufo family name – he Ouattara, and me Coulibaly – indicating that we were part of an extended family. These were more than just names; they were invitations for us to join a network of social connections even beyond the village. We were no longer called “toubabou,” the name for white man or stranger. Only our first or family names were used. Alternatively, according to custom, we were called either “older brother,” or “younger brother.” Part of the elaborate greeting in those parts included stating your family name. In that way, even when meeting strangers, a connection and relationship were established.
That afternoon, standing at the foot of the falls, just the baboons, and myself, I suddenly was reminded of how really far beyond the boundaries of my home territory I had roamed. Banfora was an overnight stop on my way to visit Bobo-Dyulasso in Burkina Faso. The motorcycle trip all that day from Sirasso to Banfora, 300 kilometers of primitive road had covered me in red dust. I was tense from fingertips to toes after a grueling, white knuckle, eight bouncing hours. Skinny-dipping in the cool water of the Camoé River with not a soul about was cleansing on many levels, but in the eyes of the baboons I must not have belonged, suddenly I felt exposed as the intruder that I was.
The baboons and I did share something in common. The majestic mango trees planted by the French were for that time and place a reminder of their colonial influence, providing food for the baboons, and for me, a shady imprint of another new culture. The approach to the swimming hole was designed, I later learned, as if it were a rural road leading to a village in France. The mango trees lining the dirt road replacing sycamore trees that one would find in France. They must have provided a corridor of comforting transition to colonials and their families eager for an impressionistic Sunday afternoon picnic. Their baskets of wine, cheese, crusty baguettes, a tablecloth, and all the other necessary accessories must have completed the picture. I imagine a cheerful and carefree escape of French families away from the heat, and from dusty African streets into another world.
The Peace Corps issued us a moped to get around during our assignment in Sirasso, an agrarian communal village in northern Côte d’Ivoire. A moped is great transportation for zipping around Paris or Abidjan, the capital city of the Côte d’Ivoire, or other urban landscapes. We lived in the bush some 600 kilometers by dirt road from Abidjan. Korhogo, the nearest city was 70km away, a three hour pounding on moped over washboard, sand and rutted road in the dry season, and downpours and mud in the monsoon season. A one-day round trip for supplies by moped was an adventure in the dry season, and in the rainy season an uncertain ordeal.
After a year, my partner, Bill Gaines, and I had saved some money and we decided to buy motorcycles with gears, shock absorbers, significant tires, good brakes, bright headlamps, and a sturdy frame. We had already got some bicycles for getting around the village and neighboring countryside where footpaths were the main thoroughfares. But we needed to have more mobility to visit projects, villages and markets in the surrounding area, and to make an occasional trip. Our choice was the German Zündapp, only a 50cc engine like a moped, but two-cycle, with more strength and speed – a real motorcycle suitable for the bush.
Thanks to having this more trustworthy means of transportation, I was able to make a trip for a few days to Bobo-Dyulasso, stopping overnight to lodge with a Peace Corps Volunteer in Banfora. My encounter with the baboons remains the most memorable part of the trip. It has come to represent something essential to realizing where one belongs, and what one brings to a new environment. Feeling naked, stripped of all outward signs of one’s past and identity, even taking a new name, are all part of the process of adapting to a new home.
An ni bara
“An ni bara” she said to me in Dyula without breaking her stride. A load of firewood was on her head; a baby was held to her back by a length of cloth tucked around her breasts; her bare feet moved over the gravel trail as she hastened back from the fields. She moved at a brisk and rhythmic pace, walking stick in hand, having covered several kilometers after a day’s work. “M’ba, an ni bara,” I replied. (Read more >>)