{"id":250,"date":"2020-07-11T16:25:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T16:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/?p=250"},"modified":"2020-07-11T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T16:30:00","slug":"1977-cote-divoire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/2020\/07\/11\/1977-cote-divoire\/","title":{"rendered":"1977\/COTE D\u2019IVOIRE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n


I awakened last night to find The General (Emeka Ojukwu) sitting in his chair, next to my bed, reading.\u00a0 When I awoke, he informed me I\u2019d been lost for several days, but they had kept constant watch to make sure I was still among the living and the doc had been there many times, to check my vitals.\u00a0 I was so weak I couldn\u2019t speak to the dear man\u2026just smiled and returned to Never-Never Land.\u00a0 He whispered, \u201cNow you\u2019re African, Barbara.\u201d\u00a0 I labouriously opened my eyes and saw his smile, beaming across that beautiful face of his.\u00a0 I smirked and whispered, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be African\u2026.but, thanks\u2026.\u201d He chuckled.
\u00a0
This morning The General\u2019s wife, Stella, helped me up and I stood, awkwardly, on uneasy legs, before taking a step.\u00a0 She had the cook bring me a cup of tea and a piece of dry toast \u2013 couldn\u2019t eat the toast, but one bite.\u00a0 Tea was perfect.\u00a0 After an hour or so, I announced I must bathe. The maid stripped my bed and cleaned up, as I slowly head for the walk-in shower \u2013 and I do mean walk in: takes up half of the enormous bathroom.\u00a0
\u00a0
Standing inside the cavernous shower, I allow tepid water to rush over my tired and emaciated body.\u00a0 I barely recognize myself.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lost so much weight, my physical body doesn\u2019t register, at first.\u00a0 I run soapy hands along my skin and realize just how debilitating Africa\u2019s tropical diseases really are \u2013 my flesh hangs limp and there\u2019s very little colour to my skin \u2013 very little life<\/em><\/strong>.
\u00a0
I\u2019m twenty-seven years old \u2013 in my prime \u2013 and I feel like a ninety-year old must feel (in my imagination, at least).\u00a0 I ache in places I didn\u2019t even know I had.\u00a0 My bones ache\u2026my skin, the muscles, tissues, everything physical feels awful.\u00a0 My hair<\/em><\/strong> hurts!\u00a0 I simply want to surrender and go back to bed.\u00a0 Even the \u201cHELP\u201d I attempt to scream, inside my head, comes off sounding wimpy.\u00a0 I can\u2019t find the strength to say the word.\u00a0 I should be unbelievably grateful I\u2019m standing in the shower, with no help \u2013 and I am.
\u00a0
Stella must go into town and I\u2019ve dressed myself, but I\u2019m freezing.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably around ninety degrees outside but I feel like I\u2019m in the Arctic, so I pull out every sweatshirt and long-sleeved shirt I brought to Africa and yank out another pair of blue jeans\u2026.pull them on and wrestle into all the shirts.\u00a0 No kidding, I put all of it on and I\u2019m still cold, and I\u2019m exhausted.\u00a0 Such a small effort and such a high toll.
\u00a0
I stumble out of the house and down to the dock \u2013 I\u2019m the only one here, except for the servants, and there are plenty of them milling around.\u00a0 Jeez, The General had the pool filled for me!\u00a0 I shiver, just thinking of it; walk on and arrive at the dock, where frozen, but not melting, I stop and gaze out to the lagoon.\u00a0
\u00a0
The President of the Ivory Coast lives across this lagoon from The General and Stella. \u00a0Last week, when I was not in malaria\u2019s throes, I paddled with the children into this lagoon while wearing a pair of old canvas, rubber soled sneakers so yet another parasite, Bilharzia, could not enter my blood through the soles of my feet. \u00a0I allow that thought to settle into my brain, shake my head and wonder how the hell did a small-town Indiana farm girl ever land here.\u00a0
\u00a0
A sudden weariness overwhelms me, and I collapse onto the dock, curl into my favourite sleeping fetal position and the fleeting thought of what I must look like to the house servants (crazy white woman!) flutters through my brain.\u00a0
\u00a0
Quickly, my brain and body initiate, then co-ordinate the short trek to slumber\u2026sink fast\u2026.relax and allow my lethargy and illness to hook me and carry me away.\u00a0 Softly, quietly I walk the road away from reality, into a beautiful dream, where an exquisite voice calls a chant to me: beckons me. My feet each weigh about five hundred pounds, so the going is woefully slow, but at least I move\u2026I think I move\u2026.my eyelids quiver and, finally, open to slits: through which I think I see a canoe.\u00a0 Yes!\u00a0 I hear the muted dip of one oar into the water, the pull, rise and drop of each stroke as the paddler faintly sings the lovely chant and as the canoe silently glides through the water and closer to me, curled on the wooden dock.
\u00a0
I realize how rude I\u2019m being, laying there without acknowledging just how marvelous this man\u2019s voice is and how grateful I am to hear it, to see him float by, ever so softly.\u00a0 Is this a dream? \u00a0I pull myself up – a smile spreads across his magnificent face and I smile right back, clasp hands, bow my head and whisper Namaste<\/em>: my version of \u2018I see God in you\u2019.\u00a0 My waist-long blonde hair is, now, soaking wet and I\u2019m still shivering from the ice crystals raging in my blood, pumping through my half-frozen veins.\u00a0 I collapse back onto the dock and watch him through barely more than slivers of vision.\u00a0
\u00a0
Next, I recall, I\u2019m in bed still fully clothed and still freezing.\u00a0 Will this never end?\u00a0
Am I to die, in Afrique?\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
TO BE CONTINUED\u2026\u2026
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