Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [110]
We gave Joseph a cake decorated with cows and cars. We gave him a map of the United States, an umbrella, and two books, the Holtzman book on the Nuer and one by Achebe. He blew out the candles with more panache than Abraham, but he had no idea how to cut his cake. When I offered to help him, he said yes adamantly and gratefully.
After the party Jim and I assisted with homework. Today Abraham pulled out his math assignment and Jim helped him with it. A teacher had told us that Abraham was respected by all the other students. She felt he could go to college if he had a chance. Paul drew dinosaurs from a library book and I helped Martha read. I showed her vowel sounds and we worked on sequences like bit, but, bat or hit, hut, hot. All of a sudden, she realized that she could sound out words and make sense of those black marks on the page. She beamed with pleasure. I felt like Anne Sullivan the day she held Helen Keller's hand under a water pump and Helen spelled out water.
Another day we invited the family to tour our house, only a moderately successful experience. Abraham hit his head on a lintel. Martha was afraid of our cat. We served hot chocolate with marshmallows, which the family disliked heartily. I asked if the food in Africa was spicy and Abraham said angrily that Africa was many countries.
Joseph kept commenting on how big our place was. They were all interested in our automatic fireplace. I switched it on, and then they switched it on and off many times. They asked about the wood, the heat, the lack of smoke of this "fire," and they held out their hands to see if they warmed up. We also had a greeting card from the Audubon Society with a computer chip inside that made bird sounds. All of them regarded the card as magic. Paul kept lifting the card and holding it to his ear and smiling as he heard the birds.
During our first few months of friendship, I wish I could claim I was always confident and patient. But I had many self-doubts. I wondered if the family even liked us, if they thought we were pushy, weird, or crazy. Sometimes, I felt they took us for granted. Once I got angry when I heard that on the same day that Abraham had told me everything was fine, he had cried in class. I told him I wanted to know how he was feeling and when he had problems. He was upset by my reprimand and I felt guilty later that I had troubled someone who had so much to cope with.
One day Joseph reminisced about grazing cows with his father along the Nile. He said he could recognize his father's cows in a herd of five thousand cattle. There were twenty words to describe the color of a cow and many other words to describe the shape of its horns, etc. Cattle were the currency of life, used to establish status, for bride prices, and for barter. Milk was considered the best food. Cattle were not commodities, but rather the Dinka's perfect partners.
Just as Dinka social and economic life in Africa was organized around cows, in America it was organized around cars. Holtzman quoted a Nuer man as saying, "A car is a bad cow." Nuer and Dinka men in America wanted cars. Cars turned a supplicant into a patron. Men helped each other get money for down payments for old beaters.
Unfortunately, many Sudanese men drove their cars before they obtained driver's licenses, insurance, or registration. They were ripped off by used-car dealers all too eager to exploit their lack of sophistication. And they didn't understand much about car maintenance or mechanics. Holtzman reported that within three years of buying a car, over 84 percent of the Nuer had an accident, abandoned their car because it didn't work, or had it repossessed.
The second day Joseph worked, he asked us to help him buy a car. We told him it was better to wait until he had a license and a little money. We made up our own slogan, "A bike is a good cow."
We stressed that bikes are cheap, easy to maintain, and don't require having a license, paying taxes, or buying gas. Also a person is unlikely to get in trouble with the law on a bike.