A Girl And Her Machete
I was prey as a young muzungu, a foreigner, living out in the African bush. Prey for men, prey for poisonous snakes, pythons, hippos and crocodiles, and chiggos looking to burrow into my toes and bot flies into my skin. Someone or something always seemed to have me in their sights. Cue “Circle of Life” from the Lion King — I was just a part of the local food chain and almost every day felt as if I was in some Darwinian game to stay alive or uninjured or poison-free and outsmart predators of all species.
I learned that a moderate dose of fear is necessary for survival; it keeps one alert to one’s surroundings. Fear rarely overtook me; it was more like my Mom telling me to pay attention while crossing the road, not to be distracted. The low-level fear brought a steady, heightened awareness to me. A little fear is a good thing.
I think of the gazelles and antelope on the open savannah. They are not living in constant fear of being eaten. Ruminants can be found grazing nearby a slumbering pride of lions. A napping lion with a full belly has no interest in hunting, and the prey knows this. Once, in Akagera Game Park in Rwanda, I watched a pride of lions lazing in the shade of a tree with antelope and zebras grazing nearby. They were utterly unafraid of the lions as if they were inanimate objects.
Living in a perpetual state of fight, flight or freeze takes a heavy toll on the mind, body, and emotions. Under continuous stress, adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormone, become toxic to the system and make us sick. Anxiety takes over, and in this state, we cannot respond to threats and instead react or freeze, sometimes making the wrong choice.
Animals live in their nature; they have no choice but to do otherwise. They have their ways of self-regulating, literally shaking off stress or fear— we humans are still working on it… Many of us live in chronic stress states, unable to sleep, think clearly, or regulate our emotions. Sometimes, we are so stressed we hold our breath — the very thing that gives us life. Unlike animals, humans are both cursed and blessed with free will, which can bring us treasures or troubles depending on how we use our superpowers of choice and reasoning.
My machete helped me remain calm and steady. It was a security system, a work tool for taming the jungle, and my constant companion. It was either strapped to my motorcycle or backpack or gripped in my hand as I worked. I slept with my machete tucked in easy reach under my foam mattress at night. I also brought a flashlight to bed, stashed under my pillow — all of this and me draped with mosquito netting hanging over the bed.
To be without my machete was like being without a limb. I wasn’t the only person who carried one; all the men and many women did. It was a simple necessity for day-to-day living and surviving in an unforgiving terrain that didn’t care if you lived to see the next day or not.
In the village of Mayoko Saka Saka (my second Peace Corps posting), I lived in a mud hut on the edge of a cemetery between two villages. That fact, along with me having a pet owl and a cat, animals of the night, probably let people believe I was some kind of kufwa, a witch. No one ever said that to me, but I could imagine it.
One night, well after midnight, I was startled awake by loud drumming moving in my direction. Drumming in the village was quite common but usually associated with celebration or communicating over long distances. I had never encountered drumming like this before. I tried to understand what was happening in my groggy state as the drumming grew louder and louder and the tempo faster and faster. My hut vibrated from the percussion of the drums.
At least ten drummers surrounded my hut. There was a menacing aggressiveness to their drumming. I gathered from the sporadic, unintelligible voices that it was young men playing the drums. I was terrified; I didn’t understand what was happening. The drumming went on for an hour; it felt like an eternity. I didn’t dare open the door. I sat in the dark on my bed, gripping my machete, sweating in fear, and praying for them to stop. They eventually left. I don’t know what was happening or why — I felt embarrassed to ask, and I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. It never happened again. I chalked it up to a prank by teenage boys, but it was a profoundly unsettling experience for me.
I found the venomous snakes that were a part of everyday life far more ominous than the drumming boys. Their threat was more tangible — a thing of horror films — Snakes On A Plane. Young and old alike were always on the lookout for them either as a practice of self-defense and keeping living spaces clear of the slithering critters or as a potential meal.
People kept snakes out of their living space to clear all the grass and vegetation around their homes, leaving smooth dirt swept daily with a small hand broom. Snakes don’t like being out in the open, which offers some protection from unwanted, slithering interlopers.
I paid the village boys with coveted pages from my Time magazines to keep the snakes at bay. Peace Corps sent these out monthly to volunteers to help us stay connected to the world we had left behind. The magazine pages served me better as a barter item. The pages with pictures were used to decorate the walls of homes. Empty tomato paste cans were also highly valued by the boys to use them for wheels on the toy trucks they built. The boys stopped by frequently to see if I had odd jobs that would earn them some of the coveted items.
In any case, one had to be alert at all times. Where I lived, pit vipers, cobras, and green mambas were the most prevalent species where I lived. Green mambas terrified me the most. The villagers shared tales of the mambas that would be brilliantly camouflaged in the lush green of the trees, dropped out of the tree onto unsuspecting victims below.
I don't know how much truth there is to the story; mambas tend to stay in trees and, like most snakes, prefer not to tangle with humans. Nonetheless, every time I sat in the shade of a tree, I always made a wary scan of the tree limbs just in case. The venom of a green mamba can kill in as little as 30 minutes, and I wasn’t going to tempt fate as the nearest anti-venom was hundreds of miles away.
In the village of Mayoko Saka Saka, there was a woman, Beatrice, who was part of the women’s farming collective that I worked with. We were planting a field of peanuts to help nourish their families. Peanuts are easy to grow and are eaten boiled, roasted, or made into rich, spicy sauces.
One sunny day, Beatrice went with a few other women to weed the peanut field. While she was there clearing weeds, she encountered a pit viper. Machete in hand, she killed the snake and was likely smiling to herself about the good fortune of being able to provide fresh meat to her family for dinner. She wrapped the dead snake into a cloth tied around her waist and continued with her work, bent over the peanut plants, hoeing the weeds from the field.
The other women with her heard Beatrice fall to the ground with a cry. The snake, though dead, had a nervous system reflex to bite, and its fangs pierced into her lower spine, releasing its venom. Sadly, Beatrice did not survive the deadly encounter with the snake. Her death cast a pall over the peanut field; some felt it had been cursed, and only a few courageous women continued to tend to the peanut crop.
I fortunately never encountered a venomous snake close enough for it to be in life-threatening striking or spitting range. I never had to wield my machete against a snake or any other living thing, but I was glad to have the reinforcement if needed. I had seen enough of Sub-Saharan Africa's ‘circle of life’ scenarios to know my luck could run out any day.
