Boys of Africa

By Linda Pierce Plues

Eric and Adam are two normal American boysexcept they are growing up throughout Africa.

Even though their mother tries to keep their enthusiasm in check, the boys seek adventure in every single country they live. With a diplomat for a father, theres always somewhere new to go.

In a series of vignettes shared by their mother, author Linda Pierce Plues, the boys display a knack for making friends. The first one they meet in Kinshasa is a baby pigmy chimp, which they dont hesitate bringing home. They also run into other animals, including a chameleon that bites and holds onto Erics nose. But nothing surprises their mother more than a giant rat that Adam hunts down in Abidjan.

The boys exploits go beyond the imaginable, including a harrowing, one-hundred-mile ride from the Kano airport to their new home in Kaduna, Nigeria. Most families would have turned right around and headed back to the United States, but the Plues family press on until they must say goodbye to their beloved African friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462055951

Linda Pierce Plues

Linda Pierce Plues was a member of the Peace Corps at its inception and volunteered in Colombia. She went to San Diego State University and George Mason University, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in ancient studies. She spent fifteen years in Africa, and her two sons, Eric and Adam, grew up in five different African countries. She currently lives in San Diego.

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Contents

In Memory

of

Walker Pierce Plues

DEDICATION

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

IVX

In Memory

of

Walker Pierce Plues

image01.jpg

I will never forget your darling little face and the smile you gave so easily. I wish that I could share all my memories with you and hear you laugh again. You were a very special little boy who has left a hole in my heart. You are still a big part of our family and you will never be forgotten.

DEDICATION

Without your spirit, determination and zest for life, Africa would not have been so interesting, challenging or fun, and I would not have had the material to write any of these stories. So, to Eric and Adam, with love, I dedicate this book of memories.

I wish to thank my husband, Dick, for having the nerve to take us to all these places. His dedication to his work and his belief in ‘our way of life’ has guided our family toward a set of values that really count. For this I love him and thank him.

To Noah, Paloma, Luca, Pierce, Leo and Piper, read these stories and believe them. Beware! You carry the same DNA. God only knows where that might take you in life. I feel fairly certain that your lives will be successful and exciting for sure! I love all of you—you are my bonus in life.

I

Looking Ahead to a Life in Casablanca

What a day it was. ‘Ah yes, I remember it well.’ Dick phoned me from his Washington, D.C. office. His excitement jumped through the telephone lines into my awaiting ears. He had gotten the posting to Casablanca, Morocco and, before the end of the spring of 1972 was over, we would pack up our two little boys and our household effects and begin an incredible journey that would go on for nearly fifteen years and touch five different countries on that magnificent continent of Africa.

There in the middle of my housework, a pile of dirty diapers and general household confusion, I found myself in a state of unbridled happiness, imagining a diplomatic life of whirlwind dinners and cocktail parties. I grabbed my little Adam up off the floor and twirled him around the kitchen, dodging piles of laundry and cleaning paraphernalia. I sang and we danced, while four year old Eric gazed at us with quizzical wonder. What is a Casablanca? He asked in his always inquisitive way. Casablanca is a marvelous place in Africa, with exotic food and music, and you will learn to speak French when you go to school. I assured them both that we would all love it there.

Actually, I had no idea what it was like or what challenges and fortunes faced us. I just knew that it sounded like an exciting change and I was ready for that. Three feet of snow on the ground in northern Virginia was more than a good San Diego girl could take for very long. One last twirl around the floor brought refrains of As Time Goes By, and, when I put Adam back down his little arms went up to me for more. I smiled at him and swung him up into my arms again, silently thinking of Humphrey Bogart and his famous line, Play it again Sam. Our lives were about to change in ways none of us could ever imagine.

Casablanca was only the beginning; one stop on an adventure that has been waiting for years to be told. Something always got in the way; it was always set aside for another time. Now, once and for all I will set the stage, tell the story. I’ll tell my story at least, because, if you put the four of us together, in one room to discuss past paths, I’m pretty darn sure you’d get four like, but contrasting renditions of the real story as we all remember it. So, I’ll just remind you: the writer gets to tell the story.

Does our story start in Casablanca, or does it actually start in Thailand where the boys were born, or in Laos where they spent their first years? Maybe we could even go beyond those days. Perhaps it all started that special evening in May of 1965, at the Officer’s Club at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, where I met Dick, my husband-to-be and future father of our two sons Eric and Adam. I had returned to San Diego after spending two years in the Peace Corps in Colombia, and Dick had just returned from his first tour in Vietnam. There, we danced ourselves into a romance that would lead us to marriage a year-and-a-half later. Dick, however, did have to spend most of that time on his second tour in Vietnam flying with the Navy’s famous Pukin’ Dogs from Miramar Naval Air Station. The Navy was his job, his identity, his everything.

When he asked me to marry him I thought that I would spend my life as a Navy wife, but that wasn’t to be. Shortly after we married, Dick interviewed with the Central Intelligence Agency and was hired. We were immediately sent to Laos while the war was still raging, and where Dick was able to fight the war from a whole new perspective. We spent two and a half years in Vientiane, had two beautiful babies, and were launched on a new and exciting career that would stretch out for nearly thirty-five years taking us to live in seven different countries.

Both of our future Boys of Africa were born in Thailand. The medical facilities, in Vientiane, were scant at best, with no emergency facilities, nor neonatal unit. There was no surgery theater, not even a nurse on hand, just one State Department general doctor to handle all medical needs. So, to avoid any unexpected misfortune, all expectant expatriot mothers were sent to Bangkok a month before the delivery date to await the birth of their babies. This created hardships as we expectant mothers went off to Bangkok alone, checked into a B&B, and waited for our little babies to arrive. Eric was more eager to arrive than we had expected and I began labor less than 36 hours after arriving in Bangkok. Dick, on a whim only hours before Eric arrived, caught an Air America flight to Bangkok from Vientiane. He wanted to surprise me. The surprise was on him. Only hours after he arrived in Bangkok, it was very clear that I had begun labor and he was about to experience Eric’s birth. Having him there was such an unexpected pleasure for me. I never said that I was afraid to do it all alone, but being in a foreign country and becoming a mother for the first time was not something that I really looked forward to doing by myself. So when I saw Dick walk through the door of that B&B, I wanted to shout for joy and relief. Adam’s debut, a year-a-half later, was not that speedy and, as I waited for him in Bangkok, I worried about little Eric, whom I had to leave behind in Vientiane with Dick and with the help of maids and good friends. Those were difficult times, in retrospect, although we all seemed to go through the ordeal as if it were normal. I was soon to learn that nothing our family would ever do together would be ‘normal’ as most people define it.

II

Casablanca

Casablanca was a dazzling city, a blend of cultivated and Eden-like neighborhoods and public spaces. Much of it revealed considerable European influence, which made sense because Casablanca had been colonized in 1921 by France. Part of the country had been controlled by Spain. By the time we arrived in 1972, the capital city of Rabat had been under Moroccan governance for some thirty-five years and now under the rule of a monarchy. During our three years in Morocco, there were two attempted coups. Happily, the coups attempts were put down, and our lives were hardly touched by these experiences.

It is difficult to describe the beauty and contrasts in ‘Casa,’ as the locals called it. Even the word ‘exotic’ doesn’t capture the wild mix of colors, sounds and smells, the balminess of the air, the excitement of the nightlife. The visuals are so stunning that they are rarely captured in snapshots or on a canvass. Being there gives one a sense of being enveloped by the tastes, smells and sounds that reflect the city’s eccentric contrasts between old and new, East and West, French and Moroccan—interspersed with the intermingling of Arab, Spanish and French cultures.

We enjoyed the heady mixture of colors and noise coming from the streets, the ragged donkeys, and the noisy motor scooters, and even the occasional camel swishing by. It was wonderful to shop because anything could be found, bought, or bartered for in the market places: oranges from Marrakech, peaches, potatoes and apricots piled high in perfectly formed and enormous pyramids. You could point to fresh almonds, figs, raisins and aromatic spices in wooden bins and the vendor would scoop your choices out, weigh them, and put them in small paper packages for you. During the Christmas holidays even the most finicky eater succumbed to table-ready holiday fare: crepes, caviar, all sort of delicacies and cakes that our boys devoured—along with thousands of other children. Adding to all the other sounds floating through the markets’ narrow walkways were tunes being played by Moroccan musicians on their drums and wind instruments.

Eric was five and Adam nearly four when we arrived in Casablanca. The boys’ lives were totally transformed and turned upside down from the very day we arrived there. In Virginia, they had been just little American neighborhood boys, climbing trees, collecting bird eggs, and playing games with their friends next door. Suddenly immersed in a French-Arab community they became Les petites Americains, two little blond boys who spoke neither French nor Arabic and who knew no one, nor knew anything of their new surroundings. But despair they did not. Eric and Adam’s method of adaptation was to joyfully touch, smell and poke everything they saw. And they did it with all the zest and trust of well-loved, healthy and confident kids the world over. They were survivors and explorers from the get-go, and before long they knew the ropes of the Moroccan neighborhood.

Luckily, we had the help and support from our two wonderful servants, Aisha our housekeeper and her husband Taha who worked at our home as a gate guard. Gate guarding was, however, just a small part of what Taha did for our family. Adam, who was a bit quiet and shy, usually when it behooved him, quickly made a best and forever friendship with Taha. Who—Taha or Adam—loved the other more was hard to say, but where you saw one the other was very nearby. This was so good for Adam and Eric too, who adored Taha as well, because Taha cared for them and taught them how to be alert and watch for things that were strange and perhaps dangerous to them. He also taught the boys some Arabic: enough to get by, including lots of bad words. He and his wife Aisha introduced them to the delicious Moroccan food that they happily shared with both boys.

I think that I felt jealous of Aisha’s success getting both boys to love the Moroccan food she prepared. I was going crazy trying to get them to eat the healthy meals I prepared for them. Somehow, neither of them was ever very hungry for my meals. Why should they be? They had already eaten all the couscous and tajine their little bellies could hold with Aisha and Taha in their cozy little house just behind ours. One time I crept out to watch them. The boys were screaming with laughter. They were eating couscous in the old Maghreb traditional way by forming it into little balls and throwing it into the air and catching it (sometimes) in their mouths. Eric and Adam were enjoying this so much I suspected that I might have easily fed them tons of spinach and broccoli if I had only had the patience to let them throw it into the air too! Aisha didn’t mind the mess. She loved them as much as Taha did, and, if cleaning up after them was necessary, it was a very small price to pay to show them her love and to give them happiness.

Taha played such a big part in Eric and Adam’s lives, and that influence was to stay with them even today, especially with Adam. While Eric was at school, a four-year-old Adam was already showing signs of loving all sports, but especially soccer or futbol, as Taha and all French speakers called it. Taha, who with his unwavering patience, played soccer by anytime with Adam. Hour after hour Taha would stand by and let Adam kick goal shots to him until Adam was ready to change positions. Then Taha would change with him and kick to Adam, pass the ball to him, and teach him to run and kick the ball with his left foot. That effort stayed with Adam forever and Taha was the man to thank. He never left Adam’s side and when Adam finally grew tired of kicking and running, Taha was at his side for the next big adventure of the day. I sometimes wondered, if by chance, while Adam was playing varsity soccer in high school and university, if he ever thought, as he charged off down the field or struck a left-footed goal, of Taha who was still back in Casablanca working for others and raising his own family.

As newlyweds with no children of their own yet, Taha and Aisha devoted themselves to Eric and Adam. In return, the boys were mad about each of them and happily accepted when invited by the couple to accompany them to the dog races and other local events and activities. We allowed this because Taha guarded the boys as faithfully as he guarded our gate. More, Aisha’s obvious love for each of them was as stable and protective as any parent could desire.

When the soccer training had exhausted itself, there was no rest for Taha. Both Adam and Eric would drag him outside the garden walls to hunt the dreaded, dangerous, black, poisonous scorpions that hid stealthily under the pile of rocks only seconds from our gate. They were creatures to fear and respect—sometimes I suspected that the boys did neither. Despite my harangues, they were determined to hunt and conquer these deadly little beasts. After many threats and hysterics I realized that I would not win this battle. The boys were captivated with the fascination and danger of these animals and they would go out and hunt for them. So I relented with stipulations: whenever hunting these nasty creatures, Taha was to be with them, or else! Or else what? I hated to imagine. I guess they would have been stung! Taha came to my rescue again, and besides being head soccer coach he became head scorpion trapper as well. He always cut off the poisonous stinger before the boys scooped them into their bug-catchers.

Eric and Adam’s collection of scorpion trophies grew. With each catch, they would carefully secure the body with a straight pin to a cardboard backing from Polaroid film, then cocoon the whole works with Saran Wrap and proudly display them around their bedroom. Although I disliked these ghastly plastic tombs, the see-through coverings made the collection more acceptable because they did keep the decomposing scorpions intact and the plasti contained the smells of their decay—somewhat. But one terrible day I heard screams from outdoors that alerted me that one of our son’s expeditions had gone seriously wrong.

Eric was in the middle of a search-capture-and-impale mission, when one of the large granite stones had