To Africa and Beyond: The Life and Work of My Father in the Gold Coast and Ghana While Occasionally I Traipsed Along

By James Stroud

Bronnie Ellis Stroud left Indianapolis for Bawku. There in the sahel, in the northeastern corner of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, and later along the forested coast, he altered the course of a people and a country. A linguist, missionary and educator, a husband, father and grandfather, he was an adventurer and a man of unfailing affection. He built churches and schools. More importantly, he formed enduring loyalties that strengthened those with whom he worked. A tireless man, his eyes twinkled blue and he walked fast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781698704098

James Stroud

James Stroud was born in northern Wisconsin and lived his boyhood years in Ghana and Ivory Coast, West Africa. He also has lived in India and France. He now resides in Saratoga, California where he enjoys its lively migratory bird population, the best diffusion of flying, musical species he has experienced since his early days of tromping through the rainforests of Africa.

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Copyright 2021 James Stroud.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0408-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0410-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0409-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021907195

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Trafford rev. 04/29/2021

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Bronnie Ellis Stroud

1923-2017

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Beginnings

Chapter 2 Early Impressions of Life and Death in Africa

Chapter 3 The Color of Africa

Physical Objects

Travel

Weather

Plants

Insects

Reptiles

Invertebrates, Birds and Mammals

People

Chapter 4 My Father’s Humanity

Chapter 5 My Mother’s Humanity

Chapter 6 Missionary Work: Its Vision, Intentionality and Fruits

Baptism

Language

Buildings

Leaders

Christian Baptism and Weddings

Christmas

Song

Intentional Leadership and Its Effects

Chapter 7 A Brush with Death

Chapter 8 Generosity for Neighbors, Affection for Young Churches, Compassion for All

Chapter 9 Dry Sahel to Verdant Beach

Chapter 10 The Unyielding Mystery of Africa

Chapter 11 Beauty and Loving Prayer in Action

Chapter 12 Quiet Joys of Later Years

Chapter 13 Beauty and the Orthodox Faith

Chapter 14 Epilogue

Introduction

What follows is an icon in words of my father’s life. Neither an exhaustive compendium nor a detailed chronology of his life, it is a collection of recollections and images. These vignettes come from memory, many from his correspondence. May they bless you as he has blessed me.

James Stroud

Saratoga, California

October 23, 2020

Chapter One

Beginnings

I lived in a house in Africa on the crest of a hill running up from the sea. The hill formed the tapering eastward end of a coastal ridge, so that to the north the rainforest stood in a valley behind the house. To the west the land sloped upward, and to the east it fell gently downward to my father’s school, a stand of low white buildings nestled within a grove of mango trees. I could walk downhill in three directions and climb the other.

The equator ran across the water three degrees to the south. It tightened its grip at noon so that even when I lay on a bed inside my house beads of sweat would run off my forehead and arms. My house rested by the mark of the eye twice above the coconut palms that lined the sand. Standing at the edge of my yard facing south, the soil sloped down and away from my feet. I could look over the palms, across the water and into a sky mottled blue and white.

If I approached the house from its front I felt the strength of the sea upon my back. The scent of the rhododendrons and African lilies near the house mingled with salt spray. Behind the house the African rainforest beckoned from narrow valleys twisted between small ridges.

The hills of southern central Ghana were too low to bear names. They rolled up from the sea like modest waves spreading sloping land between the mighty African trees: mahogany, wawa, limba. The trees unfurled horizontal limbs into a canopy that dominated the sky northward two hundred miles deep.

Beneath the majestic mahoganies glossy green trees flowered with delicate wide white blossoms. Farther down tangled brush and vine girded the rainforest in shadow. Monkeys, bats, parrots, dik-diks, civet cats and finches flashed sound and color into the gloom. Farther below spiders and snakes and worms in legion plied the fecund loam. In the falling light doves cooed and gracefully swept to covered perches, eluding the hawks that so eagerly wished to devour them. With its shadowy beauty, its mesmeric foreboding, the African forest drew me into its unyielding mystery.

My father had brought me here to Africa so that he could do his work. He built schools and churches. I had moved from playing hockey on the frozen lakes of northern Wisconsin to dribbling a soccer ball on the burnt-sand beaches that lined the Gulf of Guinea. If not soccer then I tramped the jungle with my machete and canteen. I thought the trade-off was decent. I liked Africa.

And so as a young boy each evening at dusk I stood on the edge of the hill at the back of my house looking north over the rainforest. I stood still and allowed the early-evening sounds to gather in my ear. After some time I would whistle with a call that broke the air yet held a melody once, twice, thrice.

As I whistled, off the far side of the valley floor a dozen homing pigeons rose from beneath the verdant mahogany trees. Higher my pigeons pushed in tightening concentric circles. Once above the soaring hawks they raced across the valley. When over me but still a pinprick in the sky, their leader folded his wings into a dive. The others hurtled down in tight formation close behind him, faster than the lazily circling hawks could or would respond. The lead bird, as if he were showing me something he could do that I could not, pulled up hard when right in front of me, threw himself upward with his wings to avoid a somersault, and gracefully lit on my outstretched arm. He cocked his head to look me in the eye. I murmured to him. Satisfied, he turned and slowly strutted down my arm to stop on my wrist where he pecked avidly at the kernels of corn in my hand.

The remainder of the winged band pulled up to land on the roof of my home, stood at its edge in a row and carefully watched the proceedings.

Slowly I walked with their leader to the door of the aviary. I set him inside upon a platter of corn. He barely noticed my movement. He just kept pecking. Before I could pull back a dozen homing pigeons rushed me from behind, a flurry of wings tumbling over my arms and shoulders and neck to reach the corn. I laughed. They cooed excitedly. I backed away and latched the door.

I closed the door not so much on the birds but on the pythons and vipers and large civet cats who would not mind a homing pigeon, especially a young tender one, for a bloody midnight snack.

Each dawn I opened the door. The waiting birds cooed loudly behind their leader and burst out pumping their wings hard. Once again they circled high, out of sight, then dove to an undisclosed location to scrabble for seeds and pebbles until dinner.

And so my life with my homing pigeons passed in a daily gentle cycle, immune to the traumas of West African wildlife.

One morning I came to release my pigeons into the sunshine. Instead of prancing and cooing near the door, impressing mates with song and dance, each bird was slunk against the back corner of its nesting square, pressed hard against the wood, feathers ruffled, beaks down, silent. As I approached I could see nothing else amiss.

I took a few steps nearer and peered more closely into the coop. I glanced rapidly around. I looked for broken mesh or a penetrated door. I found none. I counted off my homing pigeons. I focused deep into the aviary not to miss a single cowering bird.

One was missing. I counted again. I tagged in my memory each distinctive mark of each bird.

The most recently hatched was missing!

About two-thirds the size of the adults, he could fly well but still was last in line for food. Nonetheless he bore the distinguishing marks of the leader of the flock. He was a brave bird who frequently looked me in the eye. Though most of the homing pigeons were hesitant to approach me alone to eat without their leader, this young bird was not.

For a third time I looked thoroughly in every crowded corner of the coop. When I still did not find my bird, my chest grew tight.

Then I saw it. On the floor of the coop lay a neat pile of white bones as if cleaned and rinsed, no sinews upon them nor even a speck of flesh. With dread and wonder I examined their size. They lacked all connective tissue and so lay stacked and folded in upon each other. This made them seem small. They were small: small dry white bones.

I looked again and marveled. My fear drained into a growing, grieving calm. These were the bones of my favorite young bird. But how could it be? How, overnight, did a living bird two hands tall become a neat white skeleton? From bird to bone with no sign of damage or entry to the coop and no other homing pigeon harmed?

I looked around the perimeter of the aviary, especially on the ground. I spotted a black ant or two, isolated, not large. They moved innocuously, walking in sweeping arcs. They picked up minute particles of dirt or rock or ant debris and moved them one at a time to the side of a narrow grassless pathway that cut through otherwise thick tropical turf. It was as if they were trailing and cleaning. I followed this quarter-inch path, bent over. It connected with an inch-wide path, which connected with a three-inch wide path that wound down by our banana trees. There it hit a foot-wide path that quickly entered the underbrush of the rainforest. None of these paths, nearly empty now but for a street-sweeping rearguard, had existed the evening before. From a nest buried deep in the wet forest, the ants had crawled in graceful curves to surround their prey, devour it, then disappear.

The pincers of West African driver ants have been used as sutures by bush doctors to close wounds. Driver ants are devastatingly efficient killers. They abrade the bones of their prey. They aim for the eyes and ears. They crawl to the head before biting then strike in unison. When the first chelae sinks near the brain, the animal, usually sleeping, is already covered head to foot in a pulsing layer inches deep. The pincers do their work. Fleeing is futile, so much so that many animals lay still to shorten the trauma. The end comes quickly.

Then nothing remains but white bone.

Four years later I wake in the pitch dark to the sound of my dad hopping up and down in the hallway just outside my room making no attempt to be quiet. I glance at the clock: 3:00 AM.

Annabelle. Get out of bed!

I hear the sound of more hopping, now slapping, hard slapping. My agile but dignified father is hitting himself, skin on skin.

I am in high school. I decide to humor my father by hauling myself out of bed to speak with him. I am also a little more than curious. I turn the corner into the hall.

There’s one in my ear! Where’s the light?

I flip it on. There is my reliable father ripping his clothes off and dancing a jig.

Ouch! His face winces with real pain. Jim, there’s one in my ear. Can you help me? Where’s the flashlight?

Then I see the little demons. They are crawling all over my dad. It’s insidious and dark and primal. I snap into action. I run to the desk in my room. From my model-building supplies I grab my tiniest tweezers. On the way by my bed I snatch the flashlight that always lay beside it—power outages are frequent in West Africa.

Seconds later I am back in the hallway. My diminutive mother appears. She is busy brushing driver ants off my dad’s now-naked body. He is picking them out of his flesh, following the pain to find and decapitate the most invasive predators. They crawl and bite into sensitive areas.

My dad leans sideways. Jim. This ear.

I shine the flashlight into his ear canal. I see the nasty creature, not quite out of sight, its pincers dug in deep.

Here goes, Dad. Hold still!

My father’s calm kicks in. He falls still as scores of ants continue to eat his flesh.

This is useless! my mother exclaims. I am going for the spray gun.

It’s the bazooka of pest control, a two-handed pump weapon. She disappears.

I probe my father’s ear canal with the tweezers, attempting to avoid his ear drum. I grapple-hook the little black beast from the base of its pincers through its thorax, tighten and pull. My father experiences instant relief.

Suddenly my mother, the health enthusiast, reappears before us. She crouches ready, stalks my father. With focused fury, both hands on her weapon, she pumps away at his lower extremities—all of them. The noxious fumes of a potent third world insecticide overwhelm us, but she won’t stop!

We flee, my father and I. My mother continues her mission into her bedroom where her floor is richly carpeted with a pulsing community of tiny carnivores. She sprays and sweeps and sprays and sweeps with a vigor that matches her foes.

Once free of ants my father and I quickly step outside. A two-foot-wide path of ants encircles our home, goes up the wall and through the window of my parents’ bedroom. The large path encircling our home is fed by seven or eight trails, each a foot wide all heading from the jungle across our large rural lawn. Our lawn is a hill, and lower down, near the jungle’s edge, many, many smaller pathways, each two to three inches wide, exit the rainforest at scores of points to combine and feed into the larger traversing thoroughfares. From a mysterious subterranean origin veiled beneath the rainforest loam the minions of a highly organized biological community emerge in the night to surround their prey. My father, my mother, their beating hearts and my own, are now awake and fighting back.

Kerosene is my father’s weapon of choice—inert but with a steady burn rate. With flashlights and buckets and empty tin cans we carefully pour generous portions of the liquid down the middle of each driver ant avenue. They do not like it but maintain discipline and keep marching into our home. Despite their amazing neural systems, they do not know what is coming next.

Well after 4:00 AM my father lights his match and touches it to the ground. A soft fire encircles the base of our