It’s been raining all week. I’m goofing off at a Nuns’ rest home in North Pasadena. I’m replacing old cord pair switchboards with a newer system. I had been whining and crying for the last two days for some help, but, with the rain, forget it. Old cables and dial tones are out all over the city. I had the job about completed, but, it was raining out. I left the back off the last switchboard and some tools laying around, then headed for the cafeteria. The place was old and sort of decrepit, but it had a great cafeteria. Hal Roach, the guy from the ‘Our Gang’ movies, had donated the place to the church back in the forties, so, it retained most of that era’s look. High ceilings since no central air in those days, large, tall windows. Spacious. Colored tiles everywhere. I had been at the job for three days so all the staff knew me. Especially one of the cashiers I had been trying to get interested in me. I strike out again…I take my tray and sit down at one of the long, wooden tables set in rows with different style chairs to sit in. All donated I guess. I start eating my eggs. A chuckle comes from a big overstuffed chair four chairs past me. I had thought I was the only one at this table. I say to the unseen voice, “Are you laughing at me?” A tiny head pokes around the tall back and nods, then goes back out of sight. I figure to straighten her out. I slide my tray down and sit across from her. I can only see part of her. She’s wrapped up in a big multicolored blanket, She has her legs under her but a foot sticks out. I look harder at that foot. Its really tiny. It also has no toes. Naturally, being an idiot most of the time, I say, “Hey, what happened to your toes?” Thus began one of the most interesting days of my life…She told me her story. In a strange sort of English, mixed with words I didn’t understand at times. She would move her head when she spoke so you had no idea she was blind. About ninety. Very frail and small. Used up she called it…Sister Mary: “I was raised in Holland. My parents were Dutch and Belgian. My father was a customs man who worked for the Belgian government. I went to the very best schools. I have a knack for languages, so, a friend of my father who noticed this, set me up with an easy government job in the Belgian embassy in Paris. It was in the early thirties. No hint of the war to come in Paris. Plays, parties, men chasing me. It was grand. But, I was soon bored. One day, I’m looking at some papers at a fellow employees desk. Languages and dialects always interested me, so, the odd writings captivated me. My co worker wonders if I would like to take a shot at translating them. This is what started my fifty years in Africa!”…(Now, during the five hours I sat with her, a lot of nurses, nuns and friends of hers came by and sat to listen along with me. They all just nodded at me, sipped their coffees and enjoyed before going back to work)…”I studied on my own time and learned some basic Burundi. The Belgian government was investing a lot of money into a new project in Central Africa and desperately needed translators. Once a big shot found out about me, I was signed on with promises of promotions and you name it. Since I was only twenty, I fell for his lies. I also had to pretend to be a Catholic. Oh, I did all the motions and such, but, I never really believed in religions. I did it to appease my superiors. Now, once off the boat, I thought it would be cars, boats and planes to get us around. Not so. We walked. Yes, walked. I must have walked thousands of miles through terrain you would not believe. Its was the only way you could get to the out of the way villages. Some people say a rifle is your best weapon in Africa. Nonsense. A good pair of water proof hiking boots will do you far more good. You see, all the villages are just filthy. The people aren’t. The places they live are. They have to keep all their livestock inside these kraals at night to protect them from predators. There is horrible mud everywhere except the main village where the Burundi chief and his extended family reside. Now, my first month in what was to be called the Belgian Congo, I get these horrible parasites in my feet. They get beneath your skin, then lay eggs. Just terrible itching. Then, your feet swell up. I was going to be flown back to France for medical care when a Swahili medicine man informed my boss that he could heal me for five goats. I would have gone through anything to get rid of those things. He first puts my foot up onto his knee, then, lays out an assortment of very thin, sharp sticks. Actually, they were thorns from a bush I was to find out later. He is also stuffing his toothless mouth with a mixture of tobacco and herbs. Once he felt he had the correct mixture, he spits the mass onto my bare foot. It drove the heads of the parasitic worms out of my foot. As they wriggled in the juice, he would hook them with one of his thorns and extract them very slowly so as not to break their segments. It took him about an hour for one foot. After he completed my other foot, He gave my feet a liberal spitting and waved me away, cured. His young assistant later told me to keep putting tobacco juice on my feet for a few days to wipe out an residual egg cases. He told me the rest of the herbs and such were mostly for show and effect. I spent a few days resting, then, end up going off with a Belgian team who needed an interpreter for a big project they were conducting. It ended up taking up almost five years of my life. (to be continued…)