Hart of Africa

“Thank God I’m home. What a hellish trip. Hello? Henry? You home?”

“Laura? Is that you? Where have you been? I thought you had

left me. It’s been a month since you went to Angola to help your aunt.”

“I know Henry, I am truly sorry; I’ve literally thought I would never be able to come back.”

“I’m so glad you’re back home with me.”

“Me too, darling. I love you so much. I’ve missed you”.

“Henry, darling, if it’s not too much to ask, could you give me half an hour to shower and change into something more comfortable? Then I will tell you the details of the story of how I never met my aunt.”

Thus, as you may remember, a month ago I received a letter from my long forgotten aunt. She was my mother’s sister, you know, and it is because of that that I just couldn’t ignore her request, although finding it extremely unusual. You know what it said, but here have a glance at it again. Maybe you can spot a hint about what was expecting me there that we might have missed the first time we read it.

Dear Laura,

You most definitely don’t remember me. I am your mother’s older

sister, Olivia. Maybe she mentioned my name or maybe she didn’t. I guess she could not forgive me for leaving to work in Angola as a volunteer. I was only 30 years old back then and I left just after you were born. You know, I had been planning on leaving ever since I can remember. I always felt the need to help the underprivileged and to be honest I just couldn’t see myself having a family of my own.

But enough about my past. I’ll tell you more once you get here. I guess you have seen the open plane ticket when you opened the letter. I don’t expect you to come and help me; I am a stranger after all. Your mother sent me a letter before she died and told me that you were the nicest human being she had met and that if I ever needed your help I could contact you at this address.

I know I am imposing but I am too old and lonely to reach out to anybody else. Laura, dear, would you please come to Angola and help me come back home? You know, I am in my seventies now, I believe, it’s not customary here to have a cake or candles for your birthday so I kind of forgot. Anyway, I am old and can’t move on my own, I need a reliable person to come and help me collect my belongings and get me on a plane to come home. It wouldn’t be a long trip maybe 5 days. I need to say goodbye to everyone here and pack what I have collected all these years. To cut it short, I hope you will accept. It will be a short trip, I promise. You have my exact address on the envelope. You can just show it to a taxi driver at the airport they will know how to get here.

I’m looking forward to seeing you.

Your long forgotten aunt,

Olivia Hart

So, as you already know, a week after receiving the letter I went to the airport with just a backpack. The climate there is unbearable, I can now confirm it.

When boarding the plane much to my surprise I’ve realized that I was the only Caucasian woman on the plane. Everybody was either staring at me or giving me strange looks, as if trying to guess what business might I have in Angola. The flight seemed eternal. I managed to take a nap and just before waking up I heard the stewardess announcing that we landed. I got off the plane and soon I found myself in front of the airport, rather small airport if you asked me. Everybody got on taxis or on the shuttle bus and in minutes I was the only one left standing there. I’ve lost myself for a while scouring the vastness of the nothingness which surrounded me. It scared me. I just couldn’t picture people living there. Few beings could survive in this arid landscape.

 When I started sweating like a snowman in hell, I awoke and saw that a single taxi was left. I boarded it thinking how lucky I was. Truth being told, that is how my misfortunes began. I showed him the address on the envelope and we started moving.  After a couple of hours we were nowhere near a town and I could not call you, there was no signal there and on top of all the battery died. So, I was stuck with that taxi driver who hadn’t said a word to me and although speaking with him I realized he wasn’t paying attention to me at all. A few more hours have passed and still nothing to see outside. All of a sudden he pulled over the taxi. He got out and came to my window waving his hand to get me out of the car. I got out and thought we might be taking a break but then out of nowhere he said: “Phone”. I took out my phone and showed it to him and I said: “Phone dead. Phone not working.” But he just kept yelling: “Phone, phone, phone!” He snatched it from my hand and threw it on the ground jumping on it until it broke. I kept yelling at him: “Stop! What are you doing? Are you insane? That was mine, you have to buy me a new one. I need it to communicate.” He just stopped talking, got inside the cab, threw my backpack out the window and left me there Only after reaching the airport to come back home I found out that their traditions forbade them to have contact with any technological advancement. I guess his car was the exception. But in any case, I was left alone and had no idea where I was. I chose a direction in which to go and luckily, after some hours of wandering aimlessly through the desert I’ve reached a village just before the sun had set. There were some children outside playing with a ball and the adults were sitting in a circle and talking. I went there all sweaty and dirty from my trip and introduced myself. They looked suspiciously at me and could not comprehend a word I was saying. I kindly asked them to offer me a cup of water but no one understood me. I was so exhausted that I threw my backpack on the ground and just fell asleep instantly. The next day I woke up on the ground inside a hut made out of clay and hay. At first I thought it had all been a dream, but sadly I was there among the indigenous people of Angola with a small child looking over me, analyzing me.

We communicated by imitating actions since they could not understand my language and I theirs. After I was given something to eat I was taken by some men to go fishing with them. We were pretty close to the ocean. After a 4 hour walk we arrived and they immediately started fishing. Needless to say that we headed out before sunrise. There were some boats ashore and gigantic nets inside them. They made me go with them and there was no point in me trying to tell them that I couldn’t swim. I went willingly since at that point I felt that that was my end. I had only two choices: to live in the desert alone or go fishing with them. We set sail, if you can say so. They started rowing and in a few minutes we were in the open sea. They stopped rowing and threw their nets. We sat there for a while, a long while. We were 3 on my boat and I just kept observing them and their habits. When one of them started pulling the net the other made me rise and pull as well, I pulled as hard as I could but after a few seconds I found myself swimming with the fish. Or more precisely fighting for my life before the ocean could swallow me. One of the fishermen jumped after me and saved my life. They were done fishing and we went back to the village. Some of them went to their huts and left part of the catch with their women. Although being exhausted from our long trip we went to the fish market, a couple of hours’ walk from the village. The sun was killing me and I was definitely dehydrated. Once we reached the market, they handed the fish over to the merchants and they gave them money in return. One of the fishermen came to me and gave me some money as well. I later found out that it was not much and that I would need at least 1000 of their money to be able to buy a return ticket. With the money they made they went to a bigger town once a month and bought books and toys for the children. I was able to understand this after a while, I picked up some vocabulary in the past month of living with the natives and I learnt that they are good people. They were the ones who eventually helped me get back home. They are poor and they live in poor conditions but they are happy and they can still enjoy life. After my first day fishing I was not taken to the ocean but a woman came and took me with her to the fish market to sell fish at her stand. She showed me how to do it and after a week I was quite good. People came to our stand just to see the white woman selling fish, yelling in their language: Fresh fish! Good fish! Cheap fish! (Vars vis! Goeie vis! Goedkoop vis!)

They live tough lives and work all day. It was hard for me to see their shortcomings and so I began talking to them, as well as I could, and just a week before coming back home they managed to tell me the story of a white woman that lived there for a long time. She had helped them understand what was going on outside their village and how big the world really was. She had taught them to read and write and explained them the importance of education. They called her Amari which, according to them, means one that possesses great strength. She had lived and worked with them ever since arriving there and in her spare time she was teaching them all kinds of useful things. That is why when I arrived they took me fishing with them. Aunt Olivia did that on a regular basis. The next day they took me to what was once her hut and there they showed me a picture of her with another woman next to her. I instantly recognized my mother and look, Henry, she was my aunt. I took the picture with me as a memento. They told me how she had passed last year, she was really confused and she could barely walk. I think old age and the hard work she had put in were responsible for this. The villagers helped her with everything because she had given them so much. She even left them everything she had gathered during her time with them. I guess she forgot about not sending me the letter and maybe believed that I decided not to come after all. After showing me around her hut they took me to her burial site and I just started crying. I was grieving the loss of a person I did not even know. How foolish of me. When that taxi driver left me in the desert, I thought that I hadn’t reached my destination and that I would never get the chance to meet my aunt. I did get to meet her in the end, but just through the stories of the natives, not in person. It seems that they were the ones who’ve sent me the letter a year after her death; they found it along with this photo. For a year they did not use the hut out of respect for her but a young family needed shelter so the chief offered them Olivia’s hut. It was while cleaning the hut that they discovered the letter and a note in their language instructing them to take the letter to the post office and send it. They had no idea what my aunt had written so they did as they were told in order to fulfill her last wish.

 A week after my discovery, I managed to round up the amount I needed to buy my ticket back home. I must tell you that I truly regret not having met her but I’ve learned a lot about her deeds. And I am very proud to be her niece. The people arranged for me to be taken to the airport. The same taxi driver arrived to pick me up and with a large smile, opened the door of his taxi for me to get in. After saying my goodbyes I left them and promised them I would come back.

“Amazing story, right dear? I’m starving; let’s go out, I’m in the mood for pizza. Once we’ve eaten I will tell you my idea about wanting to go back and live with the natives. I would love for you to come as well if it’s not much to ask.”