Under the Mango Tree

I’ve often heard that people in West Africa talk, conduct business, and just generally live under the mango trees—and tonight we got to experience that for the first time. 

We are still doing our orientation here, and are spending a few weeks living with other missionary families throughout the country.  This afternoon our host family took us out visiting to the home of an African family they have known for years.   I have taken very few pictures since arriving here, not because I don’t want to, but because I am being cautious and do not want to offend anyone.  So I will do my best to paint the scene for you with words.

It’s the middle of rainy season, but the afternoon is dry and pleasant; a cool breeze brings a cover of gray clouds to provide shade from the hot sun.   We walk into a courtyard whose boundaries are merely suggested by the placement of several buildings of different sizes.  The main house is on the left, a four-room building with a bedroom for the parents, a bedroom for the children, a living room, and a storage/workroom.   The entrance to this house is through the front porch, which is covered in a pretty mosaic pattern made from pieces of broken tiles.   The house has recently been built, and even now projects are finished as time and money become available.  Even though it’s Sunday, a mason is working hard to finish the concrete on the steps and the side of the porch. 

To the right is a smaller, rectangular building where the tools and other miscellaneous items are kept.   A little farther down on the right is a small square building:  the kitchen.   And the next building is a round hut made out of mud bricks, with a thatched roof that functions as an extra bedroom for some of the children.   The back part of the courtyard is home to a lovely Mango tree.

As we walk over the red dirt through the courtyard, we are greeted and immediately children are sent to bring out chairs for us, which are placed in a circle under that lovely tree.   The mother is busy braiding the youngest daughter’s hair into neat rows.  The father is supervising the work on the porch, and greeting other people that happen to stop by.  Children are everywhere, in and out of the courtyard, and most of them from other families.  White people are an interesting spectacle, and definitely a reason for children to stop their play and come observe the strange people with white skin. 

Our hosts are providing tea for us, prepared by their teenage son, with a skill and technique to equal that of a barista in a fancy coffee shop in the States.  Quite a long process, but a delightfully strong, sweet, foamy tea is the result. 

The conversation is a blend of French, English and the local language, and there is much we don’t understand.  But hospitality can cross the language barrier, and the hostess sets before us two steaming plates of rice and fish balls, with a spoon for each of us.  (To Joya, the community plate is preferable to individual plates, because this way no one tell how little she has eaten!) 

Night falls quickly, and we head for home, knowing we will remember always our first African tea under the Mango Tree.