A Visit to the Chief

Today I sat in the house of the chief. 

In a small, West African village that is home to about 1,000 people, the most important and respected person is the chief.  Since we are guests of the missionary family living in this village, it is customary for us to recognize his position in the village by going to his house and greeting him in person. 

Not wanting to overwhelm him, we decided that just the four adults would go to pay this visit to the chief.  As we walked through the village, we very quickly began to have little followers:  small children, mostly younger than 6 or 7, and their even smaller brothers and sisters came alongside us as we walked.  They were quiet, but curious, and the farther we walked, the more children we picked up along the way.  By the time we arrived at our destination, there were probably 15 kids who were bold enough to walk right with us, and several more shyly standing nearby.  

The chief invited us into his home:  a small, rectangular, concrete building with a tin roof, a wooden door, and a few small windows.   No tile, carpet or rugs on the floor; no electricity and no running water; nothing at all in the room except a few soccer posters on the wall and a couple of chairs and a bench.  Extra wooden chairs were immediately provided for us;   we shook hands all around, sat down, and the meeting began. 

The door remained open, and the bravest of the brave children crowded into the doorway to watch this new episode in the ongoing spectacle of a day in the life of a tubabo (white person).  I wasn’t sure how the chief would handle all the kids peering into the room, and when he began to speak in their general direction, I was curious to know what he was saying.  Several of them scampered off, but returned quickly with a long wooden bench.  In an American house, we would have put four or five children on that bench, but they managed to squeeze on about ten.  They didn’t speak at all; they just watched. They were given permission to enter the house, not scolded and sent away. The meeting continued with many formalities exchanged  back and forth, and then we left. 

Today I sat in the house of the chief.  A house that would be, by our western standards, unthinkable to live in.  He didn’t apologize for it; he wasn’t ashamed of it.  He graciously invited us in, and I admire him for that.