The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

quiet of the night, when Africa slept. Then, sometimes, I would steal away to my roof to watch the moon arc across a perfect sky, or stare in awe at the Southern Cross as it slowly rotated in its ascension. As I listened to the quiet of the wind, I lowered my book to my lap and looked out at the sky. It was as if a shroud was cast across the sky from horizon to horizon. Not so much clouds as a pale green veil that deepened into turquoise as I watched. I put down my book and stood, transfixed. The usual harsh shadows of the mid- day African sun were gone. The sun’s rays were dif- fused so that everything was bathed in an even light, and the breeze that played through my garden was almost refreshing. Almost cool. I t was a bizarre experience. The world around me was at once familiar — yet strangely surreal. I felt transported, detached, unplugged, and a feeling of unease spread from my stomach to my bowels, then up my spine. The hairs at the back of my neck pricked to attention. In retrospect, I think I was approaching the steep edge of a deep and primal panic the likes of which I had never experienced before. But that is when the wind stopped blowing and it began to rain. It started as soft, evenly-timed pats, not unlike someone holding a sheet of paper and flicking it with his finger. I watched as the drops, fat and wet, struck the dusty leaves of the hedge surrounding my porch, leaving them clean and bright. I watched as the drops hit the dusty path leading from my porch into my gar- den. They struck hard and heavy, like little artillery shells, sending up barely-perceptible puffs of dust and leaving dime-size craters. But then it started to rain in earnest. Something overcame me. The next moment I was in my garden in the deluge, barefoot and soaked to the core. My light cotton shirt clung to my body; my hair was plastered to my head. I lifted my face to the sky. The rain fell in my eyes and ran down the creases of my face, into the corners of my mouth. It was sweet. It was clean. It was cool. Then, as quickly as it had started, the rain ceased. The veil that covered the sky and muted the sun lifted. The heat returned in an instant, and the air was sud- denly muggy and thick. The insects took up their cho- rus. The animals joined in, soon followed by the rest of the noise of urban Africa. I lowered my head. A blush rose to my cheeks and I found myself looking around to see if anyone had wit- nessed my baptism. That is when I noticed the butter- flies, scores of them. It was as if they simply blossomed out of the bushes. One moment they weren’t there, and the next they were everywhere. They danced and flitted about. I stared in wonder. Most were light blue and trimmed in black. Others were orange. I followed my footpath around to the back of my garden. The butterflies were there too. I could hear their wings flapping, and the air verily pulsated with each tiny wing beat. M y garden was a carefully planned and tended chaos of flowers, shrubs, bushes, and trees. Ebrima, my gardener, was tasked with its care, and in that he was unsurpassed. He was before me now. Not standing, but lying in the middle of a patch of green grass. He was in his work clothes — brown trousers cut at the legs so they came just below his knees and one of my old dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows. He wore the shirt tucked in the trousers and open to the waist, not as a fashion statement, but sim- ply for lack of buttons. The trousers were cinched around his waist with a tattered piece of rope. Oddly, his plastic flip-flops rested next to him side-by-side, as if placed there with care. His machete, the tool of choice for all of his gardening chores, lay on his other side, again as if placed there by a gentle hand. The wool cap he normally wore, was rolled up and loosely rested in his right hand. His body was still wet from the rain, droplets glistened in his close-cropped gray hair, and pooled in the hollow at the base of his neck and the corners of his closed eyes. His body shone magnifi- cently in the bright sun. He looked fresh and alive like the rain-cleaned greenery that surrounded me, but I knew without going any closer that he was dead. Ebrima had been my gardener from the day I moved my battered suitcases into the tiny bungalow I came to call home. He was there waiting for me at the gate as the bush taxi dropped me off. He stood proud F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 Michael E. Kelly, a military brat, is no stranger to a nomadic lifestyle. Following graduate school and a stint as a defense contractor for a Beltway bandit, Michael took on his toughest assignment, as a stay-at-home father married to an FSO. Between playgroups and naps he focuses on his writing. He is heading to Nuevo Laredo with his family this fall.