Bature and the Creep

Kids, I think this could be the wallop that Fate was waiting to dole out. So tonight, a bunch of us Batures went out tonight to support the wrestling show (yes, wrestling show, but that's a story for the support e-mail if ever there was one) and we were all standing around the ring and the sun was going down and suddenly there was a man beside me who tapped me on the elbow and asked me if I was enjoying the show. Now, we were also there with a number of boys from our various CARE centers, and I am far from memorizing every one of their faces, and this guy looked young enough that he could have been one of our boys. So I answered that I was enjoying it and went back to the show. Then he started asking me all kinds of questions about where I was staying and where I was staying exactly, which I answered as obtusely as possible. Now by this time about five of our boys who were all standing around me were tugging at my sleeves and telling me not to talk to this goodly gentleman, a course of action which I had already deduced for myself, but as soon as I would turn back from listening to their whispered admonitions he would be tapping at my elbow again and trying to ask me something else. Finally John, one of our boys, grabbed my arm and said, "Would you like to go talk to Uncle Elisha?" to which I had no idea what to say and he very competently continued, "Let's go talk to Uncle Elisha." And off we went through the crowd. Now, we were not going to see Uncle Elisha, but we did succeed for the moment in getting away from my new friend.

So I continued watching the show for a while and then John said he had to go for a second but he would be right back. No sooner did he leave than the man was back, keeping up a one-sided conversation which I couldn't hear over the noise of the crowd. Finally he starts in with this "Oh, baby girl, baby girl" crap and I wanted to turn around and say "Buddy, I ain't your baby" and give him a good knee to the groin but instead I elbowed my way to stand in front of Jesse, who was standing just in front of me. Jesse is the husband of one of the missionaries and I don't think we'd ever had a single exchange of words directly, so I didn't quite feel like saying, "Excuse me, but there's a creepy man following me and I am just going to take shelter in the shadow of your biceps." But Jesse is in actual fact a rather tall and broad man and I did feel a great deal better putting him between myself and the creep, especially as he was the only male of our party within eyeshot.

So this creepy guy moves on to bother some of the other girls in our group, who keep trying to give him the brush off, but he doesn't take the hint and lingers. Finally another one of the guys, who I think works at Hillcrest but I had never laid eyes on before this evening, taps her on the shoulder and says, classically, "Dana, is this man bothering you?" To which the gentleman starts replying in rapid fire Hausa and even more surprisingly the new guy starts answering in the same quick Hausa and then, downright shockingly, the older gentleman in front of me, a Nigerian with no affiliation to our group whatsoever, jumps right into the fray, thoroughly and vocally irritated with the creep, and starts to chew him out. No language comprehension necessary to understand that part of it, although I would have given a great deal to know what old Baba was saying to the jerk. Soon other Nigerians are starting to join in and the boys are laughing now at the poor old creep, who is literally being driven out of the crowd with many shouts. I thought briefly that the situation was going to come to blows, but no such luck.

But the crowning glory on the whole scene, that which really gilds the lily, was that the wrestling show was an evangelistic wrestling show (which is a lily in itself), so all of this is happening as about 200 youngsters are being led in the Sinner's Prayer. Now, our crowd was small enough and their crowd was large enough that nothing was really interrupted, but come on, that is one for the books, almost starting a brawl during the Sinner's Prayer.

So, I guess I try to be lighthearted about the whole thing, as everyone else was, but I have to say I really didn't appreciate the whole situation so much. There's something about knowing that there's nothing you can really do, on your own, to stop somebody, that just makes you feel obnoxiously helpless. Not fun. And then when something like that happens, the feeling of suspicion just lingers and grows. I have to say, the perpetual celebrity of the white person in Africa is hard enough to deal with in the daytime, but at night it becomes downright unbearable. I was talking to a couple of our boys from TH tonight, just answering some of their questions about my glasses, and I looked up and realized that about 20 other kids had formed this little knot around me. And I couldn't see any of their faces because the light was behind them. It's true that they're just kids, but when every single one of them wants to touch your hands and say bye before you can get in your car and in the midst of them people are asking for your e-mail address and phone number and everything else, and you can't see any of them and you don't know what they're really asking for, you reach this breaking point when all you want to do is turn around and scream "Leave me alone! Get the hell away from me, for God's sake!" Bad moment.

But can I just say how touched I was that all of our boys, none of whom are even as old as I am, all wanted to help get Auntie away from the bad man? They are so gloriously dear that it is ridiculous. I would put up with a hundred creepy men for the chance to help them actualize their oodles of potential. But I think my nerves would force me to start carrying mace if that should be the case...