Riding through the heart of Africa - ALbert Russo (good books for 8th graders .TXT) 📗

of honeycomb each, and I sank my teeth in it, first tentatively and with suspicion, then with a delight new to my palate.
More than once did I have to nudge Astrid with my elbow, for she was making faces every time she raised a piece of food to her mouth.
“Will you stop acting like a spoiled brat!” I hissed into her ear. They will feel insulted and turn against us. Haven’t you seen their poisoned spears?”
She got scared and started showering our hosts with exaggerated smiles, forcing herself to swallow the morsels. As for the millet beer, realizing that the poor girl was going to throw up, I had to intervene in extremis.
“My sister has an illness which doesn’t allow her to have any kind of drink” was the
excuse I invented.
“Your sister?” cut in the chief, “But she’s not of your race!”
Because of my blunder, we engaged into a lengthy discussion, involving my family, the chief’s ancestors, then concluding with the situation they were in. Thus we learnt, dismayed, that the pygmies intended to kill the usurpers who had impinged on ‘their’ territory, sullying by the same token the sacred spirits. And to our added horror, they said they would cut them into pieces and cook them, so as to pieces and cook them, so as to avenge the Lord of the forest.
“We shall offer them to Him in sacrifice,” explained the chief. “And we will use their bones as fetishes.”
This prospect gave us the "willies" and we fumbled for words, trying to dissuade them. A serendipitous idea suddenly crossed papa Sandro’s mind; he went to the car and retrieved a few objects from the trunk, which he then presented to the chief as gifts.
We consequently parted with one blanket, a round cushion, fully embroidered, and our folding picnic table. Thank goodness we kept our precious day’s victuals. This, of course, prompted another round of palavers.
To thank us, the chief gave us handicrafted objects. So, we drove away with a large keepnet woven in raffia, several flutes made out of reed, as well as a pair of lovely stools carved in ebony wood. They were too small for us adults, but they could very well be used by little Dalia, and she surely would love them.
The chief had promised us not to kill the usurping strangers after they launched their attack on them, just to give them a well-deserved hiding and scare them away, for we had warned them that if they committed what was considered murder, the colonial authorities would prosecute them, and that they would spend the rest lof their lives in jail.
Papa Sandro had to explain to the chief what a prison was.
“It’s like a big cage made out of bricks and cement, with iron bars, which are much thicker than your spears.”
Listening to this description, the chief let out a long and raucous cry.
“Does that mean we would then never be able to move to other places?” he asked, opening his eyes wide.
“Exactly!” exclaimed papa Sandro, nodding his head insistantly, so as to scare his interlocutor even more.
And we parted, after having exchanged the customary greetings, relieved that the chief had changed his mind. Imprint

Publication Date: 11-18-2009

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