The Greener Grass

"What do you mean you aren't coming back?"

"I just can't do it anymore. We started going when the kids were babies, because we wanted them to grow up in the church and I needed the hour of peace and quiet. The church we picked in Wexford had children's church and a nursery, so we could actually pay attention to the service. That was a great church, but this one just doesn't give me anything anymore. It was great for meeting people in town when we first moved here, but lately it's just a chore to go. I've had enough. I'm tired of being a hypocrite."

"Sally, please. We really need you in the choir and nobody else will take charge of Vacation Bible School."

"Well, I'll miss both, but someone will take over VBS. You just watch. There are lots of capable people. The choir will survive, too."

"They're talking about starting an adult Bible study again. Would that interest you?"

"Not if all we're gonna do is read a few passages and then sit there talking about how amazing God is and how things haven't changed over 3000 years. I need to go deeper, Nancy. I need to feel free to question. I need to feel like the words in that book are pushing people to look twice at the way they live."

"I don't understand what you mean. Don't you think most of us try to live by those words?"

Sally sighed. She really didn't want to have this conversation. She said, "We do try, don't we." and thought, 'When was the last time we fed the hungry, Nancy?'

Nancy answered and talked some more about all the great things the Sunday School and Women's group were doing, but Sally had stopped listening. She said "I know." and "Sure" a few times, but without any feeling.

Nancy got the message. "Well, I hope to see you soon," she said. "Take care. God bless."

Sally put the phone down and sipped her coffee while she stared out the window. It looked gorgeous outside. The sun was shining, which hadn't happened in almost a week. She could see pale green buds on the trees and hear the birds. The grass was bright green. This was such a great time of year, if only it would warm up a bit more. The weather had been so strange lately. When they were down in Florida over Easter, Dave had said that the forecast was for a cool summer in the northeast and hot and dry in the south. Oh well, nothing she could do about it and Dave was happier with cool. He always got hot and sweaty long before she did. He would have hated West Africa.

She walked into the living room and noticed the basket of laundry waiting for her. She'd been on her way up to the bedroom to fold it when the phone rang. She picked it up, headed upstairs and dumped it out on their bed. As she folded, her mind swept back over the years, remembering her days in Togo. In her mind, heat and Togo, West Africa were always connected. It was so long ago, it hardly felt real anymore. What was the name of that student who had helped her around the house? Kossi? No, that was the English teacher. Koffi? Hmmmm....She couldn't remember. She didn't believe in too much charity. She always made the students work for her if they needed money. It seemed to work out fine. She chuckled as she remembered their attempts to put in a garden. It was so hot that all the seedlings withered. They decided to shade the plot with palm fronds on a platform he built. It had worked really well, at first. The little plants had popped up out of the ground and Kodjo (Was that his name?) had been so pleased. Then, a pregnant stray dog had discovered the shade and lay down right on top of the seedlings. Kodjo was so upset, but she had smiled and said, "Oh, well. We'll just plant some more." She could see his reaction. He realized that day that she was just giving him busy work to justify the money she gave him for school. He was disheartened, disappointed because he wanted to earn his money. She'd hurt his pride and felt terrible about it.

The second student who came to see her, saying he didn't have any food left, was shocked when she said he could wash her floors, if he wanted to, and she would pay him. He hadn't come back. Kodjo was different. He really needed the money and worked hard for it. His hair had been orange when he'd first come looking for help. Kwashiorkor - not enough protein in his diet. It had turned black by the end of the year after he started earning money. 'I wonder what he's doing now,' she thought as she reached for her mug of coffee. She sipped and found it was already cold. Nothing like Togo. When she drank her coffee there every morning, she would break into a sweat, because the air was so hot and heavy with moisture. Sip. Sweat. Sip. Sweat. Dave would have hated it.

Back downstairs, she warmed the coffee up in the microwave. That would have been handy in Togo. She'd only had a little one burner kerosine stove that sat on the floor of the kitchen, because there was so little counter space. The coffee had been good, though. Maybe she'd buy some French bread and sweetened evaporated milk next time she shopped and try to relive the taste of breakfast in Togo. It would work better if the temperature rose by about 30 degrees!

At least the church here wasn't as messed up as the churches there, she thought. It amazed her the way they mixed together animism and Christianity. How could they think it was OK to be polygamists if they were Christians. She shook her head, pondering how lost and confused they were. A small voice in her head reminded her that the Bible was full of polygamy. Well, that's true, she thought. I should know better than to be blind to my own culture's prejudices. Cultural norms are just that, cultural norms. Could she possibly imagine the people here living the way we did in Togo? Hah. 'Let's see. Can I do it?' she thought. 'Can I picture five or six families in this town living in little cement apartments placed along the edges of a square, doors opening toward the inside of the compound, with a wall connecting them and a central courtyard? Who would be there? The Miners, The Bogerts, The Jennings, The Buddenhagens? It would have been nice when the kids were babies, to have other women around to share in watching them and to be able to send one of the older girls to the market if I needed something. Now that would be an interesting experiment to try.' It was a lot more like they lived during the time of Christ. She would have a pretty good idea of who needed food if they all lived so closely packed, doing their cooking outside in a common cooking area. 'Well, I guess here they'd have to have an indoor common kitchen area for most of the year, except maybe the summer.' But would it change anything? Would she share more if the need were more obvious?

She looked up and saw that she'd been day dreaming for too long and needed to get something out for dinner. 'How about venison in peanut sauce? That would taste good on a cool day like this and I feel like keeping my African memories alive today. Dave would have hated the heat, but he loved the food, the hotter the better.' She opened the basement door and walked down to the freezer. It wasn't very full, because Dave had only gotten one deer. She took out a package of stew meat and put it on the dryer while she loaded the washing machine. Now this was a luxury she would sorely miss if she lived in Togo. "No you wouldn't," she corrected herself outloud. 'You'd have a girl to do the wash for you. True... and clean the house, too. Yup, and it would be unthinkable to do it myself and deny people the chance to earn some money. Maybe I should call Don and find out if there are any jobs for us in Madagascar.' Don was an old Peace Corps friend who worked for USAID - The US Agency for International Development. No, her husband would never go for it. He wasn't nearly as adventurous as she was. Well, maybe she wasn't so adventurous anymore either, now that they had the kids to worry about.

She walked up the stairs to the kitchen and started to make some lunch. As she ate, she thought about Sunday. What would the kids think if they stopped going to church? They'd always gone every week, unless they were out of town or sick. The kids always complained that it was boring and stupid and they didn't want to go, but how would she explain this change? It was so easy to just keep doing what they were doing and not rock the boat. Would she have to explain to everyone, or would they just let the family disappear? She heard the washing machine stop just as she finished eating and went downstairs to get the clothes. The venison stew meat was still sitting on the dryer. She put the laundry in a basket, grabbed the venison and went upstairs. After she'd left the venison in the kitchen to thaw, she went outside to hang up the laundry. The wind was blowing just enough that it wold dry pretty quickly. She should have gotten it out here sooner, but her mind was so pre-occupied today. It was that conversation with Nancy that had started it all. She hadn't longed for Togo in a long time, but all day she'd been wishing she could take the best of that culture and bring it home. Life had been great there. She tried to keep their life simple here, but it wasn't easy. The fact that she had to drive fourteen miles down a highway to get decent vegetables just drove her crazy. Well, in Togo there hadn't really been any vegetables, so..... She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Nothing's ever perfect, is it?"

She'd said it out loud and the dogs thought she was talking to them. They came trotting over, tails wagging, then bumping against each other, trying to get her petting and kisses. "You guys are so jealous. Come on, stop! I love you both. You aught to know that by now." She stooped down and gave them lots of love. They were such good company during the day when the kids were off at school and her husband was at work. She rubbed their bellies and scratched behind their ears. They decided they'd each gotten enough and sat down next to her on the lush grass while she finished hanging the wash. As she turned to go in the house, she heard a loud noise. It was strange, because it almost sounded like a clap of thunder, but the sun was shining. The dogs jumped up, their tails between their legs. 'Strange,' she thought. 'Wonder what it was.' "It's OK boys," she said as she patted them on their heads.

She picked up the laundry basket and went inside. Maybe she could get the front bed weeded before the kids got home from school, but first she needed to get dinner started. She put the meat in the microwave to thaw, turned the oven to 325 and got out the cast iron dutch oven. The venison always turned out better when it was cooked nice and slow in that dutch oven. When it was all set up, she went out to work in the flower bed. Five people called and left messages over the next hour and a half, but she couldn't hear the phone from outside. As far as she knew, the day was turning out just fine.