Dial episode 32

DIAL
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Sequence 32
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It was made of clay, and it looked very small indeed. It was just a simple rectangular structure with a porch-like construction in front. I saw two doors, and to one side of the building was a shed-like structure under which were a three-stone clay structure with firewood in it. There was a crude wooden shelf, and cooking utensils were stacked neatly in it. There was a barrel, two covered huge baskets and a few bits and pieces.
The night passed in a blur.
She let me put the bag down, and then she led me to the clay building.
One had a few wooden chairs and bags, and this was where she made me put my bag.
Next, she took me to the next room. It was small too, and had a single bed with very tall legs. It was neatly-made, though.
She lit other lanterns, and then she told me to sit and wait for her.
There were two hard-backed chairs in the room, and so I sat in one and promptly dozed off.
I didn’t know how long I slept, but she eventually shook me awake.
I opened my eyes sleepily and then wrinkled my nose with sudden distaste.
“Hey, what’s that unpleasant scent?” I asked as I took shallow breaths so that I wouldn’t breathe that scent fully.
She pointed to the doorway.
She had put some bunches of leaves all along the doorway and the porch.
“We call them poop leaves here, Yao,” she said. “The scent is bad, I know, but they keep the snakes away.”
“Gross!” I said with a screwed-up face. “I can’t sleep with that scent!”
“You’ll have to grow used to it, my son,” she said. “Without the leaves, you could get bitten, and die. Come, I prepared something for you. Let’s eat.”
And under the shed, from the light of a lantern in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and poisonous reptiles, I shared a meal of yam and
kontomire stew with palm oil with a witch…and it was the sweetest food I had ever eaten in any of the world-class restaurants both home and abroad. We sat on small stools on each side of a low table, and we ate from an earthenware bowl.
Much later, I sat and watched her as she washed and stacked the bowls away. She then poured some hot water into a strange-looking bucket, and added some cold water.
“Do you have a sponge and towel?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, in my bag,” I answered.
“Go and get them then, Yao, and come and take a bath.”
“I don’t bath hot water, please,” I informed her with a smile.
She looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“The cold water we have here isn’t the one you have in the city,” she said. “You need it lukewarm.”
“Oh, no, please,” I insisted. “I’m hot enough as it is. Cold water is fine.”
She acquiesced.
“Alright then, take another bucket and fetch some from that barrel over there.”
I fetched the water, and sent it to a small cubicle fashioned from wooden planks used to form a box-like structure, with stones and slabs of rocks on the floor. Standing in it, I realized that my upper shoulders showed outside. She hung a lantern on the peg for me.
I smiled, shook my head, and took off my clothes slowly. Back in Accra, my ultra-modern Jacuzzi was resting beautifully, and here I was, standing on stones with a crude wooden bucket and a metal scoop in it.
She came back and placed one of the wooden buckets on the ground just outside the bathroom.
“And what’s that?” I asked as I looked at her over the top of the bathroom.
“Hot water,” she said, and walked away.
“Told you I don’t need hot water, you witch!” I said with laughter in my voice.
She didn’t say anything, but when she walked a little bit away she stopped still.
I scooped water from the bucket and poured it over my head.
It was as if my skin had been sliced open and iced blocks packed into the skin. I couldn’t breathe, and for a moment the sheer cold stopped my breath! In all my life, I had never felt such cold water on my skin.
“Mmm-mmm-mmm!” murmured with chattering breath as I reached frantically for the other bucket she had put outside the bathroom. I poured it into the water I was using to bath.
“Silly arrogant old man!” I heard her call from somewhere out there.
I smiled with humiliation as I continued to bath. Even with the hot water mixed, the water was still cold, but it was like the cold water in the city.
Yes, indeed, the cold water in Etwe-Pe-Kote was not like the cold water I had in the city.
Later on, she put a mat on the floor for me with a sheet of cloth on it, and one hard pillow. She gave me another sheet to cover myself with. As I lay on the floor, breathing shallowly because of the awful scent of the snake-repellent leaves, I saw her slipping on a long, dark robe. She then fell to her knees in front of the bed, clamped her hands together, and began to pray.
I gawked at her and waited until she had finished praying. She turned the wick of the lantern, dimming the light, and then she fell on the bed.
“Goodnight, old man,” she said.
I smiled to myself.
“I’ve never seen a witch praying before,” I said.
“I’m not a witch, Yao,” she said sleepily.
“So why does the whole town and beyond claim you’re one? Will you tell me why?”
“Are you always this talkative?” she asked softly. “I’m tired. There are two pails by the door. The blue one is yours. You can weewee in that if you feel like it. Now please shut up and sleep!”
But I couldn’t sleep.
The scent of those leaves were too awful and disturbing.
A short while later she began to snore gently. She was deeply asleep. I stood up slowly, opened the door and went outside. Grimacing, I picked up all the huge stem on which were the leaves, and threw them into the yard. There were five of them, and I threw them all away.
I went back and fell on the mat. The awful scent was gone, and a moment later I slept soundly.
I came awake in the night when I felt a coldness on my foot. Sitting up groggily, I watched my foot area by the dim light of the lantern.
And there, black, huge and absolutely frightening, was the biggest and longest black snake I had ever seen in my life!
Oh, dear!
The scream that burst out of my lungs could have woken up Lazarus easily without the help of Jesus Christ!
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To be continued