I write Annie about a typical day in Kikwit

Behind our house in Kikwit: the Kwilu River;
 in the foreground the pointed pool umbrellas;
and the groundsman.
On this day ... 


March 17, 1968.  Dear Annie*, I was floating in our pool when your letter came.  I paddled over to the ladder and pulled myself up and yanked my towel off the sun umbrella, where it was drying lickety-split in the equitorial sun, and rubbed down. I was thinking, maybe a letter from you will help me.  These latter afternoons have been heavy on the spirit.  I teach till one p.m.  I’m happy in front of the kids.  But it’s a tug-of-war with the lead weight of the lethargy of the centuries at the other end. One example of the weight: most believe that the world is flat.  At one thirty our domestique, Baudouin, serves us the three-course European dinner.  The weather is now at its hottest, 85 degrees F.  That is not counting the humidity.  I want to retreat to myself then and do some writing.  

But I hesitate and don’t want to really face myself so I hedge and take a nap or a few meditative draws on my pipe.**  I wonder when I’ll get my next glass of wine.  These moments I feel acutely that my productivity and my creativity have tapered off.  During these afternoon moments, the need for a real companion gnaws the most incessantly at my innards.  For a moment I feel lost. But sooner or later five o’clock rolls around and I dip in the pool and watch the birds flying high and free and I think about my wet body and what I will eat for supper.  PAXman Wes comes about this time with the mail and I am happy with myself again.  Shortly after supper, I am at my desk turning out lesson preparations for the morrow and there’s still two hours left for reading and writing.  And that, Annie, is the short happy day of Glenn.  


Sincerely yours, Glenn

*Annie was one a few editors Mennonite Publishing House sent to Mennonite World Conference in 1967. There, in Amsterdam, she and Willard advised me on writing for young adults.

** Upon leaving the Congo, a paxman had bequeathed me his pipe sons tobacco.




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