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Features 'Over There' Paul Theroux b. 1941, Medford, Massachusetts Paul Theroux on his four days as a sexual prisoner in Africa: 'This was my first true experience of captivity and difference, memorable for being horribly satirical. It had shocked me and made me feel American.' This took place forty years ago in Africa, and still I ponder itthe opportunity, the self-deception, the sex, the power, the fear, the confrontation, the foolishness, all the wrongness. The incident has informed one of my early novels and several short stories. It was something like First Contact, the classic encounter between the wanderer and the hidden indigenous person, the meeting of people who are such utter strangers to each other that one side sees a ghost and the other side suspects an opportunity. It wont leave my mind. I had gone from America to Africa and had been there for almost a year: Nyasaland. Independence came and with it a new name, Malawi. I was a teacher in a small school. I spoke the language, Chichewa. I had a house and even a cook, a Yao Muslim named Jika. My cook had a cook of his own, a young boy, Ismail. We were content in the bush, a corner of the southern highlands, red dust, bad roads, ragged people. Apart from the clammy cold season, June to August, none of this seemed strange. I had been expecting this Africa and I liked it. I used to say: Ill get culture shock when I go back home. With Christmas approaching I went via a roundabout route to Zambia and on Christmas Eve was sitting in an almost empty and rather dirty bar outside Lusaka, talking to the only other drinkers, a man and woman. | |
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