I carried a watermelon

Yesterday I was standing in the reception area of our office waiting to talk with someone when one of the guys at work took my arm and playfully nudged me, saying “Walk out the door!” I was puzzled (par for course these days, I’m afraid) but followed as he opened the front door and led me 10 yards outside to the front gate of the office where the security guard was sitting in an old lawn chair, sipping tea under a tree. He stretched out his arms with palms facing the sun, threw his head back, smiled, and said, “C’est bon, n’est pas?” I tried to mimic his enthusiasm for standing outside in the noon heat, took a deep breath (nearly choked since one could cut the air with a knife) and half-heartedly agreed, “Yes, it’s nice.”

We stood there for a few minutes, admiring the dirt road. I asked if those were homes across the street. One house, yes, but beyond the wall directly across the street is a Protestant church. I was surprised, since every evening I hear calls to prayer at the nearby mosques. As we were talking about religion, still standing in front of the office, a guy sauntered by with a rickety wooden wheelbarrow-like push-cart full of watermelons. He stopped and my co-worker started chatting with him. I was quickly lost when the conversation carried on in Bambara. I sensed that they were bargaining and evaluating the quality of the melons, as the seller held one up and rapped his knuckles on it, nodding vigorously that it was indeed a good melon. My co-worker handed the seller 350 CFA and the seller shook his head. Voices were raised, sentences shortened, and the tone became terse. My co-worker took the money back and made a dramatic display of dropping the coins back into his wallet and waved the seller on his way.

Once the man and the melons had disappeared around the corner, past a group of men fixing a flat tire on an old Peugeot sedan, I asked how much the seller was asking. The response was “500 CFA.” I was incredulous – so much haggling over the equivalent of a quarter?

I was still mulling it over when my co-worker shouted to the guys at the corner, asking them to call for the watermelon man. A few minutes later the cart of melons and the man pushing them re-appeared. This time, 400 CFA was offered by my co-worker and the same melon landed in my hands without me uttering a word. My co-worker laughed, slapped my back, and did a little dance like football players do in the end zone after a touchdown.

After the victory, we returned to the office where the fans were circulating the air and another co-worker looked at me and laughed with a look on her face saying “What is going on?” We marched straight into the kitchen and sliced the melon into two dozen wedges for everyone. The slightly run-down, tired kitchen suddenly brightened with the colors in everyone’s bubus (the traditional style of dress – long, loosely flowing fabrics with intricate stitched designs and splashes of color) as they circulated through to pick up sections of melon.

The melon looked delicious. The color was bright red and the juice dripped all over the counter, making a mess with each cut. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into something so refreshing after standing outside in the sun. I took a bite and quickly tried to hide the shocked expression that must have crossed my face: it was hot! Well, of course it would be after it had been peddling around outside at noon. Still, it tasted sweet and I quickly got over the fact that I was devouring warm watermelon.

I felt a little strange spitting out watermelon seeds on the ground in the backyard near where the two cows had last stood before they met their end at Ramadan. But then I smiled to myself, giggling that – smack in the middle of the work day – we had just bought an entire watermelon for 80 cents. Cheap thrills.