The Coldness!

After dinner, one of the men who has come to sit around the fire decides to tell me about European winters. He tells me the cold is different in Africa because here the cold will get inside of you. The cold is worse in Africa than it is in Europe.

I reply that in America and Europe it is the same, the cold will get inside of you. He repeats what he’d just finished saying. I repeat what I’d just finished saying. He switches to English, convinced I have misunderstood his Pulaar. I repeat that the coldness is quite the same in terms of its ability to get inside you.

He says no, no, you don’t understand, the cold will go past the outside and do things to people.

I say, “Like make them sick?”

I am getting very frustrated at not being believed but at the same time I don’t want to be a snot and bring up the fact that, unlike him, I’ve actually experienced the coldness in all of the continents in question. So instead, I explain that the cold in Europe will make your lips dry so they crack and sometimes bleed. He counters with, “Ah-ha, yes here too, but also your skin will, you know, it will get like this.” Another man joins the conversation briefly, just long enough to suggest I apply a special oil to my lips so they will not crack. At this point, if I were a meaner person, I would have screamed, “I know! I know I know I know what to do about chapped lips because in America that happens ALL THE TIME.”

I do not think to mention that in America it gets so cold that sometimes people’s limbs will become frozen and need to be chopped off. It was probably best that I forgot to mention this.

Our conversation continues, if it could be called “conversation,” until the man finally acknowledges, “Okay, okay, you would know because you have been there. I did not know the coldness was the same. Thank you. Now I know.”