The African Village of Tempeh

This story is fiction and any resemblance to actual persons or situations is purely coincidental. All rights to this and any part of it is reserved by the author, Leonard A. Brand, Jr. , whose pen name is Pete Brand, and no part may be utilized in any way without his written permission.

For present and or prospective members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“The African Village of Tempeh”
by Pete Brand

Tempeh is an upland African jungle village of about eight hundred people, living on slightly higher ground along the right side of the down flowing Zambezi river in houses that are mostly woven palm sided with odd looking roofs. Some of the village’s houses however are completely different, allegedly designed and built by a man who arrived more than a hundred years ago by air in a strange silent floating round craft that moved in over the village where it stopped dead still and then suddenly seemed to disintegrate causing a fire that destroyed the village’s houses. At that time Tempeh’s population was about three hundred.

The village ‘Tim Tims’ or oral history stories were passed down verbally from the Kings and elders through the decades. The tales describe the odd fair skinned survivor, of what is now referred to as the space ship, as an odd looking individual though by all accounts not unattractive. He was apparently human but did not speak their language at first though he soon mastered the village dialect. In addition to an odd expressionless face he had little hair and only three fingers and a thumb on his left hand. He was injured in the crash and the villagers took him in to lovingly care for him until he told them he was well and got up and began to walk through the village.

The villagers read, write, and speak English taught to them by a traveling Christian church woman who came to them once a week over a period of years.

In those days the villagers’ diet had always been primarily things they could grow, such as various tubers, bananas, plantains, and also a plentiful supply of fish from the river. Their diet contained no refined sugar and almost no fat. Earlier they hunted and ate the meat of jungle animals that were tough and never fat but in time the search for jungle animals for food produced smaller and smaller catches until the hunting gave way to more effort on cultivating agricultural crops. Perhaps as a result of their healthy diet they had no disease, no cancer and many lived to a hundred years of age or more.

The villagers cultivated their food crops on approximately forty acres of rich low land in an area between the houses and the river on the outside edge of a bend of the river where its course turned away from the village. Today they farm more than a hundred acres in that same area because the present King’s first son designed and supervised the building of an earthen wall to deflect the river when it occasionally ‘came down’ in flood. This saved their crops, kept farm land from washing away, and indeed resulted in a small increase in their farmable riverside land each year.

It is two day’s journey southeastward from the village down the Mozambican Zambezi river to a small east coast port village at the northern edge of the river delta. Presently once a month at about the full moon the villagers of Tempeh send their produce to the coast in their engineless cargo lighters towed by the village’s tug boat. The tug was powered by a small fire tube boiler steam engine. Steam was the only practical power for their boat because petroleum fuel was expensive and difficult to get and the surrounding jungle provided an endless amount of wood with which to fire the boiler.

At the port town they sell their goods and buy necessities which are towed back up against the flow of the river.

Peace loving and gentle, the villagers originally had a long standing fear of attack by the inhabitants of a larger village some miles up stream. The war-like people of there would periodically storm into the cluster of houses of Tempeh, throw spears into the huts, chase the villagers off into the jungle and steal anything they fancied, often including the village’s monthly shipment ready to go to the coast. Apparently just for fun these pillagers would often set houses afire as they were ready to depart.

As a precaution the villagers of Tempeh routinely hid food and personal property in the adjacent jungle, safe from these marauders so when the crash of the strange balloon with the stranger in a basket under it unfortunately set the entire village afire they began resignedly recovering their stashed food, and the materials to rebuild their homes.

The stranger the villagers had rescued came to understand their ongoing problems as victims of the upstream marauders. He convinced them to rebuild their houses in a new form that would not yield so readily to the devastation brought by marauders.

To prepare for the new type of village habitation he fashioned some measuring rulers and began directing the construction of many identical wooden gang-forms for molding river clay into blocks six inches wide by ten inches and twenty inches long. He had the villagers dig the thick grey clay from the river’s edge a short distance up-stream and then had them firmly pack it into the forms leaving it until it became set enough to allow the forms to be slipped off. When the resulting clay block was removed from the forms they were immediately repacked making more blocks, and so on.

With perseverance this village-wide cooperative effort soon produced thousands of these formed clay blocks which were stacked carefully onto a growing pile. When enough blocks had been made the entire pile was covered with dry brush and wood and set afire. Wood was added as needed to keep the fire very hot an entire day and night. The result blocks were sturdy strong tile building blocks, brick red, with two four inch square holes in each block.

At their stranger’s behest the boat crew took some young village men to the coast with two cargo lighters to dive on the offshore reefs and bring back several boatloads of the abundant sea coral. When the heavily laden lighters full of coral returned to the village the coral was broken into small pieces and piled in a clear spot. It was then covered with dry wood, and fired overnight as the clay tile blocks had been. When the fire burned out the coral had been reduced to clinkers which were pounded and ground into fine powder. This resulted in a form of cement that when mixed with sand and water, was in fact a mortar, a workable paste used to bind the tile construction blocks together and point the junctions between them.

In time two hundred relatively large single room houses were constructed replacing the old type village houses that had been so easily burned out. Oddly, the design of these houses allowed for no windows or ground level doors. Light and ventilation however was more than ample through the double two inch openings in each of the clay tile blocks. The diurnal temperatures ranged around a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius year around. The lack of doors was meant to provide a defensible detriment to any marauding or invading people and the entrance to each house was gained only via a ladder in front of the house. Hinged at the top by leather straps, each house ladder was raised by rope on wooden pulleys hung from a single boom sticking out over it much like a farm barn in developed countries where such a boom and pulley facilitated the raising and unloading of hay for animals in the barn. The boom was also used to lift any incoming packages up and through the actual doorway at the top of the house’s front wall.

The ladder could be pulled up when for extra safety, at the end of the day and through the night or whenever interlopers might threaten.

The new roofs were a gable design with a pitch of about forty-five degrees. All houses were set with their gable end facing the river. The entrance doorway, at the top of the wall, was a cut in the gable end.

Water for drinking and cooking was hauled up and into the house and poured into a cistern built into the rafters. Baths, clothes washing and dish washing was done down in the river.

Inside the house, opposite the outside ladder’s position, was the inside stairway, in ship’s ladder form from the entrance doorway down to the house floor level.

Roofs were the most vulnerable part of the previously thatched village houses because they were easily set afire by marauders. To obviate the threat of fire igniting the roofs the new roof design was constructed on extra study purlins topped with spent banana tree trunks mashed into a tight waterproof fit. After banana plants produce a stem of fruit, it dies. New shoots at the base of each dying tree provide the next banana tree and the cycle from new shoot to harvested stem was approximately nine months so there was an ample supply for roofing material.

Roofing of banana trunks worked well. The long banana tree logs were laid lengthwise from the roof peak to and past the outside walls. Ample layers of these banana tree trunks mashed into a fit made the finished roof about eight to twelve inches thick and provided a complete protection from rain. The new roofs were even better at resisting the occasional thunderstorm winds. This roofing material didn’t last more than a year or two but it couldn’t burn, didn’t leak, and was not difficult or costly to replace.

The cooking was done in each house on an open fire on a rock wringed spot on an earthen floor. Before the use of the banana trunks for fireproof roofing destruction by fires was occasionally set by the invaders but cook fires also contributed to the starting of accidental fires in the house. With the new wet banana tree trunk roof this danger was eliminated and if an inside fire started such a fire it would actually extinguish quickly because the banana trunks contained sufficient potassium salts which would be released by the heat of a fire and thus act as a very effective fire retardant/fire proofing extinguisher. No village house’s banana roof caught fire and burned after that.

If attacked, the villagers could now shoot arrows at the attackers from inside their houses through the two inch holes in their own tile walls while holding shields in front of them to deflect the enemy’s arrows and spears.

One late night not long after this successful rebuilding of the village the stranger took a ride on the down river trip to the port and never returned.

Before the building of the tile walled houses the villagers, being in constant fear of the raids, tried to figure ways to discourage the raiders. One of these schemes was to catch some of the large jungle dwelling poisonous Gros Tete snakes that lived in the adjacent jungle and keep them in cages in the houses to hopefully deter invaders. It was hoped that once word got around that they had the poisonous snakes in the houses it would discourage the raiders.

Today the village has grown to about four times its old size. The original clay tile walled houses remain intact and the marauders from up river stopped their raids decades ago. New houses were cheaper and easier to build the old way and so most of the village houses are made of wood, bamboo, and woven palm but always with the fireproof banana trunks roofs.

Catching and keeping the Gros Tete snakes became one of the mores of the villagers. Almost every house had a snake.

Through the intervening years there have been different successive village Kings acting as titular heads of the people. The Kings were always revered older men, wise and knowledgeable, who possessed exceptional skills and leadership abilities. The original Kings were appointed by the village elders. The present King, was elected by a democratic vote.

The village families are patriarchal. Large families are traditional and live together. Many of the older families have the large clay tile walled houses that were passed down to them but the majority live in the more conventional houses of wood and woven palm.

The present King retains his family’s tile walled house and the family consists of his wife, four sons, three daughters and two daughters-in-law and many grandchildren. This King’s first, or oldest, very talented son is continually asked not only by his father, but others in the village for assistance and direction in all manner of projects. He is regarded as one of the smartest in the village and wise in his own judgments. He is loved by his family and respected and regularly sought out by the villagers for his many superb talents and willingness to help any who ask.

. It is well known that this son is probably destined to be the next King, but a new problem permeating the village, brought about indirectly from the keeping of the snakes, now affects this elder son.

The villagers knew how to safely capture the deadly snakes. Once caught they fed the reptiles lavishly. Overfeeding had the effect of taming them somewhat and soon they would be deemed even safe enough to be allowed the run of the house. The Gros Tete’s life span was unknown but many captive snakes in the village were nearly fifty years old.

Older, larger snakes became very docile and could grow to about ten or eleven feet. Some were nearly a foot in diameter. Additionally, the village hadn’t had rats or mice since making house pets of these snakes .

About this time a villager discovered that the snake, once it had been fed into becoming quite calm natured, showed no objection to its venom being nudged into a paper covered glass jar from the protruding top fangs in its mouth.

This man secured a small amount of the venom by holding it and stroking the throat. The venom was thus deposited into the glass jar.

Although this experimenting villager only had about a quarter of a teaspoon full of extracted venom he decided to make the trip to the coast to try and find a buyer for it. If there was a market he knew he could produce more.

The trip was a failure. The port town had no sophisticated buyer or demand though some opined that it might be of interest to a laboratory in a large city that wanted to develop an anti Gros Tete snake venom serum.

Disappointed, he slept on the dock with his jar of venom sample, waiting until the tugs departure back to the village. When they started the tug engine to make ready for the journey home the passengers were called to board.

Holding his jar of snake venom, the failed snake venom entrepreneur started to climb on board the tug but he slipped and scratched his index finger. At the same time the paper top of his venom container and spilled venom onto his scratched finger. When he saw this his pulse jumped because he thought he knew he was going to die. He frantically sucked his finger to try and get as much of the poison off as he could, quickly and repeatedly spitting. His tongue became numb and felt strange and he assumed that he would soon die.

He asked the passengers to tell his wife and family he loved them and how he died. But he began to sink into an encompassing haze. His legs became rubber-like and he sank to the deck, his words becoming sluggish and slurred into nonsense. Impatient crewmen, assuming him to be drunk, moved his inert body out of their way and he surrendered, stopped trying to speak, and began to hallucinate. A stupid smile froze on his face as he faded into unconsciousness.

Although the villagers were not heavy drinkers, for decades some had imbibed a little when they journeyed down to the port town. Their original alcoholic drink was always the old native drink made from the bloom of the coconut palm. Milky sap is taken from the flowers of coconut palm trees before the flowers bloom. The sap quickly ferments to become a mildly alcoholic drink. It unfortunately carried with it a fierce hangover. Historically the port town finally brought in beer and whiskey, but these were expensive and the villagers tried them and to a person rejected them as tasting awful. In time the coconut tree brew was almost impossible to find and coconut trees did not prosper up in the village, preferring the low elevation climate of the seacoast.

When the tug and cargo lighters arrived back at the village dock the man who had spilled the venom on is scratch had not died but was still in a stupor. The King’s son directed that he be taken to his own family house. It was assumed by all that he had sampled too much of the stronger drink available down at the seaside bars, but he had not.

Overnight the stupor began to dissolve and the man recovered remarkably, without any after effects. He kept his own council on the events fearing that others would think him stupid and silly, a ‘dodo’ in local slang, but he began mentally to put things together and came up with the conclusion that the stupor had occurred because he had sucked the venom from his spill on his scratch. Though he spit everything out he concluded that it was either the sucking or the venom that went onto his scratch so he quietly set about to cautiously experiment further with the venom.

His first experiment was to put one drop of venom in an eight oz. glass of water and with his serendipitous good luck he had discovered the formula for the perfect party drink. In this diluted form it produced wonderful elation and euphoric feelings, and its effect lasted only a few hours. It didn’t effect his cognitivety. With it he loved a party. It had no taste or odor and marvelously didn’t result in a hangover. Unlike the alcoholic drinks on the coast which when imbibed seemed occasionally to loosen hidden disagreeable personality traits this snake venom drink gave rise only to pleasant serenity. It seemed to have no disadvantages except that no productive work seemed to be accomplished when it had been consumed. There were a couple of disadvantages but these were not evident initially.

Soon the secret got out and the wonder of the venom spread through the village and the use of it very soon became not only universal but acceptable for all but the children.

When a snake had been heavily fed and tamed the harvest of the venom produced only small amounts. Heavy amounts of venom could be extracted from wild snakes. Though this new drink of venom was thought to possibly habit forming it seemed not to be at this time in its growing popularity.

Soon the villagers all knew of the drink and agreed to keep the details of their find secret. So they called it Tippie, never mentioning its source.

The production of Tippie was easy and if the water was clean the mix didn’t spoil.. Exactly sixteen drops in one gallon of water was the formula.

The village mores kept the village’s adults from indulging in more than limited amounts of alcoholic drinks and now also of Tippie.

Word of Tippie soon spread up and down the river. The village council decided to offer it for sale by the gallon in the purchaser’s container at the village’s river dock. It was a commercial success but the supply was limited so sales were limited to Saturdays. Tippie parties in the village, by villagers soon became a popular weekend activity.

Soon however the villagers began to use the entire production so riverfront sales were stopped as they were unable to produce much.

Occasionally an individual would succumb to a habit of excessive imbibing and they were dubbed Dodos. Dodos were birds that decades ago used to fly in and land along the river front of the village. They were soon extinct because they did not fly away when the village children threw stones at them, and they were usually killed. The children would bring their kill home where they were put in family cook pots.

Unfortunately the King’s oldest son began to show signs of secret excess of Tippie. No secret is safe in a close knit village and sometimes when he would walk through the village some of the children would call out “Dodo”.

An old village saying was “Everyone will always get to know.”, and it was true.

Soon it was indeed village gossip.

Up to then the King’s son was revered throughout the village and his council sought on almost any subject. Additionally he was the chief coxswain of the villages cargo boats but the rumors grew. He managed the trips as coxswain without any obvious problem but some of the helpers on the boats began to whisper their worries about his excessive indulgence in Tippie.

Finally the village elders called a secret meeting, excluding the King and his first son, to talk about the problem. The persons that sat this special meeting then sent word to the King that they wished his and his first son’s appearance before them.

Both came and were told of the purpose of the meeting. The first son was thanked for his good and dedicated service to the village and he was informed of their wish for him to accede to a designated replacement coxswain. Following his father out, he left the meeting stern faced.

He was privately crestfallen, his whole family was devastated. At first he chose to ignore the developments but stayed at home. The family lamented the ingratitude of those of the special council but they also recognized that the first son was not eating well and in fact was suffering from the suddenly disclosed second and most deadly shortcoming of Tippie, the gripping ‘habit’ of over imbibing which seemed virtually impossible to shake.

The rare emotional conflict with not only his wife but his father and mother seemed to cause his increased use of the Tippie and though the drink was not considered dangerous to ingest, it certainly seemed to have all of the characteristics of danger when used in excess.

Soon, in his natural consideration for his family’s anguish he went off into the jungle with a couple of bottles of Tippie and hid, saying to his family in his departure note that he didn’t wish to cause them further pain. That note only increased the families pain.

Although the King’s son was extremely knowledgeable and talented he had not brought any food with him and the jungle did not contain sources of food near the village.

A few days later he appeared out of the jungle and went straight down to the village boat dock. He then approached his long time friend who was now the reluctant replacement coxswain. His friend allowed him to hide on the tug and travel on the month’s regular trip to the coast where he again disappeared.

His situation became known to the family and the village and since the problem was one that was not generally understood some well meaning friends suggested that the family carry the snake out of his Father’s house and release it back into the wild but the children loved the snake, this wasn’t the snake’s doing and the King thought the suggestion ill advised and he refused.

Communication with the port town other than actually journeying there was nil. After a fortnight and no word, his parents and family were suffering extreme anguish and fear that he might have died, or left the port city for unknown destinations. With his parents and family in an increasing state of anguish, the King stopped fulfilling his own village duties and even stopped leaving the house. His mother had the burden of worry about the King and their daughter-in-law as well as their son. The son’s wife seemed to be the strong one in the house valiantly tending to the needs of the family, the younger children, and still hiding the depth of her own pain.

Finally the king stopped eating much and didn’t leave his favorite chair in the day or his bed at night.

Then a monthly boat journey to the port was to leave the dock the next day. The missing son’s best friend along with the next oldest sibling, without telling of their plan, booked passage to the port town to find him. If they could find him they planned to bring him home, by persuasion or force, after which they planned to hold him in his house as long as necessary if he didn’t agree to settle down. If Tippie was the cause of his behavior they thought they would hold him until all of the Tippie was out of his system.

Down at the port the first son was finally located. He was not in any stupor from the booze or the results of drinking Tippie, but was ill from nutritional depravation. He looked terrible. They told him they had come to take him home, but embarrassed he simply refused to return with them. The first son’s best friend was a tall powerful man and the first son’s next oldest brother was strong as well so they decided to grab him, tie him up, and bring him home by force.

They found him again, overpowered him, bound him in a rug from the waist up. He was furious but so weak that he was easily subdued.

Before they reached back up to the village he convinced his two captors that he would do as they asked if they would untie him. They did and then cautiously escorted him to the family house and his father. He bent down and hugged his father and told him he wouldn’t leave their home again but that he really just wanted to die. This seemed so out of character that his entire family was shocked and scared.

Standing in front of his sitting father he began to sway and found a chair and managed to sit down.

“Son,” his father started softly.

“I can take care of myself, Father.” He responded quickly.

Without another word his father got up out of his chair and looked over for a long moment at his first son. The King’s eyes were wet with tears as he softly patted his son’s shoulder and turned and walked to the ship’s ladder and climbed up to the top, stepped through the door and descended the outside entrance ladder.

The King stood for a moment looking blankly at the river. His wife followed him. She stopped in front of him reached out and gripped his arm.

“Couldn’t you have told him welcome home?” she said in a slightly agitated pitch, “That you love him and want him to be with all of us and not to leave again?” her tone more agony than annoyance, more pleading than demanding.

“I tried,” he started and after a long moment he said, “He’s home. He’ll stay now. Fix him some food and put him to lie down. He needs rest to make him well again.”

“You need to send him to the Dodos,” she said softly.

“He won’t go,” the King replied.

“You’re afraid,” she declared as though she just thought of it. “You’re afraid that if you tell him anything he needs to hear about getting himself straightened out you will lose him. That he will leave and you’ll never see him again.”

He didn’t answer for a moment and then slowly said, “Yes, I am afraid. Let his wife talk to him. She’s the most important to him now.”

“If she fails, then we will try,” she said thoughtfully, looking out at the river. “That’s when we must not fail. If it isn’t too late, because, you know our son, he is too totally self assured to recognize any such problem in himself.”

“This is true, this is true,” his father seemed to muse aloud. “But, I am just scared to death to push him, and you don’t want to. But we must. We will.!”

Nothing more was said except that she asked if this was his wish and he said yes.

She turned and climbed back up the house ladder.

They needn’t have worried. Their son stayed in the house as he promised and soon he was restored to good health. Everyone in the family house was solicitous and loving and he did more than his share of the family chores. He also began to go out and walk around the village nodding and speaking pleasantly to everyone he passed. People responded pleasantly but no one asked him for help or advise or to even chat. None seemed to wish more than to exchange a greeting. Once a couple of little boys called “Dodo” after him and he winced but continued on.

In the family house they played warri, the old Sudanese Arabic game played with large seeds on a rectangular board. He played most games with his two rescuers who came regularly to the house offering continuing support.

As the King seemed to recover from a troubling depression he again assumed his roll as the village’s King and everything seemed normal but still no one suggested jobs or duties for his first son. The King tried to ignore it and wait out the normalizing of the situation but no one seemed ready to welcome the first son back to normalcy.

The first son finally confessed to his two friends that he was terribly depressed and he wasn’t sure what the cause was but that it was keeping him from sleeping and was making him anxious and maybe thinking of getting some Tippie to make him less nervous and anxious. The expressed thought filled them with dread and after consulting with his parents and wife the two who had rescued him told him of the small group in the north end of the village who called themselves the Dodos, themselves over indulgers of Tippie who were attempting to help other over indulgers of Tippie.

“I guess I know I need someone beside you two to talk to about it,” he told them. He didn’t mention his parents or wife. “Don’t say anything to anyone but will you two take me to the Dodos and introduce me?”

They did and he was warmly welcomed into the group, stayed through a meeting and found it non-threatening and helpful. The first son’s two supporters agreed to attend some meetings along with him so that they could continue to talk about it at home.

It was then that the area weather turned to thunderstorms and a stronger storm than usual in the uplands caused the river to ‘come down’ more fiercely than the normal flash floods. The diverting dam he had designed and put in at the up river side of the farm diverted the river enough to save the crops, but the tug, lighters, and the whole end of the pier was washed away. The villagers soon located the tug and two of the lighters on a river sand bar about half a mile down stream. The lighters were spared serious damage but the tug had a long gash in its bottom. It could not be floated back to the village where a system of short round logs were used to pull their boats up on the bank for dry dock work. This was a quandary. The work would have to be done where the tug floundered and beached. The replacement coxswain was inexperienced in matters like this and he declared himself unable to tackle such a job, telling the villagers that the King’s number one son was the only one they should call and so they did.

Delighted to be asked to help, the King’s son had the log rollers bundled, tied together and floated down the river to the place where the tug was aground. The logs were lined up and used to roll the tug further up on the dry part of the sand bar where the tug’s bottom was properly repaired and the tug made seaworthy. The successor coxswain was then called to come back down and retrieve the tug but when he began building up the fire for steam it was discovered that some damage to the engine had occurred and it couldn’t function. Again the coxswain didn’t know what to do so they again called upon the first son, and he soon had the problem fixed.

The End

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