For many years there hung on our living room wall a bazaar scene from childhood. It featured a white-bearded man at the roadside in lotus position, before him a brazier crowned with a wok. In the wok lay a bed of sand upon which he stirred to roasted perfection the peanuts prized by passers-by. This scene brought into our lives – whether in Minnesota, Brussels, the Congo or the Kalahari – a whiff of charcoal smoke and of tantalizing nuts in the shell.
One day a young African friend came by for tea and repartee. In our meanders we mused about the picture, its origin and attraction. As I walked him out the gate and down the street at his leaving (a gesture of any refined host), he took my hand in farewell and then said about the old peanut seller. ‘He’s still selling you peanuts.’
This startling remark transformed a two-dimensional photograph into vivid full- sensory experience: the bell of a passing cyclist, the cry of a fruit seller, children scuffling with shouts for a soccer ball, the aroma of pakoras in hot oil, the sound of a blacksmith, the crows’ call, the monsoon run-off in the gutters. Just beside the peanut seller, under an iron weight, appears a stack of paper sacks hand-fashioned with rice-glue from castoff exercise books. And, perhaps most telling, beside his knee lies open a book of sacred writings upon which his heavy-lidded eyes are cast. Unsuspected depths in an ordinary market scene – from which we carry away, even today and sometimes on tiptoe, our bags of roasted nuts.

Such depths lurking beneath a prosaic scene overtook us one day at the lunch hour in our Kalahari town. We considered ourselves winners to be living just down a foot path from a purveyor of fresh, brown bread. So, lunchtime fare consisted of sandwiches: cheese, peanut butter, Lyle’s golden syrup, or, on this particular day, tuna fish salad. Just as we finished a song of blessing, the turboprop flight from Johannesburg buzzed overhead announcing its daily arrival. Within a few minutes our phone rang. A woman passenger off the flight was calling to say her host had failed to appear, and could someone please come to collect her. Having not the faintest idea who she might be, I nevertheless set out in our Corolla in aid of the stranded soul who was waiting at the terminal curb. Clearly unsettled, whispering prayers of distress to herself and sweating profusely, she climbed aboard while I loaded her travel gear.
On the way back to our house she explained that she had arrived from Lesotho for an inter-faith conference and had been told that if any inconvenience arose she should call ‘this number’ – which happened to be our house. By chance, I had knowledge of this gathering, but regretted to tell her that it had long since been postponed. At this she redoubled her prayers, punctuated now with exclamations of ‘O my God!’ Arrived at the lunch table, a few more slices of brown bread sufficed to include our guest who then began to fill in the picture of who she was. Her name was Mohumagadi Mmamphoi, (‘Princess Dove’) leader of an African church, and sister to the King of Lesotho. At this revelation we all sustained whiplash: African royalty is seated in our cinder-block house sharing tuna fish sandwiches, the most prosaic of mid-day fare, and being conveyed about dusty streets in a barebones Corolla.
Having regained her composure, now laughing at her misfortune, she fumbled in her purse for a phone number and made a brief call. Within minutes, a black Mercedes limousine, of a kind never seen in our part of town, drew up at the gate. A uniformed government chauffeur ushered her to the back seat and loaded her baggage while she expressed profuse thanks for our hospitality, and vanished down the lane. By chance, I met her again years later at some inter- faith gathering. She treated me as though I were next of kin. There’s never telling how far an unadorned tuna-fish sandwich can go.
Years ago, in some class on physical geography, I recall stumbling on the phenomena of ocean trenches, great gashes in the sea floor resulting in unimaginable depths. It occurred to me that we had often sailed the western Pacific passing, for example, the Mariana Islands, blithely crossing over the Challenger Deep* without ever giving it a second thought. Had we known, we would have lain awake trembling with wonder, or fallen to our wobbly knees, in the face of such thunderous, hidden depths beneath a surface of everyday wind and waves.
- The Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, is the deepest known abyss on the planet measured at 36,070 ft (10,994 m) or 6.7 miles below sea level. The crushing pressure at that depth would equal 100 elephants standing on the human head.
https://deepseachallenge.com/the-expedition/the-mariana-trench/
Watching planes land from that same kitchen window and the taking a leisurely 4 block drive to meet an incoming volunteer or guest was an amazing convenience.
I also remember making a call to Kanye once trying to track down a land official at his home and it being brusquely answered, “Quett here.” Quett was at the time VP but later became Botswana’s President.
Your profound musings bring back such great memories.
I love the story of who and how you meet people as one ever knows when you might meet again! I never really worried about the Pacific trench depth as it is a geographic fact but you bring out a unique fear of passing over it!
Blessings from Cambridge, Dan J.
Thanks for another evocative piece, JP! Your mention of Lyle’s brought back an image from my time in the U.K.; that green and gold tin with their logo: a lion carcass, swarmed by bees, and Samson’s riddle from Judges 14:14, “out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
Your story brought back a memory for Linda and me. We took a friend to the train station that left late at night. As the train pulled away and the crowd thinned, there was a black South African woman with a small child standing alone and looking distressed. We asked if she was waiting for someone and she was and we did not know them . After waiting with her for a time, it became apparent that her hosts were not coming and she did not know where they lived. So we asked if she wanted to spend the night at our house and she could look for her hosts in the morning. The next morning we woke up to child crying and the woman gone. We thought, Whoops, Did we make a bad decision? A short time later she returned having found the people and house where they would be staying. She thanked us profusely, and went on their way Unlike your story we never did see her again and she was not royalty, but did make a lasting memory for us and maybe for her.