As the family settles into their new home, they observe - and are observed by - their neighbors. Within the house are furniture, books, and kitchenware from previous missionaries, as well as an African grey parrot named Methuselah, who lives in a large bamboo cage and annoys Nathan with his cursing. The Price's new residence consists of a three-room house (with a front room and two bedrooms), a separate kitchen behind the house, a latrine, and a chicken house. The celebratory atmosphere dies with his speech, and as the villagers begin to disperse, the Price girls try to choke down the goat stew. As Orleanna and her daughters try to take in the onslaught of unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells, Nathan immediately focuses on the nakedness of some of the women and launches into an angry sermon about their sinfulness.
The residents of Kilanga herald the Price family's arrival with singing, dancing, and a feast of goat stew. However, over the years the mission diminished, and it has now been reduced to one family - the Prices. The Underdowns explain that Kilanga once had a thriving mission, with four American families, a church, a school, and a doctor who visited regularly. When they arrive in Africa, they are greeted by the Underdowns, a missionary couple who once lived in Kilanga, the village at which the Prices will be stationed. Finding a loophole in the restriction, they end up smuggling extra items, such as boxes of cake mix and tools, under the multiple layers of clothes they are wearing. Restricted to carrying only 44 pounds of luggage apiece, the Price women struggle to decide which items to take with them. In 1959, the Price family prepares for its year-long missionary trip to Africa. Her request for judgment is also a request for peace from her child's restless spirit and from her own troubled memories. She asks to be judged, and implies that the child to whom she is speaking is dead and haunts her. Her gaze locks with the animal's for a moment, and then it is gone.Īs she remembers this moment and her time in Africa, Orleanna is not simply reminiscing she is speaking to one of her children, although she doesn't specify which one. Alone for a moment by the stream, Orleanna spots an okapi - a type of gazelle - across the water. The huge columns of trees vibrate with animals and vegetation, and Orleanna and her daughters seem like "pale, doomed blossoms" amidst the wild beauty. The forest is not only filled with life, it is alive. In the present day, Orleanna Price reflects upon her time in Africa, remembering walking single-file through the forest with her daughters to have a picnic on a stream bank.
0 kommentar(er)
