As requested by a few listers, here is the story about the "quasi-mystical" experience related to the death of my paternal grandfather, "Pop".
This requires some context. In the first place, you should know that I grew up in an "extended family" household, not that common in the USA. I saw Pop pretty much every day of my life & we were close. I was named after him & was probably the favorite of his 12 grandchildren. I spent a lot of time in his garages & gardens; he taught me automechanics, gardening and fishing. After he retired Pop used to sometimes go into Newark, where there had been race riots & where most white people feared to go, and he would do free work for the black churches there, keeping their school busses in working order. I sometimes went with him. One summer I helped him rebuild two engines. In April 1974, when I was 21, I joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to a rural development program in Senegal (west Africa). Peace Corps training in those days lasted about 2.5 months, and was done mostly "in-country" -- not in the USA. Since Peace Corps had learned that they had a pretty high attrition rate, it was their policy to try to "flush" as early as people who were likely to quit anyway. This kept costs down and prevented people from using Peace Corps training as kind of a paid vacation in an exotic land. In Senegal they did this by, among other things, taking Volunteers to the place where they would be living for the next 2 years, and leaving them with their "home family" for four days. In most cases, the host family had no English and the Volunteer had no knowledge of the host family language. Some people loved this experience; others quit the Peace Corps & hopped on the first airplane back to the States. (I loved it.) So on the morning of my 5th day in Senegal, I began the 2-day journey to the little village of Fanaye Dieri along the Senegal river on the side of the Sahara. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T1PRZzAbmc In that part of the country, in those days, there was only 1 paved road and cars were few; every car -- most of them were Peugeot 404 station wagons -- was a de-facto taxi. There was a place called the "garre routiere" -- taxi depot, in St. Louis, 160kms from Fanaye, where I got into an overcrowded station wagon to begin the last leg of my trip to Fanaye. Along the way I struck up a conversation, in French, with an older Senegalese gentleman sitting next to me. He spoke French with a quite French accent, which was pretty rare in the outback. This conversation itself began in what some might call a mystical way; he pretty much read my mind. I was sitting there wondering about Islam, which was all around me and entirely new to me. And out of the blue he said, "I wonder if you're wondering about Islam"? So we began a conversation about that, as he explained the basic tenets of the faith, etc. An hour or two into the ride we were flagged down by somebody on the side of the road. It seems their a car had broken down off the road in the sand, and they had no idea how to fix it. So the driver of the car I was in got out, went over to the car & with a little bit of nosing around quickly diagnosed a clogged fuel line. He disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor, put it in his mouth, sucked hard and was rewarded with a mouthful of sand and gasoline, which he spit out. He then reconnected the fuel line, removed the air filter and tapped it against his pants leg to dislodge as much dirt and sand as he could, and replaced the filter. Then he got behind the wheel and turned the key and the car instantly started. The whole process took about 5 minutes. The people were overjoyed and wanted to give him money, but the only payment he would accept was some water with which to wash the gasoline from his mouth. I should point out that this driver didn't speak French. So as we were going down the road, I mentioned to my friend, the Guide to Senegal & Islam, that the driver reminded me of my grandfather, a mechanic who delighted in two things: fixing things and helping people. My friend the mentor asked me, "Your grandfather, is he now living?" Remember, I had seen my grandfather alive and apparently well only 2 weeks earlier. But I stopped, and thought, and, it seems, I knew. "No", I said. "I don't think he is." Two weeks later I received a letter from my father informing me of Pop's death. It was at the day and hour that the mechanic in Senegal fixed the car with the clogged fuel line. jrs On Apr 6, 2014, at 5:03 AM, Venkat Mangudi - Silk wrote: > On Apr 6, 2014 1:19 PM, "Deepa Mohan" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 12:37 PM, SS <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, 2014-04-05 at 07:43 -0400, John Sundman wrote: >>>> He died when I was in Africa in 1974. I have a story to tell about a >>>> quasi-mystical experience related to that, but I don't have time to >>>> tell it now. >>> >>> Would love to hear it when you have time >>> >>> shiv >>> >>> >>> John, I'd like to hear about it, too. >> >> Deepa. > > Me three...
