Our neighbor ladies are mad at us…again.  On Wednesday last week, in the middle of the school day, one of the ladies went into our yard and started picking mangoes off our tree.  They have their own mango tree, plus there are three other trees on our property that we allow them to pick from freely.  But this mango tree has the best mangoes, and it happens to be behind the fence that separates our yard from the other residents on the property.  This has been the barrier we have established to keep some measure of privacy and to try to reduce the risk of having things stolen from us.  It’s been there all along, and no one has ever had a problem with it.  Yet on this particular day, Jen happened to intercept the lady as she was taking mangoes from the tree behind the fence.  Jennifer says the woman seemed embarrassed as she smiled and walked off the property, mangoes in hand.  Just as Jen was explaining this to me, walking out of the school for lunch, we caught the lady’s sister doing the same thing.  So I walked over and asked her to please stay out of our back yard.  That’s when things got ugly.

     The woman started ranting and raving, literally shouting at me.  It’s important to note that these particular ladies shout a lout.  They shout at our neighbors, they shout at the girls, they shout at each other.  They seem to always be angry about something.  And today it was our turn.  At first they started yelling out that the mango trees belong to them.  Their descendants planted the trees, therefore they should have access to them.  Then they started telling me (remember this is all shouting) that they had always treated me like family, that despite our differences in skin color we were the same family, and I shouldn’t treat my family like this.  Then they began yelling out that we were always mean to them, never did anything for them, were rude, never visited them or greeted them, etc…  The women even tried to tell me that the Bible says we are not allowed to keep people out of our yards.

During this whole time I tried calmly to reason with them (I know, dumb mistake).  I tried to explain that we’ve always tried to be nice, allowing them to come into our compound to get water, do laundry, etc.  I explained that we were fine with them taking mangoes from the three other trees.  I explained that I didn’t even mind her taking mangoes from this tree, as long as they would ask for permission first.  I told them that the landlord had given us permission to lock all the gates to the property, and that everything inside the compound belonged to us, even if we wanted it the other house on the property.  I also questioned the ladies’ sense of family, seeing as they have tried to sell us bananas they picked from our own yard, they regularly make fun of us and call us Foté (white-man), and they never come and greet us, as they say we should do with them.  I was going to remind them of the bread we often buy them, the Christmas gifts we gave them, and the kindness we show to their girls, but I simply couldn’t get a word in.  The women were just too loud.

    Now all of this also happened to occur at the same time that our team was having a rather important meeting with the New Tribes Field Leadership Team (FLT).  Of course they couldn’t help but hear all the shouting and came out to see what was going on.  Immediately the ladies buttered up to Cees and started repeating all the insulting things they had said to us.  They also greeted a couple of the FLT members and began accusing us in front of them.  I felt so ashamed and embarrassed.  What an awful missionary I must be, causing all kinds of problems with the neighbors, totally culturally insensitive, etc. 

     Thankfully when we went inside, everyone on the team, FLT included, told us this was very cultural.  In fact they indicated their surprise that we hadn’t had a blow out like this yet.  Since this is a shame culture, people defend themselves when they are guilty by passing the blame and inventing lies and rumors to make the other person look like the bad guy.  Interestingly enough, our house helpers also told us that they believed the women were clearly in the wrong.  They told us no one in Guinea would ever walk into someone’s yard and take fruit from them without asking first, especially when there’s a fence.

      For a whole week the women stayed mad at us.  They ignored us when we waved or said hello.  They refused to accept gifts of bread.  They tried their best to make us feel bad in every way.  If it weren’t for the fact that we were rather glad they weren’t in our yard as much, I think it would have worked.  We felt bad that they were mad at us.  We felt incompetent as missionaries, to have offended our neighbors over a few mangoes.  And we felt horrible that these women are completely closed off from receiving anything else from the Christians, let alone hearing about Jesus.  But the truth is (I feel a little guilty saying it), they are really difficult women to live with, and I also felt rather happy they weren’t bothering us anymore. 

     Still, in an effort to maintain peace and harmony, to repair bridges and to ease my conscience, this past Sunday I went over with a bag of mangoes as a peace offering.  It just so happens at that exact moment, the ladies had laid out literally hundreds of mango shreds, drying in the sun.  They clearly didn’t need ours.  No matter, I forged on and went directly over to the woman I had had the conflict with.  “I’ve brought a bag of mangoes from our tree for you,” I said with as big a smile as I could muster. 

“Non!” was the reply. 

“You’re still mad at us?” I mused soothingly.  Nothing. 

“Come on, you can’t stay mad at us forever.  It will make you sick,” I continued jokingly.

“I still can’t believe you would treat us like that,” was her reply.

“But why?  What did I really do?” I cooed at her.  “Listen, all I want is for us to live in peace and harmony.  Let’s forget this whole thing and move.  Forgive me, please.”  Rather quickly she broke down and accepted my peace offering and smiled. 

     Just then the other sister walked out and started shouting (again) at her sibling for having given in so easily.  I couldn’t help but laugh as I walked away.  Thankfully the women now respond to me when I greet them.  They’re still trying hard to be angry, but they’re at least a little friendlier.  It still baffles me that people can live like this, hoping to gain something by holding a grudge.  Yet they do this to each other on a regular basis.  And the crazy thing is that it works.  People here can’t bear to be ostracized and shunned.  Their status depends very much on how much people around them like them.  For this reason, sadly, most relationships are very superficial and selfishly motivated.  You maintain your connections with people mostly to maintain your status in the community.  If people don’t like you, they gossip about you and then you lose your place of importance or value.

     As Christians it is so comforting to know that our value does not depend on pleasing fickle human beings, but instead on pleasing a constant, loving God, full of grace and mercy, justified by the blood of His Son.  And, in His case, there is nothing more or less we can do to gain or lose His favor.  His love is unconditional.  If only we could learn to love each other like that, what kind of society would we have?  A perfect one, I suppose.  One that’s a lot more like the Kingdom’s, that’s for sure.