May We Be Forgiven

days—teas labeled for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—and reminds me not to eat any animal flesh while I am taking the teas and to drink a lot of water. He also gives me some teas to bring back to America. “Drink this one the day you get back,” he says, “it will help loosen what you are still holding. And then drink these once a day for three days—and then as needed when you start to feel like you are becoming your old version again. They will free you.” Just before I go, he brings one more cup of tea, “for the road.” This one tastes vile, like horseshit that has been soaked in beer and left for days—it is fermented, dark, foul; I have a very hard time drinking it.
    “Perhaps I made a mistake,” he says, taking the cup back when I am done. “I put some cinnamon in and tried to make it more pleasant—I should have left it as it was.”
    Two Land Rovers arrive to pick us up; there are white men at the wheel who introduce themselves as Dirk Kruger and Pieter Goosen, and two black men who are helpers are introduced only as Kopano and Josia and take our bags.
    We go. The village recedes into the distance—we watch for as long as we can; I’m sure everyone there is still outside waving. The children begin to cry, first Nate, then Ash, and finally Ricardo, who says, “Why am I crying? I am happy and sad at the same time.”
    “It’s like when it’s raining and there’s a rainbow,” Ashley says.
    What to do with the strange sense of having been there and gone so quickly? It feels as though we haven’t done enough, and yet what more should we do? This is the life of the village; does it need to be fixed?
    We spend hours talking about the village and about the people we met. Nate is thrilled to have shared this world, and that things went well. The guy driving the car is trying to participate by saying things like “So you had a good time, eh?”
    We drive for a couple of hours before coming to the waterfall, which is truly spectacular. “This one breaks even the hardest of nuts,” Pieter says as we get out of the car. “If you’re game, we can go for a bit of a hike,” he says. And on cue, Josia and Kopano open the back of the second Rover and get out walking sticks, ropes, and harnesses for the children.
    Overcome with stomach cramps, I excuse myself and go into the woods. I have diarrhea and then move to another spot and have more and then more. In the end, I am holding on to the branch of a tree, my pants completely off and wrapped around my neck and shoulders as I involuntarily projectile-squirt shit into the woods. My body empties and seizes and empties and seizes. “You all right in there?” one of the guides shouts every couple of minutes. “Make sure nothing comes up and bites you on the ass.”
    “I’m fine,” I weakly call back, not because I am but because there is just nothing to say. “Why don’t you go on ahead without me,” I suggest.
    “We’ll take the kiddies for a walk and meet you back here in an hour,” one of them says. “I’ll leave the car unlocked. There’s water—be sure you drink when you’re finished in there.”
    When they come back, they are all glowing. “It was amazing, we did belaying and climbed up this amazing rock,” Ricardo says.
    “The waterfall was so beautiful, I could feel the spray on my face,” Ashley says. “And I saw a rainbow—isn’t that cool? Because I said the word ‘rainbow’ this morning, when we left the village, and there it was. …”
    “Safe as kittens in their mother’s mouth,” Dirk, who Ricardo later refers to as Dirtik, says.
    “And then there was a zip line and we went flying through the forest,” Nate adds, as though I need to hear more. “Are you feeling better?”
    “I hope so,” I say, because, honestly, I can’t imagine feeling worse.
    “Likely something you ate,” Pieter says. “Zulu cooking can kill you.”
    “Really?” Ashley asks.
    “Not really,” Pieter says for her benefit. There’s something in his tone—call it racism—that I really don’t like.

    I n the late afternoon, we arrive at camp. “Just in time for tea,” Dirk says. We are shown to our tent, which is kind of Lawrence of Arabia, over the top. It is less like a “room” and more like a tented house—with a large wraparound porch, a living area with Oriental rugs, couches, comfortable chairs, old trunks as footstools, lamps, a campaign desk in case letters need to be written, a bathroom with an enormous old