1. The next day, they did not talk about the previous evening.

2. They talked about how fluffy the scrambled eggs were and
3. how eerie the jacaranda leaves that rustled against their windows
4. at night were. After dinner, the Senegalese read from her
5. story. It was a windy night and they shut the windows to keep out
6. the sound of the whirling trees. The smoke from Edward’s pipe
7. hung over the room. The Senegalese read two pages of a
8. funeral scene, stopping often to sip some water, her accent
9. thickening as she became more emotional, each ​t​ sounding like
10. a ​z​. Afterwards, everyone turned to Edward, even the Ugandan,
11. who seemed to have forgotten that he was workshop leader.
12. Edward chewed at his pipe thoughtfully before he said that
13. homosexual stories of this sort weren’t reflective of Africa,
14. really.

15. ‘Which Africa?’ Ujunwa blurted out.

16. The black South African shifted on his seat. Edward chewed
17. further at his pipe. Then he looked at Ujunwa in the way one
18. would look at a child who refused to keep still in church and
19. said that he wasn’t speaking as an Oxford-trained Africanist, but
20. as one who was keen on the real Africa and not the imposing
21. of Western ideas on African venues. The Zimbabwean and Tanzanian
22. and white South African began to shake their heads as
23. Edward was speaking.

24. ‘This may indeed be the year 2000, but how African is it for
25. a person to tell her family that she is homosexual?’ Edward asked.

26. The Senegalese burst out in incomprehensible French and

27. then, a minute of fluid speech later, said, ‘​I​ am Senegalese! ​I​ am
28. Senegalese!’ Edward responded in equally swift French and
29. then said in English, with a soft smile, ‘I think she had too
30. much of that excellent Bordeaux,’ and some of the participants chuckled.

31. Ujunwa was first to leave. She was close to her cabin
32. when she heard somebody call her and she stopped. It was the
33. Kenyan. The Zimbabwean and the white South African were
34. with him. ‘Let’s go to the bar,’ they said. She wondered
35. where the Senegalese was. She drank a glass of wine
36. and listened to them talk about how the other guests at Jumping
37. Monkey Hill—all of whom were white—looked at the
38. participants suspiciously. The Kenyan said a youngish couple
39. had stopped and stepped back a little as he approached them
40. on the path from the swimming pool the day before.
41. The white South African said they were suspicious of her, too, perhaps
42. because she wore only kente-print caftans.

Guiding Questions:
● Why do the participants react the way they do?
● What is the role of irony in this passage?