In the Fall of 1977 Michael Varga was a Peace Corps
volunteer who taught in a village high school in a remote corner of southern
Chad. After being bothered and hassled by the local people who were always
asking for things — food, money, books — his students built a fence around his
living compound — a straw fence the height of a person. One day a Chadian woman
who was walking by started to scream and tried to kick down the straw fence. She
had seen a dangerous snake crawl under the fence and wanted to warn the
volunteer teacher — even though he had tried to close himself off from the
village by building the fence. Then Michael and the woman together killed the
snake. Michael invited the woman into his hut to have tea. Before leaving she
gave the American volunteer a charm made of animal skins to keep away the evil
spirits. The woman took the snake’s body and cooked it into a sort of peanut
stew which later that day she and Michael ate to seal the bond between them.
Even to this day Michael feels that the Chadian woman’s spirit is bound up
within his own. After reflecting on the incident Michael said:

    I didn’t rebuild that fence. And I carry this charm as a
reminder to me that it’s very easy — especially when people are making a lot of
demands on you — to try to close yourself off, to fence them out, to keep what
you have just for yourself. But I had gone to Chad to work, to serve, to help.
This charm reminds me that it is in keeping yourself open to others, to those
who need your help, who ask you for perhaps more than you think you can give,
that we really find satisfaction. We always have to fight that urge to build a
fence.