Trust is an essential element in the human species. We depend on trust for our very survival. An infant cannot survive without being able to trust her nurturing parent. Marriages that lack trust hit a dead end. Handshakes that seal a business deal assume genuine trust, which sometimes springs from a leap of faith. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” Bill Miles reflects on the most basic form of trust that connects human beings and other creatures.
“Be very careful,” my mother pleaded with me, as I was preparing to leave for West Africa.
“Don’t take any chances,” my wife warned me, mindful of recent terrorism in Burkina Faso’s capital. That was to be my base for three weeks.
“Don’t get on any motorbike,” friends advised me, recalling the accident I had the last time I was in “Ouaga.”
To which a long-time Africa hand added, “Make sure you look both ways when crossing the street.” Only he knew just how chaotic were the streets of Ouagadougou.
I promised them all that I would heed their advice: no more reckless rides on motorbikes.
But no one – not my mother, not my wife, not my best friend – ever told me outright: “When you return to Africa, do NOT sit down on the back of any crocodile.”
Which is why, on the shore of this muddy lake — urged on by a village guide who had just emptied a whole chicken into the open jaws of a big croc who lumbered out of the water — I found myself astride the tail end of the largest reptile I’ve ever encountered. Close up and personal, like. Then patting his scaly back. And then lifting his heavy tail. All at the bidding of this unknown African.
These crocs are sacred. Ancestors of the village of Bazoulé believe that, during a time of severe drought six hundred years ago, a Crocodylus niloticus – that’s “Nile crocodile,” to you – allowed a desperately thirsty woman access to a scarce water supply. She showed her gratitude by sacrificing a chicken to him. Ever since, the human beings and crocodiles of this Burkina Faso community have been living in mutual harmony, species to species, generation to generation.
I believe in trust. Not placing irrational faith in a wild animal on account of an improbable folktale, but instinctively sizing up the measure of a man by his deeds. Would it not be a better world if human beings – especially those among us who are instinctively wary of “the Other” — could trust themselves to better trust others?
If this African devotes his life to placating the crocodiles, then I can trust him. Calm down my racing heart. Do the unthinkable. And to trustingly push away the cynical thought that surfaces in my head — “There’s always a first time!” — when he calls out to me, reassuringly, beseechingly — “They have never hurt a person. Not even once.”
Bill Miles is a resident of Seekonk, Massachusetts. When he isn’t riding crocodiles in West Africa, he teaches political science at Northeastern University. He is the author of My African Horse Problem, a memoir of his years as a Peace Corps volunteer and Fulbright scholar in Niger and Nigeria.
