This kind face belongs to my “country” cook from my Peace Corps village in Liberia.

As a bush volunteer, viable food selections were a wee bit narrow. I could either rely on my campfire culinary skills leading to muscle wasting, organ failure, and eventual starvation or I could seek out a village woman to cook for me.

I chose the latter. 

My house was down the road from the main village where the cook lived with a host of other Liberian families. This arrangement included a large, circular, mud kitchen structure with a conical, palm-thatched roof that rose to a point about 20 feet high. Theoretically, cooking smoke would escape from an opening at the top of the cone.

Her name was Ada and though she was identified as “my” cook, there were others contributing to my nutritional welfare. It would begin with a road trip and a pocketful of cash. About once a month, I would do a grocery run south to Harper to pick up a few items:  gas for the bike, chicken eggs, maybe some spaghetti if it wasn’t bug-infested, and a 100-pound bag of rice.

You might think a 100-pound bag of rice would last more than a month, even if you didn’t count the daily breakfast bowl of Rice Krispies.

And you would be correct.

I was never sure how many little hands dipped into the rice bag, but I paid no mind. I felt that if my village peeps were kind enough to cook my dinners, I could return the kindness and provide a little rice to feed a few of them.

Everybody was happy when I dropped off the monthly bag and I was confident that Ada had rice distribution under control. She was also in charge of my rice dinner menu, depending on the availability of gravy ingredients. When possible, I was responsible for the protein portion.

During the monthly grocery run, I would also stop by a Lebanese store and buy a couple of .410 shotgun shells. Each shell cost 75 cents.

I didn’t have a .410 shotgun in Liberia. That was not standard Peace Corps issue. I had to manage any arguments with my unusual wit and quick legs.

But I knew a guy.

Boniface was a bush hunter and fellow tribe member. I don’t recall the day we met. It was one of those cases when, at some point, a person is just a part of your life.  You can’t remember when you met, but that person was always there. Boniface was always my hunter.

Boni would stop by my house early in the morning. I was usually up early, sitting on my front steps, sipping Nescafe and watching the sun rise above the jungle mist. The village would be awakening; children were out and about, female voices would rise above the mist and sun to scream at the children for being out and about. Distant axes could be heard rhythmically chopping on fallen trees as various birds and monkeys screeched their morning calls.

You know, jungle sounds.

Boni would pass by on the bush path and if I was home, he would walk up to the house to give a warm morning greeting. Boni spoke Grebo, the tribal dialect in the region, and so we didn’t have little chats. I would give him a 75-cent shell, he would give me a kind smile, and then he would walk back to the path and disappear into the bush.

Boni hunted at night. I eventually learned that it would take most of the day for Boni to walk to the hunting grounds where he would wait until dark.  He always wore an old, tatty, yellow construction hard hat and had a D-cell plastic flashlight taped sloppily to the hat’s top. This was, apparently, the key paraphernalia for a successful night hunter.

Without fail, Boni would meander up to the house the next morning with a duiker deer strapped to his back. We would butcher the animal and I would take a hind quarter--the trade-off for the shotgun shell. I would then skin the flesh and find one of the screaming kids to carry the fresh meat to Ada. Protein portion settled.

When Ada had finished cooking a dinner, she would prepare a bowl, cover it with another bowl and give it to a designated and trusted child to carry to the Peace Corps man. Think jungle Uber Eats. Those “Boni hunt-day dinners” were unsurpassed. With rice and a gravy side, usually made with palm oil or some type of jungle green, Ada’s rice dinners were not only delicious, they were special treats of kindness.

Ada is gone now. As is Boni. But I have this photo and memories as sharp as the day they happened. It seems to me this is the right time to tell this story, as acts of kindness are hard for me to find nowadays. Not trying to make a statement, just saying that I sense a loss of kindness.

I see retribution, not forgiveness. I hear false accusations and lies, not facts. I sense pursuit, not partnerships.

Kindness, I’m afraid, is becoming a rare find.

Kindness is not political. It can’t be forced or coerced. It flows forth naturally and if kindness does not just happen for you; if kindness is a chore, I suggest you are missing out on the big game.

Perhaps if we all spend a little more time seeking and offering kindness. Try looking for those little acts of kindness that are hiding around the corner. Search for the twinkle in the eyes. Like the twinkle I always saw in Ada’s eye. Ada had a cataract clouding her left eye. But if you look closely at her photograph, you will see the twinkle of kindness in her good eye.

You can’t help but smile back at her smile. That kind smile was always there to greet me. I would always smile back.

Simple, really. That’s how kindness works.