Page 34 - Fables volume 1

How Ten Thousand Termites Escaped from

Captivity

Homer Henry, field officer of Crude Devices, Inc., was plodding
down a rough trail late one August afternoon. He wasn’t very happy:
the per diem was higher back in Jombougou, the capital, and the three
bottles of warm beer he had consumed with lunch were expanding his
belly to the circumferential limits of his sweat-stained mail-order
safari-shirt. To make matters worse, the rainy season seemed far from
ending and Homer’s new engineer boots were caked with mud.
One village remained on his work plan for the day, and toward it he
resolutely slogged, led by Amadou, CDU’s local-hire chauffeur, guide,
translator and office manager. Amadou also held a doctorate in
agricultural economics from the University of Nebraska. Homer, as
did his predecessor, leaned heavily on his assistant without appearing
to himself to do so. Crude Devices had a new U.S. government
contract to develop ‘appropriate technology’ for the inhabitants of the
Sahelian nation Forolonkolo; Homer Henry was determined to find
something his company could exploit for, well, everybody’s benefit.
“Many wise old men live in Sirabana,” said Amadou, pointing ahead
to their destination. “We shall learn much if we are patient.”
Home ignored the implied rebuke of his past failure to observe local
etiquette. Squinting back along the rock-strewn pat they were
following, he said, “If they’re so smart, why didn’t they move their
village next to the road, like the others we saw this morning?”
“Eh, you find the unwise, Chief? It will be seen that the micro-
economy of Sirabana has remained as it was before independence and
Western assistance.”
“But they must be poverty-stricken, Amadou. How can they get
their surplus agricultural products out to market? How will they be
able to buy radios, detergent, nylon tee-shirts chewing gum or
cigarettes?”
Amadou, always smiling, replied, “One would suppose they do little
selling or buying. The taxman probably absorbs their entire surplus,
should they have any.”

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