Spitting

Have you ever seen a parent fussing at their child for spitting? Of course, we all have witnessed this disciplinary moment. Interesting to note that children usually spit because they have seen an adult discharging excess saliva from their mouth. Isn’t it great how children imitate adults around them!

Once while living in Burkina Faso, I corrected one of our sons about spitting. Later, my quiet reserved patient wife softly said to me that if I would quit spitting then the boys would probably not imitate me. It was a “gotcha” moment as I did not even realize that I had been spitting in front of people.

I grew up in a time and culture when it seemed to me that only poor people chewed tobacco and dipped snuff. When I was a child it was fun to watch my uncles spitting tobacco juice while carrying on a conversation. They would sit on the front porch with a tin can on the floor between them, and they rarely missed spitting into that small can. They had this special way of spitting that I tried hard to imitate but without success because I never put that nasty stuff in my mouth

These same uncles taught me how to roll cigarettes for them. I became so adept at rolling their cigarettes that when we were sitting around on the porch, they would give me their tin of Prince Albert tobacco and cigarette paper that they carried in their pocket and tell others gathered on the porch that I rolled the cigarettes better than they did.

We were visiting the state fair in Mississippi with my brother. He ventured off with Jason and Jeremy who were 10 and 11 years old at that time. After a while they reunited with the rest of our family, and suddenly both boys became sick to their stomachs. They hurried to the restrooms where they both threw up. My brother then disclosed that some guys were giving away samples of chewing tobacco, and he started chewing one of the samples. Both boys told him that they wanted to try it, so my brother obliged them and instructed them on how to chew tobacco. He reported that they seemed to be doing a good job, but what he did not know is that they must have swallowed some of the tobacco juice. I believe that neither of the boys ever tried a tobacco product again.

Today there is an acceptable culture of farmers and cowboys and “wannabees” who chew and dip and carry around an emptied soda bottle to spit into. Late in 2019 I was diagnosed with submandibular salivary gland cancer which is often associated with the prolonged use of smokeless tobacco, but I have never chewed or dipped. During my treatments for the cancer, I met many men who had many different types of oral cancer from the habitual use of smokeless tobacco. Many of them expressed to me their regret of ever getting started chewing or dipping.

Our family went on our own "safari” in a small game park in southeastern Burkina Faso. We were particularly searching for the rarer red cape buffalo who inhabit areas in West and Central Africa. Many say that the cape buffalo is the most dangerous wild animal as they are so unpredictable. We were successful at finding both the regular cape buffalo and the red ones also. We were, however, unlucky in encountering a spitting cobra.

As we were driving our Toyota Land Cruiser (not the luxurious type we have in the USA, but the rugged type built for developing countries) down a dirt path one of the boys spotted a spitting cobra right beside our vehicle. I yelled, “Roll up the windows!” The spitting cobra can spit venom through tiny holes in its fangs up to 10-12 feet and can do that repeatedly for 30-40 times.

We safely escaped the attack of the spitting cobra, but today there is a more venomous threat in that region of Burkina Faso as it is overrun with Islamic militant groups who are pillaging and killing poor villagers and driving survivors from their meager mud huts and making them IDPs. IDP stands for “Internally Displaced Person”—someone who has been driven from their home but has remained in the boundaries of their country.

The number of IDPs is double that of the 26 million refugees. Most people have heard of refugees, but few understand that the IDPs suffer the same as the refugees who have been driven from their country of residence.

Pray for the 55 million Internally Displaced People who live in temporary shelters all over the world. They have been herded like livestock because of political conflict, intense weather conditions, earthquakes, or war.