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An American sociologist who has gone to Africa to impart her wisdom discovers that Africans have wisdom of their own to impart.

     "When I had all but decided to leave," Dr. Kleckner went on, "something happened. Or rather nothing happened—except that it did. I can only think of the nothing-that-happened as magical. . . I was walking along a street one hot afternoon. Ahead of me I noticed a large, tall, amply rounded Bobo woman. She wore a pink, diaphanous headcloth of some faux silk material, tied in a manner that was all the mode in town just then. The pink was perfect against the lustrous dark-chocolate of her skin and inside an over-garment of the same material she floated along. She was barefoot in sandals and she really did float, her hands waving delicately a little out from her sides. As I drew parallel to her, I caught a sweet, womanly scent—not at all what I would have expected when I noticed beads of perspiration catching the light on her brow. She glanced at me and smiled. Smiled in a way that was like a shining in her face. She was a large, sweating woman, walking in the afternoon sun. But she moved with absolute grace. She was serene; she was beautiful. She knew who she was and was happy to be that person. Her smile made me smile."
     Dr. Kleckner took a sip of her coffee and smiled herself, smiled at Emily. Emily was not sure why, but she smiled back.
     "What about that moment could possibly have been magical?" Charlotte Kleckner asked. "I've wondered that so often. Maybe it was the fact that I stopped hurrying to my appointment. I turned back and smiled again at the woman. Then as if she had spoken to me, I heard a voice say, 'Let them teach you.'"