He stopped when he saw me, and studied me intently from black, intelligent eyes shaded by eyebrows as grizzled as the tight knots of hair covering his scalp. I adjudged him to be a man in his seventies. He looked from me to the snakes that now stirred and appeared to return his gaze. I noticed then that he wore a string of dried seed pods around each ankle. Suddenly, in a steady cadence of stomping, he began to dance so that the pods rattled and made a loud noise. He danced nearer and nearer the snakes who lifted their arrow-pointed heads and began slowly to uncoil. As he came closer, their speed increased until they slithered away and disappeared in the boulders beside the creek. I knew that snakes are deaf, and "hear" by means of vibrations they pick up on their darting forked tongues. His seed pods and stomps on the ground must have served as a warning to them of danger, so they fled.

He stopped dancing then, and looked around at my campsite, taking note of the pup tent. With a gesture universally understood, he lay one hand on the ridge pole and shook his finger of the other at me as if to say, "This will not do." Unsmiling, he beckoned me then to follow, which I did. With the children in tow, we came to a collection of huts in the forest, into the most central of which he led me and then stepped back outside. I could see the villagers gather, trying to peer in at the stranger in their midst. All were smiling. They made me feel welcome. Their obvious deference to my host made it clear that he was a man accorded the utmost respect. Judging from the other men whom I saw there, he must have been the village elder, the most venerable due perhaps to his age and to the animal trophies I saw displayed on the walls of his hut. He must have been a renowned hunter.

We dined. He made himself comfortable by removing the lion skin which covered his torso. I, of course, still wore only the towel. Two ladies, bare-breasted, served us hot food brought from outside. They said nothing, but their interest in my pale skin was obvious. They served the white mealies so often found in African corn-growing cultures, somewhat like the grits of the American south, and birds that tasted like partridge, roasted over an open fire and spicily sauced.

After dinner, as we sat alone, or I should say, as I sat cross-legged on the hard earthen floor and he squatted opposite me, he offered me a smoke of some awful rolled weed, which I refused politely, but he grew more insistent that I share a pot of something which he offered in gourd cups. I felt I could not refuse, having turned away the "cigar," and took a few sips of a brew which reminded me of the best corn liquor turned out by my cousin's still in the Kentucky backwoods.

As the alcohol warmed our innards and bemused our brains, we dropped more than our inhibitions. His loose drawers seemed to fall aside at the front, and I saw an extraordinary set of reproductive tools hanging to the ground as he squatted beside me. His expressive eyes and engaging smile invited me to unwrap my towel as well. I cannot say that all of this was truly sexual, although as a homosexual, that must always be considered as part of my interest in the body of another man. His was perhaps more impersonal as he took stock of my white body and red pubic hair in contrast to the darkness of his own. There was a reflective shake of his head as he looked at me, and then he made a gesture with his hands to indicate that he would like to see the other side of me. Somewhat embarrassed, I obliged and showed him the far side of the moon.

He was delighted. He touched the cheeks lightly with a sort of slap. He giggled, then stood and turned around to show me his own. Whereas mine were soft and round, his were hard and lean, not much of a backside at all. We became bolder. Turned back to face each other, standing, he touched my penis gently. Being a young man, I could not control its instantaneous rise. I touched his, with no similar results. I remember that he laughed and shook his head, while continuing to gaze admiringly at mine. He was indicating the difference between old and young, perhaps with a twinge of regret. I had no idea what else was going through his mind.

A little drunk, and pleasantly satisfied with food, we lay down together on a mat of reeds he used for a bed, covered with a soft and furry cheetah's skin. We lay facing each other. He embraced me and held me to him asexually, but seemed to enjoy the pressure of my erection on his belly. When I achieved an orgasm from the friction of moving against him almost involuntarily, because I had enjoyed no sex for weeks, he simply clasped me to him tighter, and drifted with me into sleep.

Oral languages may serve their purpose, but there are other means of communication comprising mental and physical languages of their own.