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My matches are wet, he said, pausing for a moment to search pockets and satchels. But his mind was on Burundi and he had left us all dreaming about how he might return and to whom? Would she be married?

After 4 years of living as an American expatriate in Burundi he would never be home in this country again. In this great America, he would never be free of the magical scent of so many dark bodies cramped into a hot bus, of the sight of swaying hips, moving through the morning mist toward work, and the office filled by noon with the unmistakeable pitch of African tobacco smoke.

But most of all he missed the curve of her strong back and her soft skin and her sweet goodnight wishes for him. Any beaurocratic position would do, any pale green cotton shirt, any cement block assignment would keep his soul in agreement with one simple and unlikely truth. That for the first time, this white man from Minnesota had found a place that felt like home, 3000 miles away.

We all sat quietly on the beach, filling up with the images of his stories while the New England sand and sun seared our light skin, but refused to produce even one dry match.