Setting out to explore a sparsely inhabited valley with my mother. She drives the open-aired jeep across the savannah. After we pay the toll she exclaims, "I've only got a couple hundred thousand left." Because this puts us at risk of being defrauded by the customs officials this infuriates me, until I realize that she's counting in the hyperinflated local currency. When we arrive at the cool valley floor we are asked to relax in a dark garden. Then a young black man walks up and stands silently beside us. When I try to get rid of him, he pretends not to understand me. I try again in French with no success, and I begin to suspect that his intentions are hostile. Spanish does not work either. But after the first question in Portuguese a wave of recognition breaks over his face and he tells me his whole sad story, which is that he has come here to follow his lover, a virgin who has been cursed to starve and then immolate herself. When we see her we offer her a piece of fruit.