Come. Step away for a moment. Pick your feet up to avoid brief puddles of mud and charcoal and orange peel but don’t be afraid of the dust that will collect between your toes and fill the gaps in your fingernails. You will feel strange at first, notice the blanched color of your skin, then the smooth dark glow of the people around you. But let that go. Yes, you are different. And when you smile, your teeth will line up in straight rows like the life you left behind; Here, people will smile with all their teeth and you will remark at the gaps, the pink gums, the dark holes. If this makes you uncomfortable, simply let their voices roll around you like a torn, dusty quilt, welcoming you in and holding you softly. While you are here, you will sew your own patchwork and none of the pieces will be the same size or shape. You will not know the pattern until you have finished, and perhaps, you will never finish.
BonJour! ça va! Here you will hear a greeting every five steps you take. And you may notice that the language wraps around words with a slight southern twang. Mouths curl around the vowels to leave each phrase in a smile. You try saying it back “ Bon Jour, Ca va bien! “ and realize before you know it that you are smiling too.
You arrive at the market whose entrance is signaled by nothing but a greater concentration of buyers and sellers. You pause for an instant, a white woman, a white purse, sunglasses, and a friends warning ringing in your head. “ I heard you get ripped off there; someone told me you get hassled a lot if you go by yourself; most whites don’t shop there” But the street unloads before you, a tight dirt patch lined crookedly with rugs and blankets and tomatoes and lettuce and fish and fly strewn meat, and small bags of spice and salt. Here, every vendor greets you. “Bon Jour!” offering up a tomato or maybe even just a smile. One woman finishes her lunch and offers you the last bite of rice. You shake your head and tell her she should finish it, so she scoops it up in her right hand, lining the edge of the metal bowl with her fingers before licking them. The greetings are warm and constant so you take your time to step past the blankets and booths, making eye contact, returning each “Bon jour, ca va!” with your own smile, and “ca va, merci, et vous?” this simple constant gesture makes you feel at home, welcome, and friendly with each person you pass. Often it feels as if you are sharing some secret joke, you nod your head, your cheeks scrunch up in smile, and you realize that the secret joke is the simple, honest fact of your greeting.
In the slow course of your meanderings, you are greeted by a fabric seller. He gestures for you so come inside. Again, you hesitate. You don’t want to buy anything; you are alone; you don’t know this person; you don’t want to show too much interest. But the fabrics that line the entry ruffle in the wind: bright colors, stiff cottons, light flowered tulles. You duck in after him. In the dim light the patterns and colors line each other, rows and rows, each wall covered with different bolts of fabric, neatly folded. The light soaks in through corrugated tin roof and leaks through the elusive entryway. You feel as if you have entered another world, a harem. He leads you into tight, dim rooms, and you become lost in a labyrinth of color and pattern. The roof provides welcomed shade. you duck in and out of “rooms” lifting the light tissue, gently pushing aside the stiff cottons. He offers you tea and you sit down. He is smooth but you relent. You take a small sip of the white drink he offers. It has a light taste of chalk and some sweet herb that could perhaps be allspice. After you wander slowly through each flowing space and meet the young boys who are in the far back corner where an ally separates you from the next stall, you move back towards to front. A piece of dark blue fabric like the middle of an ocean catches your eye. It has dark red jungle green patterns printed on it, and you decide it is worth the dollar he is offering to sell it to you for.
Outside, the street is still hot and dusty. You pass crates packed full of black and white chickens, you pass old men crouched and eating lunch, tires and a mishmash of shiny and rusted bikes. Finally, you are ready to go home. You still have not found the hat you were searching for, so you ask someone where you might find one. This sets off an unexpected chain reaction. He calls “David… David…. DAVID” it comes out sounding Daaahvveeed and from across the way David appears, short and smooth skinned. You explain to him what you would like, and he guides you to a shady bench to wait, then disappears into the market. After a few minutes he returns, carrying a wide brimmed straw hat, just what you had asked for. You haggle the price with him, then start joking with the others who are around. Finally you begin to move away, having forgotten entirely to pay. He gently reminds you, and you laugh together about how easy it is to forget the money when the personal exchange is so full. You hand him the money, knowing you paid too much. But then again you realize how nice it was to sit in the shade while he went searching, how friendly the neighboring vendors were, and suddenly this price comes nowhere close to value of the interaction you have just shared. You pick your way over and though the vendors. They smile at you and you smile back, still white, still a bit of a stranger, but something in you has changed; you feel comfortable here, at home, welcome.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Football in the Streets
1.14.07
Burkina Faso smells like Barbeque and dust, like the Fourth of July mid afternoon when everyone has retreated from the crowds to their houses and begun to relax into evening. On my way from the airport last night I felt cool air upon my face and inhaled the thick, smoky, heavy air. In the morning, I found more subtlety in the air, it was a bit lighter and I could almost sense rather than smell a sweet, fresh undertone of tropical flowers. It is now mid afternoon and the semi charcoaled scent hangs in the hazy, white sky.
After arriving, I had a glass of beer at the house with Jonathan and Elena, two friends who will be staying in Burkina Faso, then crashed under my mosquito net until 11AM the next morning. I awoke to a quiet house, ate bread and jam for breakfast, then went to the market with Elena. It wasn’t until I was walking down the street, passing women in brilliant, printed fabrics carrying things on their heads that I truly believed I was in Africa. Last night, passing the square cement structures, loud colored hair salons, corrugated tin roofs and bumpy dirt roads, the collection of motorbikes and men that congregate at each off-shoot of the main road I easily could have convinced myself that I was back in the Dominican Republic. Today, I know better. The people are different. I try not to stare at the loads that women carry on their heads, at the peacock shaped fabrics that juts of their heads, the smooth, dark skin.
Returning home with bananas and bread, I pause at the gate to my house. across the street a group of boys pass around a soccer ball. I smile, half to myself, half to them and one comes over, passes me the ball. I pass back and he jukes me. He rolls it behind his legs, over the roots of a tree, bounces it against the wall, through the puddle in the middle of the street while I chase after him, low, following his moves, jabbing every so often and missing. It is so natural, this progression into some semblance of a relationship. Soon, we are passing the ball, all five of us. Elena takes the groceries inside and a few more kids gather around the periphery. After a while we have six and start to scrimmage. At first I try to avoid the piles of bird feathers and charcoal and puddles of the street, but soon I am in, and all I see are the green shorts of my first friend, and the blue “Zidane” jersey of my other team mate. We play for a while, till the game gets big and all I know is to pass to green shorts and blue jersey. Everyone else seems to be trying to get the ball from me. More people gather on the periphery, girls and small children. I stop to talk to them; they are more shy. Without football to talk around, conversation is a little more difficult. I bounce between playing, and standing in the shade, smiling at the girls. After a while I go inside, to get a glass of water and my camera. When I come back out, the camera becomes a hit. They gather round and I take pictures of each juggling the ball, then they crowd around to look and giggle at their friends photos, then jump “Et moi maintenant” Now me, now him! Their voices are more rhythmic than European French, they sound rounder, like you could bounce a ball around their words. I teach them to play “Head, Catch” (thanks Mom, great game!) It is easy and I am trying hard to get the girls involved. I throw the ball, say “ tete” and they catch it, I throw the ball and say “main” and they head it. It has been a long afternoon, and I am thinking my job wont be so hard.
Now I look down at my legs and realize that I have already picked up some African color: the streaked terra of dust films my legs to just the inside hem of my skirt and fine layer now lives between my toes. Every time I eat something or take a drink, the first taste is somewhat chalky. Johnathan has come back and is itching to go watch his football team play, we’re headed for the bar. Life is good. Signing off.
Burkina Faso smells like Barbeque and dust, like the Fourth of July mid afternoon when everyone has retreated from the crowds to their houses and begun to relax into evening. On my way from the airport last night I felt cool air upon my face and inhaled the thick, smoky, heavy air. In the morning, I found more subtlety in the air, it was a bit lighter and I could almost sense rather than smell a sweet, fresh undertone of tropical flowers. It is now mid afternoon and the semi charcoaled scent hangs in the hazy, white sky.
After arriving, I had a glass of beer at the house with Jonathan and Elena, two friends who will be staying in Burkina Faso, then crashed under my mosquito net until 11AM the next morning. I awoke to a quiet house, ate bread and jam for breakfast, then went to the market with Elena. It wasn’t until I was walking down the street, passing women in brilliant, printed fabrics carrying things on their heads that I truly believed I was in Africa. Last night, passing the square cement structures, loud colored hair salons, corrugated tin roofs and bumpy dirt roads, the collection of motorbikes and men that congregate at each off-shoot of the main road I easily could have convinced myself that I was back in the Dominican Republic. Today, I know better. The people are different. I try not to stare at the loads that women carry on their heads, at the peacock shaped fabrics that juts of their heads, the smooth, dark skin.
Returning home with bananas and bread, I pause at the gate to my house. across the street a group of boys pass around a soccer ball. I smile, half to myself, half to them and one comes over, passes me the ball. I pass back and he jukes me. He rolls it behind his legs, over the roots of a tree, bounces it against the wall, through the puddle in the middle of the street while I chase after him, low, following his moves, jabbing every so often and missing. It is so natural, this progression into some semblance of a relationship. Soon, we are passing the ball, all five of us. Elena takes the groceries inside and a few more kids gather around the periphery. After a while we have six and start to scrimmage. At first I try to avoid the piles of bird feathers and charcoal and puddles of the street, but soon I am in, and all I see are the green shorts of my first friend, and the blue “Zidane” jersey of my other team mate. We play for a while, till the game gets big and all I know is to pass to green shorts and blue jersey. Everyone else seems to be trying to get the ball from me. More people gather on the periphery, girls and small children. I stop to talk to them; they are more shy. Without football to talk around, conversation is a little more difficult. I bounce between playing, and standing in the shade, smiling at the girls. After a while I go inside, to get a glass of water and my camera. When I come back out, the camera becomes a hit. They gather round and I take pictures of each juggling the ball, then they crowd around to look and giggle at their friends photos, then jump “Et moi maintenant” Now me, now him! Their voices are more rhythmic than European French, they sound rounder, like you could bounce a ball around their words. I teach them to play “Head, Catch” (thanks Mom, great game!) It is easy and I am trying hard to get the girls involved. I throw the ball, say “ tete” and they catch it, I throw the ball and say “main” and they head it. It has been a long afternoon, and I am thinking my job wont be so hard.
Now I look down at my legs and realize that I have already picked up some African color: the streaked terra of dust films my legs to just the inside hem of my skirt and fine layer now lives between my toes. Every time I eat something or take a drink, the first taste is somewhat chalky. Johnathan has come back and is itching to go watch his football team play, we’re headed for the bar. Life is good. Signing off.
In Transit
1.13.07
Paris. Cool stoned skies match the paneled exteriors of stone buildings. The neon lights of shop windows belie a world of color and light and excitement to buy. It is SOLDES season, which means everything is on sale (and still unaffordable). What excites me are the rows of white hemmed windows above, their subdued hues, each a shadowed mystery disguised by uniformity, matching ironwork, and their tall view into the narrow street.
Once again, the busy airport. I feel as if I need to dive into every sight and smell and sound of this buying world. The perfume store lures me with its rows of glimmering bottles; the shopkeeper eyes my ragged backpack and flat shoes. I am a customer to watch not for my wallet but for my bull in a china shop allure. I take a deep whiff of Gualtier. I like the way the name rolls off my tongue when I whisper it to myself, the weighty assurance of gualt followed by a breathy and light eee- eh at the end; it comes in the bottle shaped like a woman and has a scent that makes me think of velvet nights and long, black gowns: something feminine and light without the sickly sweet fruit or vanilla that seems to characterize everything else. With no reason to buy such extravagance I spray it into my scarf and walk gently out of the store. I will carry this scent into the desert where it will be slowly erased by dust.
I admit it: I am basking in the extremes of this western world, giving myself to the simple, yet sometimes extravagant pleasures. Strolling the gardens of Rodin, licking Nuttella off my fingers, filling up on the rich scent of French perfumes, and loving the hot Vermont coffee steaming up to meet my lips. Part of me basks in this as if it were a guilty pleasure. Another part of me already feels disconnected from it, maybe always has. I am looking forward to the transition into a world where I am not faced daily by the names and brands and fashions whose sole purpose seem to be to make me feel like an outsider, like I always need more. I am happy with my secret scarf full of Gaultier and look forward to what happens when it mixes with the scent of fried dough and desert dust.
Paris. Cool stoned skies match the paneled exteriors of stone buildings. The neon lights of shop windows belie a world of color and light and excitement to buy. It is SOLDES season, which means everything is on sale (and still unaffordable). What excites me are the rows of white hemmed windows above, their subdued hues, each a shadowed mystery disguised by uniformity, matching ironwork, and their tall view into the narrow street.
Once again, the busy airport. I feel as if I need to dive into every sight and smell and sound of this buying world. The perfume store lures me with its rows of glimmering bottles; the shopkeeper eyes my ragged backpack and flat shoes. I am a customer to watch not for my wallet but for my bull in a china shop allure. I take a deep whiff of Gualtier. I like the way the name rolls off my tongue when I whisper it to myself, the weighty assurance of gualt followed by a breathy and light eee- eh at the end; it comes in the bottle shaped like a woman and has a scent that makes me think of velvet nights and long, black gowns: something feminine and light without the sickly sweet fruit or vanilla that seems to characterize everything else. With no reason to buy such extravagance I spray it into my scarf and walk gently out of the store. I will carry this scent into the desert where it will be slowly erased by dust.
I admit it: I am basking in the extremes of this western world, giving myself to the simple, yet sometimes extravagant pleasures. Strolling the gardens of Rodin, licking Nuttella off my fingers, filling up on the rich scent of French perfumes, and loving the hot Vermont coffee steaming up to meet my lips. Part of me basks in this as if it were a guilty pleasure. Another part of me already feels disconnected from it, maybe always has. I am looking forward to the transition into a world where I am not faced daily by the names and brands and fashions whose sole purpose seem to be to make me feel like an outsider, like I always need more. I am happy with my secret scarf full of Gaultier and look forward to what happens when it mixes with the scent of fried dough and desert dust.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Home Fire
The fire crackles and fills my small living room and kitchen with the orange glow of dancing flames, soul filling heat, and the soft burning smell of trees chopped by my dad in the woods outside my house. Last night I slept next to this fire, battling sleep while trying to soak in all warmth of my sleeping family. Outside, the moon fell in long, silver beams through the trees and unto the snow. I felt suspended in darkness between the stark, cold light of the moon and the golden glow of the fire, caught in a quiet world without borders or clear definitions. This image seems to fit my state of mind right now: quiet, floating somewhere between the fullness and abundance of home and a certain emptiness of self I need in order to begin life anew.
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