Saturday, August 2, 2008
Journal Entry 5.24.08
It’s been a long time since I’ve journaled. One reason it’s hard to find the time. You’d be amazed at how time flies when there’s only hobbyish things to do like gardening and chatting, and this and the other. I have re-established my addiction to Sudoku thanks to my mother sending me a one-a-day calendar of Sudoku puzzles. My peanut butter addiction is still in full effect. I’m on my second 200 dalasi tub. I’m just glad other addictions haven’t made their way up country such as alcohol and slothfulness. I reserve those for my trips to Kombo.
The last few days have strayed however from the normal as my host brother has taken his first wife. The celebration lasted for four days. But it wasn’t one of these four day fiestas that I’ve always read about from exploits in South America. Everyone is Muslim here so there is no booze, so no out of control escapades. Just many people gathering and chatting and cooking and sometimes drumming and laughing. When I was told about this I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to it. And now that it’s over, I can’t say if my mind was changed much.
The first day a bunch of people came, and me being my antisocial self I did my best to sit and chat, but then got bored and went in my house to do some work. Even whittling dried mango husks to get out the seeds was more entertaining than trying to sit and be berated by strangers who want stuff from me because I am white.
That has easily reached number one on the Jon Dick pet peeves in Africa list. Numbers 2 – 5 are variations that, from being call “toubab” to being treated like a tourist (who are fat, ugly and British and their kids try and look African and it doesn’t work; or they’re here for a prostitute/guide). Any way you slice it, tourism is gross here and has caused an ugly bumbster mentality in the locals. I get that I’m white and therefore I am different. And this type of racism is more ignorant than the American violent and deep seated racism that plagues and has plagued the U.S. Therefore this type is just annoying not hurtful.
Still, the last three days have tested my patience more than any other incident thus far. From how the villagers describe these ceremonies you’d think it would be just that, a ceremony. But from my American perspective it was hard to find. I kept waiting for my host brother to get married, and although he now has a wife, I never saw anything that resembles a wedding. We spent a day sitting around here, as locals brought my family loads of rice, oil, onions, and MSG, which makes benecin, which I’ve eaten every meal for three days now. It’s a treat, really, but too much of a good thing….
The second day we were supposed to go the bride’s village, spend the night and come back on the third day. My host brother asked if I’d come to the bride’s village and so I did. But it wasn’t until late in the afternoon after more sitting and waiting. The musicians came so I was able to kill some time with them B.S.ing with them, showing them my guitar and them showing me their violins and drums.—all locally made out of gourds, lizard leather, horse hair and all was good.
A vehicle, a really nice gele van took people to the bride’s village but so many waited to get on that the driver started to get angry. And it was getting darker and darker and hotter and hotter in the van with 30 people and more on top. And we were going nowhere. Everyone at one point lost it and yelled and/or cried and got off the van then got back on. Of course I couldn’t understand a word, I just sat there with my guitar on my lap until they finally took it and replaced it with some young woman. I’d rather have had the guitar. She killed my legs by sitting on the edge of my thighs.
A half hour later we got going. Arrived in a village I’ve never been to before and it’s pitch black. I don’t recognize anyone. Finally I find my host brother and sit by him. I thought he would be partying or something this being the night before his wedding. But he didn’t. I realized that without alcohol all these parties or “programs” as they call them are just extended good nights. Regardless of age, everyone cliques together, boys with boys, girls with girls and each listen to music and try to look cool and occasionally flirt or drink too much sugared tea and get “crazy”. But for me, it was just another realization that once again, this experience is just another reflection of my high school experience. I was once again uncomfortable in large groups, anti-social, a wallflower. I cannot, for lack of language and interest have a conversation. If I am not working, clearing a field, cutting branches, planting, weeding, whatever; if I am not focused on a task I have no interest and my mind wanders and escapes.
The whole night at the bride’s village I heard the music and laughing and dancing and had no inclination to do anything but dream about my bed back here in my little mud house. It rained a few drops, exciting!!! And there was distant lightning and I fell in and out of terrible sleep on a filthy mat on an uneven ground next to my host brother who was as tired as I was for once. For a pillow he gave me his bag of ceremonial beads and jewelry. His pillow was a broken radio. So it could have been worse, but he had a blanket, I had the mosquitoes.
I did my best to pack as light as possible because I am always over packing . It feels like Gambians pack next to nothing. I had my guitar in its case, harmonica and holder, water bottle, spoon, socks, toothbrush and camera shoved into one of packs of the case. I thought I did well then noticed that it was still 90% more than what everyone else brought, which was nothing. The musicians had their instruments and that was it. And still that was more than most. The clothes on their back was it. Who goes to an overnight and doesn’t even bring a spoon? Oh yeah, they eat with their hands. Or toothbrush, oh yeah, they use their finger, or water or a coat or anything. Oh yeah, they either don’t have it, or don’t care.
The only thing they don’t leave home without is their cell phones. For those who have one, it is the single most coveted item of status. Most are illiterate and can’t navigate the menu or type in messages but still have phones. Long story short, I barely slept, cause anytime I fell asleep, I would wake up to people yelling and laughing with friends inches away with no regard for those sleeping. How rude. Then when morning came I found that the new pants Frank had sent me was stained from the dirty, greasy mat I slept on. Then I didn’t want to be rude but I had to piss and didn’t want to piss somewhere inappropriate so I asked and it’s a big deal. I have to be taken to the compound that has a pit latrine. I should have just peed behind a fence which I ended up doing. I missed the first gele back to my village but thought that was okay because I wanted to see the wedding.
Hours passed, it gets hotter, more sitting, more not fitting in, low dirty and tired and bored and have a bunch of work I want to get back to, and I can feel a volcano zit on my forehead. I have a “fresh cold” by now and can hardly breathe right. I just want to go home or see a wedding. Finally we go to the bride’s compound everyone sits. My host brother in all his traditional garb is on a mat facing the bride on her mat but she is covered by a large piece of fabric and the elders take turns giving speeches and praying. We sit, I take some photos. It gets hotter, and then that’s it. Everyone disperses and nothing happens. We wait for the gele.
When I first saw my host brother the day before getting done up in his beads and such he didn’t look happy. Now I know why. It’s three days where people get together and have a great time, for bride and groom, nothing. They stay separated and sit around and wait for people to get their act together. When the gele finally came it was another big ordeal. I guess the driver only wanted to make one more trip and there were all the people who needed to go home, like me, and then all the bride’s family that had to come back. And they were some of the most stubborn bossy women I have met so far. If the night before was bad, then this afternoon was ten times worse. A half hour ride took four hours what with all the yelling, arguing , and not problem solving. It was hot and sweaty and I kept my mouth shut but all I wanted to do was stand up and tell everyone what to do, but they would have stared blankly at my English so what was the point. I took it and tested my patience once again.
Get on, ten feet and stop. Yell, get off, over and over. By the time we got back to my village I didn’t stay back with the parade of new bride and groom. I was fed up. I just wanted to go inside my house and splash water on my face and drink some clear water and change. And as I tried going through the gauntlet of people saying obvious things like “you’re back” “you left and now you’re back”. “there were mosquitoes there” as indication that yes indeed there were mosquitoes there
They saw that zit on my forehead and everyone and their mother had to point and tell friends and stare right in front of me like I was a freak. I do not go around pointing out people blemishes, snot, goiters, etc. So I can’t help but feel it’s a little rude for them not to return the favor but to point it out like I was oblivious to it. Every child, strangers, even my host family which I desired more sensitivity from; so an oddity I already was, now more odd. I blew them all off and went inside and tried to blow-off steam but instead I sat down and almost lost it because I found as I took my guitar out of its case that wood on the front panel had cracked as if one of many people riding on the top of a van decided to use my beautiful and cherished guitar as a seat.
It’s my fault really. I shouldn’t have brought it. I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. That’s the thing. I stay inside and read about how to garden and then try and practice and its solitary work for the most part. When I try to integrate I get hassled and berated and so I seek refuge in my solitary work. I feel guilty that I should be sitting doing nothing so I go out and try to integrate and the vicious cycle begins.
I want to play guitar by myself but that’s rude so I go outside and have to deal with people trying to touch the tuning pegs or telling me I should give them the guitar even though they don’t know anything about it but I have it so they need it and want it and when I get tired of this sometime which never ends, they say they’re joking. But if I gave it to them, they would not give it back; so how is that funny?
In any case the guitar was now damaged, not broken or totaled, just cracked-- too little damage to get fixed, too much to be a beautiful flawless guitar which I had taken so much care with until a gele got too full and it just had to go the most unsafe place in Africa, the roof of a bush van.
Royally pissed off but with no one to vent to I went to the musicians. They looked at me with sympathy but the truth was I still had a foreign brand new-looking instrument that they could never afford. One of them sat down with me and tuned it better than I ever could. He probably never even held a guitar before but he could tune it by ear. I still need my electric tuner.
And this is where things change for a moment. They say in Oregon if you don’t like the weather then just wait ten minutes. Although the weather never changes in Africa, moods are known to swing like pendulums. One minute as I stared at the crack in my guitar and my host mom came to my door to share with me the shock of the “mosquito bite” on my face and feeling the dirt in my tired eyes, I felt so close to just saying f__ it and getting the first gele to Kombo and have some ice cream and beer and mingle with some of my own culture before I went f__ing nuts.
But then five minutes later with the three musicians, me blowing on my harmonica and wildly strumming my guitar trying to find a chord anything that would compliment the screeching of their fiddles, trying to find the beat of the drummer, I never found either but no one cared. I played as loud as I could and they smiled and laughed and didn’t care. We were a loud and sweating crowd moving through the village. People handing money to me and the musicians and kids dancing. Suddenly there was no crack, no zit, no fatigue, I could have played forever and it felt like we did over and over.
It’s so strange to have such polar opposite moods within minutes and it happens all the time here. I just get pushed and bullied by these people daily and I take it cause I “don’t want to be rude”. But f__ if they don’t push my buttons until I get to that breaking point and then out of nowhere some old lady gives me a mango, or a kid smiles and laughs and tries to eat the white skin off my hand, or I get to finally play with other musicians and do it as badly as possible But somehow without anyone hearing any of the mistakes because no matter how you play it, it’s music and that’s more important than a silly crack (that I’m still pissed off about) or a zit (that went away) or the bucket bath and night’s sleep that I finally got. I guess that’s just life. To be pushed around until you can’t take it and then something stupid happens and you say “okay I’ll give one more day”, “one more month”, “one and a half more years”.
The last few days have strayed however from the normal as my host brother has taken his first wife. The celebration lasted for four days. But it wasn’t one of these four day fiestas that I’ve always read about from exploits in South America. Everyone is Muslim here so there is no booze, so no out of control escapades. Just many people gathering and chatting and cooking and sometimes drumming and laughing. When I was told about this I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to it. And now that it’s over, I can’t say if my mind was changed much.
The first day a bunch of people came, and me being my antisocial self I did my best to sit and chat, but then got bored and went in my house to do some work. Even whittling dried mango husks to get out the seeds was more entertaining than trying to sit and be berated by strangers who want stuff from me because I am white.
That has easily reached number one on the Jon Dick pet peeves in Africa list. Numbers 2 – 5 are variations that, from being call “toubab” to being treated like a tourist (who are fat, ugly and British and their kids try and look African and it doesn’t work; or they’re here for a prostitute/guide). Any way you slice it, tourism is gross here and has caused an ugly bumbster mentality in the locals. I get that I’m white and therefore I am different. And this type of racism is more ignorant than the American violent and deep seated racism that plagues and has plagued the U.S. Therefore this type is just annoying not hurtful.
Still, the last three days have tested my patience more than any other incident thus far. From how the villagers describe these ceremonies you’d think it would be just that, a ceremony. But from my American perspective it was hard to find. I kept waiting for my host brother to get married, and although he now has a wife, I never saw anything that resembles a wedding. We spent a day sitting around here, as locals brought my family loads of rice, oil, onions, and MSG, which makes benecin, which I’ve eaten every meal for three days now. It’s a treat, really, but too much of a good thing….
The second day we were supposed to go the bride’s village, spend the night and come back on the third day. My host brother asked if I’d come to the bride’s village and so I did. But it wasn’t until late in the afternoon after more sitting and waiting. The musicians came so I was able to kill some time with them B.S.ing with them, showing them my guitar and them showing me their violins and drums.—all locally made out of gourds, lizard leather, horse hair and all was good.
A vehicle, a really nice gele van took people to the bride’s village but so many waited to get on that the driver started to get angry. And it was getting darker and darker and hotter and hotter in the van with 30 people and more on top. And we were going nowhere. Everyone at one point lost it and yelled and/or cried and got off the van then got back on. Of course I couldn’t understand a word, I just sat there with my guitar on my lap until they finally took it and replaced it with some young woman. I’d rather have had the guitar. She killed my legs by sitting on the edge of my thighs.
A half hour later we got going. Arrived in a village I’ve never been to before and it’s pitch black. I don’t recognize anyone. Finally I find my host brother and sit by him. I thought he would be partying or something this being the night before his wedding. But he didn’t. I realized that without alcohol all these parties or “programs” as they call them are just extended good nights. Regardless of age, everyone cliques together, boys with boys, girls with girls and each listen to music and try to look cool and occasionally flirt or drink too much sugared tea and get “crazy”. But for me, it was just another realization that once again, this experience is just another reflection of my high school experience. I was once again uncomfortable in large groups, anti-social, a wallflower. I cannot, for lack of language and interest have a conversation. If I am not working, clearing a field, cutting branches, planting, weeding, whatever; if I am not focused on a task I have no interest and my mind wanders and escapes.
The whole night at the bride’s village I heard the music and laughing and dancing and had no inclination to do anything but dream about my bed back here in my little mud house. It rained a few drops, exciting!!! And there was distant lightning and I fell in and out of terrible sleep on a filthy mat on an uneven ground next to my host brother who was as tired as I was for once. For a pillow he gave me his bag of ceremonial beads and jewelry. His pillow was a broken radio. So it could have been worse, but he had a blanket, I had the mosquitoes.
I did my best to pack as light as possible because I am always over packing . It feels like Gambians pack next to nothing. I had my guitar in its case, harmonica and holder, water bottle, spoon, socks, toothbrush and camera shoved into one of packs of the case. I thought I did well then noticed that it was still 90% more than what everyone else brought, which was nothing. The musicians had their instruments and that was it. And still that was more than most. The clothes on their back was it. Who goes to an overnight and doesn’t even bring a spoon? Oh yeah, they eat with their hands. Or toothbrush, oh yeah, they use their finger, or water or a coat or anything. Oh yeah, they either don’t have it, or don’t care.
The only thing they don’t leave home without is their cell phones. For those who have one, it is the single most coveted item of status. Most are illiterate and can’t navigate the menu or type in messages but still have phones. Long story short, I barely slept, cause anytime I fell asleep, I would wake up to people yelling and laughing with friends inches away with no regard for those sleeping. How rude. Then when morning came I found that the new pants Frank had sent me was stained from the dirty, greasy mat I slept on. Then I didn’t want to be rude but I had to piss and didn’t want to piss somewhere inappropriate so I asked and it’s a big deal. I have to be taken to the compound that has a pit latrine. I should have just peed behind a fence which I ended up doing. I missed the first gele back to my village but thought that was okay because I wanted to see the wedding.
Hours passed, it gets hotter, more sitting, more not fitting in, low dirty and tired and bored and have a bunch of work I want to get back to, and I can feel a volcano zit on my forehead. I have a “fresh cold” by now and can hardly breathe right. I just want to go home or see a wedding. Finally we go to the bride’s compound everyone sits. My host brother in all his traditional garb is on a mat facing the bride on her mat but she is covered by a large piece of fabric and the elders take turns giving speeches and praying. We sit, I take some photos. It gets hotter, and then that’s it. Everyone disperses and nothing happens. We wait for the gele.
When I first saw my host brother the day before getting done up in his beads and such he didn’t look happy. Now I know why. It’s three days where people get together and have a great time, for bride and groom, nothing. They stay separated and sit around and wait for people to get their act together. When the gele finally came it was another big ordeal. I guess the driver only wanted to make one more trip and there were all the people who needed to go home, like me, and then all the bride’s family that had to come back. And they were some of the most stubborn bossy women I have met so far. If the night before was bad, then this afternoon was ten times worse. A half hour ride took four hours what with all the yelling, arguing , and not problem solving. It was hot and sweaty and I kept my mouth shut but all I wanted to do was stand up and tell everyone what to do, but they would have stared blankly at my English so what was the point. I took it and tested my patience once again.
Get on, ten feet and stop. Yell, get off, over and over. By the time we got back to my village I didn’t stay back with the parade of new bride and groom. I was fed up. I just wanted to go inside my house and splash water on my face and drink some clear water and change. And as I tried going through the gauntlet of people saying obvious things like “you’re back” “you left and now you’re back”. “there were mosquitoes there” as indication that yes indeed there were mosquitoes there
They saw that zit on my forehead and everyone and their mother had to point and tell friends and stare right in front of me like I was a freak. I do not go around pointing out people blemishes, snot, goiters, etc. So I can’t help but feel it’s a little rude for them not to return the favor but to point it out like I was oblivious to it. Every child, strangers, even my host family which I desired more sensitivity from; so an oddity I already was, now more odd. I blew them all off and went inside and tried to blow-off steam but instead I sat down and almost lost it because I found as I took my guitar out of its case that wood on the front panel had cracked as if one of many people riding on the top of a van decided to use my beautiful and cherished guitar as a seat.
It’s my fault really. I shouldn’t have brought it. I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. That’s the thing. I stay inside and read about how to garden and then try and practice and its solitary work for the most part. When I try to integrate I get hassled and berated and so I seek refuge in my solitary work. I feel guilty that I should be sitting doing nothing so I go out and try to integrate and the vicious cycle begins.
I want to play guitar by myself but that’s rude so I go outside and have to deal with people trying to touch the tuning pegs or telling me I should give them the guitar even though they don’t know anything about it but I have it so they need it and want it and when I get tired of this sometime which never ends, they say they’re joking. But if I gave it to them, they would not give it back; so how is that funny?
In any case the guitar was now damaged, not broken or totaled, just cracked-- too little damage to get fixed, too much to be a beautiful flawless guitar which I had taken so much care with until a gele got too full and it just had to go the most unsafe place in Africa, the roof of a bush van.
Royally pissed off but with no one to vent to I went to the musicians. They looked at me with sympathy but the truth was I still had a foreign brand new-looking instrument that they could never afford. One of them sat down with me and tuned it better than I ever could. He probably never even held a guitar before but he could tune it by ear. I still need my electric tuner.
And this is where things change for a moment. They say in Oregon if you don’t like the weather then just wait ten minutes. Although the weather never changes in Africa, moods are known to swing like pendulums. One minute as I stared at the crack in my guitar and my host mom came to my door to share with me the shock of the “mosquito bite” on my face and feeling the dirt in my tired eyes, I felt so close to just saying f__ it and getting the first gele to Kombo and have some ice cream and beer and mingle with some of my own culture before I went f__ing nuts.
But then five minutes later with the three musicians, me blowing on my harmonica and wildly strumming my guitar trying to find a chord anything that would compliment the screeching of their fiddles, trying to find the beat of the drummer, I never found either but no one cared. I played as loud as I could and they smiled and laughed and didn’t care. We were a loud and sweating crowd moving through the village. People handing money to me and the musicians and kids dancing. Suddenly there was no crack, no zit, no fatigue, I could have played forever and it felt like we did over and over.
It’s so strange to have such polar opposite moods within minutes and it happens all the time here. I just get pushed and bullied by these people daily and I take it cause I “don’t want to be rude”. But f__ if they don’t push my buttons until I get to that breaking point and then out of nowhere some old lady gives me a mango, or a kid smiles and laughs and tries to eat the white skin off my hand, or I get to finally play with other musicians and do it as badly as possible But somehow without anyone hearing any of the mistakes because no matter how you play it, it’s music and that’s more important than a silly crack (that I’m still pissed off about) or a zit (that went away) or the bucket bath and night’s sleep that I finally got. I guess that’s just life. To be pushed around until you can’t take it and then something stupid happens and you say “okay I’ll give one more day”, “one more month”, “one and a half more years”.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)