Taste this, Chicago

Nothing can compete with big cities when it comes to mobilizing people at the slightest excuse. Not to say that a festival dedicated to food is slight- it no doubt weighs itself heavily upon a city, clogging its streets, its arteries, its trash receptacles. Still, wading through thousands of people for the simple attraction of purchasing an overpriced polish sausage, and eating it while walking in a sea of sweaty, moving humanity in the sun is testament to the power of large cities. Could it possibly hold this allure if not for its impressive scale? Would you try to make tacos for ten thousand? It seems intriguingly communal, a mite nostalgic even (think Coney, or for us Mass folk, Riverside.) It's strange, this need to invent a reason to come out and look at each other again. As an event, I would say it's a fail- the elevated risk of botulism, the trash factor, the asshole who made me get buffalo sauce on my pants- these lead to an overall crummy review. But despite the total headache of navigating this rowdy rabble, (why do I always put a positive spin on my rants???) there was something perversely appealing about it, otherwise, why were we all there? It wasn't for the quality of the food or because we love elbowing our way to the next booth with the (empty, Sorry Todd) promise of a German pretzel. Perhaps it's the lure of the crowd and the pleasure of knowing that everyone else, like you, will line up for the same slice of pizza they could get down the street, just for the idea that in collusion something is suddenly happening.

The last chicken

You are definitely roasting your last chicken of the season, escaping the sweltering kitchen for the porch. It was a totally genius move, putting this mattress out here, affording the laziest twilight possible, like Roxy Carmichael lying in bed with her TV tipped to its side. The dirt-spackled mango tree curbs the potentially nauseating romanticism of this scene: potted hibiscus, porch, glass of water. The flies also help.
It took the whole year to figure out how to enjoy ex-pat 101, and oh, the excuses you’re going to have to make when you don’t really feel like reentering whatever it is that is awaiting you in the fabulous toubabudu, (aka Babylon). “I like hassles,” you once told Cousin Jay, who, of all people, needed no explanation for why you wanted to keep living in Africa, as if the notion of restaurants with monkey sticks* at the tables made poetic sense enough to justify the exile. There’s a restlessness you associate with Awesome America, a constant wall of red tape and telemarketers between you and simple peace. You can get thrilled, taught, fed, entertained, excited, but you can’t ever take a break. But repose in Gambia is inherent, automatic, assumed. If it all seems frighteningly catatonic, the karmic equivalent of an oxycodone habit, then it’s probably not your cup of ataya. All-night mosques and abrasive touts will no doubt stymie your mellow, however, and you might discover a sense of relief in the concreteness of your limitations and a sweetness in the lifestyle you’ve cobbled together despite your finite facilities.
Your little intercontinental tug-of-heartsting-war isn’t an exciting story. It’s probably mainly the result of perceived inabilities in one land and surprising aptitude in another. (Yes, anyone can learn to take naps in the afternoon, consider it confessed.) Goats will eat the entire weeks’ garbage outside your gate in the time it takes your electricity and water to come back on so you can take a shower, but in the meantime you are gloriously gooey from your second attempt at banana cake ala chez Colleen’s overproductive fruit farm. And here come the mangos by the way. So this is your home, for whatever lucky reason, though the blistering June heat makes you glad for the holiday to your past, for the friends/sushi/family/theaters/intellectual community/roads/bandwidth, but you’ll still be pining for the fruit from the dirty mango tree you missed the chance to gobble down while you were gone.



*These are sticks for scaring away, not necessarily beating, gate-crashing primates at up-country rustic dining establishments.

U.K. Holiday Part Two

Any time someone newish enters your space, a certain amount of tailoring must occur, if not to eclipse any assumptions that your life is not “together” enough, then at least to afford them some comfort. It is not difficult when England comes your way to pull something holidayish out of the sandy surf and to make like (fake like?) your every day consists of reaching for a banana right from the tree*. Easy enough, I suppose, to sweep the lizard turds under the stove for those few days that guests stop by. In the end though, a closer friend comes with a certain amount of abusability reserved normally for family and particular electronics, and all bets for preserving the image of that sunkissed life are off. Underwear finds its way once again strewn on the floor, you condescend (embarrassingly) to your gardener, let produce rot in the fridge. It’s undoubtedly the less enjoyable experience for this visitor, who differs from the others only in his ability to maintain some space in your life long enough to wear down your defenses and expose his own Tesco-working warts as well. Somehow, though, you like to think that showing your slightly more sustainable side, a middling okayness with your existence, could, if he were able to stretch that far, be seen as a compliment to the evolved state of your friendship.


*Though often very stately and tree-like, the banana and its fruit are, in fact, delicious mutations of an otherwise seedy, inedible herbaceous plant and not actually a tree.

What matters about today

Prophetic signs

It's own little microcosmo, my class buzzes with the random ("Ms. King, I had MARMITE yesterday") energy of 13 kids preparing for the production of the year. I've asked them a completely self-defeating-and-I-know-it request, to sit down with a book while I help individuals get ready. Their bodies respond accordingly (like popcorn) and no known technique could will them into a state of calm. Parents are already on benches outside as I discover the cheap Chinese face paint doesn't work and bees, snakes, mice will need to retain their people features and maybe Ms. King loses a couple of points this time. Sometimes children are like this: heartaches with feet. Somebody's lip got split at recess time, another one needs to vomit. But they march on anyway. I sometimes talk about this sense I think I have, that I can see your inner child tour-guiding you around, waving at me while you fancy yourself some kind of adult. This works in reverse today as little faces show purpose, fear, anxiety, pride. The face of one of my second grade boys looks up from the row of parents, hosted by a bigger body and set about with stubble. It's disconcerting how easy it would be to pat this grown man on the head, how easily my confusion could set in at such a moment. The same dimples even. Do they all think I'm nuts? A fraud? Is something going to get knocked over? Will there be tears or fighting? Will it matter? It happens in a blur, me in the background conducting and prompting, hoping for the allignment of all possible fortunes that this becomes a source of pride for them, that they feel they've made the sun rise. The resolution lingers, we've written more, and my 3 foot tall narrator triumphantly shushes the premature applause and, like the rightly misprinted sign at the Standard Chartered bank, in a flash "we close," and everything is fine.

U.K. Holiday Part One

It's the British approximation of those E-network style countdown programs, the ultimate time-vacuum when you're stuck on a Jet Blue flight, but the likes of which you'd rather not admit you'd sat through at any other time in your life. Instead of one-hit wonders or admirable celebrity body parts, this one is trying to sort out the 100 most embarrassing people of 2008. You realize it's not your country when Sarah Palin comes in at a disappointing 52nd, but there's a familiar discomfort in watching this style of television- programmed to come at you quickly and go away even quicker and there's as much time spent telling you what's coming as there is content to come. Before we can find out who the other 51 failures of public popularity were this year, it's time for the Hogmany madness to commence. Night could imitate TV on a day like New Year's, with the drunk girls puking on the sidewalks, or inadequately dressed and clopping precariously through cobblestones and the boys shouting from rooftops and grabbing each other in new and exciting ways that only a night of strong liquid courage could liberate them to do. But instead nothing done or said this evening will register the kind of spite that the fishbowl critique show does- because no one is any position to judge. You're either puking on the sidewalk yourself, or you're holding up someone's ponytail so they can.

My first stalker art

There will be words to accompany this some day, when I regain cogent thought. In the meantime, I'll let the painting do the talking.

From the ocean to my belly in less than 2 hours.

I don't have as much to take pictures of living in "urban" Gambia now, but my favorite new spot is the porch of the Bakau Guest house at dusk, where I can watch a fish go from net to frying pan. Fishworld works like this: The market picks up when the boats come in, boys swimming out with trays to meet them. Gele geles pull up and load their entire bus with fish to take up country. Women gut, clean and fry to sell. "Lincoln" the agressive rasta fish-monger adopted me my first time into the market. I reluctantly became his Kilian when I waded my way through the seafood-seeking masses to discover what had been dragged in that I could possibly cook. He introduced me to the comical and meaty butterfish, with its Bugs-Bunny mouth, which he'll yank filets out of for me in under a minute. What a contrast to the waves of the midwestern grass this summer, where a thousand hours of driving led us to Omaha, America's midpoint, with shrimp on the menu. Perhaps it was brought there by one of the huge farting trucks we'd played leap car with for a day or more on route 80. Whatever its journey, I'm certain it wasn't worth it, only to be limply tossed in a bland buttery bread-crumbed thing to be served after the nachos were all gone.
Now here I might not have the micro-brews or the table service, but I can buy a handful of shrimp, still squirming, with the tide they came in on almost touching my toes.

Presidango Obama be bung kono

Just to give you an idea of the mood over here:
Wednesday morning, the vendors all had their radios blasting with vote counts. They would look up at me, and instead of greeting, would say simply "Obama." Some nodded at me or gave me the thumbs' up, one commented "Africa dingo be white house le saaying" (there's a son of Africa in the white house.) Today is Friday and it continues. Without lifting a finger, Obama has already caused a shift in attitude. They check me for loyalty first, "Mariama, who were you supporting?" If I say Obama, then they give me- and I don't know how anyone knows about this- the victory fist pump. I've met people who don't believe that snow is real, or vending machines, but a black man as president of toubabudu? That's news.

An update

This morning Mr. Jallow got up from his bench to hand me a slip of paper. In three different colors of ink were his name and number and where he works (the bank.)
I said thankyou but kept on walking.
"I'll be waiting for your call."
"Yes, you will."