I rode my bike for a long time along the water this afternoon, and as I rode between the deep green trees, between the river and the highway, I wondered to myself, "What part of this could I not do in Africa?" Because I think like that sometimes. Sometimes I wonder what it is that keeps me here, when I could be there, and what draws me there, when I could be here.
I could have bought a bike, I thought, and I could have ridden it. I could have ridden it down the road to Rusenyi along Lake Kivu in Rwanda. I could have ridden it on the airfield and into town in Sudan.
I couldn't have done it quietly, though. Today, the only things I heard were the distant rush of traffic and the voices saying, "On the left" as they passed me. In Rwanda, I would have heard, "muzungu!" from the hillsides, and, down in Rusenyi, "biscuit! muzungu, donnez-moi un biscuit!" (To which the appropriate response, in your head at least, is to curse the French peacekeepers who, according to the lore, threw cookies out the windows of their vehicles to children TEN YEARS EARLIER. The memory of a free cookie never dies among kids, even when the current promoters of the memory are too young to have received said free cookie.) In Sudan, the football game on the airstrip would have been interrupted with calls of "ferengi! ferengi!" and any remotely bicycle-riding appropriate gear would, I'm sure, have been in violation of the county no-trousers rule that I utterly ignored.
One of the things that keeps me here is the ability, when I choose, to be anonymous, to walk around without saying over and over to small children holding my hand, "Si ni twa muzungu. Ni twa M___," to ride a bike without attracting a small crowd of onlookers. Attention is the price you pay for being white - read: weird - in a remote place. I have never particularly minded it. I grew up, after all, shrugging off the hands of all the people who wanted to touch my blond hair just to see what it was really like. But sometimes, when I think of it, it's nice to be able to go about my life without stares and pointing and the occasional child screaming in fear and running away from the color of my skin. (Don't you know? Only ghosts are this pale.)
...
Something I read today led to the googling of the phrase "yekepa liberia pool photos" because it was either that or try to describe this pool:
What I wanted to try to describe was that middle section, the part that you see the little blond kid walking over between the two rectangular parts of the pool, and how it was more of a bridge than an actual divider - you could swim under that part, and there was just enough air under there to breath if you stuck your nose straight up.
For some reason, I remember being able to see Guinea from near the pool, from the end where the camera is. I have a picture in my head of a hill descending to flat grass-land and a lonely triangular road-block in the middle of it. But when the camera pans over to the left, where I think I should be able to see Guinea, there is only more landscaped grass. Maybe if you walk further? Or have I mixed up two parts of Yekepa in my head?
My other thought about this video: would someone please, PLEASE, tell the Scandinavians that those tiny tight shorts are just... ugh, I can't even deal with them, even 25 years outdated.
I could have bought a bike, I thought, and I could have ridden it. I could have ridden it down the road to Rusenyi along Lake Kivu in Rwanda. I could have ridden it on the airfield and into town in Sudan.
I couldn't have done it quietly, though. Today, the only things I heard were the distant rush of traffic and the voices saying, "On the left" as they passed me. In Rwanda, I would have heard, "muzungu!" from the hillsides, and, down in Rusenyi, "biscuit! muzungu, donnez-moi un biscuit!" (To which the appropriate response, in your head at least, is to curse the French peacekeepers who, according to the lore, threw cookies out the windows of their vehicles to children TEN YEARS EARLIER. The memory of a free cookie never dies among kids, even when the current promoters of the memory are too young to have received said free cookie.) In Sudan, the football game on the airstrip would have been interrupted with calls of "ferengi! ferengi!" and any remotely bicycle-riding appropriate gear would, I'm sure, have been in violation of the county no-trousers rule that I utterly ignored.
One of the things that keeps me here is the ability, when I choose, to be anonymous, to walk around without saying over and over to small children holding my hand, "Si ni twa muzungu. Ni twa M___," to ride a bike without attracting a small crowd of onlookers. Attention is the price you pay for being white - read: weird - in a remote place. I have never particularly minded it. I grew up, after all, shrugging off the hands of all the people who wanted to touch my blond hair just to see what it was really like. But sometimes, when I think of it, it's nice to be able to go about my life without stares and pointing and the occasional child screaming in fear and running away from the color of my skin. (Don't you know? Only ghosts are this pale.)
...
Something I read today led to the googling of the phrase "yekepa liberia pool photos" because it was either that or try to describe this pool:
What I wanted to try to describe was that middle section, the part that you see the little blond kid walking over between the two rectangular parts of the pool, and how it was more of a bridge than an actual divider - you could swim under that part, and there was just enough air under there to breath if you stuck your nose straight up.
For some reason, I remember being able to see Guinea from near the pool, from the end where the camera is. I have a picture in my head of a hill descending to flat grass-land and a lonely triangular road-block in the middle of it. But when the camera pans over to the left, where I think I should be able to see Guinea, there is only more landscaped grass. Maybe if you walk further? Or have I mixed up two parts of Yekepa in my head?
My other thought about this video: would someone please, PLEASE, tell the Scandinavians that those tiny tight shorts are just... ugh, I can't even deal with them, even 25 years outdated.
No comments:
Post a Comment