Famished Road

April 15, 2007

My favorite novel, The Famished Road, begins like this:

“In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.

In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn’t redeemed, all that they hadn’t understood, and for all that they had barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of origin.

There was not one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.”

Ben Okri, the author of this book, continues from this opening passage to weave an intricately woven legend that has mystified and left me breathless. There are times when a novel comes across at just the right moment, revealing pages of hidden truths that strike chords upon the heart, and vibrates through the vast chambers of the mind. What this book of hunger and awareness has taught me goes far beyond the depiction of a spirit child living amongst a poverty-stricken compound of Africa – it symbolizes the fact that our journey is a path of beauty, pain, suffering, and love….

I rolled this around in my mind as I walked from bila to Ponta Verde yesterday. It took a good part of the day and I did it in lifetime-warranty flip flops that are worn to the sole and ripped at the straps. The sun beat down as equally upon my body as a scorched volcanic rock surrounded me in straw-colored dryness, the cracked soil aching for water. The one cobblestone road that twists and turns along the outer portion of the island stretched for miles as my roommate and I trudged determinedly between wisps of frail, brittle trees bowing sideways from the constant harsh winds. As we made the brutal trek through the zones we recognize from our weekly drives into the city, I thought about the boy in the novel, The Famished Road. I quickly realized the main difference however; my road is not hungry, it is dying of thirst, and only the first fat drops of rain in the upcoming months have the capacity to ease the suffering of its parched landscape.

April 16, 2007

After I gave classes today, I caught a rickety truck into the city. It was a small cab with a truck bed in the back rigged into an area that provides two benches and a tarp covering to shelter its passengers from the wind. People are crammed into this tiny space and forced to hold on for dear life as the sideways ride bumps its way along the hole-ridden road. Because the only place to grip is the metal above your head, every ride instills in me the virtuous act of giving and I am forced to fight the urge to donate a stick of deodorant to each traveling member. Everyone rocks and sways in unison as the tiny beat-up truck barrels around uneven turns. The laidback island music of Zuki and Funana blares from the driver’s seat and women with sun-beaten faces climb into the vehicle and take loads of firewood or tubs of fish from atop their weary heads. They chatter incessantly about the latest aches and pains, familial happenings and small-town gossip. Older Cape Verdeans sit close to me, hold my knee for support and offer me a blessing when they reach their stops. Tiny children sit mutely and stare with giant brown eyes and unabashed curiosity. There are usually live chickens clucking in plastic bags and the car sometimes stops to pick up a passenger with lean, hard-earned muscles who throws a bewildered goat in my lap. I have yet to get on without encountering a man drunk on grogue - a highly potent alcohol comparable to moonshine – stinking to high heaven at the ungodly hour of ten and unable to resist a fondness for clasping and caressing the nearest American woman’s hands. The man today, with twinkling eyes and a gap-toothed grin, grabbed hold of me, asked if I would “lend him my whiteness” and proceeded to invite me to pay for his next drink, and his ride.

In the beginning, these rides left me exhausted, my nerves shot. Yet now I look forward to them with familiar expectancy. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when all the discomfort, filth, noise and invasion of privacy began to inspire feelings of belonging … but I did realize today - as I rode in the back of the jam-packed truck and glanced behind us at a rich group of tourists looking silent, bored and comfortable in a shiny Land Cruiser - that the space between them seemed a mile wide and I felt a pang of sympathy for their distance from one another.

April 17, 2007

I was not able to use the Internet today, and will not be able to do so for a while. Apparently a ship docking in Cape Verde sent an anchor down that hit the connection line in the ocean, severing all hope of linking me with the outside world via computer for the next, oh, eternity. Not only does this cable provide Internet access for this country, but also Argentina, Brazil, here, Senegal, the Azorts, Canary Islands, and then up to Spain. (I’m assuming the captain of the ship had a bit of a “doh!” moment.) They say it will be fixed within the next week or so, which in Cape Verde translates to about a month. The odds of a swift Internet return is about as far-fetched as a boat severing server access across a good portion of the globe … but I guess stranger things have happened…

April 18, 2007

My roommate and I got doors put in our house today, including (drum roll please) the bathroom! Beforehand we simply had a thin, burgundy Japanese curtain that I bought during my travels long ago; it has designs that my roommate thinks look like crustaceans and is a lot like what you would find in the hallways entrance at a traditional sushi joint. That slender bit of material was all that separated us during our most private bathroom moments and also served as our only sense of isolation from one another. Twenty-four seven, we had to keep each other up to date on our digestion cycles, and even found ourselves holding a loud conversation as one of us cooked breakfast and the other took a cup bath in the next room. And now there is a door. Not only that, but there are now doors on our rooms as well. Light, unfinished wood with six panes of textured glass that obscures whatever lies beyond. No longer will we be forced to jokingly shout, “I’m being indecent!” when we change; no longer will we awake from the slightest toss or turn in bed that preempts a creak from the other room; no longer will we be living in a bright blue cement block! You know why? Because now we have DOORS. Amen.

April 19, 2007

There are experiences in one’s life that leave a lasting impact; an outer shell that covers an inner changeling that is taking new shape, new form, new life. I remember my past days of solitude in which I was known to stand away from the crowd, devour books and engage in my imagination. I could be seen set apart, independent, and comfortable with my different-ness. For these reasons, I have always considered myself a person who would live on my own. Despite my interest in people, in my ability to converse, get to know a person and indulge in inquisitiveness, I have always been separate. I owned my uniqueness. I thrived on the fact that I was made from a different cloth, so to speak. I imagined a future that required nothing more than a loyal dog, run-down shack on the beach, piles of novels and an antique typewriter. A long-term partner rarely crossed my mind, and a family even less so. I guess that was what led me to Peace Corps. It allowed me to lead a life that was different, that allowed an escape from the whole, and a possibility to live on my own, to see what I was truly made of. I wanted to test my character I guess…all that “pursuit of individualism” that American culture so ardently exalts.

Well, with all that in mind, I completely failed. Since I have lived in Cape Verde, I have been with people. And not just next to, around, or in the presence of - there were certainly a lot more people in the States – but I mean really WITH. I have been a part of a Cape Verdean family, a full-time roommate with no doors, a teacher in a classroom overflowing with inquisitive students, in a kindergarten brimming with screaming 4-year-olds, visiting families of 15 or more, and constantly pursued by my “shadows” (my young neighbors next door). In my search for individuality I have become part of a whole, a part of a community that has embraced me, and continues to involve me daily. I cannot walk down the tiny cobblestone path without being led into the company of four or five groups along the road, forcing me – originally against my nature – to divert from my solitary path in order to take part in a more common goal.

So my dreams of seclusion have eluded me and I no longer want that life. I do not want to turn my back on what this society has taught me – that I need people and relationships in my life…that they are what makes it all worth it at the end of the day. I know now that when I am forced to leave, it will not be the place that I miss, not the trees or the ocean or the stars…it will be the beautiful faces that haunt my dreams, the tender, open comfort of the people I now know that will follow me once I leave. And for this I understand that even if I were to live alone in the future, it would be only an illusion of loneliness, because the hearts of my friends will sink deep into my being and remain, wandering along in memory, and as much a part of me as myself.

April 22, 2007

My mind is a glass case, opaque and fragile in its state of crystalline beauty.

The shape is a defined curve, like a woman’s hip. Its sleek descent falls to a rounded circle meeting a flat, dull surface below - a foundation, a starting point, a place where things connect. Within this encased glass is a swirling, floating freedom - seeds of dandelions blown by the pursed lips of an enigmatic breath. In a space so elegant, so free from contradictions, so float-worthy calm and composed, it is possible to overlook that which defines the edges of existence between serenity and chaos. This tranquil world holds within it a fury. The shallow banks of calm are battered by an opposing wind. It sprouts wings and dances about like an incensed light. This being’s attempts to soar thrash the conscious momentum of time and splatters crimson along the purest of pallid white. Its tormented existence is a delight to the eyes, yet a crippling throb to the heart.

The beauty of its captured state dazzles
intrigues
enrages.

April 24, 2007

There are no flowers, green buds, or fresh dew along the corners of the path to prove it, but spring has most definitely stormed into Ponta Verde, unabashed in its arrival and demanding recognition. This is not to say that the continuous drought has fled. In fact, it has held fast to its arid temperament and its brittle, dry roots have dug themselves indignantly in the ground, standing weak yet unyielding like an old man in a willful state. But Miss Spring has sashayed into my village like a woman demanding for her presence to be heard, felt, and obliged to. She wears the perfume of love and the scent of longing, and all around it is quite clear that her human inhabitants are reacting favorably to her seductions. Spring fever has hit, and like the soil craving the first sweet drops of rain, men stare at women with a feverish hunger. Everywhere I go, I am confronted by whistles, catcalls, gaping, solicitations, smart remarks, pleading, advances, etc., imploring me to take part in spring’s passionate embrace. Not only the men, but also my roommate’s eighth grade boys have taken a sudden disturbing interest in me and they give me the Cape Verdean call, “ppssst!” as I walk up the hill after a day of work. I have more than a few times heard, “Teacher, I love you!” or “Bu kre kaza ku mi?” (“You want to marry me?”) I have actually accepted an offer to marry an adorable six-year-old who lives down the street from me. Our wedding is Saturday.

Anyhow, the testosterone-filled air is a harmless, sometimes entertaining, usually pitiful, always annoying part of life this time of year. I am beginning to wonder if American men’s comparably subtle advances will ever offend me again. As for me? I’ve holed myself up in the house and opted for a favorable and less complicated route - spring cleaning…

April 25, 2007

Every once in a while I am completely struck in the face by the way people must make sacrifices in order to survive. There is one water source in Ponta Verde where those who do not having running water (which is pretty much everyone) go to get their water every day. I have become quite accustomed to seeing young boys of eight or nine making their way down the road with their donkeys in order to fill up the black inner tube strapped to the animals’ backs. I watch as they careen down the rocky paths atop the animals, grunting harsh commands and whipping them the entire way with sticks or ropes. Young girls with thin frames and muscular arms walk in threes or fours up the steep hill, the heaviness of full buckets balanced atop their heads, their homes far up the steep slope of the crater. To put this daily activity in perspective, I have, on a few occasions, helped a pregnant woman or friend with her bucket, clumsily balancing the 20-something pound bucket atop my unaccustomed head. By the time I’d made my way up the incline, the water had often splashed everywhere, my arms were burning from the blood that’d drained from my arms, my legs shook and I had a sore neck for days. That’s a short distance and for one bucket, yet these people are carrying enough water for the average ten to twelve people who live with them.

And to think - in the States we just turn a nozzle.

Yesterday as I was walking downhill to the school, I met a girl along the road. As I often see her making her way down to the water source, I struck up a conversation and she greeted me with her usual bright smile. As I asked her about her life, I discovered that she is fifteen, and that she lives in a neighboring zone up the crater that has no place to get water. She is no longer in school – once she completed the eighth grade, she was put to work getting water every day. She talked about her siblings, how many she had and what she did every day working in the house. Her story sounded pretty typical of most of the young girls living here in Ponta Verde. She washes her family’s clothes and cooks; the typical household duties. It was the same thing I’d heard over a dozen times, and yet each time I look into the eyes of these strong, beautiful young women as they share themselves with me, and I can see them drowning. This girl could easily be a bright student, and in another place maybe she would have been a talented artist, a writer, a physician. Here, at the age where individuals just begin to get a glimpse of who they are and what they want to do with their lives, any future she can imagine is cut short so that she can provide water for her family. Every day, without exception, up and down the hill she goes, a concentrated look on her face, as the water splashes and drips down along her well-developed arms. She will continue to do this for decades. She always flashes me a brilliant smile. Somewhere behind it is an image of what else she could be.

Sysiphus

April 13, 2007

The other day I was sitting upon my porch, looking out at the beauty of the world, as though it was laid out on a plate for my eyes to devour. I stared lovingly at the island of Brava, known as Fogo’s bride, and I watched, dazzled, as the ocean sparkled in the final brilliant moments of the sun’s departure. All around me was the cozy silence that only one living in a small rural village can recognize. I smelled the sticks that were burning in the kitchens of my neighbors and the subtle aroma intoxicated me. In this place of paradise, everything seemed right in the world.

Just then I heard a rickety rolling of wheels and turned my head down the path to see a man with no legs struggling up the incline of cobblestone. He was headed to the saint festival that I had been to earlier that day, and he was a long way off. I watched and recognized his face as the brother of a friend of mine, a man whom I had never formally met. I’d heard he’d had an infection in his bones and that was why his legs had been cut off. I knew also that he was the father of one of my students who is living at the bread lady’s house two houses down. This man’s wife was in Praia, and I had been told she was mentally ill. Their son is a very good student.

As I studied the tendons in his lean arms and the squinted determination on his face, I wondered how anyone could use a wheelchair downhill on these hole-ridden cobblestone roads, let alone uphill. His plight was unlikely, and yet I knew he would eventually get there. The moment that I was watching this man wheel his way up the steep cobblestone, turn by tiring turn, I felt a deep sadness and realized the image represented how helpless I sometimes feel here. On the surface, this place can look like paradise. Yet the issues of poverty, education, inbreeding, health care, options, futures, lives - is a constant uphill battle. I often feel frustrated with my Peace Corps experience and think that it benefits the volunteers more than the people who really need it. I find myself angry with the organization, thinking maybe it was created not to help others, but to help American citizens.

All in a swirling mixture of emotions, I am drunk on sympathy for this man as he struggles up the hill. He, to me, represents the plight of all Cape Verdeans and therefore he has many faces. It is too painful to watch him struggle because it is the struggle of every person I have come to love here, and it is such a great effort; a fight that I can’t do much about in the short two years I have here. And in these moments of despair and helplessness, I get up, run up to the man, and push his wheelchair up the hill, he laughing the entire way. His laughter rises up like wings into the air and for a moment – only a moment - his burden is lifted onto the wind and seeks new horizons.

Gooey things that go squish

April 12, 2007

About a week ago I was washing dishes in our sink, as I do every day. Since there is no running water in the house, I often fill the sink with water and allow the dirty dishes to soak before rinsing them in clean water. Considering that this is the dry season – which consists of nine months of drought – it is one of the many ways in which we try to conserve water here. Anyway, I was washing the dishes and as I fumbled about for the last piece of silverware hidden beneath the soapy water, I grabbed the sponge and squeezed. Only it wasn’t the sponge. It was a mouse that had fallen into the sink during the night and had drowned in the lake of dishes. The giant, poisonous centipedes and flying cockroaches instill no fear in me, yet for the first time since I’ve been here, I yelled loud and pranced around in horror animatedly enough to give my roommate, who is not accustomed to hearing me scream, a semi-heart attack.

In the ongoing saga of squeamish catastrophes, I found myself once again in the uncharted territory of fright along the way to the kitchen. It was a dry, arid day and I ran into the kitchen dreaming of apple juice. In the informal fashion of the stereotypical bachelor, I bent down, unscrewed the lid and took a giant swig of sweet goodness. But there was a soft, chewy substance to it in my mouth. I looked down into the bottle, and an array of moldy green clumps bobbed along the surface of the past-due amber liquid. Calmly, collectively, I set down the bottle, slammed my hand in agony against the concrete floor about five times, and bolted to the bucket where we keep scraps for the pig, spewing out the vile contents of my mouth. I have brushed my teeth a record four times today and after this and the dead mouse incident, I am seriously considering signing up for Fear Factor upon my return to the States.

Volta

April 10, 2007

Since I will be visiting the States for my best friend’s wedding in August, I thought I would let everyone know my tentative schedule for July 31-August 18:

July 31 – arrive in LAX at 10 p.m. (sleep)
Aug 1 – recover from jet lag! (eat yummy food, visit with the fam)
Aug 2 – appointments, errands (haircut for the first time in a year! shopping date with mom…?)
Aug 3 – go out with friends (probably some bar in OC where everyone can meet up - Stella!!)
Aug 4 – recover from going out with friends (SLEEP, fam time)
Aug 5 – church and day with family (Saddleback and long overdue coffee date with sis)
Aug 6 – visit my great grandfather in Santa Barbara (get caught up with my favorite 99 year-old)
Aug 7 – family BBQ/get together … visit! (all my family members are invited over)
Aug 8 – time with boyfriend (much needed)
Aug 9 – time with boyfriend (note: I will be MIA these days)
Aug 10 – prepare and pack for Jackie’s wedding (get dress fitted, drive there?)
Aug 11 – Vegas for wedding (visit family in Vegas)
Aug 12 – Vegas (bachelorette party?!?)
Aug 13 – Vegas (I’m the maid of honor) =)
Aug 14 – concert in San Diego (hip-hop with the newlyweds)
Aug 15 – Palm Springs with family (strictly Mamas time)
Aug 16 – Palm Springs (off-roading in the desert with Grampa)
Aug 17 – Palm Springs (good quality time with Teej)
Aug 18 – catch a flight back to Fogo (so soon…??)

This isn’t set in stone, but I thought I would map out a game plan - as you can see it’s pretty jam-packed. I will be doing my best to coordinate everything correctly and make time for everyone, but since it’s impossible to do that perfectly, I am having whichever friends want to go out meet up with me Friday, August 3rd and all my family members can come visit Tuesday, August 7th (I think that just makes it easier on me). If for some reason any family members aren’t available that day due to work or other plans, I’m sure there is a different time that can be figured out because I really want to see everyone. Thanks in advance for your patience, as this is going to be a whirlwind of culture shock in comparison to my slow-paced life here in Cape Verde! =) Miss you guys and can’t wait to see you soon…

Yell Fire

April 5, 2007

Reclining upon a lawn chair overlooking a glassy pool that reflected the starry night above, I sat and wished upon the falling stars in contentment. There were dim lights that illuminated my face in the darkness of the hotel’s ambience and I moved my eyes to the person reclining in another chair at my side. He was a German tourist, and he was talking about his life in Brazil, in Switzerland, in traveling the world. I listened to his kind, contemplative mood and my eyes wandered to the group of volunteers who had come to visit us from the mountainous island of Santo Antao. I thought about the epic beauty and great heights of both the Alps and the wondrous shifts of land in the sparkling mystery of the northern island of Barlavento that my friends call home, and I think, How did I get here?

My wandering mind shifts to my friend who lives within the crater of the volcano and I can accurately picture the enormous grin on his face, the hop in his dance step, and the inviting lyrics he mouths behind an ardent enthusiasm for reggae. I begin to think, as the German tourist inspects the inner workings of his fate, about what this sense of home is and how I would define this recently rooted feeling to the land in which I have been living for 9 months. A fondness for language, a newly acquired knack for cooking, the desire to create a space to belong, the familiar recognition in my neighbors’ eyes as I drive past and wave, an understanding of a my village’s culture. What makes a home a home? Is it a deep, internal craving for the nourishment of the soil? Or is it the anticipated acknowledgement and realignment of priorities, interpretations, and behavior?

For all these internal wanderings and misplaced precisions, I am content to close with a lack of conclusive thought. The future holds nothing but answers, and a myriad of new questions to consider. I look up into the night sky and see only the underbelly of an intricate tapestry being woven from above, and am content to wonder at its mysterious, illusive pattern.

April 6, 2007

Today is nine months completed in Cape Verde. It’s not yet a year, yet not little enough to be offhandedly thrown into the category of a mere stint in the forgotten abyss of African’s coastal Atlantic. It’s not enough to be fluent in Kriolu, but it is enough to have formed Fogo hick accent (think Minnesota accent, folks) even when I speak English, and I have more than a few times peppered my conversations with Kriolu when the English word is not as readily accessible in my mind.

My roommate wished me a happy nine months today and said, playfully, “You could have had a baby in this amount of time!” I laughed, but realized she was correct and thought of all the new people who were born in my village during my time here. New personalities, new responsibilities, new names, new conflicts, new love. In a way, I have given birth to a new life as well – my life. When I arrived, this new being was conceived within me and over the months I have often felt like a child, dependent upon others, learning to live in a new world, trying to speak and express myself all over again in order to respond to my new surroundings. And so today I give tribute to who I am, and for what I feel I have learned and accomplished during the infant stage of my experience on this volcanic rock amidst a tumultuous sea. Today I am opening my eyes, looking around, and using each day to grow into my new self.

April 7, 2007

“Those who start wars
Never fight them
Those who fight wars
They never like them
And those who write laws
They can’t recite them
And those of us who just fight laws -
We live and die them.”

-Spearhead, Yell Fire

Home at Last

April 4, 2007

I just returned home from In-Service Training (IST), an All-Volunteer Conference (AVC) that allowed me to meet up with other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) who have been living among the islands for the past ten months. We were in Praia, the country capital. Then we sat through sessions that were held along the beachside of Tarrafal. After that I visited my home stay family in Sao Domingos, where I lived the first two months in Cape Verde during Pre-Service Training (PST). And yes, when you join the Peace Corps, you become aware that every official title becomes an acronym of some sort.

It was interesting seeing the other volunteers, to exchange information about recent project proposals, secondary community development projects, funding sources, varying forms of Kriolu, etc., but the entire experience was a whirlwind that I am honestly glad is over. The paved roads, tall buildings, speed and accessibility of Praia was overwhelming, as were the lifestyles of PCVs from the northern islands. I am beginning to realize that living in a rural site develops a much slower pace in an individual, even one from L.A. like myself. The whole experience of IST was admittedly too much for me because I found myself aching to get back to the stillness of Ponta Verde.

Once the plane touched down on Fogo soil I felt I was finally able to breathe again. The streets were familiar, the people recognizable, and I felt I was myself for the first time in two weeks. As I sat in the front seat of my friend’s car, full of people I knew and with the driver’s gorgeous sleeping baby resting trustingly in my lap, I looked out at my island and felt a sense of belonging. Friends along the road greeted me, telling me I had been missed, and I arrived in my community to hear that my good friend had given birth to her baby. I immediately went to pay her a visit and as I lay next to her on her bed, gently touching the tiny fingers of her newborn child beneath the covers of the dimly lit room, I knew what it was like to be home.

Starting Tomorrow Early

Saturday, March 17, 2007

I just awoke from a dream. It was a dream lost and deep, as within an ocean, in the early morning hours when even reality is quiet and shifting. In my dream I’d ended my Peace Corps service. I had arrived for a time in Nowhere, U.S.A. and I was placed in a high-rise hotel, in an apartment-esque suite. The giant room was top quality, with food overflowing from the shelves and welcome gifts along the counter. The glimmering floors and metal refrigerator threw me fake smiles in a gooey-sweet, grotesque manner. My mother called, and then my father, to congratulate me. Then I stepped out into the world I had left behind for two long years; long not because they represented a weary, unknowable journey, but rather because I had become a different person. I knew that in my dream.

As I made my way down the enormous hall, I explored the new territory. People were bustling about, no doubt on vacation, but their getaways appeared to resemble more of a preoccupied state of frenzy. They HAD to get down to Activity A immediately in order to squeeze in that massage, and be to dinner in time to make it to the matinee, etc. I made a wrong turn down the hall and found myself in a video/book store. All the DVD’s had the same up-and-coming actress advertised across the front, in a variety of sentimental or death-defying scenarios, depending on the film’s budget. In one scene she was the elf in a Christmas film, maternally cradling a child star – in the other she was leaping over a burning building, sex-goddess meets tae kwon do instructor. The room was dizzying and full of bodies that clearly understood the new system. It did not involve waiting in a line at a cash register, but rather a flip of a card across the front of an intended purchase. So I made my way to what was more familiar – the book section. Like a shiny, new age pattern of a quilt, the books gleamed so brightly that they hurt my unaccustomed eyes. Once my sight had adjusted, I made out the titles, many of which had been arranged in a Magic Eye technique, so that the words pop out at you and dance across your irises seductively. “How to Lose Weight by Consuming Only Chocolate” was one of them. “A Quick Fix-It Guide to Slowing Down Your Life … In Only 5 Minutes a Day!” was another. Feeling a bit nauseated, I left the store.

The bellhop I met along the way was not a normal bellhop. Apparently, bell hops were no longer people you could trust, well-intended individuals in funny little hats who could direct you to the nearest anywhere, with a small tip required. Against my prior knowledge, I found myself in the midst of negotiating a high-cost escape route that required bribe sums of money. He pulled me into a corner of the hall as people passed and stole suspicious glances with a shrewd sideways glare. He had a twitch that must have been acquired due to the stress of his job, and there was a film of sweat along the baby hair of his upper lip. People no longer get something for nothing, he told me. If I was unfamiliar with the area, I was a particularly rare find. I politely thanked him but said I was not in need of help today, slowly walked backward a few steps, and then bolted around the corner.

I burst through the front doors of the seven-star hotel and screeched to a halt as this new world unfolded before me. I had spent the last two years on a tiny island in a community of less than 2,000 dispersed along the upward slanting crater of a volcano. Now, thousands of quickly moving bodies running from Activity A to Activity B spread before me. At this early hour, a few were congratulating themselves because they were already on Activity C! Having sprinted through the first two, of course. Yet they wore beaming, hurried faces. They had had their fun faster than everyone else. The thousands of squirming, bickering, laughing, arguing, rushing bodies shuffled against an idyllic backdrop: an enormous fountain, perfectly spaced planted trees, color-coordinated flowers arranged in shades and areas that were psychologically intended to make people hungry, happy, make them spend more money. The fountain bubbled intoxicatingly, trees swayed and ushered the preoccupied humans along plumes of flowers that whispered the latest PR advertisements.

I found myself caught up in the current of this well-orchestrated tide of confusion that led me to yet another hotel. There I ran into a girl I recognized from the basketball team in high school. She was polite yet relatively unperturbed by this sudden happenstance. Her life was too busy and she too important to slow her pace at the slightest unforeseen event. She led me into her office within the hotel where she worked. She had a mustache and a small goatee, completely natural, she assured me. All the women lately were choosing to embrace their masculinity, were taking testosterone pills to be like men in order to shun femininity and all that was associated with the gender. Women can be men, she said. I began to wonder what was wrong with women being women, but kept my thoughts to myself. She wasn’t paying attention to me anyway – two of her friends had arrived, each sporting matching goatees, which, by the way are the latest craze on the runways nowadays, they offhandedly remarked to me. Then they launched into a discussion about that night’s party and a variety of other tabloid-related gossip mixed with the necessary comments of the perils of war (no girl could be taken seriously about the latest ab workout without first demonstrating her wealth of knowledge on the topic of world reports).

In dream-like fashion the scene was shifted elsewhere and I found myself warped and shot out into the poolside party. The three manly women were at my side, pressed into cocktail dresses that accentuated their firm, grapefruit breasts. They each stood with their womanly hips jutted out, hairy legs delicately placed into size seven Steve Madden heels. Each took particular care sipping her champagne. The lipstick stays on the mouth, the facial hair in place, they told me. I took my leave of them. The party was a high-class event and an ocean of yuppies was crowded along the stadium seats that overlooked a poolside resort, each flashing wealth and speaking of the dire necessity to cure AIDS, world hunger, poverty, and tan lines. Engulfed in the wining and dining, I realized that years of straining to understand Kriolu in an African crowd was now replaced by dozens of partygoers whom I could understand. “Good God, I would NEVER wear purple past March!” a drunken woman cried as she crashed into me, feathers and diamonds flying.

Just then the lights went out. The drunken woman I was attempting to untangle myself from screamed a momentous scream, along with a chorus of others. Though surrounding lights from the city made it possible to see, the partygoers erupted in a sea of despair. A GQ model grabbed my ass as he fell to the floor. My friend with the goatee was atop a landing, looking particularly panicked, her lipstick smudged and her mascara eyes lined in terror as her gruff voice shouted orders to the fumbling staff. “It’s okay!” I shouted up to her. “It’s no big deal, just a power outage. It happens all the time in Cape Verde!” to no avail, as she was engulfed in waves of tuxedoes and hairpins.

“You were in Africa?!?” An old, disillusioned woman’s voice finds me and pours her words like syrup atop my head. “We are just so fond of those who help the poor, you dear soul!” she exclaimed as I wrestled free from the manicured claws of her grip. Like a traditional rain dance, the bodies around me moved and squirmed, as though they were fighting the gods of nature, searching the polluted skies for escape. The god was found. Someone called the electric company and with the whoosh of a finger the almighty CEO flipped a switch and the god of light sashayed in on artificial rays. The crowd of pearls, cufflinks that said “Save Darfur” and fake fur garments (a woman’s got to save the animals, dammit) bowed down in thanks. There was later a support group session organized for those caught in the moments of darkness to express the terror they had endured that night. It was orchestrated by owners of the hotel in response to concerns of a lawsuit, but the well-intended workshop turned into a drunken debate on the ills of Wal-Mart.

Me? Well, I was lost. I could not find my way back to the hotel and I kept getting attacked by cleavage and suits congratulating me on my fearless escapades in the “darker side of the world.” I had no money with which to bribe the local bellhop and I was concerned that an iPod/TV/cell phone/GPS system would knock me out under the inattentiveness of a distracted owner (note: walking while under the use of iPods was outlawed last year due to some near-deaths). I listened to the latest news from the bubbling of the fountain and the trees kept me company as they urged me along the flower-lined paths. It was the middle of the night, but some goal-oriented families were already up and running to Activity A. Unwavering parents dragging their sleepy children by the hands under a thick night sky as they set out to have their fun first. They wanted to start tomorrow early, and they were determined not to miss it.

I awoke with my own determination: to slow down and live.

“When you let your time become money you cheapen your life. One measure of a culture is its treatment of time. In the United States time is money: we save it, spend it, invest, it, and waste it. Not so in traditional Italy. Here life is rich and savored slowly. In Italy – like in India – time is more like chewing gum. You munch on it an play with it … as if it will be there forever.”

-Rick Steves, Postcards from Europe