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.