suje o coração

Les amoureux du Havre

Les amoureux du Havre
N'ont pas besoin de la mer
Et les bateaux se navrent
D'etre toujours seuls sur la mer...

[Refrain:]
Je t'aime, tu m'aimes, on s'aimera
Jusquà la fin du monde
Puisque la terre est ronde
Mon amour t'en fais pas...
Mon amour t'en fais pas...

Les enfants de la terre
Se fichent du Bon Dieu
Ils s'aiment sans s'en faire
Comme s'aiment les amoureux...

[au Refrain]

J'irai en Angleterre
Pour voir les grands bateaux
Qui font le tour de la terre
Comme le font les petits oiseaux

[au Refrain]

se tordre

the events depicted took place over labor day weekend, 1974, moputu, moçambique

fang arrived in the middle of the night. as usual, the security officials at the airport invited me into secure areas hoping that my rich european wife would give them a monetary token of appreciation upon arrival. fortunately i had a glimpse of her being detained by the airport police from the secure area, then i went to sort thing out. here she is seen, shortly after arrival.

after a brief argument with a cab driver, a homeless man, and a sleepy hotel attendant, we spent three hours patiently waiting for the sun to rise, eating duty free chocolate. fang claimed that she was a vegetarian since two years ago, "but not one of those fuckups that ruins meat for everyone else." after a forty second discussion, we resolved that she would eat meat if and only if it was a "cultural experience." suitable experiences presented themselves about four times a day on average.

there is much culture. after bouncing up and down in the mud for 18 hours, we made it to the site of an Nkanda chieftancy ceremony, learned about the palm wine industry then went back to our dearest friend, the muddy road. i enjoyed bragging about her to everyone. "american comes, they are scared of the bush taxi, scared of the road, scared of ndole, scared of chuggechugge, tired of travelling. but not the chinese." "the chinese are very strong." being chinese in africa gives you a high amount of respect, since people believe that only the smartest people to ever exist could create the nanfang motorcycle.

fang promised that she wouldn't threaten to kill me for subjecting her to the water fall, like the last two people did. this promise she kept, yet she started having delusions after falling in the water three times then being reminded we had to walk 10 km uphill with wet shoes. i promised to call ahead to put some cokes in a fish freezer if she would walk through the cocoa farm. then she claimed that she was prepared to sell her body for mangoes, and promised to marry the young boy that showed us the mango tree and threw down ripe mangoes to us until we had had our fill. the farmers in efong like it when i bring guests since i am good at greeting everyone and i can explain what the hell they're doing with a plastic jug on their back and a machete, followed by a pack of dogs. (trailblazing, spraying pesticide and hunting cane rats and porcupines) on returning we consumed a coke, a milk stout, and a piece of fotango that lasted forever. it was all worth it and i was glad that i hadn't decided to live under the rock at the water fall until the rainy season ended. the water fall's name in Ngwe is translated approximately as "that which shocks the mind" but etymologies always become disputed when they are interesting. an alternate explanation is that the name means "two warm places" i haven't looked into the matter seriously.

visitors are fun, for when they seldom come, they wished for come.

Green Fairies

it would only be proper to include a pidgin translation of this great absinth-inspired poem.

time fo dark fo big wata weh dey di call em Rhine

na my glass dis i don flop soté i di turnturn as fire di do em
may wuna hear some slow slow song weh na man for boat wan sing em
weh i talk se i don see fo down fo moon na seven woman dem fo dey
weh dey take dey biebie fo hand dem turn em so, na dey biebie weh i green and i long soté i wan reach dey foot dem

may wuna sing strong, dance em so, soté
ah no fit hear no more na song for boat man
and may wuna chook em fo my side some woman weh i get white hair dem
time weh i see canda fo house dem weh dey don turnturn fo inside wind

big wata weh dey di call em rhine don drunk fo side weh tree fo mimbo wan see i skin
all gold weh i dey fo inside night wan see how i skin wan shake fo inside wata
voice weh i sing soté soté wan sing like dead man sing em
na mami wata dem dis weh dey get biebie weh dey green, it be dem we dey wan sing song; time fo rain

na my glass don chakara, burst as man wan burst i skin fo laugh

Nuit rhénane

Mon verre est plein d'un vin trembleur comme une flamme
Écoutez la chanson lente d'un batelier
Qui raconte avoir vu sous la lune sept femmes
Tordre leurs cheveux verts et longs jusqu'à leurs pieds

Debout chantez plus haut en dansant une ronde
Que je n'entende plus le chant du batelier
Et mettez près de moi toutes les filles blondes
Au regard immobile aux nattes repliées

Le Rhin le Rhin est ivre où les vignes se mirent
Tout l'or des nuits tombe en tremblant s'y refléter
La voix chante toujours à en rale-mourir
Ces fées aux cheveux verts qui incantent l'été

Mon verre s'est brisé comme un éclat de rire

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 - 1918)

fouille, fouille, fouille

fang's previous experience of africa was limited to a screening of the 1992 french soft-core porno, Joy en Afrique. everything was true. aside from the absinth debacle, which left jerry with a large amount of explaining due to his students, the only uninteresting thing was a discussion of the similarity of the words in pidgin, chinese and czech for beer. some insight may be gained by lookin at the etymology of the English word:

O.E. beor of disputed and ambiguous origin, but prob. a 6c. W.Ger. monastic borrowing of V.L. biber "beverage."

mafue

the chief says please wait a bit. his scribe reads for him the complaints his fondem will submit to the environmental ministry. ...400 pieces timber, smoked meat... he affixes his seal.

-ma fue, you shall teach me to read and write

i don't know how ma fue became mafue, but she has no blood relation to the palace; in fact, she is an american who showed up about six months ago, now holding the highest title that a woman can receive. the chief says that the french are rotten thieves, and there is no use dealing with them; though british and americans only disimulate until you befriend them. he says if he meets our ambassador, he will hit him.

-you want to hit him why?
puzzled look.
he explains, i must know the man.
puzzled looks on both sides.

it occurs to me that there are similar misunderstandings whenever i speak to an elder who has not had schooling: he speaks in proverbs, which do not make much sense unless you are familiar with them and recognize them for what they are. yesterday they said do you know that NgÉ is?

-tell me
-the child is crying and you with your mimbo drink i say why not just give this child the container?
-i still don't understand
-let me explain more clearly: this child hear you say this boy you are having 3000 francs and here i am sitting why can you not just help this your brother. you understand?
-not in the least
-ok let us say there is a porcupine, that it has strong spikes? will you step on it? no, it's poison. better you step in excrement.
-let's change the topic

this phenomenon discourages my language learning, since any meaningful conversation will be full of fables, allusions, parables and proverbs that the interlocutor is expected to be familiar with. only a child is unable to speak in proverbs, it seems.

mad mad crew up

the gentleman built his fortune by working with his brother to import car parts from the untied states. he learned how to be friendly. he learned basic spanish as an ice cream truck driver.
-oiga paletero. dame ... cuantos hay? ... seis paletas de coco porfa
he learned that mexicans love coconut ice cream and they buy more ice cream than black or white people. that they work hard. that they want their trescientos dolares la semana para un taller. during the third round he spoke only by imitating the mexicans he hired to disassemble cars, which were shipped here as spare parts and reassembled as cars.
-paletero, eres moreno, pero sabes español eres bueno
-tengo que enviar dinero a mi familia. en michac&aacuate; por favor, cuñado
-puedo trabajar toda la semana. necesito mil quinientos para un efe ciento cincuenta, amigo
-voy a abrir un taller. solo necesito...
-cuñado...

we went off in his new benz, perhaps worth the annual salaries of 15 school teachers. when we walk to the gar in the morning i consider how my networking skills have finally come into play. i can now return to the region to see african gray parrots and orphaned baboons, surrender the goat in exchange for ekwé membership, go to the chieftaincy ceremony, hitchhike to lagos, etc. the way back has many delays, but they all contain food. one is a bucket of bush meat and you select your piece with a porcupine quill, the other is fufu eru with pork and bar fish.

the one that will take us

-these are your potatoes. surely you had no plans for them.
-well actually...
-they must be rare. irish
-they have to be taken from bamenda
-perhaps originally from mmok mbin
-yes, so you understand
-since it must be so. what shall we do with the oil?
-i wanted to make soup
-i have no funnel. we'll deal with it later.
down to one of the chic cafés and installed ourselves in a table outside. we would have to move ourselves as soon as the rain starts as it does every day. i discussed with the people who cook meat on theft-proof gratings over rusty oil barrels. they said there is cow meat and icelandic mackerel. after moving the table to a dry place, one of the parties showed up. a nigerian with working-class boston accent claiming to have come from a meeting with american oil prospectors in limbe. after introductions and debriefing a friendly man and a quiet man arrive. they are talking about a murder of the morning. the oilman and i reluctantly stop discussing bob's bar in victoria island with its pot pies to hear details.
two young men pry up a corrugated iron sheet on the roof of a boutique not more than a couple blocks away. crawling inside and cutting or burning a hole in the ceiling, they help themselves to several cartons of cigarettes. they are seen. a mob forms. they are subdued and burned with battery acid (450 f/L) and gasoline (550 f/L, but cheaper in the local black markets) the police arrive as the mob disperses and take the men to the hospital, where one dies on arrival and the other several hours later. if the police arrest the men before they are murdered, their job becomes much more complicated: the public will be angry when they bribe or wit their way out of custody. if the hospital doesn't refuse them treatment, its job is also more complicated: they routinely refuse treatment to dying people who cannot pay cash in advance, so it would not do to give special treatment, much less to thieves. the friendly man, also a rich man, explains that the staff pleaded him not to complicate things by giving them money, removing obstacles towards treating the remaining dying man that he visited that morning. just let him die, please. the quiet man agrees that he watched all of this happen.
he was in a bind. as a radio personality respected for his progressive opinions, he cannot condone extrajudicial killings and torture when he discusses the issue on air come morning. yet as a mayoral candidate, he cannot alienate his voters by denouncing a popular form of justice. we resolve two things: first, it's the fault of the judiciary for not reliably preventing crime and correcting delinquients-people don't love burning thieves, but they feel it's the only deterrant. second, its the fault of the nigerians and their pop culture for letting the practice spread to us.

my tele

the paper that asks for money is submitted. if they give us the money, then there will be a floor, windows, and doors next school year. i don't think any of those things will reduce the amount of disturbing, though. i dreamed i was driving a car and i needed to take the skin off of it. i went into a small boutique in bafoussam's marché and explained the situtation to them. they were sellers of matchbox toy cars which seemed useful for my transportation needs. i was offered a military personnel carrier but i thought it would be trouble parking it. they didn't have any with removable skin, like the nokia phones.
they say that trichinosis is only a problem if the pork isn't properly prepared. but a pig that is raised hygienically can have its flesh eaten raw or rare without a serious risk of disease. i ate some roasted pig fat off of a tree branch dusted with dried habanero and salt. then i ate another piece, that had some meat. we had heard the talking drums and then i connected two and two that was why so many people were crowding around the palace. my friend went into the palace grounds he thought he saw someone carrying his sister's baby inside there. he came back 30 minutes later after nkemasong had taken his seat with a sharpened stick and several cuts of meat, and a story about how the butcher had to sell it cheap at the end of the day the pig was already 10 hours dead and he knew one of the fon's wives to hook him up with the fire and spices. i made some beans but fell asleep. they were burned, very burned when i woke up a bit after midnight. then i had a dream my phone was flashing silently with some french word that i now forget and my fingers didn't obey me they tricked the phone into some security feature that was going to lock it if it kept entering the wrong password, but i was asleep and the manual with the code was out of reach. a cicada like chirp in the ceiling was supposed to be the phone, and i knew it wasn't the phone, but i was frozen. i listened until it was the dripping water.
in bafoussam there is a basketball court where teenagers gather in the mornings to play pickup games. it feels very comforting since everyone wears counterfeit american jerseys and shoes, the hoops have no nets, some people just come to watch, the guy who owns the ball is always the last to leave, they can usually manage to have snoop dogg playing and a couple of characters with baggy pants backpacks and hats with the bill pulled down far. the marché A gare has some very good fried pork with plantains, and a shack of plywood painted blue with benches and guys behind kerosene stoves mixing up sweet salads with condensed milk and spaghetti omelettes.