WISHING YOU ALL A FANTA-STIC AND MELE KHRISMAS

Malawi Fanta Orange

For most of my friends, Christmas evokes images of things that, thanks to Hollywood, we already are familiar with: installing and decorating Christmas trees, setting up nativity cribs, roasting mush marrows over fires, drinking mulled wine/eggnog, baking mince pies, ice skating with friends, singing Christmas carols, strolling through Christmas markets, among others. When it was my turn to say what I associate the most with Christmas, in a recent random conversation, I blurted out an unfiltered answer, “Fanta!!!” My response elicited surprises and I had to explain myself.  

Although there are vast differences in how different cultures celebrate Christmas, overeating of special foods and drinking copious amounts of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages seems universal. I have only been to one Christmas party where this rule was an exception. It was actually in Cambodia where I learned the lesson of ‘always eat’ before going out to a dinner party. I went to a Christmas dinner hosted by some Australian friends on an empty stomach, on the assumption that I would waddle back home looking like I was about to give birth to twins. I ignored the pretty little nibbles, which made several rounds because my stomach is notoriously famous for filling up on starters before the real deal. In this case however, the real stuff never showed up, the nibbles were the stars of the night. I couldn’t wait to be done with the chit chat so could go home and raid my fridge.

I like spending Christmas in Malawi. Still, I can’t help being disappointed that I never seem to be able to recapture the Christmas fever that used to grip me as a kid living in the village. Today, being able to afford to eat on a daily basis all the special treats (rice, chicken, red meat, and of course Fanta!) that were only reserved for Christmas has really diluted and spoiled the Christmas specialness if you ask me. In my old days, the only time we ate really well for no apparent reason was when the village men and their dogs went on a hunt into Funwe hills and Uncle Luke brought an impala leg or a guinea fowl. Though many a times he came back empty handed and on one occasion he came home on a make-shift stretcher groaning with a hunting spear sticking out of his leg. Christmas in the main cities of Malawi today means eating the same every-day food only in larger amounts. We drink the same Carlsberg Green (Malawi national beer- don’t bother asking how a Danish beer became a Malawian national beer) but in vast quantities to a point where people get so intoxicated and drive straight through roundabouts or they stagger in the middle of a busy street like the guy I almost run over on Christmas eve. In Chantulo, my village, people drink kachasu and stumble over maize ridges in an oblivious stupor trying to find their way home. Morning after Christmas, it was not uncommon to find drunk men slumbering peacefully under mango trees; their shirt and pair of trousers hanging from brunches above.

Today, Christmas is announced by the irritating Jingle Bells on TV and in shopping malls. What really gets to me these days in Malawi are green plastic conifers sagging under the weight of clumps of dusty cotton lint in people’s living rooms. In a country that doesn’t even have a local word for ‘snow’!! I find the whole thing ridiculous! Thank God none of this nonsense has yet caught on in Chantulo Village. As a kid I knew Christmas was around the corner when my grandmother took out and dusted old Christmas cards from her cardboard suitcase. She would tie two long threads across our tiny living room each from one corner to the diagonal corners so that the two threads would meet in the middle forming a cross. Then she would take out all her lovingly stored old and new Christmas cards and hang them over the threads so that our living room resembled Tibetan prayer flags. Another cue was when all the ‘cool’ kids who lived in Blantyre returned to the village for Christmas school break wearing their spotless jojeti (georgette) dresses. They had, which they liberally displayed, an underwear for each day of the week too, while we washed our one – if there was one at all- every night and wear it in the morning; dry or not. I didn’t understand why everybody fawned over them. They couldn’t even hold a pail of water on their head properly. Their heads wobbled uncontrollably under the weight of the pail that they got home from the well completely drenched. But even carrying a pail of water in such ungainly manner was somehow cool too. And of course we had to put up with their disgustingly fascinating stories of city life.

On a typical Christmas day I usually got a new dress in a nondescript colour so dust, mango, and gravy stains wouldn’t show on it. And the fabric so thick it lasted two/three years of continuous wear. In this way the new Christmas dress becomes a Sunday dress, while the previous Sunday one became an everyday dress, and the old everyday one got retired and passed on to a younger kid. I remember vividly one pale embroidered lavender dress that my mum bought for me once. The thick polyester fabric was so heavy, the dress must have weighed a tonne. I remember it very well, because the dress wouldn’t just wear out. I wore it till I grew out of it, then my cousin inherited it, then another cousin, then her sister. At least five girls wore that dress and it still was going strong only the delicate lavender was the colour of muddy water. New underwear were treasures only provided in a good year and in a really good year, I also got a pair of new leather shoes. All the little boys my age got suited up in new pairs of brown or black shorts with elastic waistbands to accommodate kwashiorkor extended bellies. The elastic usually lasted a month and then the shorts were held together by a string of palm-leaf harvested daily. Unless mended, the seams that held together and formed the shape for the legs gave away within the six months of daily wear. The shorts were then worn sideways like a skirt with slits along the thighs revealing scratched ash-grey buttocks- like the colour of elephant skin- when running.

Although we got new clothes, we had to find our own Christmas spending money. So weeks leading to Christmas we engaged in serious child-labour and weeded other people’s maize fields to earn some coins. After school, my friends and I took our little hoes and for three hours the sun baked our scrawny backs while we weeded or raised the maize ridges that had become flattened by the rains.

Christmas day started with scones and super sweet milk-tea; a big change from the usual maize porridge. I am using the word ‘scone’ here because that’s what we called the yeasty doughy bread made in a scone shape. On a good Christmas, the scones were smothered with thick layers of stoko (Stork Margarine). The milk came straight from the drippy udders of Ambulasita’s goats across the village and milk delivery was in a used Fanta bottle cork-screwed with a maize cob.

After tea and a bath, I was allowed to put on my new dress and go to church for a Christmas service with grandma. While the preacher man was going on and on about Jesus being born in our hearts, all the kids were pre-occupied with checking out each other’s new dresses and of course dreaming of all the food waiting for us. For obvious reasons, unless someone decided to speak in tongues, Christmas service was one of the shortest services. It was done by 10:00am. Once home, it was time to take off the new dress, put on an ordinary one and getting about the business of chasing and killing a chicken that would sate our huge Christmas appetite. Grandma knew which chicken was the fattest. I was an expert chicken killer with no qualms whatsoever. I probably was the fastest thing on two legs in my household. Killing a chicken was a one-man, or rather, a one-child job. If you invite friends to help with the chicken chasing, there was a high probability that they find every excuse in the book to stick around and help with the devouring of the chicken. Uncle Daniel taught me how to kill a chicken. You hold down the wings and its feet with your two feet before slicing its neck and letting the chicken bleed to death. Holding it down is key otherwise the chicken takes off and even flies without its head, which means you would have to walk through brambles to retrieve it.

Annatto paste from achiote tree (lipstick tree), shallots, tomato waphwetekere (cherry tomato), and salt were the only condiments added to the chicken simmering in the smoky clay pot. In the meantime, and usually outside the kitchen- we only had one hearth place- rice was bubbling flavoured with groundnut flour (mpunga wachikonyera). It was my favourite. Christmas day was also the one day in the year that the unavoidable vegetables or lentils did not touch our lips. Goat meat cooked the previous day only required reheating. I hated fatty goat meat. It was so hard to steal. Once cooled, the pale yellow fat congealed and glued all the pieces together that it was very obvious if a piece or two were missing. The best time to gobble up a few pieces was when the meat was just warm enough not to burn my mouth but hot enough for the grease and meat to resettle without the tell-tale signs. The challenge of course was always how to do it without getting caught. Once the cooking is done, we all sat down in a circle on woven palm-leaf mats to eat our Christmas meal. Christmas was the only occasion where I could eat a whole drum stick and chicken feet wrapped with cleaned chicken intestines too!! Let me pause for a moment and explain a little about food portions in Malawi. In a typical village with a household of about five people, one scrawny chicken lasts at least two days or four meals even to this very day. Two small drum sticks can easily feed five people!!! So gorging on an entire drumstick was, well, Christmas!

Around 2:00pm, while the adults rolled on woven mats in a food coma, I was allowed to wear my new dress again to go to the village centre, Luwadzi. This is where young people congregated on Christmas afternoon. The village centre had a road market, a bus stop, and was littered with mud-house tearooms and a few tin-roofed shops. This was our downtown, where things were happening and where people caught up with the latest village gossip. It was also the best place for mzungu spotting, a mysterious people who drove past on their way to the Lake. A people who, when they stopped to buy fruits, we crowded around for a better look but when they stopped us to ask for directions and you happened to be alone, you run away as fast as you could for the fear of being abducted. Tearooms around Luwadzi, like ‘Mfiti Idzafanso Tiyi Rumu,’ were popular with retirees, who spent their pensions drinking tea and scones. Tea time bore little resemblance to the British high tea from which we inherited our fondness for milk tea. There were no dainty tea cups and delicate scones with jam and cream served in summery rooms. The tea rooms of my village were gloomy, sometimes window less one-roomed huts. Rheumy eyed men, I never saw a woman, sat on wooded benches nursing large metal tea cups. A large grubby and beat-up aluminium teapot made rounds refilling the equally grimy cups.

On Christmas day, the village centre transformed into a seething sea of brightly clad young people wearing their best clothes. It was a place to see and be seen, although one could never really pinpoint what exactly was happening there. Girls with glistening hair spikes straightened by hot stones giggled while checking out the boys. Every year a few girls nursed watery waggling blisters on their foreheads or necks from accidents with hair-straightening hot-stones- stones that were heated over coals then raked through girl’s hair to straighten kinky corkscrews. Boys’ struts were reduced to heavy clomps like ungainly ducks. They were wearing shoes! A drastic change from the normal barefoot or the usual nkhwaila (shoes made out of used car tyres). You can imagine the results when you suddenly squeeze and confine thick calloused toes that are normally allowed to grow in every direction throughout the year into an unyielding pair of leather shoes several sizes too big/small. Women wore standard plastic Bata ‘Sofia’ shoes, which stretches to accommodate straying toes. People shuffled around holding, or rather showing off their Fantas. I too among the crowds, used my hard earned coins to buy a bottle of Fanta, and a packet of biscuits with purple custard cream. Again it should be understood here that consuming Fanta was the ultimate luxury. It was reverently drunk during Christmas or, as is still the case with the poor, only offered to people who are very sick. This one Fanta had to last the entire afternoon. The pretense here was that you had made enough money to buy and drink Fanta all afternoon. You certainly didn’t want to be seen empty handed and presumed too poor. The reality, however, was that most of us only had enough money for one Fanta. Besides, one had to stretch the hard earned coins to New Year celebrations too. The trick was to let the Fanta just touch your lips, but never actually drink it. Those with more money to spare swaggered around with three bottles of Fanta and maybe a Coca-Cola too in their hands. The aimless back and forth, or more like limping by now, continued until dark when we could finally gulp the now tepid and flat Fanta.

As dusk was settling in, a gumba gumba (radiogram) started and men shifted from the trading centre to the village bar and switch from drinking Fanta to Chibuku- an opaque beer. The radiogram worked on a similar principle as a Jukebox, but instead of putting the coin in the box, the patron paid the owner of the radiogram to play his favourite song from a record, usually it was from such artists like The Mahotella Queens, John Chibadula, or The Soul Brothers, etc. Dancing was serious business and an opportunity to show off dancing moves. Men peeled off their shirts, kicked off their cumbersome shoes, and their bodies twisted and rocked to the vibes from the speakers. Rivulets of sweat run down glistering contorting backs while our oily hair and eyelashes became caked in brown dust kicked off by frenzied dancers’ bare feet. The thing with radiograms though; was that only the patron who paid for the song was allowed to dance. The rest, unless invited, could only stand around and admire or laugh at the dancing moves. No matter how good the song was or how desperate you were to dance, you didn’t. You did not even nod your head to the beat. If the buyer of the song caught you dancing to his song, there would be trouble.

Before you knew it, Christmas was over and it was time to head home; one didn’t stay out too late at night in the village. The roads were pitch black and we were always warned of the witches and spirits lurking and waiting on certain junctions to slap unsuspecting people with invisible hands or something nonsensical like that. And certainly Christmas day was not a day to stay out too late; you may just miss the remaining chicken stew. We hurried home in little groups holding our now empty Fanta bottles and the now dust-caked new dresses.

Crossing Sacred Lines

I met you long ago

Attending a stupid workshop on who-knows-what

You facilitated; I made mockery of it

We were strangers then.

But our kindred spirits sparked,

And you said I reminded you of your naughty sister

I laughed

We became fast friends, who laughed freely and got along easily.

We led diverging lives

Courted different circles of friends,

Grappled with differing needs and priorities.

But threads of shared interests and humour held us together.

I run away far

Seeking comfort in beckoning mirages and illusions

Knowing you were there whenever I answered the call of home

We became buddies along the way.

Our friendship endured the chasm of distance

From across the ocean, I spied your beard turning gray

And how you hated the dutiful wintry trips

I watched your fledgling kids labour to fly.

You shared the news of your family tearing apart and the devastation that followed

You let me in a little on your anguish, bitterness and guilt

You sought no comfort from me, I offered none

I nursed woes of my own.

We travelled far along our path, but never stumbling.

Through you, I learned to love home again.

I have watched you heal; your new smile leaving me unguarded.

We swam the warm bay waters and cooled under the leafy shades,

We strolled the leisurely greens,

And raced past the stinky wretched woods.

I started to live for our time together.

Still, I didn’t see this coming.

You are a good soul.

I even convinced another to give you a try.

What a fine job I did of it!

It wasn’t your fault really, that I stumbled and fell.

Perhaps the dizzying heights made me falter.

I blame the misty mountain air filled with echoes of vervet monkeys;

The still dampness where one can hear mushrooms grow;

The ephemeral sunrays making chase of the deluge across the valley below.

Perhaps it was the stars shifting

The fleeting eternity of your hand on my troubled knee

The pleasure of devouring crispy mushroom gills.

Our unbridled laughter as we sampled quail;

Could it be the ridiculous argument about usipa being the young of mcheni?

Or the silly insistence that the fine cupboard smelled of cedar?

Perhaps it was cumulative tender intimacy like a flower unbudding

I will never know.

I sat alone by the khonde sipping dredges of coffee while you slept.

Trying to makes sense of why an innocent touch of an aching knee troubled me so.

Vervets screeched and jeered above. 

I was conflicted; tormented.

My pious head filled with a silent rebuke,

While the body and mind led a rebellion

Did you sense my thoughts and the growing apprehension?

You seemed so at ease, while I twitched like our feline caller.

I fled from the lofty cottage feeling exonerated; my secret safe.

Little did I know, the line had been crossed.

Our alliance had etched a new path; our dalliance had just began.

We savoured a sweet ripe mango as its juices caressed our lips.

Trampling the softest kapinga under our thumping feet.

Sharing hilarious jokes of Dracula and majini

It was like medicine.

Let’s stand in ovation at our prevailed restraint.

Hold a moment! Haven’t I been here before?

Letting my best friend in on a kiss?

And how I barely made it through its highs and lows?

And how we are mates no more?

What of the embers of hurts that I fan and brood?

Will you catch me if I let go?

And come crushing to the yawning depths below?

Who will you choose to be? A friend? A lover? A foe?

Where do we go from here?

So much I want to say; so much I want to know. Yet, I dare not ask.

Even now, safely moored on an isle, I dare not.  

Our interests remain the same;

Oh, but how our needs still diverge! 

And yet, memories of a shared mangoey kiss hold me a prisoner.

A chance of a brand new dance between old friends; a daily petitioner.

One thing I know is true, our bond will never be the same again.

The Villager Throwing Tantrums on an Idyllic Paradise

macabre forks

A year and half down the line, I have ended my brief love affair with New York City, and yet again I found my self dragging huge bags across the globe for an idyllic slice of a paradise on a rock- Fiji. As I write, I am sitting with ballooned feet and damp armpits by the hotel pool side on what is probably a nice comfortable evening - if only my body would acclimatise fast enough!! I am listening to the hotel band do a terrible version of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight', which seems to be very well received by an enthusiastic local and expat audience. I am distressed by the possibility that a few months from now, after the overload of New York social and cultural indulgence has waned, I may actually come to see this music as the best in the world. The same depressing thought crossed my mind when I first went to the 'best' Japanese restaurant in town.  

The move from the Big Apple was uneventful, except for the split-opening of my carry-on. This is what happens when a tiny woman tries to push bags twice her weight on uncoordinated wheels. The carry-on dropped, cracked open and started spewing its entrails all over the airport corridors after me. A duct-tape from one of the airport shops in LA saved the day. 

So, here I am starting a new life again in paradise. At least that’s what my friends seem to think - and so did I. Where else in the world do you land at the airport after 11 hours of an exhausting flight and be welcomed by a cooing band of guys in skirts (sulus) with flowers in their hair at six o’clock in the morning? Fiji is a colony of lush verdant islands surrounded by pristine fine white sands and warm turquoise waters that are guaranteed to sooth away all your worries. Or so I am told. Except for the leafy greenness, I am yet to see the azure islands and feel their tranquil waters lapping at my toes. Suva, the capital, is none of these things. Although my sausage feet are literary 40 metres from the ocean, no one is swimming in it. Suva has no beach, and the water is murky and heavily polluted. The city is perched on a hilly peninsula, which means at any point in time, I am either hurtling down or huffing up a slope. And whichever way I am heading, it’s guaranteed that at some point I will swallow fresh gulps of thick diesel fumes from a badly maintained city-line bus struggling up. On another grey note, the hills mean clouds, which means rain. Lots of it. Now I understand why no sane tourist comes to Suva. 

The first thing one notices of the people who call these remote islands home is their size. The natives are huge and strong. The men look like rugby players, which goes to explain why Fiji is pretty good at rugby. They have massive necks and well-proportioned gigantic torsos resting on equally huge feet. The feet are normally clad in standard black sandals with the buckle left open; hanging and flapping behind their thick ankles as they walk. Yet, Fijians carry their bulk with an easy and unhurried graceful gait. Fijian men walk straight and tall like proud warriors with their gray or black sulus gently twirling around their massive hairy calves. Even young women in shorts have well-defined quads to rival those of seasoned footballers. Older women too are strong with wide swinging hips and generous bosoms. But the intimidating size does betray a warm-hearted people. Fijians are soft-spoken people with calm gentle eyes. They greet you ‘bula’ like a long lost friend. Coming from NY, where people are afraid of eye-contact and wary of a stranger’s smile, I initially greeted the open friendly faces with suspicion. Even, Malawi, the warm heart of Africa, is not that friendly!! I am already adjusting to the warmth and find myself smiling back and responding ‘bula vinaka’. Similarly, my New York crazed sprint has mellowed and I no-longer have to overtake everyone on the street.  

The first few days of landing in Fiji, and being black, I had somehow convinced myself that I was going to maintain the anonymity I had enjoyed in New York. Wishful thinking!! I am constantly being asked where I am from. This includes random taxi drivers stopping in the middle of the road to inquire of my origins. It’s exhausting. Fijians usually try to prove themselves right by guessing that I am either from Vanuatu or Solomon Islands. I have not yet been to either of the two islands but I am already curious to see what the people there look like. What surprises me the most is that Fijians do actually know Malawi. They know her as having one of the finest netball teams in the world. Netball is pretty big in Fiji; it ranks 7^th on the International Netball Federation. Malawi ranks 5^th of course.

Fijian women wear their hair natural, which can be kinky like mine. I was therefore looking forward to having my hair done by people familiar with it at a reasonable price. Another wishful thought. To make matters worse, I had actually heeded the advice of friend, Caucasian, in New York, and threw away all my dreadlock products on the premise that Fijians have the same hair and that the needed products are readily available. So far the only dreadlocked people I have come across are a Caribbean and a Kenyan, both of whom get their hair products from home. I didn't dare ask the dreadlocked mad man I see on Suva streets. But I suspect that if I don’t find a solution soon, my hair too will start to look like his.

I associate islands with fish, lots of it. Fiji somehow is an exception to this rule. Restaurants only serve tuna or mahi mahi! I used to mildly tolerate tuna steak on my plate; two weeks of Fijian restaurants and I absolutely I loathe it!! No restaurant serves snapper, mackerel, grouper, or any light fish for that matter. Similarly, the islands are fringed with countless coconut trees, yet no one is selling! I am literally dying of coconut-water-thirst whilst surrounded by a zillion coconuts. Restaurant plates, on the other hand, are brimming with lamb! Did I mention that I have slowly started to hate lamb too? The Fijian diet, and that of the rest of the Pacific, has changed so much since first contact with westerners. Meat, especially corned beef, is now seen as central to modern living. Turkey tails, mutton flaps— don’t even ask— discarded (as in sold) as unfit for human consumption by New Zealand and US are eagerly sought after by the Pacific Islanders. Apparently, the turkey tail (now banned in Fiji) is not even a tail but a gland that attaches the tail to the turkey's body. It's filled with oil that the turkey uses to preen its feathers. It’s almost 50% fat and the Islanders think it’s delicious. But this crazy diet, coupled with sedentary urban lifestyle, goes to explain why the Pacific Islanders are the most obese people on earth!

Despite my disappointment with what I had expected of Fiji, the island is a lot like Africa. Life here is so laid back, which is why nobody is picking and selling those coconuts to restaurants! The Anglo-bastardised names are pretty much the same (see Malawian Names Blog); Sitiveni (Steven), Laisani (Laison), Elisapeci (Elizabeth), Joni (John), Keresi (Grace) Teitus (Titus), Alisi (Alice), Walota (Walter), etc. But their fascination with South African music is something I am still trying to understand. A radio show is not complete without a Lucky Dube song. The city line buses labour uphill blaring ‘Wandering up and down the street of Soweto’. Even the mad man passed me the other day mumbling a Brenda Fassie song.

Their inquisitiveness, however, is unparalleled. Fijians are wanton intrusive questioners. As soon as I get into a taxi, the driver starts firing questions –in a Fijian-style gentle way of course –and will not let up until I get off. ‘Where are you from? Which road do you want me to drive? Where do you work? Are you married? How much do you pay from your apartment....?’ If they are not interrogating, then they are unburdening all their problems onto me. One taxi driver informed me the other day that he is thinking of divorcing his wife because she has picked up a job and now HE has to pick up their kid from school! Coming back to the routine inquiry on my marital status, Fijians, like Malawians, measure a woman’s worth based on her marital status and her ability to clone herself. I am still trying to find a diplomatic way of answering this irritating question as I don’t really appreciate the pitying expression I get from Fijian women when they learn of my state of affairs. A colleague in Vanuatu told me she was brought a 21-year old boy, who came with his father’s blessings, for companionship because the locals felt sorry for her being alone. I hope my situation doesn't come to that!

Indians are not a novelty to me, but it is worth mentioning that 40% of the Fijian population is Indian. The Indo-Fijians share the same unfortunate problems as their counterparts in Africa. Like Afro-Indians, they too were indentured labourers imported by the British Empire. While the descendants of Afro-Indians fought man-eating lions to build railroads, Indo-Fijians labourers hacked their way through sugar plantations—native Fijians were too laid back for this kind of work. Indo-Fijians too decided to stay after their masters left and three generations later, they too are still regarded as foreigners with the power to control the local economy. In spite of their plight, the Island got to them too. Unlike their cousins on the Indian sub-continent, Indo-Fijians have acquired the Fijian unhurried way of walking, Fijian mannerism, a meat based diet, and of course the Pacific inquisitiveness. 

Fijian Islands are at the mercy of the ocean and unpredictable weather. The volatility of the Islands seems to be reflected in the personalities of its people. I am still finding it difficult to reconcile to the severe warnings I have received so far; that these same gentle smiling giants would not hesitate to rob me on the street, even in broad daylight, if the opportunity arose. Muggings and house break-ins are a daily occurrence. Sexual violence is rampant. The Pacific ranks as the region with the highest sexual and gender-based violence. Fiji is no exception. Ever since the security training, I can’t stop wondering what is really lurking behind those seemingly Zen Buddha eyes. The political landscape is equally unpredictable. Since independence, Fiji has had four coup d’etats and nobody knows what the coming elections will bring.  But even the revolts are usually done in a way only Fijians can—in a laid back fashion. Apparently the declaration of the last coup was delayed for three days due to a rugby match.

When it comes to finding a church, the choice is overwhelming. Amazingly, nearly all native Fijians are Christians—an irony considering the violence levels. But I guess the same could be said of Christianity and HIV in Africa. I understand that the original bearers of the gospel didn’t have it easy with the natives. There was heavy resistance, which culminated in the feasting of Mr. Baker; the very same unholy communion to which the missionaries were trying to put to a stop. Thomas Baker was the unfortunate, some say proud, missionary who was cannibalised by the locals in retaliation against his good news message. To snack on an enemy was the ultimate revenge and humiliation. Fijians even had special dainty cutlery for devouring the flesh of their nemeses. I am looking forward to decorating my apartment with the macabre forks.

I am aware that my first impressions of Fiji are not exactly what one envisions of a paradise. I am disarmed yet confused by easy-going giants whose newspapers are full of deranged men preying on the innocent. The expats who have been here for long time assure me that Fiji is a fantastic place to live. I am hoping that once my head has found a way of dealing with these contradictions, once my sausage feet are able to fit into my shoes again, once I have figured out where to buy fish that’s not tuna or mahi mahi, and once I have swam the Fijian balmy soothing waters, I will learn to appreciate and enjoy the Fijian paradise. Or maybe, just maybe, the island itself will worm its way into my heart, just like it did to the Indo-Fijians. 

The Villager Goes to TB Joshua- Man of God, Please Help Me (Part II)

There is heavy pounding on my door at 3:00am. I wake up to find my cheek pressed to a bare dirty pillow; the scarf has unwrapped itself and is now dangling onto the floor. I groggily take in the sarong, which is tangled and bunched up to a corner near my feet. The tired dread-lock woman staring back in the bathroom mirror is obviously not happy with me. I ignore her. It’s time. I squeeze myself among the Ghanaians in a hotel car feeling rather sheepish. The previous day I had flatly refused the car -offered for a fee- and had instead made separate arrangements with my kekeman. He never showed up. Nobody makes a fuss about it and we are soon at the church. It’s 4:30am. We all stand milling around the same toilet-corner I had stood a few hours earlier, uncertain how to proceed. Should we go straight to where the little girl from the hotel said we should? Or should we wait until 6:00am? Or should we wait by the church entrance, as others had suggested? And do we really need tickets to get inside the church? I decide to strike it out on my own. The Ghanaians follow. We find a large crowd waiting outside the ‘processing’ building (where ushers decide whether you enter the church or stay in a tent). Someone had told me that foreigners can get inside if they have a valid ID. So I try playing ‘hey I am a foreigner’ card, holding out my passport. The church official doesn’t even blink. I feel deflated.

I am rudely ushered into one of the upstairs processing-room; the same one recommended by the little girl from the hotel. My hopes rekindle but nothing is certain at SCOAN. Not only are the ushers wearing that scowling face, they are rude too. Giddy with power, young men bark orders at confused and frail elderly people, whose only crime has been the attempt to get inside the church to see the Man of God with their own eyes or to receive their healing. I keep my rising rage in check by reminding myself of Naman. I am handed a small blue paper. I look up to the ceiling and mouth a silent 'thank you'. I don’t know what has happened to the Ghanaians. The last I saw them, was outside the processing-building holding their passports. I find out later that they too had managed to get inside. Dawn is starting to break as I join a 200-metre queue snaking its way slowly into the church. Men, in neatly pressed suits, clutch their bibles and some literature by TB Joshua. Heavily perfumed women adorned in fine laced-cotton attires and glittering sequined dresses shuffle along with me. I look down my blue jeans and plastic sandals uncertainly. But after security check, I finally find myself walking into the SCOAN mega-church. It’s 6:30am. 

The church service starts at 8:30am with the wise men (TB Joshua’s anointed disciples) praying for invited guests in another part of the church. The rest of the church follows the proceedings on TV screens. Thanks to my relations back home, I am familiar with them all. But being physically here feels different somehow. The atmosphere is electric and pregnant with expectations. Although people flock to TB Joshua in search of a cure for incurable diseases/conditions, barrenness, bad luck, etc, rarely do the pilgrims come with afflictions related to evil spirits. However, deliverance of evil spirits (exorcism) seems to take a larger portion of prayer service. For most, deliverance is swift and short; they freeze for a few seconds, collapse to the ground in undignified heap and rise up free of the malevolent spirit. Others are not so lucky; big mamas heaving and swaying like sumo wrestlers take down five ushers with them to the ground; zombie men with glazed staring eyes and slack jaws emit moans so ghoulish, it makes me shudder. The manifestations are bizarre; ranging from diabolic sniggering, to fast blinking eyes that so much remind me of the flattering eyes of a macaque monkey, to twitching limbs that seem to dance to some internal electrocution. Some helplessly thrash about like beached whales; others fast-spin and roll - ties and jackets flying in every direction, and elaborate hairdos and sequined dresses unravelling. Some challenge the wise men to a physical fight, mimicking an uncoordinated boxer. Others flee while the surprised ushers make chase right behind their heels. It's quite comical and we all laugh, but not without anxiety and uneasiness. 

The wise men demand answers from the demons. "Who are you?" "What demonic deeds have you done?" They respond that they are either a spiritual husband/wife, or some queen of the river, or ancestral spirit, or a spirit of death, etc. The spirits also attribute to themselves all the bad things that have happened to the possessed person. Then they are ordered out in Jesus's name. Finally the poor demented souls are brought out from a prolonged agony of spiritual delivery. By the time they come round, they are a disoriented dishevelled mess with crumpled suits, wild hair and humbled eyes. As I watch, one of the wise men starts praying for a white woman. Surely, I say to myself, she is immune to this madness. Apparently not. She too turns into a zombie and starts shaking her head from side to side as her mouth grotesquely rearranges itself to form a long hideous wail. Her kids, unsure of what is going on cling, to their father. I wonder if there will be any long-lasting psychological effects to these kids’ view of God and religion. At this point I also start to contemplate what could be in store for me. I have always been conflicted when it comes to the spiritual realm. Growing up in Africa, I am convinced there is a dark spiritual world out there, and the bible makes certain the existent of demonic powers. But I also do not underestimate the power of mass hysteria. And I am the type that gets easily incited. I am seriously worried.

Those familiar with some of the fanatical African Pentecostal churches know the principle of ‘never limit God'. So Sunday services can go on foreveeeeer. SCOAN is no exception. But no matter how reverting all this entertainment is, I just have to eat. My stomach is now complaining louder than the possessed. I go out in search of the dreaded cafeteria. Next to it, I find a long line winding its way towards a SCOAN five-star hotel (for invited guests with cash). It’s a queue for the famous anointing water! This is water that has been prayed over by TB Joshua and is believed to hold miraculous powers- another controversy. Since God’s healing power is free, the water is technically not sold. But to get a bottle, one MUST buy a DVD of TB Joshua’s sermon. I join this queue; food momentarily forgotten. An hour later, and a few thousand Nairas short, l am armed with ‘free’ holy water bottles, several DVDs and TB Joshua stickers.

And a few greasy plantains later, I am back to my seat vigorously shaking some woman who is sprawled across my chair fast asleep. This time, the church is in full swing dancing to the Lord. Suddenly there are excited shouts, people are whistling and applauding. The Man of God is finally in our midst! I strain forward to get a glimpse of the Prophet, but my failing eyesight– another petition item for TB Joshua- cannot make out his features. I am sitting way too far- the front is reserved for invited guests. Once TB Joshua is inside, ushers position themselves to stop people from moving around too much. And now with all the cameras rolling, the ushers also take on the responsibility of keeping nodding heads up. My poor neighbour is prodded continuously as she struggles to stay awake.  

We are led into prayer. Now prayer time is an exciting topic for me. I never tire of watching people’s expressions and gestures as they talk to God; the tightly screwed faces, the humble beseeching gestures, the special tone of voice reserved only for God….I probably do all these things myself, but that’s a blog for another day.  As the church prays in unison and with fervour, I struggle to concentrate. The pitch of mass prayer keeps on rising, muddling up my prayer. I give up and watch the congregation. Some shout loudly throwing arms and fists in the air to emphasise their point- I wonder distractedly how I would react if someone talked to me like that. A desperate lone voice here are there shouts above the cacophony “Man of God, please help me!” Others tremble and weep silently in anguish. I avert my eyes. I am reminded that for some, leaving this place without a solution could mean a death sentence. I am brought back from my contemplation by a woman few rows in front who is repeating gibberish so rapid I don’t think it is possible for human tongue to do that. Surely this is not praying in tongues...? Her neighbours, who are now giving her a very wide berth, confirm my suspicions. A guy two rows behind starts gurgling up phlegm mixed with blood while the church attendants run around frantically trying to cover the vomit with disinfectant granules. The jerky movements of his limbs start and stop like some malfunctioning robot. The ushers come and take him away- for deliverance later. The cameras at this point can no longer keep up with all the people going nuts. As the frenzy of prayer ebbs away, and things calm down again, I breathe a sigh of relief.  

After a brief preaching -something to do with engaging the youth, if we are to avoid a global revolution- the Man of God retreats to his chambers or wherever he retreats to. It’s 6:00pm. This is now a record longest church service I have ever attended. Then the wise men start laying hands over the whole congregation. The moment we have all been waiting for. The wise men go row by row, touching people on their heads and leaving mayhem in their wake. The camera men sometimes seem undecided between following the progress of the wise men and focusing on the chaos behind them. As the wise man who is moving across my section, gets closer and closer, I start to get more and more anxious. I should probably be praying fervently at this point but a million thoughts are firing in rapid succession in my head. Is this nonsense or is it real? What will happen to me when he touches me? Will I go berserk? Will my back get healed? What if I am possessed by some evil spirit? –the thought alone makes me hyperventilate. Illogically, I am also wondering; what is it like to have your brain take a backseat while some maniacal disembodied fiend turns you into a raving lunatic and makes a complete spectacle of you…. Before I know it, the wise man is right before me. Bang! It’s not a heavy hand, but I am dazed for a second. And while I wait for an out of body experience of watching myself doing something really nuts, he is gone. My reverie is broken by fast moving people carrying cameras and cables who shout at us to clear the way. One of them treads on my bare toes. @#*%$! I almost holler in pain. Disappointed, relieved and annoyed, I nurse my burning toes while I watch the progress of the wise men with dissipating interest. It was announced earlier that there will be a closing service at 9:00pm, but I am too tired and my back has just about had enough. I wearily seek out some Malawians among the invited guests and unload the anointing water bottles unto them. My people back home are anxiously waiting for them. Then I call my kekeman to come and take me to my dingy hotel. He shows up this time but asks for a ridiculously exorbitant fee. I gave in. I am beyond caring.

The following morning, I am up at some uncivilised hour again- 4:00am. But this time, I am going back to Abuja. I bid farewell to my host and to the Ghanaians, some of whom are nursing personal disappointments. During the flight, I allow myself to reflect over the madness of this mission. What were my motivations? What did I expect? What did I think of it all? Answers are not easy to come by. But one thing I am sure of; I am glad I had followed my impulses to explore not just the lake, but went searching for the Man of God and his controversies. Two hours later, I am back in the office, back to the mundane, but sane and familiar reality of preaching the gospel of disaster risk reduction to African governments.  

The Villager Goes to TB Joshua- Man of God, Please Help Me (Part I)

There is a saying in Chichewa, which goes; 'He who went to see the Lake, also saw the hippopotamus'. So when I happened to be in Abuja- Nigeria with nothing planned for the weekend, I thought, why not go to Lagos to TB Joshua's church. Pastor TB Joshua, also referred to as Prophet TB Joshua and the Man of God, is a controversial figure within and outside Nigeria. According to Forbes website, he is one of the richest pastors in Nigeria and the most philanthropic. He is famous for his divine but controversial miracles and prophesies. He has predicted major events such as the Boston bombings, and the demise of Bingu wa Mutharika; former president of Malawi. The biggest controversy is probably the miracles performed by himself, his five ‘wise men,’ and his ‘anointing water’. Whatever the truth about TB Joshua and his ministry, he has a huge global following. Pilgrims flock to his church from far and wide answering to the promise of healing, miracles, and financial breakthrough. I decided to go and find out for myself. I should emphasise, however, that this blog is not about whether TB Joshua is for real or not. I am purely writing about my own experiences of getting and being there.

Saturday morning I find myself on the plane heading for Lagos. The flight is only one hour, but it takes my taxi more than two hours to navigate through the sluggish Lagos traffic before making our way to a dusty town of Ikotun; the home of TB Joshua’s church. I remember little of the taxi journey except for this huffing hefty woman standing in the middle of moving traffic. Thickset arms in akimbo, she boldly stands in front of a car and challenges a frightened driver inside to come out and settle their disagreement. The driver stays put. The endless journey finally comes to an end at an imposing gothic looking stretch of TB Joshua’s church- Synagogue Church of all Nations (SCOAN).  

The place is chaotic, as is confusing. Revving engines belch thick acrid fumes while honking minibuses, taxis, kekes (tuktuks) ceaselessly regurgitate out people in search of hope, healing, and salvation. The smell of fumes and a hint of a sour sewer permeates the dusty air. The dust is kicked up by endless pairs of legs frenetically criss-crossing the façade of the church. Some stumble around in bewilderment as they try to figure out the place; others shuffle along in pain or are helped along by relatives. Vendors sell greasy fried chicken and dust covered yams as they weave in and out around the masses. A few odd white folk, perspiring in the heat, wonder around aimlessly. Amidst the hive of activity, is a different breed of vendors- the ones waiting to pounce on the vulnerable. They know a ‘very good’ hotel, or they have a new NIV or NKJV at a good price…..

Unless you are officially invited by the church, you are literally on your own. There is no visitors’ centre to guide uninvited and perplexed guests like me. Nothing!! Getting basic information regarding the time Sunday service starts, where to eat, which building to go to for the Sunday service, is very frustrating. Every single person you ask, including the church officials, gives you different information. And approaching a church official takes courage. They welcome you with a sullen ‘what do you want now’ scowling face. I must pause here for a second and say that West Africans do know how to scowl. I am not even sure ‘scowl’ is the right word. The face is a cross between a sneer and a frown all happening at the same time. It conveys the message that you are insignificant, annoying, and are certainly wasting his or her time. Encountering this expression from church officials, in a church environment is very disconcerting, if not upsetting. I can understand that the attendants are probably overburdened by their church duties, not to mention endless disorderly foreigners asking the same stupid questions again and again, but hey it’s a CHURCH and we expect church people to be at least welcoming…

To get away from the noise, I decide to stand in front of the church and wait for a friend who has kindly offered to help me find my way round the confusion. I am not allowed to. Armed security men positioned along the façade of the church make sure there is no loitering. The criss-crossing legs hug the fence opposite the church- away from the guns. As soon as one stops for a second, the soldiers whistle and motion him or her to keep moving. So one has the choice of either standing near the entrance of church where all the minibuses and kekes are, or facing the sharks at the other end of the church- the car park or keep walking up and down. Frustrated, hungry, and not to mention a start of an annoyance, I choose the fumes. At this point I am also beginning to question the sanity of this impromptu trip. But I quickly remind myself of the bible story of Naman who almost missed his blessing because he was too proud. I also reassure myself that it would totally worth it if my back pain could be resolved- not to mention those aches and pains I have been ignoring for years. Facing the minibuses, I stand at the edge of the road next to a tiny two-walled structure, which is balanced upon an open drain. Its floor is made of evenly spaced wooden slats and gaps. I presume it's a guard house. I soon find out that it is a make-shift toilet, but I am too tired to care. I stand my ground. Men routinely go behind me and stand with their backs to the crowd to pee. In my musing I think, how typical! They only thought of the convenience of men. But then a woman goes behind me and stands with her legs apart, half lifting her sarongs. She then reaches deep inside the skirts and pushes her underwear aside. An arcing stream of urine soon appears from within the folds!!! I smile. I am impressed. It brings fond memories of agogos in the village doing the very same thing among tall grasses and bushes.

Taking the advice of the friend who is still caught in traffic, I decide to visit the SCOAN canteen and get something to eat. Having eaten in a few Nigerian restaurants in other countries, I thought I was familiar with Nigerian food. I am certainly not. Nigerian food is way more than pepe (pepper) soup and fufu. The first time I realised this, was in Abuja when I asked the office driver to take me to a nearest restaurant. He asked if I wanted rice, chips or ‘swallow’. What the hell is a swallow! Apparently swallow is a generic name for all pap food such as fufu, ugali or nsima, (polenta-like), which you can just ‘swallow’ without having to chew. While I am crazy about pepe soup, it takes some getting used to pulling out bits of fish, goat meat, okra, and other leaves from other types of Nigerian soups. Walking into the SCOAN cafeteria; I am completely bewildered by an array of unfamiliar food laid before me. Hanging heavy in the air is an overpowering fetid sweet smell of long-boiled meat. Not helping matters is the sight of the masses sitting around plastic chairs attacking their food and scoffing their faces; hands and implements tearing into flesh, grease and congealing liquids dribble down their fingers while their greedy lips latch onto bones sucking and vacuum cleaning them of mash, marrow and gristle. It’s not the people, it’s me. I have issues participating in mass feeding. As I settle down with my own oil-slick plate, I can’t help but wonder just how many chickens, goats and cows give their lives every weekend to feed the relentlessly devouring souls walking this place.

Mercifully my friend finally shows up and we embark on the task of finding a ‘hotel’. It soon becomes apparent that the once impoverished neighbours of SCOAN church have converted themselves to comfy hotel owners.  Every house we pass, no matter how rickety, is a hotel. Only a few hundred metres from the dust and the fumes, we are suddenly in a different landscape and I am reminded that this is actually rainy season. Our keke, which was bouncing happily just minutes ago, is now heaving and lurching on a muddy sludge of what should be a road. With no storm-drains to channel the rainwater away, the run-off empties into the road, gets trapped, and becomes stinking slurry as it’s churned by passing vehicles. The tyres of our Keke are completely submerged with the exhaust pipe emitting laboured bubbling farts through the churned butter of mud.  But our skilled kekeman navigates us through.

The ‘hotel’ is OK.  I scan the walls for bedbugs; I see none. The toilet flushes and I decide the room will do. Every room in the house has been converted into a guest bedroom. The family sleeps in a tiny room which was once a kitchen and the cooking is now done on a paraffin-stove outside. The place is occupied by Ghanaians who are sitting outside on plastic chairs with their expectant faces glued to a mounted Emmanuel TV; a Christian TV network also owned by TB Joshua. Their faces are velvet blue; taking on the blue tinge of the TV reflection. They tell me they had travelled for two days overland to get to TB Joshua’s church. Although I would rather lie down in my room, I somehow felt obliged to join them and watch the TV too. The daughter of the family fills me in on all the information and tricks I will need to get inside the church tomorrow.  Please understand that for uninvited guests, getting inside the church for a Sunday service is no easy feat.  Everyone’s mission is to get inside. But the church building, though massive, cannot accommodate everyone and several huge additional tents are erected to house the spill over.

My friend long gone, I eat some delicious okra dish. I reassure my host, yet again, that I have my own alarm and there is no need to wake me up in the morning. Then I bid goodnight to the blue faces and retreat to my room. I lay my sarong over the dirty bed linen and warp my scarf around the pillow. I settle in for the night wondering what tomorrow will bring. 

THE VILLAGER GOES TO NEW YORK: Anonymity, Hurricanes and the City

The Villager Goes to New York: Anonymity, Hurricanes and the City

So much has happened since I said goodbye to Cambodia and dragged 90 kilogrammes of bags through four cities to start a new life in New York. Hurricane Sandy, US elections, being locked out of my blog, Nor’easter, navigating my way around leasing an apartment without credit history, getting lost on the subway etc, have all been part of my new affair with the Big Apple. New York is very different from Chantulo Village but I suspect that the people here are just as crazy. The first culture shock came when my request for a porter to ferry the 90 kilos to my hotel room only drew blank looks. Apparently they are called bellmen here. I am slowly but surely being assimilated into a New Yorker. I now ask for a check- spelt with ck and not que -instead of a bill and I have to tip regardless the quality of the service –frankly, I think Americans should find another word for‘tip’; something along the lines of legal thieving. I am resigned to the fact I will be living in a most expansive closet I have ever resided and will not be able to control the pressure on my shower, which, for me, defeats the whole point of a shower. I have had to accept the fact that as much as I hate the subway, there is just no way getting round it. I am trying not to go crazy choosing a bed among a million other options- you need to buy a bed, which is just a frame with a hole in the middle, then buy a spring box to fill in the gap, and then a mattress to put on top of the box, then a mattress cover, all of which makes the bed so high that you actually need a ladder to climb it. I ditched my ancient mobile phone for a smart one so I can find my way around Manhattan easier, only I can’t figure out the navigation applications. I am beginning to understand that organic food in USA is anything BUT organic and that Americans are so averse to calling a spade a spade that they prefer to call sugar ‘evaporated cane juice’! The brainwashing from TV ads on drugs has been so effective that I am absolutely convinced that I urgently need a prescription of Cymbalta. And yes, I am now able to understand black people’s English, only now I wish I didn’t: ‘Uhmmm nice aaass’. ‘Hey peaches, Am takin y’ home with me; y’comin with me peaches….?’

Despite the assimilation, I will never get used to the cold and dry air. The combination of cold and grayness makes me miss the muggy and steamy Phnom Penh. I miss using my secret but indigenous knowledge of measuring humidity; the pleasure of picking my nose, rolling the harvest into a ball, and depositing it in a strategic place where it could not easily be found by the maid. Then coming home after work to see how humid the day has been. Snot harvested in the morning would still be moist and doughy like putty 12 hours later. The longest record was four days. De-boogering in icy and wintery NY is risky business. So crusted and super-glued are the dry mucus silvers that removing them without humidifying in a shower first, risks taking with them strips of tender nasal lining along with the hair.

Since my arrival, I have hauled my 90 kilosto different dwellings three times - they probably now weigh close to 150kilos and yes, I still can’t get my head around pounds, ounces and Fahrenheit degrees- from Roosevelt Hotel, to Clinton neighbourhood, to my current sub-let on Roosevelt Island, and one last move to Brooklyn is planned for December.

The last apartment change was a day before Hurricane Sandy. I was always a bit disappointed that Cambodia is so well-insulated from typhoons -or hurricanes as they are called in this part of the world- and I never had a chance to experience the fury of one. When news came through that Sir Hurricane Sandy was coming to visit, I was beside myself with excitement and hoping for a big one. I didn’t heed any of the frenzied preparation warnings on TV- to stock up on water, food, torches etc. After all, I lived all my formative years in Chantulo groping around like a blind person at night trying not to scream at things that scuttled in the dark. But so severe and repetitive were the warnings that by Monday mid-morning I had a change of heart and decided to go shopping. I came back with a can of tomatoes and a bottle of water. The locals had wiped the shelves clean during the hysteria. When the storm finally made land fall and the windows started to whistle like a thousand kettles going off at once, I donned on my coat and gleefully went outside to experience the HURRICANE. The wind was howling and screeching like jet engines at times. Horizontal rains lashed my face. I either could hardly walk against the wind, or my legs were practically running on their own will in the wind.  And that was it! I had expected mayhem- missiles of road sign posts whirling past; trees being uprooted and tossed like matchsticks; a skinny me desperately holding onto tree trunks to stop myself from being blown away into the stratosphere. I lay in bed rather disappointed all night, willing the kettles to shut up. So you can imagine my shock Tuesday morning when I saw the pictures of the damage that Sandy had done to other parts of the city. I guess I should be thankful that I only experienced the intensity of Sandy’s destruction through CNN.

For a villager who is used to being connected to everybody in her locality, New York is one big impersonal city. I always hated being gawked at in Cambodia. But now I must admit, I do resent this complete inconspicuousness. I was so used to being recognized everywhere as the dread-locked African who lived on St 322. Here, nobody is curious, nobody stares or even cares!! Yet, anonymity can be liberating. The week I landed in NYC, I saw numerous adverts about a Museum of Sex and made a mental note to visit it. To my delightful surprise, I stumbled upon it during a walk on Fifth Avenue. By the time I realised that the Museum of Sex was anything but a museum, it was too late; curiosity had already gotten the better of me. Imitating the New Yorkers, I nonchalantly strolled around the soft pink and luminous blue bits and pieces, some of which I still don’t know what they are used for. And so as people laughed freely and leafed through pages that would turn my uncle in the village blind, I walked to a dainty little pink thingy, picked it up, and pressed a button.And for the life of me, I could not figure out how to turn off the darn thing. I dropped the buzzing thingy to its shelf with the intention of distancing myself from it but I couldn’t. It was vibrating right off the shelf! ‘Do you need help mom’ asked one of the attendants. I wanted to say yes, but I said no all the while fingering the thingy desperately trying to shut it up. To my relief it stopped vibrating; I put it back and walked out the museum as fast as my legs could take me. I could not understand how I could have mistaken a museum for a sex shop. As it turns out; the shop is actually part of a four story museum. If I had remembered that I am anonymous and hadn’t run out of the shop, I would have made it to the actual museum. But I don’t think I am ever going there again.

When you make a fool of yourself in the Big Apple, it certainly pays to be anonymous; especially if you have a brain that’s so used to being the centre of attention in Asia that it starts to create its own attention-seeking behaviour just to get a fix. I had agreed with a friend to go to an art exhibition. We are both new to the city and we saw this as a good opportunity to meet new people. Once there, it took us a loooong time to meet anyone even though we were surrounded by loads. Viewers were already chattering in their own little groups and neither of us had any witty lines to approach them with. Huddling together, the two of us regarded each other with uncertainty as we started to run out of things to say and were becoming rather desperate for someone, anyone, to talk to us. Then one brave guy approached and remarked on one of art pieces. We were so grateful for his lame pick-up line and latched onto him. He introduced us to other people and soon we were having ‘great and sophisticated’ conversations about future cities, recycling, organic food, etc. I can generally keep up with these ‘intellectual’ talks, except when it comes to art. Which probably makes you wonder what was I doing at an art exhibition in first place. Maybe I don’t really appreciate art because my people are still smearing stick figures on the exterior walls of their mud huts and I genuinely think my feet can draw better abstract paintings than these great artists! Anyway, just when the conversation was getting interesting, I started to feel funny. I asked for water, but there was none. I knew things were getting out of hand when I started to frown at the lips of my companion, which were certainly moving and twisting around his teeth but the voice sounded as if it was coming from another room. I started to black out. My legs couldn't support me anymore and I flopped to the floor in a heap. All conversation stopped and every eye swiveled to me. Hands offering crackers, grapes and water materialised before me. I didn't ask where the water came but drank it gratefully. Somebody brought a chair and I somehow gathered myself and collapsed in it to recover. Mercifully no-one thought to call 911. But above all I was so grateful to go home as an anonymous stranger.

HARAR- THE LAND OF CHAT AND HYENAS

While the world was reeling from the killing of Muammar Qaddafi, I was dodging hyenas and dabbling with Ethiopian narcotics in one of the ancient Ethiopian cities. Harar is a city like no other; it is more than 1000 years old, walled with a labyrinth of narrow alleys and flat-roofed houses- quite reminiscent of North African countries like Morocco. It is full of Muslim women clad in brightly coloured head scarves. Their dresses distinctly resemble the Punjabi dress of India, while the men’s skirts transport you to distant lands of sarong-clad Balinese. Indian made Tuktuks and henna-dyed hair and beards add to the mystery as one tries to pigeonhole Harar. The land surrounding the city looks scorched. Dusty-footed shepherds guide cattle and sheep to stony barren-looking hills dotted with struggling Acacia Abyssinia, cacti and chat, while tired-looking women lead knackered donkeys buckling under huge loads of firewood, sugar cane, yellow water containers and crop harvests.    

The main street running through the fortified old city buzzes with activity: people haggling over vegetable prices; women pounding spices; blood smeared butcher men cutting chunks of meat from fly-swathed cow carcases for kitfo (Ethiopian famous raw meat dish); young women exchanging latest gossip; dazed old men sitting in circles chewing chat; old women having a coffee fix on three-legged wooden stools, half naked kids chasing after old motor tyres; and annoying young men asking relentlessly if I am from Jamaica.  If you take a detour from this main street at night, there is a high chance that you will be walking around in circles for hours trying to find your way back or will run into someone trying to defecate discretely on one the numerous dead ends, or will have a too-close counter with a wild hyena.     

Initially, I had planned on staying in Harar for one night. But the magic of the land, and the fact that I had nothing to look forward to back in Addis Ababa, other than boring job applications, seduced me to stay one more night. Stirring stories of wild Ethiopia where proud and fierce-looking warriors brandish Kalashnikovs and trophies of shrivelled penises cut off from the loins of their enemies were part of the reason. Unfortunately my guide flatly refused to take me to these far-flung villages for the fear of his dear family jewellery. So I had to make do with what Harar itself had to offer.  

The one peculiarity to this city is the excessive consumption of chat. Chat is a mild stimulant- apparently milder than alcohol, which originates from Ethiopia. It is widely used in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. Men, women and even children seem hopelessly enslaved by the drug. Old men seem to sit around all day in small groups chomping chat in a rhythmic stupor, rather like a small herd of sheep chewing cud, except for the fact that these ruminants laugh and make merry.  Young men with bulging cheeks jam-packed with chat vegetation, wonder aimlessly around with a stash of the crop pressed to their armpits. Their toothy smiles are usually peppered with debris of green chat specks, which I find quite diabolic.   

In the main markets, chat dominates the scene; men and women chewing, plucking, sorting, carrying, buying or selling chat. The whole floor of the market is carpeted with chat stems and leaves.  Goats and sheep seem to be equally addicted to the drug. A long line of trucks wait to ferry the high quality chat to Djibouti. There are even charter planes at the airport that courier chat straight to the Arab world. Growing chat has become so lucrative that most farmers have uprooted their coffee plantations in favour of this wonder crop. Since chat is not illegal here, my fellow travellers and I had a go at it on one of the nights in our home stay. Basically you pluck out the tender leaves from the chat twig, stuff them in your mouth, chew the leaves to a fibrous paste, and swallow. The leaves are rather long and I was half gagging the whole time. Expert chat masticators keep the leaves to one side of the cheek and munch them in a small amount at a time, hence the bulging cheeks. To have the desired effect, you are supposed to chew chat for an hour or two. We lasted ten minutes. The taste is very acerbic and the chat juice leaves your mouth extremely dry; it felt like I was chewing a mouthful of powdery bitter tea leaves. The only excitement I felt was chat leaves churning uncomfortably in my stomach. On another trip to Hawasa I was a bit disconcerted to see our m’dula moyo (a minibus that moves at a crazily dizzying speed and leaves you hanging onto to your seat; desperately confessing to God over and over again that if you make it through alive, you will never sin again) driver chewing the stuff for hours. The grubby hands of conductor would periodically relieve the stems out of their leaves and stuff them into the waiting vacuum of the driver’s mouth.  We barely made it alive. 

Hyenas are another fascinating feature of Harar. The main attraction is the feeding of the hyenas, a tradition that has apparently been passed on from one generation to another. The feeding ritual is incredible, if not a tad reckless of the man who feeds these creatures. It involves giving scraps of meat, mostly raw hide, on a short stick raised in the air. The overexcited and giggling hyenas then have to jump up to catch the meat. To entertain the tourists, sometimes the Hyena Man feeds them from a stick stuck in his mouth so it looks like the hyena are feeding on his mouth. A brave few souls, including me of course, tried our hand at feeding them. It was a bit intimidating but fun. What I hadn’t counted on was having a face down with one of these wild beasts on the famous Harar narrow streets. After a long night glued to BBC to catch the latest news on Qaddafi, I insisted on walking home alone. My guide, who obviously knew better, disregarded my protests and accompanied me anyway. My annoyance evaporated as soon as we turned into the alley leading to my guest-house and we came face to face with what I initially thought was a dog, except for the tell-tale sloping of the shoulders. I am proud to say that I didn’t scream this time but did make sure that my guide was always between me and the hyena. He chased it away and to my relief it slunk away into one of the dimly lit alleys.

The one thing that I found unusual about Harar was taking photographs. I was warned that in some of the far-flung hinterlands- like the land of the tribe fond of relieving other people of their private bits- the excitement of taking pictures of painted wild people can result in having five AK47s staring you in the face. In Harar however, people were begging me to have their pictures taken. It was actually hard to take pictures around Harar without the extras. While people all over the world are now posing with an abandon never experience by the human race before, for the rural poor, taking pictures is still an extreme luxury. It was the poses that struck me the most. They are ‘poor-people’ photographs; of those unable to risk wasting pictures and where one feels privileged to be invited in a picture pose. While a modern man puffs up his chest and gazes defiantly into the camera, rural people still stand in serious X-ray stiff. Taking ‘normal’ pictures- (people doing very day stuff) in Harar elicited the same deep sense of betrayal I get when I sneak up and snap a picture of Uncle Luke in his bright yellow torn trousers weaving his famous reed mats. Understandably, rural poor do not want their pictures in their everyday working clothes and doing their everyday things. They would rather be in their best Sunday clothes and position themselves on better backdrops.

There is one thing that I was curious about but was didn’t have a chance to explore…… During a guided tour, I was beckoned to enter a small dim mud hut in the centre of the city. Inside, a beautiful kohl-eyed woman reclined languidly on a low couch. The floor around her was carpeted with soft fluffy meadow grass you normally find in traditional coffee houses, but I didn’t see any coffee pots. She called out to me as I was passing by. “Hey Rasta! Come in and chill out with me”….or something to that effect. She was obviously stoned. Although I find it extremely vexing, I do occasionally answer to the name ‘Rasta’ when it suits me or when curiosity gets the better of me. I was already on the door threshold when I vice-like grip of the guide steered me away. I didn’t resist. The hyena incident was too fresh on my mind. When I inquired about the woman, he just shook his hand. The following day, I tried to retrace my footsteps back to this exotic woman but after an hour zigzagging hopelessly lost in the Hararian maze, I gave up. I will never l know what kind of ‘chilling’ this exotic woman wanted from me. 

My next quest is to hunt for the fierce and greatly feared tribes whose only Western clothing accessory is a Kalashnikov. I did look up the penis-collection story on the Internet just to make sure my guide was not pulling my leg. Guides do love to string crazy stories that keep tourist’s jaws hanging down and starry eyed. Apparently breasts can be severed as trophies too! Although I am flat-chested, I will have to be on my best behaviour just in case. I will be sure to keep you posted.