As We Wind on Down the Road

In case you all are ever wondering what I’m doing, there’s a good chance the following scene transpires at about 9am Eastern time every day (4pm TZ time):

Our hero walks down a dusty road. The setting sun uses what little juice it still has to paint the ridges in a honeyed orange, and our boy’s shadow is thrown a country mile. You can see him this way every day: outback hat bent with love, loose button down shirt (maybe a little sweaty, maybe a little dirty), canteen clipped to his belt, jembe resting on his right shoulder, pants muddied, sandals. Usually he’s walking back from work with a couple of friends, maybe he’s followed by a curious kiddo or two. But if he’s alone, and he sees that shadow, sure as sin and right as rain he will start singing, “and as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls...” Because the shadows seem longer here. And the souls feel older. But more on that to come.

Hello friends and lovers! First things first. As I write this, it is 52 days till I arrive back on nearer shores. I’m getting a bit giddy. I hope you are too. I am also here to tell you that if you have never had the experience of explaining Easter Eggs to an East African, then you can’t die yet. Because you still have something left to try.

‘But rabbits don’t lay eggs.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘So...?’ ‘
Yeah.’

Easter in East Africa is just a hell of a holiday, to begin with. I was invited to a Lutheran baptism on Easter Sunday. Which was great. It was three hours and fifteen minutes long. Which is normal. I was seated directly next to the 8-foot speaker tower. Which was painful. Especially since the keyboardist apparently thought that bleeding from our eardrums was how we should all show solidarity with Jesus. I couldn’t hear for about an hour after the service. Which was fine, because as it turned out, I didn’t need to.

We go back to my friend’s house after the service. He is one of seven children. Several of those children have multiple spouses. The more barren among them have at least five kids. So what transpires over the next FULL HOUR is an introduction of every single person there, who they are related to, how, and how was the corn crop this year? And when somebody new arrived, they were introduced, and then everybody else was introduced to them. And by the time we finished, it was time to go. Really.

There was, however, a special little rockstar at the party. This was a Tanzanian grandmother who must have been 90 years old, weighed half that many pounds, and looked like she might have left her house for the party around Groundhog’s Day. She had herself a nice little chair at the head of the couch. And when she got introduced to you, she grabbed both sides of your head, pulled your head at her, kissed one side of it, then the other, then just hang out for a while, holding your head, cuz she dug the power. What really thrilled me was the reactions from the little kids who got this treatment. If you have never actually seen an aunt pinch someone’s cheeks and make various mouth-noises, the expression on the victim (child), it doesn’t change from culture to culture. The kids just want to be outside. And auntie just wants to assert her dominance. And everybody else is just happy it ain’t them.

But life is good. I know because my English class told me so. This all came up because I was teaching them greetings. Good morning, good morning. How are you? I am fine. What’s shakin playa? Not really. Next week. But then I write on the board, “how is it going?” And one student raises his hand, and asks, “what does ‘it’ mean?” And I explain how we use it to stand in for inanimate objects, or concepts. He gets it. Except then he asks me which object or concept ‘it’ was standing in for in this sentence. And I didn’t know.

I know what ‘how’s it going’ means. So do you. But to define it? I was in the struggle, as an old friend used to say. And this was my first class. So I made up something...which might be right. I think the ‘it’ in “how’s it going” stands for life. We’re asking, how is life going? And upon giving that answer, I had to teach them how to say, “life is good.” Because it is. It’s also hilarious to hear ESL students saying it. Makes you wonder what other phrases might be useful and uproarious. Something like, “what’s up doc?” or “of course you know, this means war”. I’m a Looney Tunes fan. So are you. Or maybe a song! Everybody likes songs! But how long would it take to explain chevy and levy and whiskey and rye? Ah well, ah me. Onward we go, gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily.

Life is but a dream.

A good dream.

A small rant, if I may. I was displeased to read about the recently concluded Barry Bonds trial. Not because I like Barry Bonds. I can’t stand him. I’ve often said that if the fan who had caught his record-breaking homer had had the stones to throw it back, it would be a better world. I believe to Bonds to be a cheat, and a liar, and a general no-goodnik. But he played baseball. And none of this matters. Not even a little.

I take my cue here from a Rolling Stones article entitled “Why Isn’t Wall Street In Jail?” I highly recommend it. The stories in it are disgusting, but the perpetrators are as yet unpunished. Nor are they likely to be soon. Not a one has been taken to court, let alone jail. But Barry Bonds puts a needle in his booty, lies about it, and that is more worth our money and our resources. Because he’s a much easier, less complicated symbol. Never mind the reality of it. I don’t want to push this topic too far, because I’m sort of comparing apples to orangutans, but my point is this: the most important decisions we make are about what we choose to care about. What are our priorities? And whoever made Barry Bonds a greater priority than the multitude of critical issues facing our country was far more concerned with looking good than doing good. End of rant.

On a sunny note, I’m beekeeping with the blind! We are starting work on a very promising project, and they are really a great bunch of people. As I’ve become fond of saying, they have very limited sight, but tremendous vision. The only problem is that my little sight jokes (or is that sight unseen?) almost caused me to lose it in a meeting the other day. Here’s the situation: when you want to ask someone how they feel in Swahili, you say, “unaonaje?” But ‘how do you feel’ is not the literal translation. The literal translation is “how are you seeing?”. Which is a rather peculiar question to ask a blind man. Especially when you follow it right up with “tutaonana baadaye”. The literal translation? “See you later.” When they asked me about a question I didn’t know they answer to? “Tutaona”...”We shall see”. As it turns out, this is completely normal, and not in the least bit offensive. Which is good, because I wasn’t sure how, after not doing yoga for about a year, I was able to get both feet in my mouth, and my head up my ass.

To conclude, another funeral. This time a neighbor, and tremendously old (she could have given the other old woman a run for her money...or a shuffling, stick-assisted, crawl for her money). We dug the grave, we put her in it, we ate. And then I found out about another tradition. Apparently after a death the friends and family stay up all night, sleeping inside the house, and even outside, if there’s not enough room (there wasn’t). I had never really been invited to one of these. But given that it was 40 feet from my door...when will I ever get another chance to live this life, right? So I go over around 9pm. Half the group is hammered. One man wants my advice planting trees (now they ask me). One woman is sure I’m the Swiss guy that has been dynamiting her road (I’m not). And then I’m invited inside.

The floor is filled with people, asleep, awake, in between. We enter a farther room. This is a mud hut with a thatched roof. No light comes in, no light goes out. The room is lit by a single lantern, and the light brushes over surfaces, without seeming to land on any of them. It’s a cave, lit by fire. I have the sensation, now familiar, of crossing a threshold, not just of a room, but of an age, a threshold of worlds. People are dancing, with joy. And they sing, and they drum, all with joy. I remember asking myself if I could possibly be living just a single lifetime. I clapped, I tried to sing. It’s a sad reality of my existence here that my very presence alters the things I’m trying to observe, do drink in. This is confirmed when a drunk staggers over. He wants to yell things in my ear. But someone stops him. An older woman, one I know in passing, no better than that. Some people, if you catch them in the right light, on the right night, you realize that they used to be kings, or queens, in another life. That was this woman, once upon a time a queen. And she shook the man off me, and she told him, “huyu ni wetu”. He is ours. Or, perhaps, he is one of us.

Later, when we were outside, they were singing. These songs were in Swahili, and one of the lines snuck up on me and surprised me. They were drumming, and dancing, and singing “tutaonana mbinguni.”

Which means, “we shall see each other in heaven.”