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from Abidjan Notebooks
I'm no closer to Congo in Abidjan than I was in Washington. The light brown girls with long braids begging at Carrefour de la Mort are from Mali. Beautiful, fearless eyes peer into your car window, the girls on their toes. I could be anywhere, in this house by the polluted lagoon, floating thread, ignorant, separate. A window face, Madame on the new grass. May 4 my stupor & birds there is no reconciling being white being a mother is so hard sometimes Dinner with a crowd of journalists last night. I was the only spouse. Purnell defended Luis, saying, "I think he'll find his legs. He's got some stories�he was telling me about being held at gunpoint, having his life threatened when he was working on the Mexican border." I wanted to say, any old sod can be held at gunpoint or have his life threatened, that doesn't make you a hero it just scares the shit out of you & gives you a story to tell. What I worry Luis won't be able to handle is the more mundane stuff�the constant hassle, the lack of comforts when he travels, a violent bout or two of diarrhea, maybe malaria�& worse, his own defensive response to poverty, repression, insanity, violence done to other people, not him. May 10 sampling a loneliness, to trudge against moving toward your name &
Yesterday Jonas went to his first birthday party. Ariana turned one year old. All the babies ate cake, except Jonas who didn't notice it. One big fat baby who is 13 months old & still can't crawl, just falls on his face & screams, & generally whines & cries all the time, stuffed handfuls of cake into his mouth. His mother laughed. "Should I stop him?" she said, doing nothing. Ariana's father said politely but with a trace of disgust, "I would." I heard that last Monday 2 photojournalists were publicly flogged for taking pictures of General Guei picking his nose. May 15 the trees lining Blvd. de la France have been cut down after a mutiny, the dove all over Africa, white people carry on as if. the wood-carved Baoulé couple in the corner, pile me up a guru, history means to pass us by
Monsieur le "President" arrested 3 of Ouattara's top men, one of whom Doug was supposed to interview today. Grey morning, 7:35 a.m., Jonas still asleep after a semi-fitful night. I had a dream: I am on a subway in the States & I notice 3 teenage girls looking at me & laughing. They're pretty & fashionably dressed. So I look back at them & laugh at them defensively. I realize they're making fun of my clothes, so I stand up & say, "You know, it's not really as bad as it looks�the clothes individually are okay, if nondescript." And I point to the clothes one by one to prove my point. "The pants�regular khaki pants, the shirt�the neckline is ruined from washing it too many times, but for the most part it's fine. The jacket is really what's messing everything up & making me look stupid." The girls seem to accept this. July 14 what stops a line peekaboo be thorough in your thoughts child at the door, reasons to greet him
There is this white guy writer, Robert Kaplan, who claims to understand African people because he has traveled throughout the continent on their buses. This man writes that a woman breastfeeding her baby in a public place does it for the same reason another woman urinates in a public place�squalor. This man wrote a long book & westerners bought it. August 15 Listen, my octopus, my little rabbit eating the roots, listen It's not me they've come for. Dragging skeletal
When I signed up for my free Yahoo e-mail service, Côte d'Ivoire was not among the choices for country of residence. I had to find the secondary country list. Some people are in New York City feeling at the center of things. Culture, etc. But there is no other culture other than what you had for breakfast. Sometimes I might shut myself up in my room. And so that's my culture too. August 17 A fairly silent tree bug whistling There are ants who will eat a snake Other people's breakfasts can be mildly disgusting.
President Guei has accused Ouattara & the Imams of bringing guns & mercenaries into the country in case the Supreme Court commission rules Ouattara ineligible to run for president. The Imams responded with a statement that they foresee a genocide of Muslims. Salif thinks that if the Court rules out Ouattara's candidacy, there will be tribal warfare. My father writes from Colorado that Ouattara is a "courtly gentleman" who was an old friend's neighbor in Bethesda, Maryland. August 25 this old coast, hat in hand mistakes, straying, cave- the hibiscus bloomed last night Jonas calls everything "manga" manga manga manga manga manga sturdy lectern narrows our us spins us forward a nights of black cars lowing in the alley, all those blooming a final
It was being speculated the other night at dinner whether Côte d'Ivoire would erupt in violence. The British woman whose husband works for Nestle said she didn't think so because the Ivoirian people seem very peaceful. I grew up in Kenya, & Kenyans, she said, are very violent. Ivoirians aren't peaceful, the Dutch host who also works for Nestle said. They're cowards! September 6 hold up your battered bones, soldier,
Yesterday Alfonse was very quiet as he walked me to my car. Then he said, "Is it true that in the United States you can walk around without your papers?" He was surprised to hear that in fact you could. If you're on foot? he asked. If you take the bus, or a taxi? September 7 so versed with animals the weather has been lovely
Doug & I caught the tail end of an ADO rally, people streaming out of the Hotel Ivoire, yelling & singing & dancing in the streets�Blvd Latrille & Rue Booker Washington�there was a police truck politely making it's way through the crowd, & some of them actually waved from the back of the truck as they drove away. These are the same police who beat the shit out of ADO supporters just last week in Le Plateau�stripped them naked, made them walk on their hands & knees & whipped them, in broad daylight. ADO! ADO! Thousands of people filling the streets with their bodies & enthusiasm. September 15 undressing the prisoner can't write to it�his eyes
After the so-called assassination attempt, President Guei held a press conference to reassure the Ivoirian people that he had everything under control. The state-controlled TV station showed a long video of "what happened this morning." The camera lingers over bullet holes in car windows & doors & walls in Guei's house, pools of blood on the ground, the armored vehicle that had crashed through the gate & a wall, all the time an eerie synthesizer 1980s horror movie type music playing, no voice-over. The clip ends with what looks like Guei's dead dog but is actually his dead horse. The captured perpetrators are immediately undressed. One of them was filmed with that same eerie music in the back of a pick up surrounded by soldiers intermittently whipping him, his shirt off, his arms bleeding, his head bleeding, holes in his back, they were taking off his pants, he sat there with his eyes rolling around. September 18 the world grown inward
You can make anything sound unreal. Little actors in little countries. (What will they have to do to become international stars, like Idi Amin?) Where the imperial powers are always saying with a big laugh: the President's people came to see us today & asked what did the (empire) people think we should do? And of course the (empire) people don't even know where (little country) is, much less care what they should do! Ha ha ha ha ha! September 20 |  |
