the life
I am back in Waterloo again, and I could not be happier. It's very peaceful and everything is done decently, in order and with respect. There are five of us here: Bros. Kelvin, Emmanuel, Lahai, John, and myself. I am getting used to new routines. I share the room with Lahai and sleep on the same bed that David was on when he was here in Waterloo. The same bed whose baseboards fall at the slightest movement. I've had to get up at night and fix the boards only to be woken up again to fix the boards. It's quite funny until you're in deep sleep and are startled up because half of your body is on the floor.Lahai and I walked to the Waterloo market today in the rain in order to buy some fish, onions, peppers, two chicken legs, and ground goundnuts to make goundnut sauce. The market, on a sunny day is quite odiferous. The rain accented the odors. The smell of fish, rotten rubbish, something dead, the smell of bad hygiene, and several dozen other very pungent odors. Some of the vendors literally stand with one foot in a small stream that flows past the market. Others have placed a stone in the water to stand on. Still others place stools in the water. The rain water had filled the massive potholes along the dirt road. The vendors take their places along both sides of the road while customers walk along looking for a better deal, and bargaining when a good deal has been found. The road is packed with customers, and other vendors yielding baskets on their heads. Often the crowd is forced to either side of the street to make room for a car or motorbike to pass. At such occasions, you find yourself wedged up against vendors or customers. We walked through a narrow pathway between two stalls to enter a section where fish is sold. Women sat along the floor on little stools or rocks with makeshift tables or baskets of not so fresh fish. At intervals, they call out "fresh fish de!" We point to the snapa (snapper and ask "How much?" and they all call out prices. A large woman who had had her shirt pulled up airing out her two massive breasts, and a toddler on foot attached to one of her breasts, called out "5000" and we went to her. We tried to bargain down to 4000 but she refused. We asked to be given Le400 worth of fish and she packed a two fishes that were a bit smaller than the Le5000 fish.
We went next to get the chicken legs. We were quoted Le1500 for each leg. We bought four legs. We went to get groundnuts. We purchased Le1000 worth of groundnuts and then wanted them ground. We had to pay another man to get it ground. He stuffed the groundnuts into a meat grinder and turned the wheel. When the grinding was done, he picked up the result and placed it into a plastic shopping bag. He then began to lick the remnants off his fingertips. I am pretty sure he did this with every customer, and as there really is no fresh water to wash his hands, he licked them clean and dried them on the tail of his shirt and waited for the next customer, with unwashed hands. I was a bit turned off by it especially after I witnessed vendors scratching themselves or picking their nose. I have two choices: Either I pray and eat cooked food, or live on biscuits, parched groundnuts, and bottled water. I opted for the first choice. The groundnut sauce actually does taste very good.
Monday evening, we went visiting the locals' houses and sat especially long at one house. There I met a young woman named Betty. She is troubled in her mind. She refused to look at us when we spoke to her and she sat there fidgeting with small pebbles. Ocassionally she would stare at me because I was the odd one out. Her aunt told us that she is a victim of witchcraft, and she was quite normal before the attack. I am not sure what exactly happened as I did not understand some of the Krio because it was spoken too fast. Her aunt asked us to keep Betty in our prayers. When we go visit a family and sit down on the veranda to talk to them, many others walking by will stop and listen. Some find a seat on the cememnted steps to the veranda, others stand and listen keenly to every word that is said, and join in the conversation. This time, a few kids who were playing football in the yard stopped their game and came to listen to us.
It was a beautiful sunny day on Thursday and I decided to sit down and read. I pulled out a chair on to the veranda and brought out a glass of water (as we are fasting till Saturday) and began reading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. I sat out there for hours and read about twenty chapters. As I followed the life of Francie, I could not help but unconsciously relate what I am reading to my own life, experiences, and things I've seen and felt.
'"The difference between rich and poor," said Francie, "is that the poor do everything with their own hands and the rich hire hands to do things. We're not poor any more. We can pay to have some things done for us." "i want to stay poor, then," said Katie, "because I like to use my hands."'
"She knew from listening to her grandmother that old age was made up of such rememberances of youth. But she did not want to recall things. She wanted to live things-or as a compromise, re-live rather than reminisce."
"Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost." I said Amen to this.
"Here I am," she thought, "fifteen years old and a drifter. I've been working less than a year and I've had three jobs already. I used to think it would be fun to go from one job to the other. But now I'am scared. I've been fired from two jobs through no fault of my own. At each job, I worked as best I could. I gave everything I could give. And here I'm starting all over again somewhere else..."
"She grasped the idea that nothing was ever lost or destroyed. Even if something was burned up or left to rot away, it did not disappear from the face of the earth; it changed into something else - gases, liquids, and powders. Everything, decided Francie after the first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion."
"And he grieved because he was a failure"
"...I wait for death with the courage I gained from living. I will not speak falsely and say to you: 'Do not grieve for me when I go.' I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my children grieve for me. But let your grief be gentle and brief. And let resignation creep into it..."
I unwrapped a piece of Bazooka gum and read the comic: "Waiter, your finger is in my soup!" "Oh it's alright Sir, the soup is not too hot!" The fortune on the comic said: "Your restlessness will make you a celebrated traveller"
And while I sat there on the veranda, sipping water, reading my book, glancing at a group of ducks parading by galantly, despising the dogs that defecate in the backyard, and hearing Craig David's "I am Walking Away" play loudly at one of the neighboring houses, I felt majestically retired, and at peace.
A verse came to me this morning; "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy..."
posted by bthomas24 @ 1:39 AM
1 Comments:
Hey, Ben now you understand what I went through when I slept on that bed in Waterloo! I hope your enjoying yourself!
David
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