Get Rich Quick Schemes…African style

Quick post. Sometimes living here means exposure to some real unique characters and circumstances. Take for instance, our good neighbor, Seydina. Real cool, thoroughly religious, he waited until he married less than a year ago to unh consummate for the first time. A real good guy but somewhere in his heart, he is still in his heart a holy schemer. Came by the other night to see my husband with the plans of all plans. It went like this…

It seems that djinn like mercury. (yes, mercury) If you give them mercury, they leave money in exchange for it. So the idea was to get my husband to but a whole lotta mercury and then – in street parlance – “flip” the mercury into money.

?!

Seydina’s new wife lives outside of the country, and things here don’t hold much promise for economic advancement for young folks, so maybe this is his way of hoping for better days. Sorta reminds me of Cats on street corners cooking up elaborate get rich quick schemes.

Seydina’s last scheme was a doozy, brought around by the OCI, the global Islamic conference that brought all the who’s who of  Islamic states into town and basically had us bending over backwards (willingly and unwillingly) to demonstrate just how civilized and damn near first world we is… It was sad the number of roads, tunnels, and bridges that got financed by this. And how many more neighborhoods these folks never passed through that still don’t even have running water. More on this in another post.

But anyway, Seydina’s get rich quick scheme included some wonderful unnamed fvisiting OCI foreigner who was in search of uhm what we call here giri giri/ what other people call juju to – get this – stop a bullet

Again,

 ?!

What, Senegal’s contribution to the war against terrorism?

Yeh, I know Senegalese calvary men did wear these into battle – tunics  that had spiritual protection weaved into their armour. If you ever visit Goree Island, some are on display in the Island Museum. But this…

My question, is what are you doing that you need this type of protection?

 

 

 

 

A Day In The Life – Dakar 9/4/08

1. My three year old crawled in the bed between me and my husband. He is now fast asleep. It’s funny, one of my fave cousins in the world dropped by (literally, he is good for this type of thing. one minute he is Paris, the next minute he is out of the airport and on the way to your home) with his girlfriend to announce the news my mother already whispered back, some months ago. she’s pregnant.

It took me a little bit of time to warm up to the news. I mean I am happy and all but I am pretty selfish about news of more children coming into the world. I guess it’s because I am full up on my own. But after a minute I could remember the excitement, remember the anxiety, remember the whole couple-having-a-baby-thing. The what he does, what she does excitement as you enter into this new aspect of life together.

I guess the whole non excitement thing came mostly because it is a lifestyle, it is a whole new world, and evrybody gets to do it different. Back in the States for instance, I saw all kinds, vegan babies, babies breastfed until they weaned themselves (at 18 – LOL!), babies whose mamas rationed the tit, homebirthed babies, babies that pretty much ate what their parents ate from day 1… I mean I saw it all, and I would always try to have an opinion about it all, or back when I was in my nice phase, I would try to be supportive of all mamas phase. Now I know, I shoulda just minded my business.

People have a right to raise kids the way they see fit. So often the journey to parenthood is a journey to discovering ourselves. Read all the books you like, get all the info to spin your head over, but in the end it’s you and a whole nother body and a whole nother spirit. And the biggest kicker is – they just keep growing and the work of a parent does too.

When they left with my cousin’s homeboy from way back Malik – more on him in a minute – I put my arms around my husband and was just happy, really happy to be on this side of things. And I began to count out loud all the blessings of not having a newborn as I verbally terrorized, threatened, and cajoled my kids into bed. The three year old started on his sister’s bed. She is mature enough to come and whisper to me that it was okay until he fell asleep and then we could move him. Great, I thought, I don’t care, just puh-leeze let him sleep (really I thought go away, not permanently but into a room where he would discover the joys of dosntime/alone time – VERY important for parents– I mean kids).

And then he showed up in our bed. And we thought he had gotten out of this habit, or at least relegated it to four o’clock in the morning. But nope, he is here. Looking adorable too. But in all seriousness, I could do without him and certainly without Tickle Me Elmo he seems to suddenly have a warm spot for.

Once, not so long ago either, when this was a nightly habit my husband and I were too tired to fight, we told some good friends, another couple with 3 kids (they had us beat because they had twins!), they went on and on about how it had to be our fault and we had to be strict with him, yadda yadda. I know they had our best interests at heart but I felt sorta bad all the same. Nobody likes to be told they are doing the wrong thing parenting, and yet it is still something you hear all the time.

Here in Senegal it’s different. Parenting is a much larger concept. Parenting is something that a whole family takes on and really each person gets to do it in their way. Like at my aunt’s house, my kids get to eat anything they want, I mean anything they want. And it has been like this since they were – uhm – seconds old. It really made no difference what I thought, believed, or what I was doing back in the States. It came down to the fact that for my aunt she was exerting her right over my children and parenting as she saw fit. Yeh, sure there can be a whole lotta danger in that sorta way of thinking, but there is also more love than can be believed. My children have more safety places where they feel emotionally safe than I can shake a finger at and as a parent that makes all the difference. Really. A huge mental difference, that I have to remind myself exists and balance out with my former NYC everymama for herself.

So the three year old sleeps. I do believe he’s going through something emotionally, words still escape him – he’s got two languages at his disposal after all. Plus, I’m tired. I would rather blog peacefully then fight with a three year old.

2. As a follow up to that loooong point, I have been surfing on the net (yet again) visiting blogs for my new class. My students will each blog their lives as an effort to practice writing and develop a voice. They are excited and so am I. And certainly not because it allows me to continue to play on the Internet either.

Most of the sites I checked out today were parenting blogs, a whole lot from ethnic dads as well. That was a welcome surprise. That’s one false image I really want destroyed, because it is so hurtful in so many ways. As someone who suffered from my own strange relationship with my biological father but was blesed to have two others, I know all the difference a male figure can have. And their presence on the internet is future archive for all children to know that not only do they exist in good number but they also love their kids with such a combination of ferocity, innocence, and wonder. Some particularly sweet ones this one and this one, and especially this one.

I also found some really great blogs regarding race, culture, and politics, but so many of them were so insular, so deeply rooted to Black Americana that it made me both sad and happy. Happy because it’s nice to see so much writing, and a lot of it common sense type writing like as in can-we-call-a-spade-a-spade? but it just doesn’t play far. It just doesn’t have anything that my kids could relate to, as much as they want to relate. Food for thought, perhaps.

3. So here is my day here in Dakar. So we are trying to buy a new car. And it is a bigger hassle than you could EVER know unless of course you live in third world developing country.

Some facts:

Everyone wants a 4×4. So what. We (collectively speaking now) may need them more than most Americans because after all we have problems like – uhm, poor roads, broken drains, rainy seasons, sand everywhere… And that’s just in the capital! But anyway, 4X4’s range in price (yes, they are all imported!) from 24,000 for a used five year old model to about 60,000 for a newer, not top of the line model that – get this – has been made in China with cheaper parts – because THERE ARE NO SAFETY REGULATIONS THAT REQUIRE CARS MADE WITH BETTER MATERIAL LIKE IN EUROPE AND THE US/CANADA.

Just like the tobacco companies who sell loosies here for under a dollar and don’t ask for id. This is life in a developing world. We get to be not only the dumping ground for the rest of the world, but they get to make money doing it, while our lives are put in danger.

But Africans are nothing if not resourceful. Many are getting in on the import business and selling cars directly from the States or Europe because they are better quality – but that just means they can charge more money which means, yup… you need a car, you are effectively out of luck before you even start.

So we stood in the sand, in the two o’clock hot sun and compared three models all parked in deep sand alongside one of the main roads. I should taken a picture. At one point the car “salesman”, Khadim, dipped into this sorta circular looking unclosed area and took a piss. And then – no lie- came back and began talking like he did not just pull out his thing, pee, not wash his hands, and then return to selling us a car.

There’s a technique for you. I told my husband he would have to take a couple thou off the price for that business.

4. We ate lunch with our middleman, Aziz. Aziz is a hustler, but a reformed one, actually like on the straight end. Funny but true, only in Africa story. Aziz is helping us hook up with cats like Khadim to buy the car, a good thing because when people see my husband’s uhm- untanned face, they get happy like they hit the Tabaski jackpot! See, everything here is negotiation, as you may or may not know. There are few things here that are fixed prices. And a man my husband’s complexion can’t ever get a real price.

Before I get back to Aziz, you should know something about car salesman. They really don’t care if you buy the car or not. They don’t have a showroom as such. Oh sure, there are those but those are the ones selling you the Chinese imports. The cats on the street, they’re selling the street imports lol!

Anyway, Aziz has proved himself to be quite a help, and so to discuss today’s conclusions, we invited him to lunch at our house. Ceeb bu yapp (CHAY BOO YAPP) or rice with meat. Before he eats though, Aziz has to pray. I for one am glad about this because this insures he will wash his hands – after Khadim I want everone to wash their hands, over and over. But anyway, Aziz performs his ablutions and then, on a prayer mat given to him by my hubby, he begins praying. He does his raka’ts and then upon the last, I swear, I turned my head and saw him bust out like IMMEDIATELY afterward, fifty push ups. I swear this is true.

My husband tried to tell me that this is a common occurrence here. With the five prayers punctuating the day, alot of cats are actually working out right afterward. Push ups for God. Now that’s going hard!

I should say that I have noticed an increase in the number of overbuff cats… Pretty pious, I suppose.

5. Alright, last but not least, Malik. Brother is our age, even younger and proudly political. I think I will interview him for my blog. He is organizing a march against the insanely high price of living here. A march against the increase of milk, gas, oil, rice. The staples people survive on.
When I asked him why he had made the decision to get political he responded ” Because I am tired of seeing people steal billions of dollars while other people have nothing to eat. These false instruments of government (he is referring to the ANOCI the organizing committee for the recent Islamic conference we had here) is a sham.”

It was a proud moment. I tend not to be political here, I believe real power in Africa and leadership exists in the people, but I like Malik’s gangster. WIll let you know how the march goes.

Alright, that about sums up life here. today anyway

Days Like These…

Woke up feeling pretty good and then as the day progressed felt the emotions see sawing back and forth wanting to hang out in “eh”.

Remedy :

1. Eat really well. Avoid high sugar, drink water, get a great tea thing going, get some great, great funky fruit ( today it meant pineapple and dried apricot).

2. Talk to young people. Began my writing class at ISM the local business university and felt the excitement. Also felt old talking, but decided hell, s’okay, I am.

3. Talk to a good friend. Get some perspective, not pity. I received a bone honest evaluation of where I was, with the forecast for where I would eventually be. However uncomfortable I felt, neither place was really bad. (Of course, this is relative, but in Dakar it’s really easy to recognize your blessings – you ain’t on a corner begging…)

4. Be patient. Soon come. 9 times out of 10 I am so impatient it’s ridiculous. But I am learning to trust that not only are great things coming, but great things are already here. Wishing for something more tends to miss out on what already have.

5. Listen to some great music. I heard via Kalamu et al (see yesterday’s post) “Tell Me Something Good” written by Stevie, sung by Chaka Khan. What more could you want?

- Addendum – also danced stupid dances in just my bra and panties to Kid Bop’s version of “Crazy” as my daughter and youngest son looked on. No comment, but it worked.

6. Blog. ‘Nuff said.

Still working on getting pics up, hang in there…

Spirit Update (Catch Up)

Yeah, I know, I know, ain’t checked in in a hot minute, but for real, deffa sonn torrop! I surely have been exhausted and rest has become my ordre du jour. Also am still trying to get my camera hooked up from bedrest no doubt – lol – so I can snap pics of all the sights on this side of the pond or as I hope and pray, this side of the continent. But anyway here are some miracles and revelations of the moment:

1. From the Mugabe, again? files

As is the case in most places in the world, nothing is ever as Black and White as it seems, but in Zimbabwe, according to a recent transplant, staunch Mugabe supporters, staunch critics of Morgan. Seems some can’t ever forgive the brother from taking money from white farmers in the not so long ago past. Sorta like Jesse Jackson taking money from David Duke (ya’ll remember him?) According to the transplant, a beautiful and reflective sista with a soft spot for humanitarian aid and children, the other aspect that few are considering is the cost of transition. Everybody knows of the inflation rates, right? Sista spoke of going shopping and counting zeroes behind a number to understand just how much something costs. Like in a trillion dollars for some basic need.

But even if Mugabe leaves it doesn’t mean immediate betterment, it might even get worse before it gets better. Morgan type reforms might also come with a level of heavy indebtedness to the West, who really never ever had a problem with those white farmers. I mean look at South Africa, where are all the Black farmers and landowners?

Sista, who btw does believe it is past time for Mugabe to go, pointed out that the very real cost of all of this was the very real mental health of many, many Zimbabweans.

How many of you all remember Marley singing at the fall of the Union Jack. One of the greatest moments I never completely understood, but made me feel proud to be Black all the while. Even if you haven’t, here’s the clip.

2. On the healing/mindfulness tip: It’s all about the now, it’s all about the present.

After two days of solid distraction on the internet (no, you really don’t want to know), I had to give up the race to satisfy the ego’s craving for MORE and MORE. Eckhart Tolle is all the rage, I understand, but he is hardly the first to proclaim that the ego is nothing but a permanent state of insecurity and after my internet wanderings I have to agree. So many of us want to find distractions from this business of life and living, something to take our mind off of whatever pain we find ourselves in. But dig, as the mystics, prophets, and all the legends state, the real pain is our separation from God.

Do what you will with that, for me, it means really just obeying a higher call to order. I will heal when it is time, and not when my rushed Gem self wants to get up and on. Likewise, our own path of development and growth will happen accordingly and not when we force our will, our desires upon this world. Yeh, sure we may end up getting just what we want, but truth be told, it don’t really help, does it?

3. Yet more good news!

Like most folks I am always happy to find reflections of my own particular multi culti background reflected in the world. Well for two weeks now, father and son team Kalamu ya Salaam and Mtume have been running on their site www.kalamu.com/bol breath of life: a conversation about Black Music, a Stevie Wonder retrospective the size of Bobbito Garcia/DJ Spinna’s mighty compilation Stevie Wrote It! (Put your hands up if you went to the original Stevie parties I and II – still the greatest nights of my life… I pray for those brothas wherever they are!) And then they have the nerve to be running HOT Senegalese music (as if there were any other kind!) Please support these brothas. Below is my love letter to them. It’s kinda long so I won’t be surprised if they don’t run it, but just so it’s said.

As one of your faithful listeners from way back in Dakar Senegal, last week’s set provided literal hours of musical journeying for my family of literal African Americans. I thought to myself, it can’t get any better than this – Stevie and Senegal? My two passions, my two halves brought together in rhythmic celebration?

And then, ya’ll topped yourselves by offering week 2! God Bless ya’ll brothers, you are doing mighty, mighty work. You are one of the few places in cyberspaces where the Black world always meets in celebration! And the story you tell of salsa and mbalax is my own family’s story. Salsa being the music of my mother’s generation of post independence cross pollination flavor. Somewhere in the seventies (about the time my Senegalese mother had settled in Harlem NYC with my Caribbean father), the salsa rage was still the sets that connected her with the Afro Puerto Rican/Cuban/Dominican communities we were living amongst. I remember as a young girl feeling their absolute shock and delight at the mighty distance music was traveling. Likewise, I remember how much of Stevie’s always on time ballad stirred in my mother a beautiful burgeoning sense of connection to this new place she was calling home…

By the time my (now divorced) mother returned with us to Dakar in the 80’s, mbalax had taken over, and Youssou Ndour and his Super Etoile were all the rage. Salsa was seen as the music of the post colonial elite – the soundtrack of all things imported if you will. The music of access and nepotism, whereas the fees to get into the clubs where mbalax were playing, well… we know who was there and wasn’t. The riddims were fast, and the dances were dirty and required the skills of a generation of young folks reaching past salsa to something else. Mbalax brought with it a pride in what it meant to be Senegalese.

Katharina Kane writes about this I believe on her liner notes to Orchestra Baobab’s newest album.

Without making this too long, please know that Senegal, despite so much transition is integrating both aspects of itself, Pape Faye has weekly sets where the dance floor is always packed, and well any dj worth his weight, at either house party or club knows that the expectation is to rock multi flavored sets of both salsa and mbalax at party pitch before turning to – can you guess… hip hop! And not the local kind, either.

Djere dieuff (righteous thanks), brothers, for keeping not only my fam but the global Black fam connected. Your space is one of the few where the Black world meets in celebration. We can hardly wait to see you on this side of the Atlantic soon… Perhaps a New Year’s dj Kalaamu/Mtume party on Goree Island?

How about it all, a huge New Year’s party at Goree Island for 2009/2010? All conscious heads partying under the stars, redeeming the lost ancestors, building back the bridges?

Okay, gotta go rest!

Peace out, scout, mangidem!

Anniversary

It’s after midnight.

I am now officially married ten years.

Ten years.

I am having a hard time putting to words what this means.

Ten years.

3 children.

2 states.

One whole continent away from a beginning at Duke University so many years ago.

Is this rare? Young (once upon a time) hip hop heads (still) (deeply) in love?

Where are those stories at? Those images?

(Yet another reason to love Obama /Michele!)

Ours was the romance I had literally dreamed about, filled with kindness, safety, trust, laughter, good food, and great – well you get my point.

The last boyfriiend before him even promised me I would meet this kinda man (if only I would leave him alone, I realized later) but I was too stuck on stupid to even hear the brother tell me what I truly deserved. My (unconscious) motto was if he ain’t no good, then he ain’t for me. The worse they were, the more dysfunctional they behaved, the greater my attraction for them.

Recently, I read on this (great) blog a sista claiming Mary J Blige type Real Love/Be Happy as her top two songs of all time. I knew just what she meant. I too had been around the world and high and lo. And then came a time when I had really all just had to let it go. Couldn’t take no more, didn’t want anymore. One fine day, gave all the drama to God.

Was by myself for a good minute, really got to know myself and really felt my own rhythms, even as the loneliness settled in. But what I wanted, I confirmed to God, was a husband. A soul mate. Someone who I could trust and confide in.

And then, right on time, the brotha showed up in my life as softly as morning sunrise.

It didn’t take me long to know he was the one. God made it really obvious.

He whisked me away to (literal) mountain tops and peeled oranges in the sunshine.

He showed up with sweet potato cake and picked me up from my late night waitressing jobs.

He listened when I talked, waited till I healed, and never ever disrespected me in word, deed, or thought.

He waited patiently for me with his long arms outstretched for a hug.

I knew I loved him before we even kissed.

I have never looked back since.

Another sister friend reminds me on the morning I got married, I danced hard and proud all by myself to Stevie Wonder’s “As”. I remember that feeling, the way my spirit was broke open in utter joy, in the sweetest happiness I have yet to know. I knew then what divine love felt like. What God had promised me. To know that God loves you so hard, that He has sent someone to love you through?

I knew then what freedom existed in that pledge to be with each other forever. Many see it as restricting, and at times, it can be, especially when he’s/you’re working out your stuff and damn, ain’t we been here before? Through good times and bad – through his growth and your own is certainly not an easy process to hold hands through; most mornings you can’t even deal with the sight of your own face, nevermind his.

Once upon a time, a way back when – before the children of course – we joked we’d get tattoos – NFL – N@*%$ For Life. That was the hip hop influence on our marriage, I suppose. But I swear to God, we were/are like homies. I mean what haven’t we been through?

I always begin with the fact that he delivered two of my three children. Powerful, powerful experiences. Not only for me, and for him, but for us. Cuts through the chase real fast when a brother can witness just what a woman’s body can do of its own accord.

We’ve been through it economically: uptown, downtown, east Side, west Side, if you know what I mean. We’ve lived in suburbia, moved to one of the richest counties in America, fled to New York/Washington Heights, smelled gentrification and fled further still to Dakar, right on the beach. I have always wanted to live on the beach – he knew it and did everything he could to make my dream come true.

At times he’s worked two jobs back to back to support his family, still getting up Sunday mornings with the kids to bake banana bread so I could sleep in.

Even as I type this, he’s knocked out – my recuperation from surgery has him juggling 3 kids, a house, a new car search, setting up a new business, and still managing to take good care of me all at once.

He is a very good man. Sistas tell me that all the time. Our former next door neighbor, the elderly Ms Helen, used to remind me of that every time she heard us fighting (thin walls, I guess).

I don’t know many men who are as honest as he is. He gets more and more honest every day. About himself, to himself, with others, to others, most of all with God.

Plus he’s a great father. He lets them watch too much tv, takes them to the beach across the street to play football/soccer, does equal time with sick babies/children, takes them to the dentist, falls asleep with them in their beds when they’re scared, and best of all defers me in all important matters (lol!)(just joking, baby!)

My girlfriend BY said recently, you don’t ever really know your partner till about ten years in. I have to agree. A marriage is like its own personality. You don’t get a sense of its true colors until it matures enough to function on its own, outside the wills and impositions of one or the other.

These last couple of years have been the hardest. We have both grown and resisted growth into who we were called to be and what we had to do in this world. So very often, I think, we step into marriage, thinking our partner is perfect, and that happily ever after ain’t long off now. But somewhere along the way to happily ever after, the ‘but’ – as in yeh, but.. or he is great but – starts creeping in.

Depending on the marriage, you can spend a whole lotta time insisting on your way of becoming, your way of being better. It’s hard to remember that none of us own the manual on perfection. I’ve come to realize that perfection is not only overrated but a nervous state at best; what seems perfect today, may lose its lustre under different light, different circumstances. A “perfect” man reacts differently when the babies start coming, a “perfect” woman starts making demands once the ring is secured.

What is good and stable is the committment to growth and communication. Rock solid trust nourished and watered. Agood sense of humour, and clear principles both as individuals and as a couple.

Through all our trials and tribulations, my husband has emerged shining with the dust of real life and sweat. I look back over the years and can stand humbled and amazed at where we’ve traveled together in spirit and body.

But, oh, how our highs have been high! Puerto Rico, Laurel, a bed by a fireplace, a room in Lanham. Sousou, Momo, community gardens, riding up and down 95/ the jersey turnpike/flying across the atlantic trying to keep family ties in order. Edou, backrubs, foot massages, and loooooong nights spun soft, colored, warm with jill scott/al green/ d’angelo /raphael saadiq/coltrane/miles davis…

Well, raise your glasses ya’ll! Here’s to :

Ten bright years of forging life from only the will to be together. Like we said in our vows, we serve God by serving each other. May God grant us 10+ more filled with good health, good moments, and good faith.

Amin.

Ten years in soundtrack and pictures Vol 1:

1. The Sweetest Thing – Lauryn Hill

2. Memphis – Cassandra Wilson

3. As – Stevie Wonder

4. Umi Says – Mos Def

5. More Than A Woman – Angie Stone

6. Sky, Can You Feel Me – Rafael Saadiq

7. Love Rain – Jill Sott

8. Top Billin’ – Audio Two

9. Angel -Anita Baker

10. Everybody Loves the Sunshine – Roy Ayers

Senegal, Year One – Like he always belonged. (Uncles in the background)

Baby number two – sweet, sweet Momo, days after his baby brother was born. All of four years old. He’s seven now, but still just as kind and sweet as the day he was born (Don’tyou even breathe to him I said so!It’ll destroy his rep at school!)

Like father, like son. Baby Edou (age 2) and his Daddy, rocking his daughter’s goofy shades.

Our original dancing queen, Sousou. Not only is she a beauty inside and out, she was also the subject of her father’s first solo release!

This is what Roy Ayers meant about life in the sunshine : Sousou, Edou (on top) and Momo with Daddy at the pool.

Villa GS 2 Yoff. Home, sweet home.

Mr and Mrs, at the beach with none other but the great Beuz Fall, in the background. (More on him in another post)

Truth

I promised last post I would get back to the topic of truth, and so I am. It’s such an elusive thing here in Senegal/Africa, and maybe everywhere, too. Sometimes, it seems the truth is so simple : clear values and moral codes about respecting one another and being part of a larger community make it easy to rave about the advantages of living with such clear social lines and how healthy a space Africa, in general, and Senegal specifically, offers children.

But it also is becoming clearer to me that one person’s medicine is another person’s poison and all that glitters here is not gold. The tendency is always to big up Africa culturally, to offer it as a model and cultural reference point – especially for African Americans – as a way to do things better. But lately, I have been realizing that this culture has its stifling mechanisms, its killing points.

I work with young people. LOVE my work because they are all, each and every one of them beautiful, bright, and teach me a whole lot about strength, courage, and ethics. The biggest moral lesson they are teaching me currently is about being truthful about who you are and what and where you have traveled to and through.

It was such a bugged out and crazy day… The kind where I find myself giving thanks for my experiences growing up as a teenager and all the performing a.k.a. acting out I put my parents through. At the time, I remember feeling as far away from my Senegalese mother and my Senegalese family as possible. It’s hard to believe how grateful I am now for that once upon a time distance. Hard to believe that yet again, as I detail to some wide eyed disbeliever my own crazy journey to now, they’re looking on like they’re taking mental notes.

At first, the kids never believe me. My current incarnation as Momma, wife, teacher, consultant places me on the status of almost an elder in their eyes : meaning I have done what I have supposed do, I have done what is expected of me. And though this happens to be true, it is hard for them to believe that this :

1. just happens to coincide with my own path to happiness

2. At one point I never would have thought this place and space to be imaginable, so rough were the bad times for me.

But eventually they do, and they begin to probe deeper, asking the squirmy questions that only young people know how to do. Case in point. My extra good friend, Tara Roberts, who I love because she ALWAYS keeps it real (I don’t think an Aquarian can do anything else without becoming physically ill) wrote a book that blatantly spoke to young women about sex in language that was their own. Some people who know me, and know of my beloved tendency to be uhm- shall we say off color? at certain moments may be laughing at the thought of me being squeamish, but the book’s publication caught me at a time in my life – or rather a space in my life where in Senegal, good girls not only didn’t, good women didn’t talk about it.

Be clear, Senegal, although 95% Muslim, is far from being the land of the prudes – far be from it. Anyone who knows any Senegalese woman knows she has plenty a secret trick to “keep her man” (I promise future posts will include juicy photos of the sabar dance and all the other juicy, juicy secrets). Rumour has it we are famous in Africa for it. However, straight sex talk for young girls runs the risk (or so the line goes) of promoting anything other than virginity before, obedient monogamy afterwards. I remember one of my female students sharing with me her father’s declaration that he chose his second wife because she was “pure”. Not information his daughter wanted or needed to know, certainly – and not something she wanted to have over her head, either.

What would happen if these young women read my selection? What would happen if their parents caught them reading it? Would they ban me from teaching? Okay, I figured, highly dramatic and unlikely, but the popularity I was enjoying as a role model, someone, parents of my mother’s generation looked to pointing with pride, saying, you see, can’t you be like her? Look what a good girl she is, look at how she came home, came back? Married and with children.

Yet all around me I could see the young people suffering. The ideal held out to them by a society was a high one indeed. One they wanted to meet. Whereas in the States the “rebellion” of the teenage years has produced a whole demographic of MTV shows and clothes aimed at maybe even encouraging this sorta rebellion (someone has to get paid), kids here largely are expected, rightfully so I think, to work hard, get an education, honor their family, and sacrifice themselves in the name of their family. The notion of individualism doesn’t exist, at least not the way we’re used to on the other side of the pond.

Now this has certainly produced some incredible, wonderful, young people. Young adults who value their communities, prize their relationships with elders and who (mostly) have a terrific sense of pride about who they are, where they come from, and what it all means. And while this is also true for the States, I realize, the notion of being free to be who you want to be (remember Marlo Thomas?) has never quite taken root.

But more and more I am running into young people who while having these values are also finding that life isn’t so neatly wrapped, these notions ill fitting, and, especially in the case of young women hearing the global dialogue with popular culture of sexuality as a measure of their value, remaining “pure” is a hard and unpopular alternative. I have met many young women, who having their innocence stolen way from them through molestation, abuse, and rape at shockingly early ages find it hard as hell to put their confidence in community, much less believe in personal redemption because of any more sacrifice to community. What more does society want, their angry but silent eyes flash. Blood?

You could call it the impact of westernization (somewhere I know some aged hippie is sighing at the very thought of the paradise of the Motherland becoming corrupted) but in the modern fantasy of westernization the West in its role of the big bad corruptor reduces Africa to passive reactor, a dead concept if ever there was one (a great example of this is Chris Abani’s Graceland). The global phenomenon of the generation gap widens as African children and teens (particularly those in urban areas), absorb the myriad of new languages swirling among their indigenous eco-systems. Each language bears culture tightly wrapped to their backs the way their mamas and siters once bore them.

Sometimes it is the language of new affluence as the money from overseas remittances literally enriches entire families and communities (I have lost count of the Ford Explorers in my seaside village community); other times the digital twinkling of cyber cafes and I-pods revolutionize intimacy, giving it an otherwise unknown personal space: me and my screen.

This new languge certainly includes hip hop and the bling bling appeal of its fantasy lifestyle. Here in the Mother, in the home of Goree Island and Saint Louis, key ports in the Translantic Slave Trade, niggas and bitches seem to be born every hour as TRACE TV blares the extremes of male and female relationships.

Wolof, Senegal’s most widely spoken language has made room for niggas. It occurs to many young men as the “perfect” word to encapsulate who they are, as they are no longer certain of who they’re supposed to be. Like the “niggas” across the way, some kinda homecoming exists in this word, some ownership of who you are, of the space you occupy in a world that would rather see you dead in a pirogue, half shark eaten, dehydrated, and ruined, than open its borders to you and the menace of your ambitions for economic justice and equality.

I have known and loved so many of these young brothas on both sides of the Atlantic… Have been a sista like so many of the young women seeking me out today. So why is it so hard for me to ‘fess up?

Today, faced with yet another young face, another question hidden in the eyes, I realized something.

In the name of God, the merciful

Where I come from, beginnings are blessed with prayer. This is no different.

Been catching a whole lotta signs recently, some pleasant, most damned uncomfortable like a pair of too small shoes: 

1.       my best sister girlfriend reminding me as per the Chinese zodiac, this here be the year of the rat again, a new beginning for all us rats. Never quite got down with being a rat, of all creatures – a lot to do with growing up in NYC  where a rat was generally not a positive thing (i.e. you dirty rat ba*@) . But a rat is a survivor, she maintained, a rat always finds a way, always has a hole to crawl into, swimming away from drowning ships, never looking back.

2.      Three years after giving traumatic birth to my beautiful 3^rd child – himself a sign of things to come but that is another story/’nother blog – I lay in a hospital bed, with a pyramid of holes across my mid section where a cyst the size of Manhattan had been removed from my ovaries. Surgery had gone smoothly, alhamduli’lah, but still, being 150% African, I couldn’t help but read the stitches like some read tea leavess: 2^nd chakra, ovaries – site of creativity… cysts - false growths.

3.     Other things and people too, like Obama (does it even matter whether he wins anymore? Brother has done Great work, like the Nigerians say); a five year reunion with my father (yet another blog); and even the nasty comment by my brother in law about expats and our right to complain

4. And then there was the absolute and utter ennui that had me surfing the net and thrilling myself with all the remnants of ghetto culture recorded into cyber space for posterity. You miss that, my husband asked disbelievingly. (I guess he’s right –anytime Wendy Williams becomes a part of my repertoire, something has gotta give!)

 The call to prayer went out in blue darkness. I rose from my bed, pushing aside the three going on forty five year old curled against my warmth. A bath served as ablutions, warm water washing off the noxious remnants of nighttime anxiety, fear, distrust.  The intention in my head to greet God/greet day/greet myself though prayer brought me to this blog, formed the words of the particular prayer I want for myself and this world.

Welcome to spirit in the waters, declared sacred space for thoughts and reflection, dialogue and dreams. Space for me to  give voice to all the whirling personas that have been me over the years… space for them to come together: mommy/wife/ writer/chronicler of tales/ daughter/friend/niece/granddaughter/woman spirit/teacher/student/traveler/bohemian/homebody/homegirl…. the list goes on…

So making this blog a prayer, a(n) (inch’allah) long prayer as I recover from this business of life. Recover from running straight into life at eighteen and never once coming up for air. So this is me, coming up for air, turning my face toward the sun, one bright sunny morning, and like the baobabs that freckle the landscape I live in, spread my branches wide and boldly bear the heat, the glare, and most of all the divine love. I know better than to promise this will be daily, or weekly, or anything else but a day by day journey, I am a life addict after all, looking for my next high. Downtimes can be excruciating, the plastic noise and newness of yesterday’s bright plaything now faded and cracked.

It is Easter though, time for the resurrection, and there ain’t nothing more beautiful than a Black woman rising. And so these be ruminations from a phoenix on life, on creating, on children and women, on men and boys, on Africa and America, on the planet and the heavens, on the mundane and the extraordinary.

Morning is now already unfolded… something about the African sun makes even 8:24 mid morning in height and color. A goat bleats, the sea at high tide roars, beating upon the sand. Somewhere, I know, a woman has been up for hours, praying, gathering, collecting, clearing. My typing as always seems gratuitous against such a background. 

 They say there is a moment in prayer when you salute the angels praying alongside. I salute the angels beside me  -  the visible and the unvisible. Thank you for coming to sit. Hope you keep checkin’ for me.

Peace

cb 

  Oh yeah, and about the title. Here in Senegal, when people hear of my pseudonym/username, they laugh to themselves, good natured chuckles or the infamous you -silly -half cast- wannabe-know- nothin’ lip curl. Do you know even what it means, they want to know.  Well here’s my yeah. Coumba Bang is the spirit of the waters in Saint Louis, family cradle. And in truth ( though Lord knows we will certainly get around to that concept some time or another on this blog)  Coumba Bang ain’t a pretty woman.  Far from your run of the mill white Disney mermaid, she is vicious and strong, known for her devastating beauty and her legendary coldness. But still the thought of  life below shallow waters, something moving in the unseen, distinct feminine power  provoked my own deep seated stirrings, hope it does the same for you.