A quiet place to meet...

...unless of course you're having a sack race on the soccer field. We spent the day in the village of Ngana Peo. It rates up there with one of the more bizarre experiences, equally fraught with the complexities of opposing emotions. The project is from a small Italian aid group working in Kinshasa. This particular day was an organization of fun and games in a village where several former street youth have been relocated. It is a rare moment of success as most of the boys seem to be doing well in their new surroundings. The process, a gradual introduction to village life and agriculture, continues with the building of a chicken house and periodic reviews of how the new responsibilites are being handled.

Personally, I was intrigued by the games, simple things you might find at an elementary field day, but also a show of karate and strength given by the boys themselves.

But there's a certain incongruity in the way they throw themselves into a game of Explosion whereby one person leaves the circle as a shoe from a pile in the middle is designated the 'bomb.' The sequestered person returns and begins selecting shoes while the crowd chants and claps. If he touches the bomb, everyone makes a sound of explosion and the round begins again. Or the way they embrace a game of relay where runners must retrieve sticks placed in a row, each in its own circle, and hand off to their partner. Their partner must then run back, replacing the sticks inside the circles. Or, the craziest game, participants must grab a handful of water and hold it in their mouth while running to a bottle, which they then must spit in and return for more. Whoever fills their bottle first wins.

Everyone enjoyed the games, even some elderly and some women joined in. At the end, there were small packages of cookies for the winners. The woman who won the sack race was so shy she could not lift her head to accept but merely stuck out a hand while turning away the rest of her body in secret pleasure.

The boys showed more pizzazz, bowing humbly before taking their prize and showing off to the crowd. It was only months ago these boys were having the very same laughs because they had just grabbed someone's wallet or made off with someone else's cell phone. Of course, the distribution of biscuits quickly deteriorated to an all but outright attack on the village chief. The carton was eventually plundered under threat of a mob with raised sticks.

So quickly we're reminded that this isn't just ordinary fun and games. The progress is slow and for as many steps forward there are so many that just march in time, going nowhere.

We are making plans to return for some art groups. I'm wondering how to bridge the language, how to bridge the culture. Some of the simple techniques for warming up and getting started seem irrelevant here, without meaning in this world where 'draw a picture of your family' and 'draw your name and 3 things you like to do' are potential triggers, not easy intros.

Even as I wandered the site, noticing the beauty and tranquility (surely this is how Ngana Peo received its name, literally 'the place of quiet meeting') I was impressed with the difficulty of transitioning from the hip-hopping nights of Kinshasa to the starry, quiet nights of the village.

But I am looking forward to the challenge, to the balance. Because, despite the near fight between two boys and the biscuit mob, I also lost myself for a minute today. Not once did I wish to be anywhere else or doing anything other than exactly what I was doing.

Instead my mind was filled with images of teaching in a village just like this one, a little closer to the dream. And racing with the implications of bringing education to the 46 children in the village that don't go to school. As I watched a plane soar overhead, I felt just as far away from the city, and wondered briefly what good could come from teaching English and French. I thought about all the people that have come from villages as small as this and made something bigger. I heard the ringtones of cell phones, even here, and realized its all good. Of course its good.

A tree cutting

I suppose it is nothing that would turn a seasoned mountain climber's eye. Just a guy in a tree.

This is the guy from downtown, still working on cutting the tree down after several weeks. From the looks of his machete (versus the girth of the tree) I think he has enough work lined up for several months. I can only hope he is getting paid by the day and not by tree. He has more ropes than the tree cutter I witnessed by the pool, but he does not have a chainsaw.

I had taken a short reprieve from the sounds of the Saturday shopping bus when I came across the perfect angle to get this shot. He seemed to be floating with the breeze. It is a height and a precariousness I simply can't imagine. I could have walked on that African street for miles, and I would have loved to do so. I imagine someday I just might, after time and space has set me free. Just walk down some African street until I find my way home.

Dancing analogies

I've been dancing with Jolie; she is a fierce dancer. She can look so relaxed and disinterested one minute and be full of expression and movement in the next. I am ceaselessly amazed at how much emotion she conveys with the slightest movement.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the difference between the Guinea dance, which I miss and crave so much, and the Congolese, which occasionally satisfies my soul. The Congolese is sensual and more grounded, I realize. It is lower and stays on the floor. There is not as much jumping or springing into life, celebrating freedom and movement by bounding skyward. Not so in the jungle.

It makes sense in the context of environment. But even more so, it makes sense in the context of beliefs. Because all traditional dance tells a story of culture and belief.

We were dancing one afternoon, working on technique. Wednesdays lend themselves to focusing on the very minute details of the dance. It is just her and I. I try, unsuccessfully, to explain that I want to dance. It is what I’ve come to recognize as my hunger for djembe dance, something familiar that I can give my spirit to, allowing the music to guide my steps. Jolie insists, and rightfully so, that it is important to learn the technique. There are many dancers that can go fast- and she pantomimes an ugly but intricate dance- but when you know the dance well, even if it is only one, then you can give it your spirit.

She ran through a series of motions, deceivingly simple, calling out the name of a country each was attributed too. Ethiopia, South Africa, Ivory Coast. Each movement evoked images of entire tribes and their different ethnicities. A gifted dancer to project such force in mere seconds. So I am following her in this series of steps that require a rotating pelvic and thrusting thorax-“thorax,” she says as I feel her hand on my middle back, pushing me farther just when I thought I was accomplishing something.

Again. And as we begin she bends the knees, bringing the body down. “Comme zombie,” she says without the slightest bit of humor. It is her reference point. She’s right, and I am enlightened.

Because, never once, in all my years of West African dancing (not too many to be sure, but completed with a careful ear) have I heard an analogy like this. In Guinea, we are dancing in rice fields, working the earth, or even on a hunt, mimicking the Europeans with their rifles and horse whips. There are many images used in the dance, including spirits of the forests - spirits with life, not the undead. But something about the zombie dance sent me reeling in a whole new direction, eyes wide open. Sensual is not the right word for this dancing, though it becomes so. The movement is all over, requires every muscle in the body to pulse.

When paired with the drum it is intoxicating, as much as any African dancing is when accompanied by such rhythm. Something about the drum or the drummer moves the dance between a competition for quickness and agility and a cooperation of timing and choreography.

For now I can be caught up in the call of the drum, the study of technique, all the things that will help me grow as a dancer. But I’m not sure if Congo can keep me grounded. I don’t want to dance like the dead, I want to celebrate with spirit and life.

Bird's Eye View

Jan 31, 2009
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight, though I toyed with the idea of running home to get my camera. Too far. I also considered texting my neighbor to see if she was coming to the pool, bring the camera, but I had left without the phone. There is no way to describe the sight in a manner that will truly describe the incident. I bring my camera everywhere, but not today. Of course.

I planned to develop a sketch but last time I tried the bread scene, it was less than successful. I will create a drawing, but it won’t lend itself to the inconceivability of a photo.

Last weekend, downtown, I saw a tree being cut down. That one was farther away but just as spectacular. There is a method here that would make any OSHA inspector’s blood run cold. Of course, it involves bare feet. Many men work in bare feet here. It is one of the oddities you quickly get used to. I will never get used to the sight of a tree being cut down, however.

At the pool today, we saw it. Over the tops of the building, we could see a man had climbed the tree and then pulled up a chainsaw with a rope. He had bare feet and no shirt. By the time we arrived, the large leafy parts of the tree had already come down. He was left only to cut the stumpy branches and then the trunk, piece by piece.

A rope was visible but it’s not clear that he was attached to it. It wouldn’t have provided much protection in any case. I watched his silhouette with terror and amazement. I felt like a child at the circus. But things go wrong at the circus and several times I simply had to turn away for fear of the outcome. Who needs cable with this kind of entertainment? At one point he had climbed out onto a short stump and began to cut through the little that was left in front of him. Everything he cut landed to the ground with a violent thud. To my horror, he then leaned down and stretched across to cut a stump projecting from the tree at a diagonal, beneath and behind him.

I had to keep reminding myself how high he was. Higher than the building. Higher than several other small palm trees surrounding the pool. As he cut part of the trunk in front of him, the rope was pulled taut on the ground. Someone was down there pulling the trunk so that it would fall in that direction. I couldn’t decide who needed the prayers most, the one on the ground or the one in the air. I kept watching the man cutting the tree, thinking if he lost his balance just a bit and tried to steady himself, the most natural place to grab would be the piece of trunk that he was cutting. When that piece of trunk fell away, there would be nothing in front of him but sky. I really couldn’t wrap my mind around the way he was sitting in the crook of that tree, straddling the V where the trunk and a piece of branch separated, cutting directly in front of himself, cutting towards his thigh.

Each piece of tree that tumbled to the earth was a piece of the ladder he had used to get to his current position. I didn’t stay to see how he got down.

Abraham's story

Jan. 31, 2009
Since the beginning of time, the story of Abraham has terrified me. For awhile, it was my excuse for aversion to religion. I did not believe I could pass such a test, nor did I want to be involved with a God who would command one. But of course, we are all involved with God , through our acceptance or denial, and I’ve yet to come to terms with such a test but continue to struggle in my faith.

I remember planning, on this cusp of a year anniversary, the things I would bring here to Africa to sustain me. I remember entertaining the thought of being sustained only by the Qu’ran for a year of discovery and growth. And I have thought of this frequently as I’ve devoured nearly every (worthwhile?) book in the high school library (and am certain to complete the task by the end of next year.)

I have been reading voraciously here as there are few opportunities for socialization or entertainment. Books have become a source of company. My choices have held several lessons for me and many have involved themes of philosophy and religion. It has almost been uncanny the way they lead me back to my original plan of self-reflection and understanding. Of finding faith.

But my fear remains. I am deeply entrenched in a Christian community and often uncomfortable by it. Perhaps I should say, it serves to reinforce my own faith. I actually have quite a few Muslim students but their orthodoxy follows something either a bit too strong for me or something completely alien. There is a strand here, popular in the Indian community, that is unknown to me. And I haven’t taken the time to understand it.

I have a distinct memory, several years ago, of teaching in a NY school during the Christmas holiday period. The school allowed carolers to come around and sing in the hallways. It was early in my discovery of the truth and I was filled with all the righteous indignation and excitement of one who believes they know what others cannot yet see. When they began singing songs of Jesus in a manager, my heart began to beat wildly and my face grew hot. I retreated in a panic to my classroom and settled into a chair behind my desk, breathing slow and deep in search of calm composure.

I’ve since come to better terms with the Jesus issue and managed to merge my Catholic school upbringing with my Muslim beliefs. But I frequently feel the same sense of alienation and detachment here. While I can honor Jesus as a prophet, I cannot pray to his name, there is only one God.

But I did not mean to come here to begin a discussion or debate of religious views. Actually, I returned to the subject of Abraham as related to the dissolution of yet another relationship, as once writ and discarded under the auspices of a ‘tell some but not a tell-all.’ It has turned into yet another war, with the casualty of children.

It is not something I think I can endure again, as once proved enough to nearly undo me- and probably served grandly as a catalyst for this very moment.