"The boutique" is just another name for the corner store. And there really is one on every corner. In West Africa, these boutiques have a distinctive look. I keep wanting to take a picture but haven't figured out how to do that without changing our relationship. The picture I want is deep and inside. I want to sit and question, those American questions that can never be fully answered, because they are never completely understood. (part of me felt these things have already been uncovered- photographed, interviewed, explained- but a google search is turning up nothing. Might have to revisit the photograph series after all...)
It brings me back to one of my first experiences of this kind of all consuming work- El Salvadorains at a restaurant. The story I'd heard was one of our dishwashers had walked his way across the countr(ies) to somehow land in upstate NY. He found a place, as many did, washing dishes, bussing tables, doing anything that would bring in money. Eventually he was promoted to prep cook and cold cook until he was one day running the day time kitchen. Somewhere in between all of that I asked him if he enjoyed his job.Was it the life he'd envisioned for himself? Was it his dream? I wanted to know. Was he happy?
Even as I asked, I realized the futility of my question. I'd heard they all shared a room in a hollowed out, vacant restaurant- 10 of them sharing space by candlelight just to crash for the night before returning to their 14 hour shifts. Americans search for personal happiness, but immigrants search for happiness thorugh service to their families. Yes, he said. He was happy. He had a job that allowed him to send money home. Mission accomplished.
But then, as now and every moment in between, I wonder about my ability to be satisified through my occupation. Is it enough? I ask. What's the purpose? I don't want my life to be consumed with working.
Whenever I am feeling particularly overtaxed in this regard, I have only to look to my neighborhood boutique.
West African boutiques are always framed with bars. These are not stores you enter but stores you stand outside. You look in through the bars and ask for items you want to purchase. The storekeeper will pull them down and offer them to you through one section of bars that is larger than all the rest. A "window" for larger purchases. The actual door is often locked and the keeper is inside, surrounded by piles of goods and stocks of merchandise wanting to be sold.
Though the size varies, there is always that sense of a cage. Sometimes the vendor will sit outside in a chair, ever ready to jump up and assist a consumer. Sometimes there are two and they will trade conversation and keep good company.
But if I focus in on just this one store, the one closest to me, I sesne an ever more lonely tale. There used to be two- but one was sent out to man another shop and so now there is one. He seems rather young to me and so confined. I see him sometimes praying outside in the early morning, or leaving his space on Fridays to go to the mosque. On these days he seems even smaller, younger, more vulnerable without the shape of his boutique to surround him.
Mostly I see him inside, sitting on a straightback wooden chair surrounded by high piles of boxes and endless crates of soda. There is barely room for him inside, especially when a shipment has just come in. He has a cookstove and a small television. Nothing about the set-up looks cozy or comforting. There is no couch, no walls with paintings or photographs. He has no kitchen or dining room or living room. He has just the boutique.
I've asked random questions, trying to get a more complete picture. At times the door is closed, leaving only the window open. He tells me at night, if he is at the window, kids will come and steal things out of the open doorway if he doesn't lock it. The same neighborhood kids who buy from him all day turn against him under cover of darkness. There isn't anger in his response, just acceptance. He has adapted.
I ask him what time he closes and he tells me 11:00. It seems so late, especially since I know his doors open at 6:00 or 6:30. So when do you sleep? I ask. 11:30 he responds in complete seriousness. I sense a rigid routine in there and all my regrets about working too much fly out the window. 6-11.00- no breaks, except on Fridays.
He is chained to this place. One night, one night out of the 365+ days I have lived here- I saw a girl in there. She was sitting in a hard backed chair next to his, nestled in amongst the cartons of Awa and the gallon of oil that is expressed into individual bags to be sold for quantities starting at 100franc. She was there and they were watching tv together. I don't know what their relationship was and I can't even begin to guess. I've never seen her again- or anyone else.
I have heard the small snippets of conversation that pass between him and neighborhood buyers- from flirtations with girls to indiginant drunken young men who insist their importance as consumers far outweighs his as supplier ("if it weren't for us, you wouldn't be here..." one young someone began...and went on and repeated until it was obvious he just wanted to purchase on credit.)
I approach the bars from outside and can't help but imagine what it is like from within. Every day, every hour and every minute tied to this existence. It is not his store, which makes it all the more difficult to comprehend. The lonliness, the routine, the unchanging drudgery of it all.
I wonder if he dreams of a wife, a family, a life apart from this. I wonder about friends and parents and his connection to the owner. Did they know each other? Are they related and is it a family obligation that keeps him here? This is when I begin to understand the reason for taking things day by day. For not planning too far ahead, not dreaming or envisioning- what is beyond these cartons?
But surely he must? Somewhere there is a faith that this will one day give way to something greater. A knowledge that the routines of today can be changed in an instant, giving way to the dreams of tomorrow. I haven't yet found a way to inquire- my weird American questions revealing a truth best left uncovered.
