I read somewhere that one of the habits of successful people is to buy similar clothing items. To reduce their stress level, all of the clothing items should be able to go together and picked quickly or even at random. Reducing the number of decisions made in a day allowed them to save brain space for the really important matters.
I think about this frequently when I am negotiating for a taxi. It is exhausting and takes up too much of my valuable brain space. I have gotten a little better about making it less emotional (ok, I haven't really gotten better at all but I want to get better, that's a start, right?) What I mean is, there are times when I name my price and if it isn't good enough I walk away quickly and hail another cab, before the driver can backtrack and lead me down a road of hostage negotiation. Mostly this is when I am in a hurry and unwilling to waiver on my price. I think I can get good at this.
Going out to Abobo several times a week - and under stress of time- has offered up a new world of stories to choose from. There is the scenery itself, which moves from suburbia to broken down cars lining the highway alongside car part and repair shacks that open up (impossibly) to cattle and horse grazing fields and close back in again to the busy life of a ghetto. I've asked about the horses. I don't understand why people keep horses in Abidjan, if they are not for riding and they clearly don't have the space a horse needs to run. I've been told they keep them as pets, like dogs. Seems like an awfully expensive dog. I have a slight suspicion there is more to the story that I haven't discovered yet.
A few taxi drivers refuse to even go to Abobo. On the most recent trip, I had the good fortune to have a driver from Guinea. We passed the time talking about travels in Africa, his family in America and his plans to join them soon. As we arrived to the outskirts he shook his head. "Abobo. It's a different kind of life here."
I'd been reflecting on the layers of life in Abidjan and wondering how exactly to put my finger on the difference. I like Abobo, there is an element that reaches in and awakens memories, makes me feel at home. But it wasn't really until I was visiting one of the dancers, who missed rehearsal, that I truly understood.
"We are children of the ghetto," my teacher was saying. He was the one who had invited me to stop by and visit Khady. She wasn't feeling well- not sick, just spiritually off. They call it "getting hot" as in "ca chauffe" meaning things are getting difficult or stressful. The members of Mouyae are big on their sense of family and so we were paying a visit to let her know she wasn't alone.
We traveled from Abobo to Adjame- the infamous market town. Adjame is the home to all of the things you need or want or just wish for. It is the kind of crowded and busy that is typical of African market place cities. Where the goods are gathered, so too are the people, deal making, negotiating, looking for a way to make a living .
After getting off the first dinah (I'm told this is the nicer name for gbaka- the gbakas are sort of rotted out, rusting pieces of metal- the dinah are more like mini-buses. I'm not sure there is a real difference, but I feel like I am beginning to tell them apart) we walked down a big hill and grabbed a local taxi. We sprinted up the road a bit and then got out. A right turn off the main road transported us into another world. The dirt path wound down the hillside. Steps and garbage and the tread of a million shoes were worn into it. It felt like a living, breathing thing. It reminded me of Dead Man's Vlei from Nancy Farmer's The Ear, the Eye and the Arm.
If I sometimes get annoyed by the sandy walk from my house to the main road, I realized at the moment that it could be worse. It can always be worse. My road, though sandy, is also meant for cars. It was clear the path we were on rarely saw cars. Children were playing everywhere, people had put out their mats and were sitting in front of their small cement homes. This kind of house consists of one or two small, hot rooms.One usually holds some furniture and a tv. It is the meeting space. The other holds the aluminum pots for cooking. It is a dark room, empty except for the wooden plank shelf piled high with other kitchen gear. The room I walk into has a cookstove in the middle with a pot holding the evening sauce. And the endless buckets and bowls of water.
It is all the reminder I need to appreciate my own house, which had been troubling me lately. I wonder why I feel most at home here. I think it is the struggle. As we leave, we pass masses of people in the dark making their way home down crowded streets. We walk up the stairs to an overpass and it is littered with young guys in the middle of their work out routine. They run the stairs, up down up down. They run the overpass and back again. They line the ground doing sitting ups and knee bends and back arm push ups. It has been transformed into an outdoor gym.
In the middle of their nothingness, they have continued the fight. I have never really understood why I feel most at home among the orphans, the poor, the handicapped. But I suspect it has to do with struggling just to be- and overcoming. I know something about this. There is energy and spirit and the will to make something out of whatever can be gathered. It feels good like home.
