the plane is making weird noises, but this is typical of the french-built airbus. it is a unique aircraft that burns only the finest vintages of white wine. pilots do not actually control it, but have to speak grammatically impeccable french to request a turn, climb, or descent. the computers then decide whether this is a good idea; usually not.
should have stuck to my personal mantra. fly boeing. if it ain't boeing, i ain't going.
popping in and out of layers, aerodynamic contrails humming over the wings in a smooth caress. not too far below, splotches of green appear and disappear in a fraction of a second. that rusty blood-red colored soil shows itself on braided trails through fields of banana trees and cassava at dusk.
the first officer comes on the pa with her before landing announcement: "flight attendants, prepare the cabin for arrival." my buddy mark from tennessee would be surprised to learn that they are apparently letting women fly now.
the hot brussels air stewardess comes down the aisle, checking those seatbacks and trays. she pauses at my row, staring at my crotch. surely she's not just checking to make sure my seatbelt is fastened. dark gaze slowly rising up my limber frame. we make eye contact, irish sea blue with belgian chocolate brown. is there something of longing in her look? or is it just the typical male vanity of always overestimating our sexual appeal? probably the former.
the plane touches down. i step outside into the thick fat humid jungle air laden with woodsmoke and quiet stillness. it sits as heavy as a cat on your brain. nothing but equatorial stars twinkling and the steady calm orange of cook fires burning away between distant vines.
i feel a sense of relief. it's the same sensation as plunging down into a pool; that magical instant when the waters envelop your ears and all the white noise of the world above is dampened and muffled into a soft murmured pattering. our lives are loud in the west. the constant barrage of tv radio loudspeaker cell phone magazine internet advertisements, always marketing the perfect products for our manufacturer-defined deficiencies. an uninterrupted stream of mindless mechanization. the unending intrusion into personal space; right into your brain. inescapable ungodly mindless cell phone bantering all around you. an unbelievable level of self-absorption and utter obliviousness.
no wonder we are so stressed out and disconnected. and more so by the second as we add more and more things to our crackberries. the point of technology was always to decrease work, but for all of our modern marvels, we are busier than ever. we have less leisure time as a result of technology. confused rats living in what abbey called the industrial stress and pressure lab of modern society.
here is different. here there is no rush toward a banal goal of imagined importance. towards a checkmark next to an item on some list of things we will have forgotten by tomorrow anyway. poverty dictates a simpler life.
we have the watches, they have the time.
******
the next day i head to the hangar to practice flows in the airplane. powering up, i feel a wave of troubling rumbling gastrointestinal distress. blood flushes out of my face and i start to sweat, pinching my butt cheeks together and drawing the seat cushion upwards into a cone. running for the nearest "toilet," unleashing a mudslide of nasty. desecrating the porcelain.
pili pili, the local hot pepper sauce, is to blame. apparently i put it on last night's dinner with too much enthusiasm. didn't even let the ol' guts warm up. just let 'em have it. jumped in whole-hog. well, it certainly makes you feel alive. just as hot on the way out as it was on the way in. welcome back to the continent, captain.
finished, i glance up for the first time at what has been hand-written on the doorway: closed.
of course. i try the flush valve. nothing. look into the tank. no water is hooked up. meekly i shuffle out of the bathroom and into the office to ask for a bucket of water. flushing old-school style. of course it is two young women at the desk. of course they are hot and curvy. how else would they be in my moment of glory?
"for flushing the toilet?"
"yes," i admit, as self-consciously as a teenager buying prophylactics.
they laugh. "here you are sir."
******
later on the boys take me for a beer down the hill at jeremiah's. a few laughs and lies. the prozzies and fruit flies buzz around aimless and annoying, distracting me from my guinness. after a couple i stumble up the hill and plop down under my mosquito net, serenaded by the african philharmonic of crickets.
i feel like i never left.
8 comments:
Nice, sounds like living quarters will be much better then before, I mean a Guinness on your first night?
great stuff
Paddy,
I will be following your adventure with great envy.
John K.
While a lot of what you say is true about western life/society, you cannot escape the simple fact that the africans living today suffer cumulatively more than every generation of American combined. And guess what. There are quiet, rural, off the grid places to live in the U.S. where you don't have to worry about malaria, machete wielding animals, and a million other shitty things about 'africa'. You are lost in a delusion, friend. Africans have no choice -- at least I can choose to join society or reject it. They can only suffer.
@ anonymous
after reading your comment a number of times, i am still not sure what your point is, or if you have one. i grew up off the grid in america; i choose to live and work in africa precisely because i want to use my meager skills to try to sway the inertia here. i want to serve the less fortunate. is this what you mean by my 'delusion?'
and by the way, you have one other choice: helping others. suffering continues because of human apathy.
My point is that Africans could probably do with a healthy dose of consumerism. In other words, every starving African would LOVE to deal with our existential materialist crisis. It's like you celebrate their poverty with your disdain of western life - more like confusion than delusion, wrong word I guess.
Suffering is the nature of existence, my apathy has nothing more to do with an African's suffering any more than it has to do with a penguin's.
What you do is a good thing, helping how you can. I just think that you oppose the very thing that would REALLY lift the African's out of their despair.
@ anonymous
of course some economic growth would be good for this continent. but when you live and work in a war zone, where people are trying not to starve to death, or be raped or murdered, that’s not really so easy as you imagine. and you know what fuels so much of this madness?? OUR consumerism. read my walikale post from july 2008.
you say “suffering is the nature of existence,” but i say it is largely the result of human selfishness. we heap it onto each other and the planet because of our greed. d.r. congo is one of the most mineral-rich countries on the planet, and yet it ranks among the poorest places. it has the distinction of being the rape capital of the world. the tin that comes out of the kivus is destined largely for laptops and cellphones and ipods, something we upgrade constantly and needlessly, without so much as a fleeting thought as to the processes that bring it to us or the conflict it perpetuates.
and while it’s human nature to want to live a materially comfortable life, there is zero correlation between what you have and how happy you are. i have seen more generosity, kindness, and genuine happiness in the poorest places in the world than anywhere in america or europe. we may have stuff in the west, but the disconnect from reality and each other is greater now more than ever.
our things own us. we drive in traffic every day to jobs that we hate to pay for more things we don’t need.
we think that more, newer, shinier, better will fill the hole in our souls, but it only makes it deeper. things distract us from life, like sharing and giving to our communities, and building a better future for everyone, not just ourselves. i have been humbled and have learned many things from the people i came to “help.” they may need material assistance, but we need to learn about what’s really important. we in the west could do with a healthy dose of humanity.
i spend a lot of time writing this damn blog with the aim of it making someone think about something in a new way, while (hopefully) still being entertaining. bearing my heart and soul on the interwebs, because i believe the world will only change one person at a time. and yes, i am confused and humbled by the injustices that surround me. it’s hard to come here and not be, if you are paying attention....
@ anonymous
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11548090
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