http://brucespringsteen.net/content/uploads/2012/11/A6-lcaKCcAANYlm-500x333.jpg
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band
Concert Review
November 28th, 2012, Portland, OR.
By Leif Jackson Bullock
From the beginning of the show, Springsteen oozes with sweat. He probably began perspiring before the concert began. (see “Bruce Springsteen spotted working out in Pearl working out in Pearl,” http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Bruce-Springsteen-gets-workout-in-Portland-181222931.html)
Soaking in his own juices, he tells us he’s old. After “No Surrender” followed a heroic opener, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” he tells us he’s doing music because “I want to keep my job…I like my job.” Appreciation for his fortune and fame. Empathy for others’ emotions. Embrace of hard work, struggle, dealing with loss. In voicing these fail-safe Bruce themes, the performer quashes any grungy antipathy toward cocky rock stars and ticket prices that may lurk within the Garden. Tried-and-true gestures of humility draw upon our belief, susceptibility, and vulnerability. In other words, “We take Care of Our Own.”
Tepid, distracted crowds are reserved for performers who don’t devote spoken word tributes and moments of silence to lost loved ones, who don’t invite children on stage to sing and dance, who don’t take requests, who don’t forego any breaks in their shows lasting longer than 15 seconds. Springsteen’s Rose Garden crowd roars louder than any of the many euphoric Blazers moments I’ve witnessed. “Bruuuce” calls are as if every fan decides to somehow approvingly boo an official or player as loud as they can.
While verbally calling attention to pain and death, Bruce’s body spends the length of an American pro football game channeling god swagger. Feet-apart power stances and open-chest gesticulations; he imitates the handful of pop megastars and athletes for whom summoning screaming arenas is a daily thing.
For Bruce, it is a humble choice to devote his audience’s time and vibes toward honoring friends, family who have passed away. His stage presence certainly suggests he can just as capably rouse his subjects into calling for blood-and-flesh resurrection of the dead.
Bruce sees the non-zombie population needs a good rousing. “After we’re done here tonight, your back will hurt, feet will feel sore, and your sexual organs WILL BE STIMULATED.” And lest the burly, arm-around-wife, gay marriage opponent type of men in attendance refuse to stand on account of a fear that Bruce making them excited will transform them into tight-jean ogling homo-groupies, a dozen women storm the stage dancing in “Lesbians Heart Bruce” t-shirts. As if to say, “hey, if women who are only attracted women dig Bruce, men who are only attracted women can surely dig Bruce.”
Springsteen brings expert charisma, savvy stage symbolism and sustained desire to evoke nostalgia and awe through singing and shouting words to a somewhat introverted town. But his presence alone does not hold the crowd for three plus hours. People would be ditching a solo Bruce 70 minutes in, thinking, “I got the message…I’m gone. I like ___ music more anyway.” Without a massively appealing sound that modern electricity can guide into every visible and invisible hearing orifice the brain and soul allow, Springsteen shrinks in eyes of many who see him for his caricature. His subject-position as elderly, white, classic rock male with long, pretentious songs about hard, blue-collar work he’s never actually done invite parody and hater-dom.
But his band provides key ingredients for transcendence in a town of losers.
As “Land of Hope and Dreams” seemed to wind down, a backup singer approached Bruce and helped him belt the first lines of a Curtis Mayfield/Bob Marley-pitched “People get ready, there’s a train a comin / ya don’t need no baggage / ya just get on board.” Throughout the night, other such homage to different traditions and genres permeate.
When Springsteen is not killing the SM-58-sounding mic with a delivery that matches or exceeds his emotional clarity on record, he turns into a bodylanguage/spokenword bit player, while some or all of the 19 band performers creep to the center of the stage with their playing stuck on party groove symphony mode. An equal or greater number of sound-sculptors operate off-stage in a technology pod encircled with at least a dozen computer monitors. Additionally, mattress-sized soundboards on either side of stage with p. a. controls to further vet outgoing, probiotic rock-and-roll microbes.
I cannot name a song that fell flat, or a particular number that soared above the rest. E street has mastered them all equally. The band does so by sauntering back and forth through several different styles—often within the same setlist “song.” I witness orchestral, choral mastery of a “my city of ruins/spirit in the night” extended re-write (A 2002 hit paired with a 1973 time stopper). This stretch of sound shifts from solo-acoustic guitar playing and howling, to full-fledged symphonic band bombast, back to 3-4 instruments rocking garage-hard, into funky dance mode, outer space reverb via female soprano holding a high note, and back to another, album-sounding verse, all without an audible or visible break in the tune.
What particularly impresses me—as someone who loves listening to older Bruce albums like Born to Run, The River, Nebraska, Born in the USA, Tunnel of Love, and who tends to cue up Bruce albums such as Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils and Dust that lack the E street band—is how both the band and audience find something special in singing the songs written in the past decade. It’s not just flashback nostalgia with Bruce on stage. Relevant, youthful, political vibes are getting unearthed and negotiated. If one is looking to study pop music’s imprint on unfolding culture, a topical approach will lead them to a Bruce show just as justifiably as it would to Lady Gaga, Drake, Kanye, et al.
My taste in Springsteen’s catalogue belongs to a minority, compared with that of audience on hand and the live performers on stage. When songs from “The Rising” and “Wrecking Ball” begin, the crowd approves as vocally as they do for the “Thunder Road/Born to Run” encore. It’s easy to see the faces of lead singer and band convulse with emotion as they feel their way through the newer stuff. Goosebumps echo across aisles like an entranced preacher who senses a prayer is touching the congregation.
I enjoy discovering that 2002’s “The Rising” album is on par with any other Bruce record. Nothing quite like finding awesome and new in what you think is just awesome and old.
Hearing “Rising” songs live, it’s really obvious they make a lasting impact on listeners, just as Springsteen albums have in decades past. The lyrics help simplify substance: what 21st century life feels like at home, when all that is home also a mere outgrowth of global connections and fissures. Such a sweeping scope of thought parleyed into music is a tough assignment, a task many performers shelve as they work to congeal a local or commercial niche, often with beautiful results. But Big Picture Rock gets an arena-sized swath of humanity to demonstrate, prove to me that my preferences and inclinations are at the mercy of everyone else’s.
A concert like Springsteen’s gives assurance that the standing masses can couple intellect with euphoria.
Setlist
1. Land of Hope & Dreams
2. No Surrender
3. Hungry Hear
4. We Take Care Of Our Own
5. Wrecking Ball
6. Death To My Hometown
7. My City Of Ruins
8. Spirit In The Night
9. Loose Ends (sign request: Spinner style, landed on “Steve’s Choice”)
10. Growin’ Up (sign request)
11. Jack Of All Trades
12. Seeds
13. Johnny 99
14. Darlington County
15. Shackled & Drawn
16. Waitin’ On A Sunny Day
17. Drive All Night
18. The Rising
19. Badlands
20. Thunder Road
Encore:
21. If I Should Fall Behind
22. Born To Run
23. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
24. Dancing In The Dark
25. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
26. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Friday, November 30, 2012
Friday, October 7, 2011
Opening Day of Fall Protest Season
Portland, OR – Ankeny and Waterfront – Thursday, October 7, 2011
Our turn.
Cheers to the New Yorkers who got the domestic occupation movement rolling. Hats off to D.C., N.C., and Chicago for carrying the ball further.
Now, we on the West Coast shall see it through. Granted, our heads are often in the clouds. We breathe the cleaner air, drink the clearer water, brew the better beer. Perhaps as a result, we’re a little slow on the expression of outrage compared to East Coasters in closer proximity to the now-contested political power centers in this country. But followers of recent U.S. protest history know that when we do decide to protest, we tend to go all in. Examples include WTO protest in Seattle 1999, Anti-war marches in Portland 2002, Longview 2011, Eugene all the time, Earth First, E.L.F. When the hard-core agitators, persistent peace protruders, and freaky-weird dresser-uppers converge, as they have today, such a critical mass invites analytical task. Here’s what I observed in the 90 minutes I attended before I had work:
12:15pm – Hundreds of people are quickly turning to thousands, filling and spilling over the concrete bowl of steps where a couple of megaphones lead call-and-repeat messages. The scene resembles a huge 2nd grade classroom. Everyone is trying to get each other to be quiet and listen to directions.
A small group of committed-looking protesters, donning earth tone ponchos and hair suited for a hunkering down in an occupied hibernation, seizes the megaphones every few minutes to reiterate that everyone should act responsibly, keep their hands to themselves, save their loudest outdoor voices for later on, and to stay hydrated.
Those that use the megaphones slowly instruct those who can hear them to repeat what they are saying, then repeat it once more, until people out of megaphone earshot can get the messages. This method of communication quickly makes people aware of peacekeeper volunteers, police liaisons, and a lawyer hotline to call in case of arrests. It also voices, to an uplifting effect, peoples’ personal testimonials. Lines form behind the megaphones as folks wait their turn to share stories and insights; words that are repeated by everyone else. An ongoing pledge of allegiance to the spirit of cooperation, enabling a successful occupation.
I paraphrase some of the highlights:
A young man dressed in moss-colored, military-style jacket takes the mic. Oh great, I think, another Che Guevara-wannabe thinking he’s gonna spark a guerrilla movement during a lunch break in SW Portland after he gets done yelling at his unemployed stoner friends and middle-aged white people in attendance. Turns out he is an Iraq War Vet, 4 tours, has a buddy who lost an arm, another who took his own life. He thought he has no voice until today. My lingering cynicism evaporates.
A short, serious-faced, women with glasses has volunteered in health clinics for 11 years and has never seen conditions as bad as they are now.
A grey-haired man says he can’t believe he’s still fucking protesting this shit. Been at it since the 60’s. They didn’t listen to him. Now Wall St. has screwed his grandkids.
A not-quite-totally-grey haired man says he’s been a part of many protest movements. In his experience, they are most successful when those protesting are having fun. He would like to make a fairly controversial suggestion that in the event arrests do begin to occur, that everyone imitate a notorious group of Portland cyclists: get naked.
1:00 pm – Some additional circles form around the bigger circle of people. They have drums, chanting, and megaphones spouting alternative causes at their centers.
1;15 pm – Before leaving, I take stalk of some of the movement’s signs. I divide them into loose categories, allowing us to further glean what this movement’s essential messages, if any, are, or will become:
Category 1: Blunt Dissatisfaction with Banking and Taxes
Pay Taxes, Bank Of America Doesn’t
Wells Fargo Stole My Grandma’s Farm
Jail The Banksters
Pay Your Taxes! Duh
Who Caused the Recession? The Federal Reserve
End the Fed
Category 2: Unabashed Anger at Powers That Be
Neuter Fat Cats
Too Big To Jail?: Perp Wall St.
Mad as Hell
[Around a girl’s neck] This is what Broken Trust looks like
Eat the Rich
Sacrifice the Rich
If I stole 50% of your 401k, I’d be in Jail
Category 3: Presidential Campaign Sound Bite Satire
Corporations Are Not People Until Rick Perry Executes One
It’s the Greed, Stupid
Wall St. is a Ponzi Scheme
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
Category 4: Making Historical Parallels
Feudal Prince Pay You’re Share
Serfs Awake!
This is What a Feudal Society Looks Like
Predatory Lending=Modern Colonialism
Legislatures, Won’t You Be My Robin Hood?
I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do – West Point Honor Code
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetuate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. – MLK
Category 5: Keeping Portland Weird
Go Beyond Capitalism: Investigate Resource-Based Economy
[Over a rebel insignia from Star Wars] I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
Stop Funding Israeli Apartheid
Al-Qaeda is C.I.A.
Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters
Gross National Happiness
Category 6: Proving Portlanders can be Creative and Clever
Make Signs
It’s More Fun To Share
Make Jobs, Not War
The Revolution will Not be Privatized
If This Is The American Dream, It’s Time to Wake Up
Industrial Capitalism: Drop it Like It’s Hot
Too Big to Fail is Too Dumb to Work
Category 7: Requests for Moderate Reforms
Enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Pass the American Jobs Act
Good Jobs come with Unions and Laws, not Generosity of Employers
Labor Creates Wealth
Don’t be fools / Give Money to Schools
Give Me a Job
Close the Loopholes
Bring Back the Middle Class
Tax the Rich
Our turn.
Cheers to the New Yorkers who got the domestic occupation movement rolling. Hats off to D.C., N.C., and Chicago for carrying the ball further.
Now, we on the West Coast shall see it through. Granted, our heads are often in the clouds. We breathe the cleaner air, drink the clearer water, brew the better beer. Perhaps as a result, we’re a little slow on the expression of outrage compared to East Coasters in closer proximity to the now-contested political power centers in this country. But followers of recent U.S. protest history know that when we do decide to protest, we tend to go all in. Examples include WTO protest in Seattle 1999, Anti-war marches in Portland 2002, Longview 2011, Eugene all the time, Earth First, E.L.F. When the hard-core agitators, persistent peace protruders, and freaky-weird dresser-uppers converge, as they have today, such a critical mass invites analytical task. Here’s what I observed in the 90 minutes I attended before I had work:
12:15pm – Hundreds of people are quickly turning to thousands, filling and spilling over the concrete bowl of steps where a couple of megaphones lead call-and-repeat messages. The scene resembles a huge 2nd grade classroom. Everyone is trying to get each other to be quiet and listen to directions.
A small group of committed-looking protesters, donning earth tone ponchos and hair suited for a hunkering down in an occupied hibernation, seizes the megaphones every few minutes to reiterate that everyone should act responsibly, keep their hands to themselves, save their loudest outdoor voices for later on, and to stay hydrated.
Those that use the megaphones slowly instruct those who can hear them to repeat what they are saying, then repeat it once more, until people out of megaphone earshot can get the messages. This method of communication quickly makes people aware of peacekeeper volunteers, police liaisons, and a lawyer hotline to call in case of arrests. It also voices, to an uplifting effect, peoples’ personal testimonials. Lines form behind the megaphones as folks wait their turn to share stories and insights; words that are repeated by everyone else. An ongoing pledge of allegiance to the spirit of cooperation, enabling a successful occupation.
I paraphrase some of the highlights:
A young man dressed in moss-colored, military-style jacket takes the mic. Oh great, I think, another Che Guevara-wannabe thinking he’s gonna spark a guerrilla movement during a lunch break in SW Portland after he gets done yelling at his unemployed stoner friends and middle-aged white people in attendance. Turns out he is an Iraq War Vet, 4 tours, has a buddy who lost an arm, another who took his own life. He thought he has no voice until today. My lingering cynicism evaporates.
A short, serious-faced, women with glasses has volunteered in health clinics for 11 years and has never seen conditions as bad as they are now.
A grey-haired man says he can’t believe he’s still fucking protesting this shit. Been at it since the 60’s. They didn’t listen to him. Now Wall St. has screwed his grandkids.
A not-quite-totally-grey haired man says he’s been a part of many protest movements. In his experience, they are most successful when those protesting are having fun. He would like to make a fairly controversial suggestion that in the event arrests do begin to occur, that everyone imitate a notorious group of Portland cyclists: get naked.
1:00 pm – Some additional circles form around the bigger circle of people. They have drums, chanting, and megaphones spouting alternative causes at their centers.
1;15 pm – Before leaving, I take stalk of some of the movement’s signs. I divide them into loose categories, allowing us to further glean what this movement’s essential messages, if any, are, or will become:
Category 1: Blunt Dissatisfaction with Banking and Taxes
Pay Taxes, Bank Of America Doesn’t
Wells Fargo Stole My Grandma’s Farm
Jail The Banksters
Pay Your Taxes! Duh
Who Caused the Recession? The Federal Reserve
End the Fed
Category 2: Unabashed Anger at Powers That Be
Neuter Fat Cats
Too Big To Jail?: Perp Wall St.
Mad as Hell
[Around a girl’s neck] This is what Broken Trust looks like
Eat the Rich
Sacrifice the Rich
If I stole 50% of your 401k, I’d be in Jail
Category 3: Presidential Campaign Sound Bite Satire
Corporations Are Not People Until Rick Perry Executes One
It’s the Greed, Stupid
Wall St. is a Ponzi Scheme
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
Category 4: Making Historical Parallels
Feudal Prince Pay You’re Share
Serfs Awake!
This is What a Feudal Society Looks Like
Predatory Lending=Modern Colonialism
Legislatures, Won’t You Be My Robin Hood?
I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do – West Point Honor Code
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetuate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. – MLK
Category 5: Keeping Portland Weird
Go Beyond Capitalism: Investigate Resource-Based Economy
[Over a rebel insignia from Star Wars] I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
Stop Funding Israeli Apartheid
Al-Qaeda is C.I.A.
Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters
Gross National Happiness
Category 6: Proving Portlanders can be Creative and Clever
Make Signs
It’s More Fun To Share
Make Jobs, Not War
The Revolution will Not be Privatized
If This Is The American Dream, It’s Time to Wake Up
Industrial Capitalism: Drop it Like It’s Hot
Too Big to Fail is Too Dumb to Work
Category 7: Requests for Moderate Reforms
Enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Pass the American Jobs Act
Good Jobs come with Unions and Laws, not Generosity of Employers
Labor Creates Wealth
Don’t be fools / Give Money to Schools
Give Me a Job
Close the Loopholes
Bring Back the Middle Class
Tax the Rich
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Blogging Burning Man 2011: A Swahili Perspective
Burning Man, Day 1:
Uncle Jimmy, new friends Dan and Esther from Las Vegas, and I, drove into a fog of dust 3pm, Monday. As we exited the paved, two-lane highway north of Gerlach, NV, we joined a caravan of thousands of vehicles from thousands of cities.
As pavement gave way to seven loosely marked lanes of white, alkaline, “caulk” surface, the impending spectacle of Burning Man took on an unmistakably immediate presence. The months, years of planning, waffling on whether or not I could go, and speculation about what Burning Man is, were over.
A series of signs that gradually read the lyrics of ‘Amazing Grace’ appeared to our right. Miles of white desert to our left, and to our right. Traffic stopped, then inched along in 5-40 minute intervals for the next six hours. Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda aside, this was the thickest gridlock I’d ever seen. And all around us, people were having the time of their lives.
As we took turns leaving our rig to walk up and down the jam, we found dance parties near speakers playing the full spectrum of party music. Friends toasted, made plans for the week, theorized life plans. We owned up to rhetoric that instructs one to live in the moment. By 5pm Monday, we exuded patience, exchanging contented laughter and stuff to cover our faces from dust clouds. The mood could not be further from a Monday afternoon ‘rush hour’ jam in Any City, USA.
After dark, we graduated from the line, surrendered the stubs of our tickets, thanked the Greeters, and broke camp. After midnight, my uncle and I biked to the center of camp: the Esplanade. The setting made me feel like a child. As far as I could see, indescribably striking art filled the space. Sound came from every direction and pitch. People walked as art. Boats floated on the desert, coming and going from an ocean-sized pier. I had never seen art before. Every person we found was the ‘chill’ person at a house party that you wish everyone could be like, that you wish you could be more like.
Reenactment of the Lousiana Purchase Through Interpretive Dance:
The “Yum” camp brought together 25 odd dancer-historians, including myself, for a performance that began each time the narrator, dressed only in crotch-revealing tights patterned after the American flag, said into a megaphone: “The year is 1803, the City is New Orleans—a site of intense political maneuvering between the French, Spanish, and Americans—and a hotbed of fornication” [cue boom box].
I arrived late the to the pre-enactment briefing, even by Burning Man standards, and was originally assigned no role outside of that of the dancing chorus. Fortunately, my uncle gifted a bunch of Mardi Gras beads around my neck just beforehand. After the narrator’s opening line, I kicked up a dust cloud with tiny, furiously fast steps, continuing the rapid energy up my body, crashing the beads against each other and off of my chest. Fellow re-enactors began to notice and appreciate the gesture, adding their own interpretative reactions to my action as the play’s run wore on. In our one hour season, we did seven shows, each at a different venue, each to the surprise of adoring audiences.
My providing of the New Orleans-themed prop sparked behind-the-back criticism of Greg, the narrator, among a fraction of the cast. “Couldn’t he have gotten some props? How hard is it to get a wig?” “It’s a stretch to cast Napolean, Jefferson, and the leaders of the Haitian Revolution all as flaming homosexuals.”
When asked by them what I would do to improve the interpretation, I suggested we do a reenactment of the forming of the reenactment of the Lousisiana Purchase.
That would confuse the hell of the audience, they said. But we’d make a sound theoretical point on their asses, I said. Ah, you’re an appreciator of historiography, they said. I hugged them, elated that they knew about historiography.
The next day, the same group shocked audiences by napping as a flash mob. I refrained, taking a pre-announced, solitary nap inside our tent with my uncle.
What is Burning Man?
Burning Man is the biggest, baddest, most epic camping trip, art show, freak show, music festival, dance party, and a host of other event genres assigned to large, annual, voluntary gatherings.
It’s for people that GET the value of hanging out, that know how to party.
When you show up a house party, club, bar outside Burning Man, you find many people unsuited for an enjoyable, enriching, or empowering bout of partying. This probably happens for a ton of reasons, many of which the unsuited partiers can hardly be blamed for falling victim to.
The following characteristics are frequently displayed by people outside Burning Man:
- Stiffness. At base, an unwillingness to loosen oneself. The mind remains inflexible, rendering speech that leads conversation toward predictable, ignorant, unoriginal, dismissive dead ends. The body refuses to move in ways beyond those required for formal greetings and entirely practical, utilitarian tasks.
- Being overly judgemental. People do like I just wrote in the above section addressing stiffness, but to a greater, ingratiatingly unceasing degree. You show up to a party hoping to catch wind of some uplifting piece of mind, bust some jokes, get hip to new, fresh jive, and instead end up listening to a bunch of people putting other people down. Particularly disheartening is when they express outrage or snooty, feaux-astonishment at people drinking, taking other drugs, at parties.
- Wasted belligerence. Despite being judged harshly for it, or because of such judging, people tend to get too drunk, high, stoned, blitzed, soused, crocked, etc., at parties. You often can’t endorse any perceivable merits of a party without being chastised or guilted for maintaining an eloquent, sober-sounding coherence. Too many people equate a high drug intake with having a good time. Either that or you end up unable to shake off someone(s) who tries to warn you against the perils the drugs, all the while giving you, by their current, inebriated existence, an ample demonstration of alcoholism’s (or less popular narcotics’) downsides. Particularly in many areas within the U.S. the same problem with drugs has applied to eating unhealthy food in recent years.
- Obsession with networking and money. When you finally run across some people with a proper attitude toward drugs, they prefer to spend their time away from work and managing finances to discuss, exclusively, work and the management of finances.
- Obsession with sex, ‘hookups,’ and dating. People instantly express extreme disinterest in a party if they fell their chances of getting with someone else are minimal. If they chilled out, perhaps they would find it easier not to feel so lonely, sexually frustrated, or whatever else is bringing out too much of their predatorial side. Granted, A certain amount of sleazy folk are perhaps unavoidable. The most intelligent, talented historians have been unable to find an era in which raging parties did not feature at least some of them. 21st Century Portlanders often term them “sketchers” and “skeezers.”
- Intimacy with phones. You find those who spend the entire party calling, answering, texting, surfing the web, and taking photos that have already been taken millions of times.
I know I’ve been as guilty as anyone, at one time or another, of all the aforementioned habits that debilitate partying. But I also know there are a few, and occasionally more than a few, people who GET the party. I’ve been blessed to meet them at parties and am proud to call some of them friends. They exude the coolness, the chill resonance, the admirable compassion, the inspiring creativity, or however else you define the stuff that makes you happy to be around.
The people who get partying might take a little drugs, or more than a little. Or they won’t. Either way, their choices clear, rather than clutter, the mood of the party. They dance, or move, hug, in ways that show a warmth all humans are capable of and responsible for sharing. They take an interest in what others are doing, unafraid to engage in self-deprecation or the playful mocking of others.
They are mainly into two things: Enjoying the moment, relaxing themselves, and/or trying to inspire the same in others. They’re not averse to strangers, to supposedly “awkward” moments, to being close to another person they haven’t already met or think they have entirely figured out.
Burning Man is a huge swath of parties, organized as a one, week-long party, in which the Vast Majority of people are segment of cool people you find at parties across the world. Many tell me that Burning Man, to them, is something that somehow transforms them. This resonates, since it implies that the event turns you into the chill partier. It scrubs off the parts of you that constrain partying.
How I’ve Grown To Further Appreciate House, Techno, Trance, and Dub Step
Electronic music makes sense in the times we live in. We work with computers, we struggle with them, we depend upon them, we love them, we hate them. Most us of us hear phones, generators, combustible engines, planes—most of which now heavily involve computers—all day long. At night, when we can find some free time, it then follows that we try to manipulate the noises of the computers for our own enjoyment. Computers annoy us for hours when we work. They can entertain us too, but in ways that television and books do. Unless they are used as instruments. Once we are able to compose with computers, we use computers like blues players use guitars and vocals. They make us dance, love, freak out, black out, contemplate, and feel belonging to an intimate collectivity of humanity. DJs—Electronic Performers—are the current vanguard of the computer music movement, one whose precise origins must be found in the nebulous that conceived the DNA of Kraftwerk and Hendrix. Computers portray both the raw, primal, grinding of powerful, amped-up folk traditions, and mathematically precise, technical wizardry. The genre’s reliance on expensive equipment (which has grown cheaper over time) is evocative of classical music movements that reached their zeniths in pre-Industrial Revolution European scenes. But electronic music, for the most part, dispenses with elitist pretense. In the electronic music scene, it isn’t frowned upon to leave during the middle of a really long song.
I have grown to dig electronic music over time, and have embraced it far more reluctantly than genres like rock, hip-hop, reggae, disco, drumming, and others. I have joined those who critique the music as being robotic; lifeless in that it lacks the performative panache of awesome vocal or guitar-driven bands. But DJs can perform too, and, as the Infected Mushroom concert at Burning Man demonstrated, can kill the mike like a talented, Luddite lounge singer.
Human passion is so unmistakably evident when people seen are on stage or heard on record as living, playing proof of why music makes life worth living. I’ve realized that perhaps we’ve left computers to manage life to such a degree that to exclude them from playing a more integral role in music is to engage in antiquated music.
No other festival, to my knowledge, is as big as Burning Man in terms of duration, volume, and originality. Electronic music overwhelmingly dominates the Burning Man soundscape. No other musical movement can claim such a motherboard of shows, huge crowds, and ‘big name’ acts. It operates largely without hierarchy and is explicitly free of corporate sponsorship. In terms of organic authenticacy, Burning Man strikes me as an annual gathering on par with the Woodstock/Altamont/Festival Express history. But unlike sound of that era—English language rock and roll—electronic music is far less constrained by language barriers.
An Example of Originality at Burning Man 2011: The Redneck Posse of Flamedancers
At the entrance to a bar-themed camp emphasizing its old-timey, Western Cowboy tendencies, I stumbled across a man twirling and tossing two sticks with fires on their ends. Around him, two other men, also shirtless with carhart jeans, cowboy boots and hats, stared out at the crowd, periodically taking emphatic, small steps and blasting torches that one uses during ‘initial attack,’ wildland firefighting. On four sides of them, mounted speakers blasted country music so that the constant droning of electronic music and night wailing could scarcely be heard when standing close to them. But nobody was standing too close to them, because half a dozen signs saying things along the lines of NO TRESPASSING, DO NOT STEP PAST HERE, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED also adorned the area. The country music was not of the Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash variety. It was of the “I get off on 57 Chevys / she thinks my tractor’s sexy / I hunt with dogs” variety. Cotemporary FM country. The redneck doing the firetossing mouthed the words to the songs as he focused on completing his firedances, ones rich in upper body movement. Hundreds of other firedancers performed at Burning Man. They tended to wear tie-die, or nothing, and wouldn’t dare put of a sign that didn’t frame its message in positive language. But none of them I saw tossed fire with quite the same chainsaw-revving zeal that this guy did.
Waiting for the Friday Burn:
I have waited more than two hours to be in the front row for the burning of a mansion-sized, glow-in-the-dark Trojan horse. About 30-50 yds between the horse and encircling crowd iarea few chaperones in fire suits, many volunteering to promote fire safety. They sport a variety of soldier/guard outfis: gay cop, Mrs. Officer, Spartan warrior, etc. It is easy to walk into this inner circle, but common sense prevented the vast majority of us from doing so. Occasionaly, someone went in, but they were in no condition to run, or walk, wihotut the aid of another’s arms or shoulders after a few paces.
After about 5-10 rows of people waiting for the burn is a ring of desert ships—motor vehicles decorated as boats, spaceships, playgrounds, other imaginable and unimaginable “rites of passage” carriers—parked almost wall to wall. They resemble the circling of wagons. Most blast speakers, with a squishy mob of dancers tailgating in front. It’s a campfire gathering that doubles as downtown Black Rock City on Friday Night. Each car contributes to the variety of colors and types of music—Heart Deco, Discoland, Disorient (which has a megaphone instructing people to climb on board and taxi to the gigantic electronic music club with the same name after the burn). One could poke their way through the assortment of clubs, sample of scores of nightlife, and be back standing where they were 30 minutes ago. City planning at its fleetingly finest. Not the time or place for drum circles.
The Friday Burn:
The hottest, brightest, most spectacular display of fire I’ve seen—this includes movies, the only medium that can remotely capture such flammability. This includes entire full grown trees catching on fire, witnessed when controlled doing controlled burns as a firefighter.
The burn was a feat of engineering. Fireworks shot out of it. Sparks flew in every direction, but from very high in the air. Less flammable wood pillars preserved a skeleton of a horse after siding boards lit, crashed and smoldered on the ground / slabs of exterior grew to coals in a mound / roasting the faces of those all around. When the foundations finally did fall, the horse’s ass and hind legs fell into its body and were instantly propped up by a single stick of wood that originally fastening the head. The stick did not look much thicker than a 2 X4, yet it held nearly half the horse for several minutes. It fell at an angle just before the ass did, braced in a pile of fresher coals. Eventually, it all collapsed into a single bonfire. The art and music boats set sail, and drum circles crept near the flames.
Uncle Jimmy, new friends Dan and Esther from Las Vegas, and I, drove into a fog of dust 3pm, Monday. As we exited the paved, two-lane highway north of Gerlach, NV, we joined a caravan of thousands of vehicles from thousands of cities.
As pavement gave way to seven loosely marked lanes of white, alkaline, “caulk” surface, the impending spectacle of Burning Man took on an unmistakably immediate presence. The months, years of planning, waffling on whether or not I could go, and speculation about what Burning Man is, were over.
A series of signs that gradually read the lyrics of ‘Amazing Grace’ appeared to our right. Miles of white desert to our left, and to our right. Traffic stopped, then inched along in 5-40 minute intervals for the next six hours. Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda aside, this was the thickest gridlock I’d ever seen. And all around us, people were having the time of their lives.
As we took turns leaving our rig to walk up and down the jam, we found dance parties near speakers playing the full spectrum of party music. Friends toasted, made plans for the week, theorized life plans. We owned up to rhetoric that instructs one to live in the moment. By 5pm Monday, we exuded patience, exchanging contented laughter and stuff to cover our faces from dust clouds. The mood could not be further from a Monday afternoon ‘rush hour’ jam in Any City, USA.
After dark, we graduated from the line, surrendered the stubs of our tickets, thanked the Greeters, and broke camp. After midnight, my uncle and I biked to the center of camp: the Esplanade. The setting made me feel like a child. As far as I could see, indescribably striking art filled the space. Sound came from every direction and pitch. People walked as art. Boats floated on the desert, coming and going from an ocean-sized pier. I had never seen art before. Every person we found was the ‘chill’ person at a house party that you wish everyone could be like, that you wish you could be more like.
Reenactment of the Lousiana Purchase Through Interpretive Dance:
The “Yum” camp brought together 25 odd dancer-historians, including myself, for a performance that began each time the narrator, dressed only in crotch-revealing tights patterned after the American flag, said into a megaphone: “The year is 1803, the City is New Orleans—a site of intense political maneuvering between the French, Spanish, and Americans—and a hotbed of fornication” [cue boom box].
I arrived late the to the pre-enactment briefing, even by Burning Man standards, and was originally assigned no role outside of that of the dancing chorus. Fortunately, my uncle gifted a bunch of Mardi Gras beads around my neck just beforehand. After the narrator’s opening line, I kicked up a dust cloud with tiny, furiously fast steps, continuing the rapid energy up my body, crashing the beads against each other and off of my chest. Fellow re-enactors began to notice and appreciate the gesture, adding their own interpretative reactions to my action as the play’s run wore on. In our one hour season, we did seven shows, each at a different venue, each to the surprise of adoring audiences.
My providing of the New Orleans-themed prop sparked behind-the-back criticism of Greg, the narrator, among a fraction of the cast. “Couldn’t he have gotten some props? How hard is it to get a wig?” “It’s a stretch to cast Napolean, Jefferson, and the leaders of the Haitian Revolution all as flaming homosexuals.”
When asked by them what I would do to improve the interpretation, I suggested we do a reenactment of the forming of the reenactment of the Lousisiana Purchase.
That would confuse the hell of the audience, they said. But we’d make a sound theoretical point on their asses, I said. Ah, you’re an appreciator of historiography, they said. I hugged them, elated that they knew about historiography.
The next day, the same group shocked audiences by napping as a flash mob. I refrained, taking a pre-announced, solitary nap inside our tent with my uncle.
What is Burning Man?
Burning Man is the biggest, baddest, most epic camping trip, art show, freak show, music festival, dance party, and a host of other event genres assigned to large, annual, voluntary gatherings.
It’s for people that GET the value of hanging out, that know how to party.
When you show up a house party, club, bar outside Burning Man, you find many people unsuited for an enjoyable, enriching, or empowering bout of partying. This probably happens for a ton of reasons, many of which the unsuited partiers can hardly be blamed for falling victim to.
The following characteristics are frequently displayed by people outside Burning Man:
- Stiffness. At base, an unwillingness to loosen oneself. The mind remains inflexible, rendering speech that leads conversation toward predictable, ignorant, unoriginal, dismissive dead ends. The body refuses to move in ways beyond those required for formal greetings and entirely practical, utilitarian tasks.
- Being overly judgemental. People do like I just wrote in the above section addressing stiffness, but to a greater, ingratiatingly unceasing degree. You show up to a party hoping to catch wind of some uplifting piece of mind, bust some jokes, get hip to new, fresh jive, and instead end up listening to a bunch of people putting other people down. Particularly disheartening is when they express outrage or snooty, feaux-astonishment at people drinking, taking other drugs, at parties.
- Wasted belligerence. Despite being judged harshly for it, or because of such judging, people tend to get too drunk, high, stoned, blitzed, soused, crocked, etc., at parties. You often can’t endorse any perceivable merits of a party without being chastised or guilted for maintaining an eloquent, sober-sounding coherence. Too many people equate a high drug intake with having a good time. Either that or you end up unable to shake off someone(s) who tries to warn you against the perils the drugs, all the while giving you, by their current, inebriated existence, an ample demonstration of alcoholism’s (or less popular narcotics’) downsides. Particularly in many areas within the U.S. the same problem with drugs has applied to eating unhealthy food in recent years.
- Obsession with networking and money. When you finally run across some people with a proper attitude toward drugs, they prefer to spend their time away from work and managing finances to discuss, exclusively, work and the management of finances.
- Obsession with sex, ‘hookups,’ and dating. People instantly express extreme disinterest in a party if they fell their chances of getting with someone else are minimal. If they chilled out, perhaps they would find it easier not to feel so lonely, sexually frustrated, or whatever else is bringing out too much of their predatorial side. Granted, A certain amount of sleazy folk are perhaps unavoidable. The most intelligent, talented historians have been unable to find an era in which raging parties did not feature at least some of them. 21st Century Portlanders often term them “sketchers” and “skeezers.”
- Intimacy with phones. You find those who spend the entire party calling, answering, texting, surfing the web, and taking photos that have already been taken millions of times.
I know I’ve been as guilty as anyone, at one time or another, of all the aforementioned habits that debilitate partying. But I also know there are a few, and occasionally more than a few, people who GET the party. I’ve been blessed to meet them at parties and am proud to call some of them friends. They exude the coolness, the chill resonance, the admirable compassion, the inspiring creativity, or however else you define the stuff that makes you happy to be around.
The people who get partying might take a little drugs, or more than a little. Or they won’t. Either way, their choices clear, rather than clutter, the mood of the party. They dance, or move, hug, in ways that show a warmth all humans are capable of and responsible for sharing. They take an interest in what others are doing, unafraid to engage in self-deprecation or the playful mocking of others.
They are mainly into two things: Enjoying the moment, relaxing themselves, and/or trying to inspire the same in others. They’re not averse to strangers, to supposedly “awkward” moments, to being close to another person they haven’t already met or think they have entirely figured out.
Burning Man is a huge swath of parties, organized as a one, week-long party, in which the Vast Majority of people are segment of cool people you find at parties across the world. Many tell me that Burning Man, to them, is something that somehow transforms them. This resonates, since it implies that the event turns you into the chill partier. It scrubs off the parts of you that constrain partying.
How I’ve Grown To Further Appreciate House, Techno, Trance, and Dub Step
Electronic music makes sense in the times we live in. We work with computers, we struggle with them, we depend upon them, we love them, we hate them. Most us of us hear phones, generators, combustible engines, planes—most of which now heavily involve computers—all day long. At night, when we can find some free time, it then follows that we try to manipulate the noises of the computers for our own enjoyment. Computers annoy us for hours when we work. They can entertain us too, but in ways that television and books do. Unless they are used as instruments. Once we are able to compose with computers, we use computers like blues players use guitars and vocals. They make us dance, love, freak out, black out, contemplate, and feel belonging to an intimate collectivity of humanity. DJs—Electronic Performers—are the current vanguard of the computer music movement, one whose precise origins must be found in the nebulous that conceived the DNA of Kraftwerk and Hendrix. Computers portray both the raw, primal, grinding of powerful, amped-up folk traditions, and mathematically precise, technical wizardry. The genre’s reliance on expensive equipment (which has grown cheaper over time) is evocative of classical music movements that reached their zeniths in pre-Industrial Revolution European scenes. But electronic music, for the most part, dispenses with elitist pretense. In the electronic music scene, it isn’t frowned upon to leave during the middle of a really long song.
I have grown to dig electronic music over time, and have embraced it far more reluctantly than genres like rock, hip-hop, reggae, disco, drumming, and others. I have joined those who critique the music as being robotic; lifeless in that it lacks the performative panache of awesome vocal or guitar-driven bands. But DJs can perform too, and, as the Infected Mushroom concert at Burning Man demonstrated, can kill the mike like a talented, Luddite lounge singer.
Human passion is so unmistakably evident when people seen are on stage or heard on record as living, playing proof of why music makes life worth living. I’ve realized that perhaps we’ve left computers to manage life to such a degree that to exclude them from playing a more integral role in music is to engage in antiquated music.
No other festival, to my knowledge, is as big as Burning Man in terms of duration, volume, and originality. Electronic music overwhelmingly dominates the Burning Man soundscape. No other musical movement can claim such a motherboard of shows, huge crowds, and ‘big name’ acts. It operates largely without hierarchy and is explicitly free of corporate sponsorship. In terms of organic authenticacy, Burning Man strikes me as an annual gathering on par with the Woodstock/Altamont/Festival Express history. But unlike sound of that era—English language rock and roll—electronic music is far less constrained by language barriers.
An Example of Originality at Burning Man 2011: The Redneck Posse of Flamedancers
At the entrance to a bar-themed camp emphasizing its old-timey, Western Cowboy tendencies, I stumbled across a man twirling and tossing two sticks with fires on their ends. Around him, two other men, also shirtless with carhart jeans, cowboy boots and hats, stared out at the crowd, periodically taking emphatic, small steps and blasting torches that one uses during ‘initial attack,’ wildland firefighting. On four sides of them, mounted speakers blasted country music so that the constant droning of electronic music and night wailing could scarcely be heard when standing close to them. But nobody was standing too close to them, because half a dozen signs saying things along the lines of NO TRESPASSING, DO NOT STEP PAST HERE, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED also adorned the area. The country music was not of the Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash variety. It was of the “I get off on 57 Chevys / she thinks my tractor’s sexy / I hunt with dogs” variety. Cotemporary FM country. The redneck doing the firetossing mouthed the words to the songs as he focused on completing his firedances, ones rich in upper body movement. Hundreds of other firedancers performed at Burning Man. They tended to wear tie-die, or nothing, and wouldn’t dare put of a sign that didn’t frame its message in positive language. But none of them I saw tossed fire with quite the same chainsaw-revving zeal that this guy did.
Waiting for the Friday Burn:
I have waited more than two hours to be in the front row for the burning of a mansion-sized, glow-in-the-dark Trojan horse. About 30-50 yds between the horse and encircling crowd iarea few chaperones in fire suits, many volunteering to promote fire safety. They sport a variety of soldier/guard outfis: gay cop, Mrs. Officer, Spartan warrior, etc. It is easy to walk into this inner circle, but common sense prevented the vast majority of us from doing so. Occasionaly, someone went in, but they were in no condition to run, or walk, wihotut the aid of another’s arms or shoulders after a few paces.
After about 5-10 rows of people waiting for the burn is a ring of desert ships—motor vehicles decorated as boats, spaceships, playgrounds, other imaginable and unimaginable “rites of passage” carriers—parked almost wall to wall. They resemble the circling of wagons. Most blast speakers, with a squishy mob of dancers tailgating in front. It’s a campfire gathering that doubles as downtown Black Rock City on Friday Night. Each car contributes to the variety of colors and types of music—Heart Deco, Discoland, Disorient (which has a megaphone instructing people to climb on board and taxi to the gigantic electronic music club with the same name after the burn). One could poke their way through the assortment of clubs, sample of scores of nightlife, and be back standing where they were 30 minutes ago. City planning at its fleetingly finest. Not the time or place for drum circles.
The Friday Burn:
The hottest, brightest, most spectacular display of fire I’ve seen—this includes movies, the only medium that can remotely capture such flammability. This includes entire full grown trees catching on fire, witnessed when controlled doing controlled burns as a firefighter.
The burn was a feat of engineering. Fireworks shot out of it. Sparks flew in every direction, but from very high in the air. Less flammable wood pillars preserved a skeleton of a horse after siding boards lit, crashed and smoldered on the ground / slabs of exterior grew to coals in a mound / roasting the faces of those all around. When the foundations finally did fall, the horse’s ass and hind legs fell into its body and were instantly propped up by a single stick of wood that originally fastening the head. The stick did not look much thicker than a 2 X4, yet it held nearly half the horse for several minutes. It fell at an angle just before the ass did, braced in a pile of fresher coals. Eventually, it all collapsed into a single bonfire. The art and music boats set sail, and drum circles crept near the flames.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Ushairi wa Kiswhahili
Mashairi yatayafuata maneno machache haya. Nilitunga beti na vina zinazotumia beti za uhuru (vuni).
The following is a collection of Swahili poems I composed. The verses can be rhymed in rhythm.
--
Utaka nini?
Niko chini
Kwa sababu naimba ukweli kwa miaka ishirini
Njoo na mimi,
hata wakili
Sheria ya Kiswahili inatawala pwanini
Midundo mipoa
Tutaitoa
Mpaka mwisho wa dunia
Hatutachoka
Tazama, vijana
Twacheza na maana
Ndiyo au hapana?
Uliza mababi na mabwana
Wanakubaliana
Ushairi ni furuaha
--
naombeombe
chupa za pombe
nahitaji kuzimaliza kila siku
sikuyote
nikipata marafiki,
wananiitwa mlevi-e
nipe bia mvinyo guiness,
hata dawa za kienyej-e
sikumbuki asabuhe
ilikuwa juzi juze
na nimesahau kusemaje
kiswhahili vizure
saa yangu ni bure
sina kazi milele
nikigundua mlima pilsner
nitakuwa na RAHA…mustarehe.
--
poa kachizi
kama ndizi
ninafana na mwizi
ameyeshinda polisi
kiswhahili
hiki
sichajui
lakini
beti na mdundo
zinakuja rahisi
zinazofika usiku
ninapopata usingizi
--
hii na bahari, na sisi tulivua
hatuna magari, meli ama punda
samaki wametoraka
hatujali
twauza mitai, kawaha na sukari
ukikuja bila pesa,
huduhumu yetu ni bure,
tupe msaada
kama kusafisha vikombe
Ujumaa ulikufa?
Miaka wa sabini?
Umoja umefauua
Tangu tumeshiriki
---
(kuimba pole pole)
shida
kila asabuhi ni shida
sisi tunaamka na shida
mpaka kuna kucha ni shida
shida
bibi yangu amekuwa na mimba
mtoto yetu hatakuwa na jina
basi ninaimba na shida
shida
nimepotea pesa
mimi siwezi kueleza,
maisha wangu bila faida
shida (4x)
maisha wangu ni shida, na shida inakua
The following is a collection of Swahili poems I composed. The verses can be rhymed in rhythm.
--
Utaka nini?
Niko chini
Kwa sababu naimba ukweli kwa miaka ishirini
Njoo na mimi,
hata wakili
Sheria ya Kiswahili inatawala pwanini
Midundo mipoa
Tutaitoa
Mpaka mwisho wa dunia
Hatutachoka
Tazama, vijana
Twacheza na maana
Ndiyo au hapana?
Uliza mababi na mabwana
Wanakubaliana
Ushairi ni furuaha
--
naombeombe
chupa za pombe
nahitaji kuzimaliza kila siku
sikuyote
nikipata marafiki,
wananiitwa mlevi-e
nipe bia mvinyo guiness,
hata dawa za kienyej-e
sikumbuki asabuhe
ilikuwa juzi juze
na nimesahau kusemaje
kiswhahili vizure
saa yangu ni bure
sina kazi milele
nikigundua mlima pilsner
nitakuwa na RAHA…mustarehe.
--
poa kachizi
kama ndizi
ninafana na mwizi
ameyeshinda polisi
kiswhahili
hiki
sichajui
lakini
beti na mdundo
zinakuja rahisi
zinazofika usiku
ninapopata usingizi
--
hii na bahari, na sisi tulivua
hatuna magari, meli ama punda
samaki wametoraka
hatujali
twauza mitai, kawaha na sukari
ukikuja bila pesa,
huduhumu yetu ni bure,
tupe msaada
kama kusafisha vikombe
Ujumaa ulikufa?
Miaka wa sabini?
Umoja umefauua
Tangu tumeshiriki
---
(kuimba pole pole)
shida
kila asabuhi ni shida
sisi tunaamka na shida
mpaka kuna kucha ni shida
shida
bibi yangu amekuwa na mimba
mtoto yetu hatakuwa na jina
basi ninaimba na shida
shida
nimepotea pesa
mimi siwezi kueleza,
maisha wangu bila faida
shida (4x)
maisha wangu ni shida, na shida inakua
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Eccentric goofballs, Publicized Fiends, Complex Chillers
In the afternoons, an old, fat man props his gut at a right angle against the road and walls of the small business opposite Fort Jesus. Shirt off, mouth running like a filibuster, his words cannot be translated, the meaning behind his speech indecipherable. The universal language of bodily gestures and vocal inflections, however, suggest the muse of anger is never far from the discourse. His nighttime scrolls are reportedly written in his own language. A repository of insult and revulsion, he is somewhere between Ignatius Reilly and Charles Barkley. I plan to walk up to him during a particularly potent outburst, squat down a couple paces in front of him, and take some detailed portraits with my SmartCapture feature. I do not foresee him having the ability to stop me, nor do I expect others in the neighborhood rush to his aid. He has long since forfeited any benefits to be derived from ‘respect 4 elders’ sentiments.
Late one night, I poked around the canons outside the Fort that border the sea, hoping to find a perch suitable for singing at the ocean, away from those who sleep outside. Every spot was, is, taken, or vacated as a result of excess trash influx. But seated at a foldable table, concealed by fortress shadows, is the Somali that the others call “Boss.” The Boss says his is 20 years old, and speaks a simplified, immigrant Swahili with old eyes, eyes that give his accounts of guns and war across the border a heightened authenticity. As we talk alone, he commends the quite solitude of his miraa-chewing perch, doling out to me gradual portions of the drug-plant as I gradually articulate opinions and observations conveyable in Swahili. We explore conversation in alert relaxation. How and why police suck, that there are many poor and smart Ugandans, estimating the number of cats that prowl the street. Hours probably pass. We are not hungry, tired, or stressed; simply in the mood for some more miraa.
As our dialogue begins to finish with all insight contained in the language we can share, another man approaches. He’s older, swaying, and mumbling shouts. Boss tells me to shut my yap, lest the passing drunk gleans my northern speech rhythms and decides to become my hanger-on. My silence does not make the shadow black enough to shroud my skin. The drunk ambles over, dragging erect a lawnchair, making a small gesture toward pretending to clean dirt off his seat.
Blending Swahili and English, the drunk specialized in nailing American expressions with a Kenyan accent.
“Don’t mind me, I’m on my own high, man. I see you are young. You go your way, I go mine. That’s what I told my wife, it was very difficult.”
“Let’s get drunk, get high, I wanna get problems off of my mind!” [In Old Town, the strong Islamic element leads everyone, save for this Drunk, to publicly abstain from taking or talking of alcohol]
The Drunk rocks back on the plastic chair, smoking and chewing miraa. “Hah! I am a rich man. Look at them [hotels and fancy apartments in Nyali, visible to the North], they are paying for that. But me? I am paying nothing to enjoy myself right now.” [Turns, remembers he is next to Ft. Jesus] “This is a special place, here. If we come together, we can do something really great for the community. Gotta come together though. Brothers. [Boss nods, not bothering to inform him that the Fort is used by dozens of small tourists throughout the day, weddings, public speeches and other political ceremonies, soccer teams in the evening]
“Rain, coming, see those clouds? Definitely rain. I’m FEELIN RAIN. [sniffs air] I smell rain, you smell rain?” [it would not rain for several days]
“All my life, I’ve wondered: why am I such a loudmouth?”
Boss begins playing music off of his phone. He apparently has the audio from the extended movie version of “Thriller,” so after minutes of spoken word, and baffled, disapproval from the Drunk, the instantly recognizable “Thriller” song kicks in.
“Killin it, man. LOVE this one, great choice.” [While stroking a cat and slouching in his chair, Drunk begins to rotate his shoulders in opposite directions, his feet posing to beats. I’ve never chewed so much miraa in my life, and will never take so much again. I bid the Boss, Drunk, and cat goodnight, slip home to grab a couple hours shut-eye ‘fore sun-up]
Enduring advice I think someone said a while ago: You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don’t dance. So you might as well dance.
Late one night, I poked around the canons outside the Fort that border the sea, hoping to find a perch suitable for singing at the ocean, away from those who sleep outside. Every spot was, is, taken, or vacated as a result of excess trash influx. But seated at a foldable table, concealed by fortress shadows, is the Somali that the others call “Boss.” The Boss says his is 20 years old, and speaks a simplified, immigrant Swahili with old eyes, eyes that give his accounts of guns and war across the border a heightened authenticity. As we talk alone, he commends the quite solitude of his miraa-chewing perch, doling out to me gradual portions of the drug-plant as I gradually articulate opinions and observations conveyable in Swahili. We explore conversation in alert relaxation. How and why police suck, that there are many poor and smart Ugandans, estimating the number of cats that prowl the street. Hours probably pass. We are not hungry, tired, or stressed; simply in the mood for some more miraa.
As our dialogue begins to finish with all insight contained in the language we can share, another man approaches. He’s older, swaying, and mumbling shouts. Boss tells me to shut my yap, lest the passing drunk gleans my northern speech rhythms and decides to become my hanger-on. My silence does not make the shadow black enough to shroud my skin. The drunk ambles over, dragging erect a lawnchair, making a small gesture toward pretending to clean dirt off his seat.
Blending Swahili and English, the drunk specialized in nailing American expressions with a Kenyan accent.
“Don’t mind me, I’m on my own high, man. I see you are young. You go your way, I go mine. That’s what I told my wife, it was very difficult.”
“Let’s get drunk, get high, I wanna get problems off of my mind!” [In Old Town, the strong Islamic element leads everyone, save for this Drunk, to publicly abstain from taking or talking of alcohol]
The Drunk rocks back on the plastic chair, smoking and chewing miraa. “Hah! I am a rich man. Look at them [hotels and fancy apartments in Nyali, visible to the North], they are paying for that. But me? I am paying nothing to enjoy myself right now.” [Turns, remembers he is next to Ft. Jesus] “This is a special place, here. If we come together, we can do something really great for the community. Gotta come together though. Brothers. [Boss nods, not bothering to inform him that the Fort is used by dozens of small tourists throughout the day, weddings, public speeches and other political ceremonies, soccer teams in the evening]
“Rain, coming, see those clouds? Definitely rain. I’m FEELIN RAIN. [sniffs air] I smell rain, you smell rain?” [it would not rain for several days]
“All my life, I’ve wondered: why am I such a loudmouth?”
Boss begins playing music off of his phone. He apparently has the audio from the extended movie version of “Thriller,” so after minutes of spoken word, and baffled, disapproval from the Drunk, the instantly recognizable “Thriller” song kicks in.
“Killin it, man. LOVE this one, great choice.” [While stroking a cat and slouching in his chair, Drunk begins to rotate his shoulders in opposite directions, his feet posing to beats. I’ve never chewed so much miraa in my life, and will never take so much again. I bid the Boss, Drunk, and cat goodnight, slip home to grab a couple hours shut-eye ‘fore sun-up]
Enduring advice I think someone said a while ago: You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don’t dance. So you might as well dance.
Indictment, Appreciation of The Game Park Safari
Tsavo and Amboseli reserves: Where privileged white folks used to shoot animals with bullets and drink liquor in the morning during colonial times, privileged white folks shoot animals with cameras and drink coffee, or liquor, in the morning during post-colonial times. In both cases, the idea of physically taking something away from the natural habitat prevails. Little effort is made to enjoy the land without the crutch of material aids. The need to accomplish something tangible, to prove something to others up North, is at the crux of game park safari. Thoughtful analysis or meditation with wildlife or people remains peripheral. I am not the first to stumble upon this revelation, nor would I be the first to endorse a variety of “Eco-Tourism” alternatives (walking safaris, yoga retreats, volunteering) to classic, drive-thru, shoot-em-up, chug-em-down, meathead-type safari tours.
I’ve been extremely blessed, lucky, spoiled with animal safaris, having done many, both “Eco” and Churchill style, across East Africa. Throughout them, I’ve taken hundreds of photos, and boasted of them when they won notoriety in a Lewis and Clark college photo contest. And come hour 10 in the back of a slow-moving Afro-jeep, participation in the subtle synthesis and exchange of soda and rum is unavoidable. What is also unavoidable when traveling with a large group of American girls (or is it any group of the opposite sex for whom you’re familiar with?), is emission of a noise more piercing and unforgettable than the loudest roar of simba: collective squealing. When fed strong coffee and confined to small spaces for hours, a herd of traveling girls from USA can summon a distinctly abrasive, high-pitched verbal reaction at the sight of adorable creatures. Squealing duration varies greatly, as researchers (tour guides) have confirmed squealing sessions that have continued for several hours without any sustained interruption of silence.
I’ve been extremely blessed, lucky, spoiled with animal safaris, having done many, both “Eco” and Churchill style, across East Africa. Throughout them, I’ve taken hundreds of photos, and boasted of them when they won notoriety in a Lewis and Clark college photo contest. And come hour 10 in the back of a slow-moving Afro-jeep, participation in the subtle synthesis and exchange of soda and rum is unavoidable. What is also unavoidable when traveling with a large group of American girls (or is it any group of the opposite sex for whom you’re familiar with?), is emission of a noise more piercing and unforgettable than the loudest roar of simba: collective squealing. When fed strong coffee and confined to small spaces for hours, a herd of traveling girls from USA can summon a distinctly abrasive, high-pitched verbal reaction at the sight of adorable creatures. Squealing duration varies greatly, as researchers (tour guides) have confirmed squealing sessions that have continued for several hours without any sustained interruption of silence.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Still Love Bob Marley Songs / And Drivin’ Hookers Crazy
Stark post-coloniality awaited in Malindi, courtesy of Scorpio Villas. 3 day break from substantial Kiswahili study, Waswahili practice. Palace-sized beds, cushions, mattresses, pillows delicately situated along mazes of hardwood floors and outdoor paths. Acres of mostly vacant villas scattered between palm trees and Jurassic-looking foliage. Africans serve red and white South African wine, spiked mango juice. Clean pulls of pulp-filled passionfruit juice complimented the already complementary. With Kenyan currency falling, the walimu (teachers) with Yale’s purchasing power are becoming more and more able to taste and share fruits of the rich.
To think of the living arrangements in Scorpio is to feel strangely uncomfortable. Noting like an unexpected onslaught of paid-for material luxuries to conjure American guilt, I guess. A reticence to indulge causes a motion deriving from aversion to the simplistic historical? Black Africans handing towels and bowing to White Sunbathers, the ratio of hotel workers exceeding that of occupants, women digging and carrying mud in view of my yoga poses. Rampant injustice? Such hotels are seen to offer primo jobs, and this one left no chore left understaffed, no tourist grievance left un-placated.
But it’ll eat ya souul? Tosha…time to dispense with apologies for narcissism, the unbridled self-reflexivity of predictable generalization. Rock and roll happened here.
As is custom in wealthy establishments across the world, Scorpio hired four musicians to entertain lucrative guests and assuage the ears of business owners by way of covering U.S.-England pop hits. As is typical, and enduringly bizarre, of East Africans’ preferences: Dire Straights “Walk of Life,” (I have heard this one played really, really late at clubs in Kenya) Cher “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” (A far cry from its recent House-techno incantations) “It’s Too Late to Apologize,” (They sung it at Kampala National Theatre, Reggae Monday, audience knew every word) “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” (The Portland Timbers supporter in me stood proud for this one).
The audience was four smartly dressed, beer sipping, young Kenyan women. If only it were more like a scene from an African-styled sequel to “Almost Famous,” and the girls sat to date/adore the band members. They began to study the floor harder as I found a slouchy, two-step off the 4/4 time. The vocalist sang the lowest notes he know how, letting his posture and sound shrink before wandering keys, droopy bass, relentlessly steady, flairless drums. Singing with a politeness that reflected the demure disposition of the other working men and women in the vicinity, the singer succeeded in blending in, refusing to draw attention to the music. He could not be celebrated, nor condemned. Only an attentive deciphering of his mumbled, accented lyrics could interpret origins of his covers.
After some other students trickled into the scene, Drummer asked if we were ready for reggae. We were. The exchange altered the band. Before, it had revealed its compositional competence, but concealed any performative countenance. But then the vocalist jumped an octave, exuding a passion that follows confidence. Postures perked all across the room, “singin don’t worry / bout a thing / cuz every little thing / gonna be all right. Suddenly, the singer was Pete Tosh, aided by The Congos on harmony. “Three Little Birds” turned to “One Love,” “Waiting in Vain,” and “Red Red Wine.”
Afterward, old man drummer said to me, “you sing us a song tomorrow…rock? Blues? But not reggae?” Apparently, he was not listening to what I kept saying over and over: “Night Nurse.” Initially, I wanted to hear the band play that Gregory Isaacs classic, which I thought could serve as some sort of salute to the local women in attendance. Finally, after the fifth time I said it, the singer sang the chorus to the drummer to let him know what I meant. They smiled. “Tomorrow, you sing with us Night Nurse.”
The next night, Saturday, the band played for a larger audience of working girls and tourists. Alternating between the pop covers were 9-14 minutes of African instrumental jams. I recall a reluctance to go up and ask them to stop their set for me. Making them stop and mess up their show for an mzungu to be into himself seemed, again, to be strange, uncomfortable; conjured a guilt that comes with relative affluence. But the African student on my program, Shani, was encouraging, predicting that the band would love an excuse to disrupt the ordinary. I walked up to the band after a number was winding down, barefoot, with kikoy and soccer jersey, and told them I’d been practicing “Night Nurse” that afternoon. They hadn’t, but told me to sing a note into the mic and then started an awesome reggae grove. The keyboardist listened to a few verses, the chorus, and proceeded to kill the song. We ran through it two or three times, altering solos, exchanging stupidly immodest grins. Nearly all of the students, my teacher, the drink servers, towel holders, and sex workers came over and hooted it up.
My memory of what happened next is certainly distorted, I recall the following theater…
As our Night Nurse faded into its last “only you only alone can quench dis here thirst,” Drummer grabbed me, and asked, “what next?”
Me: “I shot the sheriff?”
Him: “Okay, we don’t know but we will just play”
Me “I shot the sherri-ff” (into the mic, loudly)
Keyboard: (chords that perfectly corresponded to that salvo)
Me and band: rest of the song.
Drummer: “Now ‘No women no cry’”
[mid-way through song, the prostitutes got up, including a singer with a beautiful voice, someone who society should never allow to be prostitute] Her and I: “everything is gonna be all right / everything is gonna be alright”
Me: “what about redemption song?”
Keyboardist: “I play the guitar, we do a duet solo”
Drummer: [yelling] “Yes, Yes, Feel the Love, Reggae Music”
Dozen or so of the students and hotel workers, together, the intoxicated coming in with echoed harmonics a half verse behind: “Ole pirates yes dem rob I / sold I to thee mercant sheeps…
To think of the living arrangements in Scorpio is to feel strangely uncomfortable. Noting like an unexpected onslaught of paid-for material luxuries to conjure American guilt, I guess. A reticence to indulge causes a motion deriving from aversion to the simplistic historical? Black Africans handing towels and bowing to White Sunbathers, the ratio of hotel workers exceeding that of occupants, women digging and carrying mud in view of my yoga poses. Rampant injustice? Such hotels are seen to offer primo jobs, and this one left no chore left understaffed, no tourist grievance left un-placated.
But it’ll eat ya souul? Tosha…time to dispense with apologies for narcissism, the unbridled self-reflexivity of predictable generalization. Rock and roll happened here.
As is custom in wealthy establishments across the world, Scorpio hired four musicians to entertain lucrative guests and assuage the ears of business owners by way of covering U.S.-England pop hits. As is typical, and enduringly bizarre, of East Africans’ preferences: Dire Straights “Walk of Life,” (I have heard this one played really, really late at clubs in Kenya) Cher “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” (A far cry from its recent House-techno incantations) “It’s Too Late to Apologize,” (They sung it at Kampala National Theatre, Reggae Monday, audience knew every word) “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” (The Portland Timbers supporter in me stood proud for this one).
The audience was four smartly dressed, beer sipping, young Kenyan women. If only it were more like a scene from an African-styled sequel to “Almost Famous,” and the girls sat to date/adore the band members. They began to study the floor harder as I found a slouchy, two-step off the 4/4 time. The vocalist sang the lowest notes he know how, letting his posture and sound shrink before wandering keys, droopy bass, relentlessly steady, flairless drums. Singing with a politeness that reflected the demure disposition of the other working men and women in the vicinity, the singer succeeded in blending in, refusing to draw attention to the music. He could not be celebrated, nor condemned. Only an attentive deciphering of his mumbled, accented lyrics could interpret origins of his covers.
After some other students trickled into the scene, Drummer asked if we were ready for reggae. We were. The exchange altered the band. Before, it had revealed its compositional competence, but concealed any performative countenance. But then the vocalist jumped an octave, exuding a passion that follows confidence. Postures perked all across the room, “singin don’t worry / bout a thing / cuz every little thing / gonna be all right. Suddenly, the singer was Pete Tosh, aided by The Congos on harmony. “Three Little Birds” turned to “One Love,” “Waiting in Vain,” and “Red Red Wine.”
Afterward, old man drummer said to me, “you sing us a song tomorrow…rock? Blues? But not reggae?” Apparently, he was not listening to what I kept saying over and over: “Night Nurse.” Initially, I wanted to hear the band play that Gregory Isaacs classic, which I thought could serve as some sort of salute to the local women in attendance. Finally, after the fifth time I said it, the singer sang the chorus to the drummer to let him know what I meant. They smiled. “Tomorrow, you sing with us Night Nurse.”
The next night, Saturday, the band played for a larger audience of working girls and tourists. Alternating between the pop covers were 9-14 minutes of African instrumental jams. I recall a reluctance to go up and ask them to stop their set for me. Making them stop and mess up their show for an mzungu to be into himself seemed, again, to be strange, uncomfortable; conjured a guilt that comes with relative affluence. But the African student on my program, Shani, was encouraging, predicting that the band would love an excuse to disrupt the ordinary. I walked up to the band after a number was winding down, barefoot, with kikoy and soccer jersey, and told them I’d been practicing “Night Nurse” that afternoon. They hadn’t, but told me to sing a note into the mic and then started an awesome reggae grove. The keyboardist listened to a few verses, the chorus, and proceeded to kill the song. We ran through it two or three times, altering solos, exchanging stupidly immodest grins. Nearly all of the students, my teacher, the drink servers, towel holders, and sex workers came over and hooted it up.
My memory of what happened next is certainly distorted, I recall the following theater…
As our Night Nurse faded into its last “only you only alone can quench dis here thirst,” Drummer grabbed me, and asked, “what next?”
Me: “I shot the sheriff?”
Him: “Okay, we don’t know but we will just play”
Me “I shot the sherri-ff” (into the mic, loudly)
Keyboard: (chords that perfectly corresponded to that salvo)
Me and band: rest of the song.
Drummer: “Now ‘No women no cry’”
[mid-way through song, the prostitutes got up, including a singer with a beautiful voice, someone who society should never allow to be prostitute] Her and I: “everything is gonna be all right / everything is gonna be alright”
Me: “what about redemption song?”
Keyboardist: “I play the guitar, we do a duet solo”
Drummer: [yelling] “Yes, Yes, Feel the Love, Reggae Music”
Dozen or so of the students and hotel workers, together, the intoxicated coming in with echoed harmonics a half verse behind: “Ole pirates yes dem rob I / sold I to thee mercant sheeps…
Monday, June 6, 2011
Ekonomik Sitcheeyation
Food: Teachers and newspapers agree Kenya has a food shortage, one that appears will get worse before better. The main ingredient for flour, maize (unga), is at an all-time premium. In Nairobi, protesters stopped downtown traffic and blocked PM Raila Odinga from entering his office. The marchers held signs and wore hats saying unga=30Ksh. If such a thing exists as national character, it is embodied here. Rather than request free food, or overthrow of government, folks unite around bargaining price for wholesale grain. Raila addressed the crowd, attempting to blame the high prices on factors beyond the government’s control, namely weather. After the crowd screamed back “No” in unison, Raila put his fist in the air and yelled “Harambee!” (freedom), hoping to be echoed in kind by a crowd full of people otherwise identified as Raila followers. Instead, the crowd responded with “Unga!”
Kenyan newspapers go on to detail how much of Kenya’s governmental grain reserves were sold for profit by politicians. Needless to say, such grain money didn’t channel back into the federal budget. Millions of maize kilos remain, but the government seems content waiting until the crisis reaches more of a full-on famine, so the stored maize is worth even more when unveiled.
On the other hand—with restaurants, street grillers, fryers, market fruits and veggies, dinners dat skool pay fo, dinners which “stress” other students on the program concerned the food will go to waste—I’ve never seen food cheaper for foreign buyers.
Oil: Gas (petroli) prices are high. As. Shit. 4 dollars a gallon would be a sizable reduction in price. I guess sustaining 3 wars in the Middle East isn’t an option. Way more people say they walk than they did before ’08. Muthafukas walked everywhere in 08. With even the beloved matatus proving too expensive for many to ride, more people are burning more energy to get to work each day on foot. As a result, they must eat greater portions for their meals each day, thereby compounding the food shortage.
Electricity: Goes kaput here and there. Ocasionally, outages are forewarned. Is in high demand, according to many authors of market forces indicators (journalists, editors at African Busi ness magazine, for example). But many know it is dispensable most times of day in Mombasa and don’t get too worked up about it. My night vision cockiness soars / AC ain’t indoors / so sweat pours from da pores.
Technology: You can buy a phone and a line for under thirty dollars, and call the U.S. at anytime for 3KSH a minute (approx. 4.5 cents a minute). Some globalization going a positive direction. With M-PESA, a creation of Kenya-run Safaricom, Kenyans no longer form lines into the street in wait of banking services. Instead, their phones are their banks. They store and send money in small computer chips, “SIM” cards.
Kenyan newspapers go on to detail how much of Kenya’s governmental grain reserves were sold for profit by politicians. Needless to say, such grain money didn’t channel back into the federal budget. Millions of maize kilos remain, but the government seems content waiting until the crisis reaches more of a full-on famine, so the stored maize is worth even more when unveiled.
On the other hand—with restaurants, street grillers, fryers, market fruits and veggies, dinners dat skool pay fo, dinners which “stress” other students on the program concerned the food will go to waste—I’ve never seen food cheaper for foreign buyers.
Oil: Gas (petroli) prices are high. As. Shit. 4 dollars a gallon would be a sizable reduction in price. I guess sustaining 3 wars in the Middle East isn’t an option. Way more people say they walk than they did before ’08. Muthafukas walked everywhere in 08. With even the beloved matatus proving too expensive for many to ride, more people are burning more energy to get to work each day on foot. As a result, they must eat greater portions for their meals each day, thereby compounding the food shortage.
Electricity: Goes kaput here and there. Ocasionally, outages are forewarned. Is in high demand, according to many authors of market forces indicators (journalists, editors at African Busi ness magazine, for example). But many know it is dispensable most times of day in Mombasa and don’t get too worked up about it. My night vision cockiness soars / AC ain’t indoors / so sweat pours from da pores.
Technology: You can buy a phone and a line for under thirty dollars, and call the U.S. at anytime for 3KSH a minute (approx. 4.5 cents a minute). Some globalization going a positive direction. With M-PESA, a creation of Kenya-run Safaricom, Kenyans no longer form lines into the street in wait of banking services. Instead, their phones are their banks. They store and send money in small computer chips, “SIM” cards.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Off-Campus Housing
I stay a couple narrow blocks from the Indian Ocean. Our house is clay—one of many multi-story conglomerations of breathable, breezy rooms and balconies. My mtaa, my neighborhood, is part of “Old Town” Mombasa . Old Town surrounds Fort Jesus, the medieval-era Portugese stronghold, currently home to goats and homemade soccer balls.
Many of these streets are too skinny for cars. Skinny people in Kofias, Khangas, and more fashionable, less easy to describe, Muslim getups speak a fast, tonal Swahili. They often exemplify what many African historians see as a distinct, longstanding, culture that exists apart the East African interior (For nerds: Frederick Cooper, Slaves to Squatters, and Jon Glassman, “Sorting Out the Tribes.”).
Contemporary Kenyans on the coast and in the mainland seem versed in a set of characteristics that apply to coastal folk. Visiting Nairobi in 2008, some impromptu oral historians attributed coastal land displacement to former President Jomo Kenyatta’s cleverness. Kenyatta allegedly convinced the “very lazy” coastal Waswahili to give government Kikuyu their land in exchange for pilau, a rice dish.
Tonight, on the Kenyan comedy program “Churchill,” a stand-up comedian, hilariously dressed in short pants a lå Cosmo Kramer, proposed instituting a cultural exchange program in Kenya for animals. He discussed contrasts between Roosters and Hens from the Rift Valley and Mombasa, respectively.
Imitating a hen from Rift Valley, he dashed back and forth across the stage, evoking the imagery of Kenya’s superstar distance runners, most of whom come from Rift mountains. His Mombasa rooster slowly strutted, cocking its hips, unable to catch Rift Hen.
Rift valley rooster vigorously screams “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO,” while Mombasa rooster nonchalantly mutters, “coup, coup.”
Those working in the Mombasa restaurant where this show played were howling and wiping their eyes from laughter.
Many of these streets are too skinny for cars. Skinny people in Kofias, Khangas, and more fashionable, less easy to describe, Muslim getups speak a fast, tonal Swahili. They often exemplify what many African historians see as a distinct, longstanding, culture that exists apart the East African interior (For nerds: Frederick Cooper, Slaves to Squatters, and Jon Glassman, “Sorting Out the Tribes.”).
Contemporary Kenyans on the coast and in the mainland seem versed in a set of characteristics that apply to coastal folk. Visiting Nairobi in 2008, some impromptu oral historians attributed coastal land displacement to former President Jomo Kenyatta’s cleverness. Kenyatta allegedly convinced the “very lazy” coastal Waswahili to give government Kikuyu their land in exchange for pilau, a rice dish.
Tonight, on the Kenyan comedy program “Churchill,” a stand-up comedian, hilariously dressed in short pants a lå Cosmo Kramer, proposed instituting a cultural exchange program in Kenya for animals. He discussed contrasts between Roosters and Hens from the Rift Valley and Mombasa, respectively.
Imitating a hen from Rift Valley, he dashed back and forth across the stage, evoking the imagery of Kenya’s superstar distance runners, most of whom come from Rift mountains. His Mombasa rooster slowly strutted, cocking its hips, unable to catch Rift Hen.
Rift valley rooster vigorously screams “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO,” while Mombasa rooster nonchalantly mutters, “coup, coup.”
Those working in the Mombasa restaurant where this show played were howling and wiping their eyes from laughter.
Jet Lag Memoir
The exhilarating feeling of Return.
Sights: shantyshack bars with dirty, partially lit signs and poorly dressed men sitting outside, smiling with bad posture. Wandering goats and children. So many places qualify as killer “dive bars,” based on Portlander, “Hipster” criterion. [pointless hand gestures ] It’s all so, like, spontaneous, so random…totally digging the artsy vibes. The street kids are, like, so creative. Burning tires to use the metals for cash. So raw. Totally be down to trip on glue with them.
Smells: Ocean, garbage, burning tires. The welcoming sense of déjà vu fades quickly here.
Sounds: Islamic chants in hypnotically melodic Swahili from mosque softly amplified throughout Oldtown, 2am. Lullabies seeping into upstairs bedrooms.
Nostalgia: makes my insides feel warm and fuzzy. Ludicrous to feel this way? I, a white American, getting “back to my roots” here? Surely it’s absurd to walk around, surrounded by black Africans I don’t know, and feel at home. I should be the mgeni here, the stranger, a consummate outsider. But what is an outsider? To be socially alienated, hopelessly distinct? Such feelings don’t exactly dissolve when living in the U.S. In academics, one’s analytical framework, daily thinking habits, diverge from the majority of Americans. I guess if you don’t mind being the center of attention, and like to fancy yourself as independent and original, then far-off, exotized travel is the thing for you. Of course, if it were tourist season, all pretense of novelty would be shattered.
Sights: shantyshack bars with dirty, partially lit signs and poorly dressed men sitting outside, smiling with bad posture. Wandering goats and children. So many places qualify as killer “dive bars,” based on Portlander, “Hipster” criterion. [pointless hand gestures ] It’s all so, like, spontaneous, so random…totally digging the artsy vibes. The street kids are, like, so creative. Burning tires to use the metals for cash. So raw. Totally be down to trip on glue with them.
Smells: Ocean, garbage, burning tires. The welcoming sense of déjà vu fades quickly here.
Sounds: Islamic chants in hypnotically melodic Swahili from mosque softly amplified throughout Oldtown, 2am. Lullabies seeping into upstairs bedrooms.
Nostalgia: makes my insides feel warm and fuzzy. Ludicrous to feel this way? I, a white American, getting “back to my roots” here? Surely it’s absurd to walk around, surrounded by black Africans I don’t know, and feel at home. I should be the mgeni here, the stranger, a consummate outsider. But what is an outsider? To be socially alienated, hopelessly distinct? Such feelings don’t exactly dissolve when living in the U.S. In academics, one’s analytical framework, daily thinking habits, diverge from the majority of Americans. I guess if you don’t mind being the center of attention, and like to fancy yourself as independent and original, then far-off, exotized travel is the thing for you. Of course, if it were tourist season, all pretense of novelty would be shattered.
"Black Swan" is a Great Airplane Movie
Washington D.C.-Amsterdam – FUA (fat ugly American) passenger quotient was significantly lower than that of Portland-Washington. Though I must continue circulating the statistic that Oregon has the lowest obesity of rate of any U.S. state. (I must also echo Mark Twain’s sentiment that citing statistics is stealthier, more sophisticated way of lying).
Best outfit in Europe – girl wearing religious headscarf with fabric covering most of her body. But nevertheless visible: a black t-shirt with pink letters that spell, “Duh, Winning.”
Four tiny pieces of chicken, measly portion of fries, iced tea in a cup designed to restrict one’s drink to soda: 11.50 in U.S. money at Amsterdam airport. And to think the papers say they are running OUT of money in Greece, Ireland, and soon, the rest of EU Europe.
Best outfit in Europe – girl wearing religious headscarf with fabric covering most of her body. But nevertheless visible: a black t-shirt with pink letters that spell, “Duh, Winning.”
Four tiny pieces of chicken, measly portion of fries, iced tea in a cup designed to restrict one’s drink to soda: 11.50 in U.S. money at Amsterdam airport. And to think the papers say they are running OUT of money in Greece, Ireland, and soon, the rest of EU Europe.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Modest Re-Launch of the Flying Matatu
After a three-year hiatus in the United States, I'm teeming with anticipation, trepidation, and needlessly flowery articulation as I prep for a return to the Other Side of Africa: Mombasa. My multi-day flight itinerary is set to begin tomorrow morning.
I am taking a summer swahili class through a Yale abroad program and summer FLAS scholarship. I don't think it will be like the Mombasa scene in 'Inception.' Although my time/space perception will probably again get shifted a little bit. Jet lag and laid-back Swahili Muslim vibes do that to a mzungu. I figure the transition will instead resemble more of an "Eat, Pray, Love" delusion, but with academics and poor folks involved.
Hard to say at this point how often I'll write here. Or what I'll write about. Please don't hesitate to offer questions, prompts, or disses in the comments section. Also got dat email: leifjacksonbullock@gmail.com.
Peace yall
I am taking a summer swahili class through a Yale abroad program and summer FLAS scholarship. I don't think it will be like the Mombasa scene in 'Inception.' Although my time/space perception will probably again get shifted a little bit. Jet lag and laid-back Swahili Muslim vibes do that to a mzungu. I figure the transition will instead resemble more of an "Eat, Pray, Love" delusion, but with academics and poor folks involved.
Hard to say at this point how often I'll write here. Or what I'll write about. Please don't hesitate to offer questions, prompts, or disses in the comments section. Also got dat email: leifjacksonbullock@gmail.com.
Peace yall
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Outros
Sad, looming departure from many things African a few matatu rides away. Sad to leave hawkers selling indefinitely borrowed road signs to cars stopped in traffic on Uhuru Highway, Nairobi. Sad to leave happy faces everywhere. Sad to leave folks who say karibu (welcome to) Kenya two months after one arrives, their eyes aglow. Sad to not share a city bus with a dozen-strong work crew that hauls hundreds of kilos worth of metal, including a steel ladder the length of a poll vault that rests in the aisle. Sad to no longer hear Mama Kikuyu halt such a bus with brash complaints as she vows to report, and does report, the public transport violation. Sad to stop eating delicious food everywhere at all times. Sad to begin not noticing so clearly a remarkable trait of human resiliency: the bleaker the living conditions, the stronger, and more selfless, people behave. Sad to walk away from streets where I must ignore nearly everyone I pass, and not because they will rob or hurt me but because they will adoringly pursuade me, as a result of their starkly transparent nobility, ingenuity, and vulnerability, to give away all my possessions and earnings to as many as I can before taking them back to America. Sad to cease being a softie in a land where potent humanity intoxicates a most sober individualist who, in principle, frowns upon spontaneous handouts.
Takin' a 48hr Nairobi layover before heading back West. My African Mama and mzungu Mama discuss tea recipes. I tie a few loose ends concerning the more scholastic aspects of Kenya history research. Hopefully, leaving the land will invigorate as it will also likely sadden. Again, I stress a point, as a I retire posts written within sub-saharan Africa, that either God(s) love this traveling American, or I've been just damn fortunate to breathe the air at the right times and places.
Takin' a 48hr Nairobi layover before heading back West. My African Mama and mzungu Mama discuss tea recipes. I tie a few loose ends concerning the more scholastic aspects of Kenya history research. Hopefully, leaving the land will invigorate as it will also likely sadden. Again, I stress a point, as a I retire posts written within sub-saharan Africa, that either God(s) love this traveling American, or I've been just damn fortunate to breathe the air at the right times and places.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Matatu Mediation
Late July
A man with physique and personality akin to Sir Charles Barkley sings and dances in his seat aboard a late-night "Young Geez" matatu. Once sure he has drawn the attention of fellow passengers, he kisses a newspaper cutout of young women stuck to the vehicle's ceiling. After a few stops let enough people out of the rig to compel the conductor to halt the vehicle and wait for more commuters, a small group of properly looking elders scans the matatu scene prospecting for a lift. The conductor predictable raps the destination and fare of his matatu hoping to sell the ride. Barkley then joins in the persuasion. The outsiders seem reluctant. Barkley gets out of the car and personally offers to usher them inside. Still failing, he convinces the people riding shotgun to move to the back and let the new people board the front. He then sits down on a two-inch curb outside the matatu, refusing to re-enter the vehicle until the prospective matatans hop step inside. While on the sit-down-strike, Barkley looks to the heavens and prays to his god to send His People across the potholes to the 14-seat caravan bound, one day hopefully, for some sort of promise land. As the matatu howls with laughter, applause, and a bombastically static-prone sound system, the outsiders demonstrate an equally masterful ability to completely ignore the existence of the world around them until "Young Geez" pulls away. Barkley gets out a few moments later, revealing how he could have simply left the scene after the initial stop. This rhapsodic spirit fuels The Flying Matatu, giving it a reliable dose of didactic petrol to carry it through the longer stretches of monotony that can crop up even in the most bustling journeys across jungles both manmade and eternal.
A man with physique and personality akin to Sir Charles Barkley sings and dances in his seat aboard a late-night "Young Geez" matatu. Once sure he has drawn the attention of fellow passengers, he kisses a newspaper cutout of young women stuck to the vehicle's ceiling. After a few stops let enough people out of the rig to compel the conductor to halt the vehicle and wait for more commuters, a small group of properly looking elders scans the matatu scene prospecting for a lift. The conductor predictable raps the destination and fare of his matatu hoping to sell the ride. Barkley then joins in the persuasion. The outsiders seem reluctant. Barkley gets out of the car and personally offers to usher them inside. Still failing, he convinces the people riding shotgun to move to the back and let the new people board the front. He then sits down on a two-inch curb outside the matatu, refusing to re-enter the vehicle until the prospective matatans hop step inside. While on the sit-down-strike, Barkley looks to the heavens and prays to his god to send His People across the potholes to the 14-seat caravan bound, one day hopefully, for some sort of promise land. As the matatu howls with laughter, applause, and a bombastically static-prone sound system, the outsiders demonstrate an equally masterful ability to completely ignore the existence of the world around them until "Young Geez" pulls away. Barkley gets out a few moments later, revealing how he could have simply left the scene after the initial stop. This rhapsodic spirit fuels The Flying Matatu, giving it a reliable dose of didactic petrol to carry it through the longer stretches of monotony that can crop up even in the most bustling journeys across jungles both manmade and eternal.
A Few Weeks Worth of Plays, Stays, and Perfect Waves,
19/7 Bamburi Beach, Mombasa
The switch has been made from village volunteer to pan-E. African tourist. A week long process of re-vegetation in personal activity level, and a de-vegetation in diet, unfolded to reflect vocational transition. Kampala sewed up delightful music, food, and dessert. A dance-dominated play in the National Theatre showed off unrivaled brilliance through its choreography and sheer physical supremacy attained by its cast. I used to think nobody could dance pop music like Michael Jackson did in the mid-80s when he mastered Thriller, moonwalking to Billie Jean for the fist time. The "Heart of Desire" crew effortlessly duplicated any and all of Jacko's gyrations while moving elegantly onto hotter moves. From classical ballroom numbers to Latino steps to sweaty, primal tribe trances, the Kampalans conquered. After the show, they astoundingly performed spontaneous individual feats, each breaking it down solo at center stage one-after-the-other.
Stomach content with Indian, Chinese, and various African feasts bitten and chewed from Kampala's cosmopolitan eating establishments, I took my Ma down to the neighboring international bus terminal for a hitch across the Kenyan border to the Luo stronghold of Kisumu. Soon to be renamed Wesupportobama, Kisumu is Kenya's 3rd largest city and rests beside Lake Victoria. The settlement behaves like a town, however, suffering from mid-week doldrums. It merely acted as a populated layover en route to Nairobi and Coast. Apparently, the minister of finance, a relative of PM Raila Odinga, was robbed in central Kisumu, where we stayed, during the short duration of our visit. Next day, we reached Nairobi, saw a movie (the stupidly riveting popcorns ((Kenyans call more than one kernel of popcorn 'popcorns' just as multiple mathematic calculations are known as 'maths')) gobbler 'Incredible Hulk'), then took the night bus a few hours later to Mombasa. Fittingly, the police chose to stop every vehicle on the highway, line all passengers up on the roadside, search their bags, and kill them. A few of us miraculously escaped and hid in maize fields, using the Southern Cross constellation as our navigator. Surviving off of surprisingly tasty glow-in-the-dark earthworms and drinking our own pee, we met a band of winged acrobats riding camels with palm-tree branch wings. Together, we flew over the Tsavo man-eaters, the Turkana, and reached Somaliland. As mere warlords in the heart of Mogadishu, life is a workaday hustle. Or at least one would think it as such as silly thoughts flood the brain during an outrageously prolonged and uninteresting roadblock from the indisputably corrupt Kenya polisi. What they were searching for, nobody knew. When several people were shot and killed on the highway a few days after the inconsequential searches, nobody was surprised.
The sunrise after the police party we reached Mombasa, spent a night in a dumbly recommended hotel that would not pass muster from even the most seedy budget dwellers, before riding the coastal matatu circuit out to Bamburi beach northbound. First day, I buddied up with a few of the more articulate, less abrasive local beach bums who plan no-budget sea safaris held together by floss fishing line and sympathetically wayward tourists. Dreads make easy friends. Come eve, the Swahili, the Friday, and I toured the boys' shanty. A big bed, and a small oil candle, and little else houses the three lads. They pay 1500KSH a month, less than Mommy and I pay for one night in the luxuriously empty Fontana. After a half night of intimate discotheque in Mtwapa town, just a small ration of sleep was needed before the following day gave way to waking hours. Coast living is low and easy. Particularly if one's in a place abundant in foreign amenities. Pool, tusker keg, electricity, portions of TV with slim commercials. Besides the mindless banter with the local tourist hassler workforce, the way of life has turned distinctly private. Visits to internet cafes are on the wane, ocean romping and sea gazing on the wax.
The last instance in which I spent considerable time with my mother passed more than a year ago when we drove down to the Alvord Desert in sparse, vast SE Oregon. Once secluded, the vacationing maintained a satisfying regimen of round-the-ignored-clock reading, running, eating, and sleeping. On the Swahili coast, pesky interruptions lying in the way of transcendental Alvordian swaths of time are growing fewer but still ongoing. Orders for food must be annunciated. The room cleaner has to be told to wait when the room occupant wishes to sleep into the afternoon. This coerces the occupant into an additional morning task in accompanying the already annoying ritual of elephantine pissing that prior drinking of tropical juices and their various concoctions unabsorbed by a body awash in humidity demand. Some institutions request shirts to be worn. The wearing of pants persists, and not out of preference. Why can't we go without trousers if the climate permits? No cogent reply to this query exists outside the archaic realms of fundamentalist religious justification, I say.
The switch has been made from village volunteer to pan-E. African tourist. A week long process of re-vegetation in personal activity level, and a de-vegetation in diet, unfolded to reflect vocational transition. Kampala sewed up delightful music, food, and dessert. A dance-dominated play in the National Theatre showed off unrivaled brilliance through its choreography and sheer physical supremacy attained by its cast. I used to think nobody could dance pop music like Michael Jackson did in the mid-80s when he mastered Thriller, moonwalking to Billie Jean for the fist time. The "Heart of Desire" crew effortlessly duplicated any and all of Jacko's gyrations while moving elegantly onto hotter moves. From classical ballroom numbers to Latino steps to sweaty, primal tribe trances, the Kampalans conquered. After the show, they astoundingly performed spontaneous individual feats, each breaking it down solo at center stage one-after-the-other.
Stomach content with Indian, Chinese, and various African feasts bitten and chewed from Kampala's cosmopolitan eating establishments, I took my Ma down to the neighboring international bus terminal for a hitch across the Kenyan border to the Luo stronghold of Kisumu. Soon to be renamed Wesupportobama, Kisumu is Kenya's 3rd largest city and rests beside Lake Victoria. The settlement behaves like a town, however, suffering from mid-week doldrums. It merely acted as a populated layover en route to Nairobi and Coast. Apparently, the minister of finance, a relative of PM Raila Odinga, was robbed in central Kisumu, where we stayed, during the short duration of our visit. Next day, we reached Nairobi, saw a movie (the stupidly riveting popcorns ((Kenyans call more than one kernel of popcorn 'popcorns' just as multiple mathematic calculations are known as 'maths')) gobbler 'Incredible Hulk'), then took the night bus a few hours later to Mombasa. Fittingly, the police chose to stop every vehicle on the highway, line all passengers up on the roadside, search their bags, and kill them. A few of us miraculously escaped and hid in maize fields, using the Southern Cross constellation as our navigator. Surviving off of surprisingly tasty glow-in-the-dark earthworms and drinking our own pee, we met a band of winged acrobats riding camels with palm-tree branch wings. Together, we flew over the Tsavo man-eaters, the Turkana, and reached Somaliland. As mere warlords in the heart of Mogadishu, life is a workaday hustle. Or at least one would think it as such as silly thoughts flood the brain during an outrageously prolonged and uninteresting roadblock from the indisputably corrupt Kenya polisi. What they were searching for, nobody knew. When several people were shot and killed on the highway a few days after the inconsequential searches, nobody was surprised.
The sunrise after the police party we reached Mombasa, spent a night in a dumbly recommended hotel that would not pass muster from even the most seedy budget dwellers, before riding the coastal matatu circuit out to Bamburi beach northbound. First day, I buddied up with a few of the more articulate, less abrasive local beach bums who plan no-budget sea safaris held together by floss fishing line and sympathetically wayward tourists. Dreads make easy friends. Come eve, the Swahili, the Friday, and I toured the boys' shanty. A big bed, and a small oil candle, and little else houses the three lads. They pay 1500KSH a month, less than Mommy and I pay for one night in the luxuriously empty Fontana. After a half night of intimate discotheque in Mtwapa town, just a small ration of sleep was needed before the following day gave way to waking hours. Coast living is low and easy. Particularly if one's in a place abundant in foreign amenities. Pool, tusker keg, electricity, portions of TV with slim commercials. Besides the mindless banter with the local tourist hassler workforce, the way of life has turned distinctly private. Visits to internet cafes are on the wane, ocean romping and sea gazing on the wax.
The last instance in which I spent considerable time with my mother passed more than a year ago when we drove down to the Alvord Desert in sparse, vast SE Oregon. Once secluded, the vacationing maintained a satisfying regimen of round-the-ignored-clock reading, running, eating, and sleeping. On the Swahili coast, pesky interruptions lying in the way of transcendental Alvordian swaths of time are growing fewer but still ongoing. Orders for food must be annunciated. The room cleaner has to be told to wait when the room occupant wishes to sleep into the afternoon. This coerces the occupant into an additional morning task in accompanying the already annoying ritual of elephantine pissing that prior drinking of tropical juices and their various concoctions unabsorbed by a body awash in humidity demand. Some institutions request shirts to be worn. The wearing of pants persists, and not out of preference. Why can't we go without trousers if the climate permits? No cogent reply to this query exists outside the archaic realms of fundamentalist religious justification, I say.
Distant Dispatch from Deep inside the Dark Pearl
High time for a belatedly transcribed, yet comforting synopsis, of teaching escapade directed from Mama. Goes like dis right heere...
Winding down our last week @T.Inn, it's hard to believe a month has passed since our arrival. We kicked off the week in the classroom. I toted along a handful of books, thinking they work effectively in a Reader's Theater situation. While I narrated the stories, the other volunteers acted out the tales' various roles much to the delight of the students. The other volunteers include 4 women from the UK, ages 19-21. As Leif mentioned, he was typecast as the male actor which often meant he was big and bad. These students rarely see a book and very rarely are involved with acting of any kind. After our story and some whole group drama exercises, we broke up into smaller groups and let the kids have turns performing in front of small audiences. At first it was like pulling teeth to get them to emote in character form and to speak above a whisper but eventually they warmed up to it. The younger kids essentially mimed while the older ones read and learned lines. Often the kids perform song, dance, drawing in groups but seldom do they have the opportunity to go solo.
In his blogs, Leif described the soccer match and cross-country run. Both were well attended and spectated, a sight to behold in this remote area where few extra-curricular activities occur.
On our final day, the headmaster and the all-male staff of 8 treated us to a morning tea time. They lugged thermoses down to our place and were especially excited because they brought along fresh, warm milk from the night watchman's cow. Wince we have no electricity, thus no refrigerator, having fresh milk with tea is the ultimate treat.
Late in the pm, the school presented a musical performance to thank us for our time and to bid us farewell. It's always striking to see how fit the children are and to observe the range of musical gifts they present.
Leif and I agree the hardest part about leaving is putting a halt to our interactions with the kids. They are very appreciative of any attention they receive and are hungry to learn, realizing more knowledge may mean a path toward a better life.
Winding down our last week @T.Inn, it's hard to believe a month has passed since our arrival. We kicked off the week in the classroom. I toted along a handful of books, thinking they work effectively in a Reader's Theater situation. While I narrated the stories, the other volunteers acted out the tales' various roles much to the delight of the students. The other volunteers include 4 women from the UK, ages 19-21. As Leif mentioned, he was typecast as the male actor which often meant he was big and bad. These students rarely see a book and very rarely are involved with acting of any kind. After our story and some whole group drama exercises, we broke up into smaller groups and let the kids have turns performing in front of small audiences. At first it was like pulling teeth to get them to emote in character form and to speak above a whisper but eventually they warmed up to it. The younger kids essentially mimed while the older ones read and learned lines. Often the kids perform song, dance, drawing in groups but seldom do they have the opportunity to go solo.
In his blogs, Leif described the soccer match and cross-country run. Both were well attended and spectated, a sight to behold in this remote area where few extra-curricular activities occur.
On our final day, the headmaster and the all-male staff of 8 treated us to a morning tea time. They lugged thermoses down to our place and were especially excited because they brought along fresh, warm milk from the night watchman's cow. Wince we have no electricity, thus no refrigerator, having fresh milk with tea is the ultimate treat.
Late in the pm, the school presented a musical performance to thank us for our time and to bid us farewell. It's always striking to see how fit the children are and to observe the range of musical gifts they present.
Leif and I agree the hardest part about leaving is putting a halt to our interactions with the kids. They are very appreciative of any attention they receive and are hungry to learn, realizing more knowledge may mean a path toward a better life.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
When we say "Agaandi," ya'll say "Ndi Gye"...
11/10
The final day at TeachInn went down as a seemingly never-ending span of time. One looks back on it the following day and marvels at all the various happenings that unfolded. Or maybe it's a normal day in the city, and it seems lengthy in rural Africa since so many days melt away with a steady ease. In the words of George Costanza, "like an old man easing into a warm bath."
Come morn, we walked into classrooms for our last lessons, my mother and I. Cumulating our invented "drama week," the white people overacted various stories for the children to laugh at. Typecast as a man character, I, a skinny, goofy mzungu, played the big, bag wolf. When most of the 80 minute lesson elapsed, and the hilarity of my falling into an imaginary pool of hot water began to subside, some kids started saying "e-f-f-e-c-t," signaling they wanted a fix as mic fiends. The younger ones' version goes something like "e-f-f-e-e-P" [speaking in tongues], "e-f-f-e-e-p" [speaking in tongues], and it don't stop like so.
Come quarter past three, we handed out the numbers for the Ryabiringye Primary Cross Country scramble. Having written their names on numbered pieces of paper earlier in the week, the kids in the young P2-P4 classes danced in the aisles upon hearing news of their inclusion in the race. Did they know they were volunteering for an exercise of intense physical pain? Indeed. The chance to compete in sports had been previously confined to the oldest three classes, P5-P7. The youngsters itched at any chance to capture athletic distinction.
Unlike their American equivalents, which tend to lazily scoff at the prospect of sustained physical activity, the Bakiga unconsciously undergo year-round long distance training. Folks run to school, run to lunch, run back to school, and run after school playing football/netball until, and then a while after, dusk. Such a schedule is only interrupted by the seasonal demands of crops, which pull students from school for hard farm labor. The local die consists of a properly heavy supply of carbohydrates courtesy of matoke, rice, and g-nut sauce on every eating occasion. Everywhere is a hill. The bottoms of bills rise more than a mile above sea level. And for the first time in their lives, a race was organized on their behalf.
After posting wazungu on various turning points throughout the course, I trotted to the starting line. Awash with yellow, hundreds awaited the go-ahead signal. An mzungu yelled "1,2,3, Go" and the kids and I clogged the sole road artery away from the school down the football pitch, around said pitch, up a segment of fairly steep hillside, up a severely steep segment of a hillside, down a treacherously skinny straight-shot down the hill, around the pitch a second time, all before ascending the long, hard slog to the finish line atop the village. My lungs convulsed with exhaustion upon course completion. Legs flimsily like overcooked pasta. I finished comfortably behind the first five finishers.
The masses of 8-12 year olds quickly followed behind the leaders, causing an intense session of results recording. Once having tabulated the results, we presented the winning boy and girl from each class, and the top three boys and girls overall, with hackey sacks and toy medal prizes at an award ceremony duly following the last finisher. The overall winner was a boy from P5 not even on the first or second football teams. The winning girl came from the P4 class, meaning she wasn't even allowed to try out for the netball team. Before giving the awards out with customary handshakes and applause, I gave a short translated speech praising the pupils' strength and eagerness to run. Kids listened looking tired, thirsty, and, since I'd mentioned it, not so eagerly conduced into thankless scrambles up and down hills.
The award ceremony gave way to a going-away ceremony for me and Mama Me. Headmaster Kenneth and "we have loved you" among other sentimental pronouncements. The school choir sang and danced for us on cattle-grazed lawn. Following that, we rode a minibus outta TeachInn for the last time.
Pulling into Lake Bunyoni in the late evening, excitement ran high among the volunteers. For open mic night, those of us at Teach Inn (renamed T-Unit) gave a rap performance we'd been practicing all week. From a minstrel, comedic standpoint, the performance was a huge success. 19-year old British gals sneered rhymes with all the attitude their dainty accents could muster. Necklace letters made of tin foil debuted. Dave wore a clock on his chest.
Around midnight, a skinnydipping spree in the drink cooled our desires, capping the day's excess in activity.
The final day at TeachInn went down as a seemingly never-ending span of time. One looks back on it the following day and marvels at all the various happenings that unfolded. Or maybe it's a normal day in the city, and it seems lengthy in rural Africa since so many days melt away with a steady ease. In the words of George Costanza, "like an old man easing into a warm bath."
Come morn, we walked into classrooms for our last lessons, my mother and I. Cumulating our invented "drama week," the white people overacted various stories for the children to laugh at. Typecast as a man character, I, a skinny, goofy mzungu, played the big, bag wolf. When most of the 80 minute lesson elapsed, and the hilarity of my falling into an imaginary pool of hot water began to subside, some kids started saying "e-f-f-e-c-t," signaling they wanted a fix as mic fiends. The younger ones' version goes something like "e-f-f-e-e-P" [speaking in tongues], "e-f-f-e-e-p" [speaking in tongues], and it don't stop like so.
Come quarter past three, we handed out the numbers for the Ryabiringye Primary Cross Country scramble. Having written their names on numbered pieces of paper earlier in the week, the kids in the young P2-P4 classes danced in the aisles upon hearing news of their inclusion in the race. Did they know they were volunteering for an exercise of intense physical pain? Indeed. The chance to compete in sports had been previously confined to the oldest three classes, P5-P7. The youngsters itched at any chance to capture athletic distinction.
Unlike their American equivalents, which tend to lazily scoff at the prospect of sustained physical activity, the Bakiga unconsciously undergo year-round long distance training. Folks run to school, run to lunch, run back to school, and run after school playing football/netball until, and then a while after, dusk. Such a schedule is only interrupted by the seasonal demands of crops, which pull students from school for hard farm labor. The local die consists of a properly heavy supply of carbohydrates courtesy of matoke, rice, and g-nut sauce on every eating occasion. Everywhere is a hill. The bottoms of bills rise more than a mile above sea level. And for the first time in their lives, a race was organized on their behalf.
After posting wazungu on various turning points throughout the course, I trotted to the starting line. Awash with yellow, hundreds awaited the go-ahead signal. An mzungu yelled "1,2,3, Go" and the kids and I clogged the sole road artery away from the school down the football pitch, around said pitch, up a segment of fairly steep hillside, up a severely steep segment of a hillside, down a treacherously skinny straight-shot down the hill, around the pitch a second time, all before ascending the long, hard slog to the finish line atop the village. My lungs convulsed with exhaustion upon course completion. Legs flimsily like overcooked pasta. I finished comfortably behind the first five finishers.
The masses of 8-12 year olds quickly followed behind the leaders, causing an intense session of results recording. Once having tabulated the results, we presented the winning boy and girl from each class, and the top three boys and girls overall, with hackey sacks and toy medal prizes at an award ceremony duly following the last finisher. The overall winner was a boy from P5 not even on the first or second football teams. The winning girl came from the P4 class, meaning she wasn't even allowed to try out for the netball team. Before giving the awards out with customary handshakes and applause, I gave a short translated speech praising the pupils' strength and eagerness to run. Kids listened looking tired, thirsty, and, since I'd mentioned it, not so eagerly conduced into thankless scrambles up and down hills.
The award ceremony gave way to a going-away ceremony for me and Mama Me. Headmaster Kenneth and "we have loved you" among other sentimental pronouncements. The school choir sang and danced for us on cattle-grazed lawn. Following that, we rode a minibus outta TeachInn for the last time.
Pulling into Lake Bunyoni in the late evening, excitement ran high among the volunteers. For open mic night, those of us at Teach Inn (renamed T-Unit) gave a rap performance we'd been practicing all week. From a minstrel, comedic standpoint, the performance was a huge success. 19-year old British gals sneered rhymes with all the attitude their dainty accents could muster. Necklace letters made of tin foil debuted. Dave wore a clock on his chest.
Around midnight, a skinnydipping spree in the drink cooled our desires, capping the day's excess in activity.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Ryabiringye Primary School v Nyakasiru Primary School
10-7
With no less than five organized practices under our skinny, tightly fastened belts, my squad of footballers played their first match of the year against cross-village rivals Nyakasiru. It marked my debut as football coach, and my last game as coach of Ryabiringye. The match fell on the penultimate day of TeachInn duties. With Dave, the mostly out-of-town GM, heeding requests to ref the match, the pride of the school fell squarely on my shoulders. Seriously. Numerous grown men cared deeply about the outcome. They stated it as a must-win beforehand and proved such sentiment authentic by rooting with a heavily partisan vigor during the affair.
Following a netball match between the two school in which the gals in Rya yellow trounced the visiting Nya teal 3-1, the match began. Like netball, it was held on Rya home pitch (this pre-digital computer apparently lacks an apostrophe key) and watched by two entire student bodies. Nyakasiru has no pitch. Nor did any of Nya s players have shoes, prompting the few Rya players with kicks to remove theirs in a gesture of fairness. Nyakasiru also lacked visibly distinguishable substitutes. Lacking the resources to obtain a ball of their own, Nya had to borrow one from the volunteers to practice with in the days leading up to the clash. A neutral observer who fancies underdogs would have sided with Nyakisiru. Part of me, the opposing coach, secretly pined for a spoiler, having taught a few classes down the road to Bukinda myself. But the greater bulk of me knew a Rya victory would do wonders to demonstrate the value of teaching kids to pass the ball, thereby spurring an overall improvement in local football. I also wanted to capture the glory of being part of an winning African football team.
The schools, and their respective alumni, crowded the sidelines screaming chants at each other during the opening volleys. Rya, instructed to pass, controlled the ball from the outset. But weak, motionless play from our undersized strikers denied us any more than a handful of clean looks at the goal. Cute, sloppy play from our keeper Agaba nearly coast us a couple scores as a wonderkid from Rya managed to singlehandedly maneuver around our exceptionally cautious defense. The unusual expressions of timidity from many of our players certainly were not alleviated by the antics of a dozen or so men crowded around or sideline. These faculty, distant Rya alum, and other inexplicably present old men did their best to micromanage every touch of any Rya player within earshot of their hyperpitched Bakiga jabber. Likely giving contrary orders to mine, the men attempted to make their own substitutions and position changes independent of the coach. Ref Dave at one point overheard the sideshow and threw his whistle on the ground, cursed the disruptive supporters, and demanded they back off or else operate the match, and the football programs, themselves. -you men are behaving like boys-, he memorably said. True, but our boys were also behaving like boys. Scared to run to the ball once they failed to find quick success against a team that they were repeatedly assured by adults they should beat, they left the first half at nil-nil.
At half, I mostly spared the volumes of criticism festering within me and instead tried to fire up the spirits of the team with playful punches and sing-song voice inflections. Any amusement on their part remained hidden. Yet I had a feeling a few key adjustments could eventually exert our rightful dominance of the game. I took the captain Johnson aside and told him I needed him back on defense. Usually, a defensive assignment amounts to an insult in the minds of most of my players. But I reached an understanding with Johnson that we needed some coolheadedness to quell the spirited solo runs of Nya s chief attacker. Johnson smiled dutifully and with a businesslike -yes- took the the field. I shifted a defender, Edgar, to center-midfield. Edgar wore stiff shoes and overly long jean shorts at practice, never demanding the ball or a striker assignment like the other heavies. He let the game come to him. With an actual competition underway, Edgar stripped down to short skivvies, lost the shoes, and owned the pitch. A man among boys.
The second half saw Nya chase the ball with an added sense of frenzy. Rya responded with dopey-eyed caution. The forwards continued to stand motionless, as excellent through balls from Edgar were squandered with stork-legged swipes to nobody. I pulled both starting strikers and shuffled another burly defender forward while inserting Ian, a shunned substitute, in at striker as well. Having never been awarded the striker position under my direction before, Ian played with hungry tenacity, chasing down loose balls and staring down opposing defenders. But Nya outran us on our half of the field. After 25 minutes elapsed on a 35 minute second half, Nya s star player pounded a dominating goal into us. Those in teal stormed the field. Cartwheels and backflips erupted. I clapped twice, then encouraged my boys to play hard and nothing more. They looked dejected but also more focused. As Nyakasiru fans sang and danced unopposed, reveling in a late-game lead, we willed a decent pass across the center that fortuitously bounced over enough Nya defender header attempts to give Ian an open dash to the goal with the ball. His power stroke flew over the keeper s head, prompting the yellow to take their turn in celebrations. Adults hugged each other. 8 minutes or so ticked away, packed with intense, cluster-the-ball deliberations from both sides. AS regulation expired, the Nya coach and I agreed to two 10 minute extra time sessions. My players knelt at center field as I barked instructions, only to be cut off by Dave, who said the Nya headmaster, the respected John Allen Cabanza, wanted the game called off as a draw. Dave and I passed out sought after juice boxes to the competitors, attempting to rationalize the anti-climatic justice of a tie. Then, Cabanza suggested two five minute sessions of OT. We scrambled to pick up the discarded refreshments off the pitch and resume play before the sun set. With four minutes to go, Amoni, the best individual playmaker on Rya, corralled a loose ball inside the box and rocketed it into the goal at an angle. Utter hysteria ensued. Three minutes later, time expired and my boys had rallied from behind to win. Edgar was named Man of the Match. Overcoming the burden of coaching, they eked out a dramatic victory and, in no exaggerated terms, filled Rya alum, faculty, and headmaster with pride and honer.
With no less than five organized practices under our skinny, tightly fastened belts, my squad of footballers played their first match of the year against cross-village rivals Nyakasiru. It marked my debut as football coach, and my last game as coach of Ryabiringye. The match fell on the penultimate day of TeachInn duties. With Dave, the mostly out-of-town GM, heeding requests to ref the match, the pride of the school fell squarely on my shoulders. Seriously. Numerous grown men cared deeply about the outcome. They stated it as a must-win beforehand and proved such sentiment authentic by rooting with a heavily partisan vigor during the affair.
Following a netball match between the two school in which the gals in Rya yellow trounced the visiting Nya teal 3-1, the match began. Like netball, it was held on Rya home pitch (this pre-digital computer apparently lacks an apostrophe key) and watched by two entire student bodies. Nyakasiru has no pitch. Nor did any of Nya s players have shoes, prompting the few Rya players with kicks to remove theirs in a gesture of fairness. Nyakasiru also lacked visibly distinguishable substitutes. Lacking the resources to obtain a ball of their own, Nya had to borrow one from the volunteers to practice with in the days leading up to the clash. A neutral observer who fancies underdogs would have sided with Nyakisiru. Part of me, the opposing coach, secretly pined for a spoiler, having taught a few classes down the road to Bukinda myself. But the greater bulk of me knew a Rya victory would do wonders to demonstrate the value of teaching kids to pass the ball, thereby spurring an overall improvement in local football. I also wanted to capture the glory of being part of an winning African football team.
The schools, and their respective alumni, crowded the sidelines screaming chants at each other during the opening volleys. Rya, instructed to pass, controlled the ball from the outset. But weak, motionless play from our undersized strikers denied us any more than a handful of clean looks at the goal. Cute, sloppy play from our keeper Agaba nearly coast us a couple scores as a wonderkid from Rya managed to singlehandedly maneuver around our exceptionally cautious defense. The unusual expressions of timidity from many of our players certainly were not alleviated by the antics of a dozen or so men crowded around or sideline. These faculty, distant Rya alum, and other inexplicably present old men did their best to micromanage every touch of any Rya player within earshot of their hyperpitched Bakiga jabber. Likely giving contrary orders to mine, the men attempted to make their own substitutions and position changes independent of the coach. Ref Dave at one point overheard the sideshow and threw his whistle on the ground, cursed the disruptive supporters, and demanded they back off or else operate the match, and the football programs, themselves. -you men are behaving like boys-, he memorably said. True, but our boys were also behaving like boys. Scared to run to the ball once they failed to find quick success against a team that they were repeatedly assured by adults they should beat, they left the first half at nil-nil.
At half, I mostly spared the volumes of criticism festering within me and instead tried to fire up the spirits of the team with playful punches and sing-song voice inflections. Any amusement on their part remained hidden. Yet I had a feeling a few key adjustments could eventually exert our rightful dominance of the game. I took the captain Johnson aside and told him I needed him back on defense. Usually, a defensive assignment amounts to an insult in the minds of most of my players. But I reached an understanding with Johnson that we needed some coolheadedness to quell the spirited solo runs of Nya s chief attacker. Johnson smiled dutifully and with a businesslike -yes- took the the field. I shifted a defender, Edgar, to center-midfield. Edgar wore stiff shoes and overly long jean shorts at practice, never demanding the ball or a striker assignment like the other heavies. He let the game come to him. With an actual competition underway, Edgar stripped down to short skivvies, lost the shoes, and owned the pitch. A man among boys.
The second half saw Nya chase the ball with an added sense of frenzy. Rya responded with dopey-eyed caution. The forwards continued to stand motionless, as excellent through balls from Edgar were squandered with stork-legged swipes to nobody. I pulled both starting strikers and shuffled another burly defender forward while inserting Ian, a shunned substitute, in at striker as well. Having never been awarded the striker position under my direction before, Ian played with hungry tenacity, chasing down loose balls and staring down opposing defenders. But Nya outran us on our half of the field. After 25 minutes elapsed on a 35 minute second half, Nya s star player pounded a dominating goal into us. Those in teal stormed the field. Cartwheels and backflips erupted. I clapped twice, then encouraged my boys to play hard and nothing more. They looked dejected but also more focused. As Nyakasiru fans sang and danced unopposed, reveling in a late-game lead, we willed a decent pass across the center that fortuitously bounced over enough Nya defender header attempts to give Ian an open dash to the goal with the ball. His power stroke flew over the keeper s head, prompting the yellow to take their turn in celebrations. Adults hugged each other. 8 minutes or so ticked away, packed with intense, cluster-the-ball deliberations from both sides. AS regulation expired, the Nya coach and I agreed to two 10 minute extra time sessions. My players knelt at center field as I barked instructions, only to be cut off by Dave, who said the Nya headmaster, the respected John Allen Cabanza, wanted the game called off as a draw. Dave and I passed out sought after juice boxes to the competitors, attempting to rationalize the anti-climatic justice of a tie. Then, Cabanza suggested two five minute sessions of OT. We scrambled to pick up the discarded refreshments off the pitch and resume play before the sun set. With four minutes to go, Amoni, the best individual playmaker on Rya, corralled a loose ball inside the box and rocketed it into the goal at an angle. Utter hysteria ensued. Three minutes later, time expired and my boys had rallied from behind to win. Edgar was named Man of the Match. Overcoming the burden of coaching, they eked out a dramatic victory and, in no exaggerated terms, filled Rya alum, faculty, and headmaster with pride and honer.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
4th of July
Another post courtesy of the seniormost American Southern Ugandan Ambassador, Sharon Bullock:
The school and our lodging is situated upon a slope. Every morn when it's still dark around 6am, someone beats a drum slowly from our place. This lets the kids in the surrounding area below know it's time to prepare for school. Time is a funny concept in this country. There's not the Western linear thinking, but something jumbled up in another dimension. Previous volunteer teachers have tried and failed to get students understand telling time. It's true, many activities involve standing around and waiting but it's not always an annoyance. Time isn't an issue. We continue to enjoy our teaching experience with kids. Yesterday, Leif and I were in a middle school age class and we were supposed to continue a previous lesson on germs, hygiene, proper washing, etc but it turns out most students know more about that than we do. I think they are force fed this theme many times. We decided to scrap that lesson and install one of our own. First, we taught them a song with great lyrics, rhythm. They naturally picked it up quickly. Then we gave them the writing prompt, "If I was the leader of my village I would help it by..." Wow, it was amazing what they came up with. They didn't fly off with imagination but instead managed to incorporate much of what they previously learned in essay form. Many wrote detailed facts about the environment, soil erosion, deforestation, harmful chemicals to lactating mothers, etc. No outlines, no drafts, only first and final copies written in ink with good handwriting and near-perfect spelling. There's something to say for copying factual information from the board. I plan to beef up that aspect in my classroom because I think it leads to quick and efficient note-taking in the future. Some of us learn beast when writing it down.
This morning Leif and I walked to the other school we sometimes teach at. These kids aren't as used to muzungos so a couple hundred yards before reaching the school we're met by a greeting party-- a band of 7-9 yr old boys who hold our hands and bring us along. They are really too cute. For our time here we took the class of 80 outside for game fun. Leif led them in stretches and aerobics and then we formed 10 relay teams for lots of running. At first, it was hilarious because the idea of running in TEAMS is foreign. After many false starts, they finally succeeded. It's an indescribable joy to watch kids laugh and play when you know the playing occurs so infrequently.
In a short while we will have our tree-planting ceremony. Leif bought a guava tree and I selected an avocado plant. They're planted on the school grounds with the idea that kids will have food available to them when hungry and they won't have to snitch from the neighboring fields. Shouldn't we have fruit trees on our our school grounds? Instant healthy snack.
The school and our lodging is situated upon a slope. Every morn when it's still dark around 6am, someone beats a drum slowly from our place. This lets the kids in the surrounding area below know it's time to prepare for school. Time is a funny concept in this country. There's not the Western linear thinking, but something jumbled up in another dimension. Previous volunteer teachers have tried and failed to get students understand telling time. It's true, many activities involve standing around and waiting but it's not always an annoyance. Time isn't an issue. We continue to enjoy our teaching experience with kids. Yesterday, Leif and I were in a middle school age class and we were supposed to continue a previous lesson on germs, hygiene, proper washing, etc but it turns out most students know more about that than we do. I think they are force fed this theme many times. We decided to scrap that lesson and install one of our own. First, we taught them a song with great lyrics, rhythm. They naturally picked it up quickly. Then we gave them the writing prompt, "If I was the leader of my village I would help it by..." Wow, it was amazing what they came up with. They didn't fly off with imagination but instead managed to incorporate much of what they previously learned in essay form. Many wrote detailed facts about the environment, soil erosion, deforestation, harmful chemicals to lactating mothers, etc. No outlines, no drafts, only first and final copies written in ink with good handwriting and near-perfect spelling. There's something to say for copying factual information from the board. I plan to beef up that aspect in my classroom because I think it leads to quick and efficient note-taking in the future. Some of us learn beast when writing it down.
This morning Leif and I walked to the other school we sometimes teach at. These kids aren't as used to muzungos so a couple hundred yards before reaching the school we're met by a greeting party-- a band of 7-9 yr old boys who hold our hands and bring us along. They are really too cute. For our time here we took the class of 80 outside for game fun. Leif led them in stretches and aerobics and then we formed 10 relay teams for lots of running. At first, it was hilarious because the idea of running in TEAMS is foreign. After many false starts, they finally succeeded. It's an indescribable joy to watch kids laugh and play when you know the playing occurs so infrequently.
In a short while we will have our tree-planting ceremony. Leif bought a guava tree and I selected an avocado plant. They're planted on the school grounds with the idea that kids will have food available to them when hungry and they won't have to snitch from the neighboring fields. Shouldn't we have fruit trees on our our school grounds? Instant healthy snack.
Ryabirengye United FC
5/7
This week, the nominal head volunteer Dave, and I, have assumed managorial and coaching duties for the just-revived school football team. On the first day of tryouts, I ordered the first-team hopefuls to run four laps around the pitch with me. When completed, I was told a few jokers hid in the bushes after the first lap, thinking they would get away with it. Losing my nice guy, "player's coach" demeanor instantly, I screamed at the lot of them, informing every aspiring Drogba that those who hid may as well leave the field immediately because I had memorized their faces (not true) and I would not permit them to join the first or second squad. From then on, the students have done what's been asked of them, provided they understand the orders, and provided the orders can realistically be followed (once Dave decreed that the ball not leave the ground during a scrimmage, an impossible task considering the treacherous topography we play on...).
screamin away
cuz 20 or so can play
with months of serious guidance
we'll stun critics into silence
the pitch affords no favors
hills and goats crowd the penalty areas
the little ones try hard
big kids kick it too far
team hardly understands me,-
my Bakiga tongue stops after "agaandi".
I tell them to run
they hide in the bushes
I tell them to pass
they kick the ball without lookin.
most say they play striker
think they're built like Adeboyar
yet just a few can explode
in that funky goal mode
certain brilliance is undefinable
amongst these peasants cutting pineapple
to slice a hot pass down the middle
is tricky like a clever riddle
the situation requires smarts
deriving from the creative arts
accuracy, precision
join forces with wisdom
to make the defense miss and bleed
timing is the most vital key.
This week, the nominal head volunteer Dave, and I, have assumed managorial and coaching duties for the just-revived school football team. On the first day of tryouts, I ordered the first-team hopefuls to run four laps around the pitch with me. When completed, I was told a few jokers hid in the bushes after the first lap, thinking they would get away with it. Losing my nice guy, "player's coach" demeanor instantly, I screamed at the lot of them, informing every aspiring Drogba that those who hid may as well leave the field immediately because I had memorized their faces (not true) and I would not permit them to join the first or second squad. From then on, the students have done what's been asked of them, provided they understand the orders, and provided the orders can realistically be followed (once Dave decreed that the ball not leave the ground during a scrimmage, an impossible task considering the treacherous topography we play on...).
screamin away
cuz 20 or so can play
with months of serious guidance
we'll stun critics into silence
the pitch affords no favors
hills and goats crowd the penalty areas
the little ones try hard
big kids kick it too far
team hardly understands me,-
my Bakiga tongue stops after "agaandi".
I tell them to run
they hide in the bushes
I tell them to pass
they kick the ball without lookin.
most say they play striker
think they're built like Adeboyar
yet just a few can explode
in that funky goal mode
certain brilliance is undefinable
amongst these peasants cutting pineapple
to slice a hot pass down the middle
is tricky like a clever riddle
the situation requires smarts
deriving from the creative arts
accuracy, precision
join forces with wisdom
to make the defense miss and bleed
timing is the most vital key.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)