Noble Savagery

5 Aout 2006

Yesterday we went to visit some more old folks, in order that we might practice our language and sample some of their tea - it all tastes pretty much the same to me, and even the differences between rounds (more bitter, more minty and sweeter) usually go over my head. Nevertheless, we stopped under the tent of a nice old couple, along with various other neighbors, relatives and such characters as that. I think the old man and woman are the parents of my maternal aunt's daughter's husband, but I could be wrong - familial attachments around here are about as entangled as my little niece Amtee's hair. And that stuff's a bitch.

Anyway we sat and talked as well as we could, we answered questions, laughed at Haddou and told stories. I told the one about when Meghann and I were little and Bud Trumble chased us with a snapping turtle (slightly embellished for dramatic effect of course). They seemed to like it, and were the friendly sort to meet us halfway when our language failed. I guess also that the experience of having the nasrani say the words for head, ear, house, tent and big stick never gets old. In fact, the first few days here, and now whenever I meet someone new, I feel like the best toy ever. Although, this has its merits.

I don't know how to explain the old couple (Khadaisia and Abdelai). They're just like everyone else here, so strange and foreign, yet so familiar, well worn and comforting, kind, earthbound, wise (or unwise) and so colorful that I'm continually wondering why it doesn't feel stranger to be here. I suppose such is our ability to adapt.

Khadaisia had the largest, most pendulous breast I had ever seen (a glimpse of). Some women don't wear anything under their mullefas, which are nebulous, breezy and open articles of clothing. Still, breasts aren't scandalous here; they're seen as about as sexually charged as a couple half-gallons of 2%. An ankle though, a calf or god forbid a thigh, could send someone over the edge. Go figure.

Anyway, she was a large woman with old and strong hands, dyed with henna, an active face and voice (when she sung it was like a woman half her age), she danced a little from her seat and used her mulaffa like a tool, or an appendage as she told stories about animals who used to live here, like lions.

Abdelai wore a wrinkled black gendura with white sirwaal. He had out-of-control cheekbones - the key to looking youthful forever. He had fuzzy white close-cut scrub on his head, and a tiny white patch of hair jutting out from his chin. He had most of his teeth, but those that were absent were conspicuously so.

{By the by, I'm actually surprised that anyone around here has any teeth at all. No one brushes them, except with their finger and water, or with the twigs of a tooth-brush tree, which they chew on and scrape against. On top of that, they drink sugary tea all day long and eat white rice with everything. Plus no dentistry (or medical care for that matter). But considering everything, they have amazingly in-tact teeth, and many might even have nice ones, if I could only hold them down long enough to scrape that brown shit off the surface.}

Anyway, back to Abdelai: He said his father once rode a lion into town, and steered it by the ear from his perch on its back. He couldn't hear very well, and told me the names for local trees twice. Everyone was lovely, and we had a nice, if mutually unintelligible time until Ismaila's father broke up the party by beating him and chasing him into our midst with a knotted rope. Oh well. Time to go folks.

I've been watching the ballon team practice each night in the field outside the garden after I've finished watering, and the air is cool. It's strictly a male arena - the girls can't even come to watch, lest scandal ensue, so I'm trying to take advantage of my position in this society as, unquestionably, a man. During practice, the younger boys sit in front on the sand; the babies and the brothers. Last night one of them got hit in the face with the ball, and cried to the amusement of all. Many of the young ones tend to watch me, instead of the game, or only watch the game until I've looked away, and they can resume staring. This behavior usually decreases with age, as the older ones of certain years are often too cool to pay me much attention at all. It's fine though, it really only ever takes one clever remark from the soft-voiced nasrani, and they're laughing too, repeating it to everyone. In short, I don't feel unwelcome - just largely, as of yet, unknown. And that's 100% true.

I don't know too much about soccer, but the players seem pretty good - at least they're organized and there's a man with a whistle, so that's got to count for something. They play shirts and skins, old-school style, and true to form they're all tightly muscled despite the lack of good protein here, and thin with broad shoulders. It's hard not to feel my own inferior make while watching them, so thank god for the lack of mirrors, and that the only reflection I ever see is in the dull, rippled tin of my latrine door.

It's tempting too, to let one's mind follow the psychology of 'noble savagery', and to assume that because some people are poor or disadvantaged, they are somehow better, by default, than those of us who take privilege and riches for granted. It's not true of course, people are the same everywhere, regardless of economics, but when you watch these tall, skinny young men playing soccer in their makeshift shoes, the socks with strappy sandals, maybe taped together or paired with ratty cleats on one foot, and showing their painfully clear earnestness; their regal chins, their brotherhood - it's tempting to feel ashamed of one's birth, in a way. They've had to earn everything they've gotten, much more than me. Still, cynicism, hopelessness and self-pity are all indulgences, and therefore a complete waste of time. Mashallah.