The other day on my way to work, I passed a little shop called “Poulet Minute”, pronounced minuuute, with the emphasis on that umlauty French “u”, which sold whole chickens. Each letter on the sign was a different, headache-inducing color, and as I went by I spied a veiled Moor woman waiting at a counter, a cart full of chicken crates -which were, in their turn, full of chickens- and a young man behind the counter in shorts and a muscle-tee, plucking feathers, Frere Jaques-style, from another bird, presumably (and hopefully) dead. It was not difficult to gather what is supposed to happen in that “Chicken Minute” advertised so colorfully and optimistically above the door. And now, all I want is to have one of my very own.
I'm scared though, of what happens after I walk out the door with my freshly killed, pink-as-a-baby, and clean-plucked bag of poultry -will they take out the guts for me? Because all I have is a 2½ inch pocket knife which I bought a year ago at a street booth, for the equivalent of 75 cents, made out of whichever metal was cheapest at the time, and which I periodically sharpen on the jagged edge of a rock. With a little coaxing, it makes short (enough) work of carrots and onions, but disemboweling a small, flightless bird does not seem to be what it was “cut” (sorry) out for. Although, on second thought, maybe, it completely, is.
In any case, I would have no place to put all the guts, but I suppose I could re-purpose them as bribes, in the tradition of steaks and cartoon cats, for the packs of mangy street dogs which snarl and bark each night under my little balcony. They don't seem the type to turn their noses up at anything.
Mohamed is a refrigerator salesman, but you would swear he was the deposed king of some un-named Arabic country, instead. That is, if the prerequisite for being a king was looking the part, which is to say regal, which any glance through a history book, filled with the potato-faced monarchs of Europe, will tell you that it, sadly, is not.
In any case, there is a certain striking quality to his face, having mostly to do with the impossibly wide set of his smoky, round eyes, and the yellow golden tone of his skin, but he also has that youthful, open expression, which is nice on the young, but which is really stunning on someone who, like him, is no longer an actual youth. He's thirty. He has full, rose-colored lips too, which sort of blossom out, you know, just perfectly, though behind them are like a whole barrel-load of teeth, all crammed together, not crooked, so much as appearing to continually jostle for space. But still, it's a testament to his overall pleasing appearance that this overabundance of chompers seems almost charming. Anyway.
Now that I live in Nouakchott, I had to do what all good members of the twentieth century have to do, and that is buy a refrigerator. Opting to buy one brand new is both stupid and breathtakingly expensive, although buying one used comes with its own, obvious, perils. This is where the men are separated from the, I guess, people who aren't men, or whatever.
I have another “friend” -meaning, in this case, someone whom I've allowed to penetrate into the outer circles of my life, owing solely to the fact that he found me my apartment. This friend is coincidentally, but not at all surprisingly, named Mohamed as well. One day last week Mohamed 2 and I went to the carrefour Madrid which is where refrigerators come to die, and be reborn.
Stretched along the road are large-ish warehouses, complete with bored proprietors, spilling refrigerators out of their doors, in various stages of decay and reconstruction, in all imaginable shapes and sizes, and most of which bear the proud logos of brands that you have never heard of.
The one I ended up getting is emblazoned with some unpronounceable word which looks like Dutch, although there were many more names that just screamed 'lemon' including one brand, called simply, 'Candy'. There were a few decrepit 'Whirlpools' and 'Phillips' scattered in among them, like good vintages, though I seemed to be the only one aware of their position as a trusted household name. Oh well, the better for me.
I wandered through a couple places, poking inside a musty ice box here and there, arguing rudely with the owners and telling them why their stock was no good, until I found something that I could possibly live with at Mohamed's shop. We went through the whole process of negotiating and talking about returns and payment in Hassaniya, and it wasn't until he was writing up the receipt that he asked me “Do you speak English?”
It turns out that he had lived in the US for seven years (seven years!) in various places including Chicago, and Florida? until he had been deported after an incident involving something about a change of address. He threw it out there really casually, as in, "yeah, and then I was deported", with no touch of anger or embarrassment, which I didn't quite know how to take, because like all obnoxiously self-righteous people, I'm an underdog-guy, and so I always assume the worst that could happen in situations like this. (As in- "what did they do to you?!")
Like I mean, what does happen when a Middle-Eastern looking person gets deported for visa violations in today's US? Maybe nothing out of the ordinary, 8 out of 10 times, or maybe more, or maybe less? I have no idea. Its only that, at the same time I was comparing him to something out of Arabian Nights, I also realized that to some people, he probably looks like a terrorist. I hesitate to even say that because 1) it is already such a complete and overplayed cliché that Americans see terrorists hiding around every grocery aisle, and 2) it is strange for me to remember that there is a whole country, my country, where there are people who think like that. It's strange because, there are people who look, shall we say, as though they take their religion straight-up, no ice. I've learned that you might do yourself a favor and give them a wide berth. I know what they look like. But they don't look anything like Mohamed.
After I handed over an absurd amount of cash, we “strapped” the refrigerator to the top of Mohamed 2's tiny sedan, and took it away. The strap consisted of two thin pieces of rope, and so I reached my hand out the window to steady it, as if I would be able to save a 250 pound appliance with one skinny arm if it decided to slide off the roof. Sheesh.
A week later, sitting here listening to it hum, I can definitely report that the freezer freezes like a fracking ice- berg, but the refrigerator barely approaches the coolness you might get from a root-cellar. Maybe I should have gone with the 'Candy' after all.
I'm scared though, of what happens after I walk out the door with my freshly killed, pink-as-a-baby, and clean-plucked bag of poultry -will they take out the guts for me? Because all I have is a 2½ inch pocket knife which I bought a year ago at a street booth, for the equivalent of 75 cents, made out of whichever metal was cheapest at the time, and which I periodically sharpen on the jagged edge of a rock. With a little coaxing, it makes short (enough) work of carrots and onions, but disemboweling a small, flightless bird does not seem to be what it was “cut” (sorry) out for. Although, on second thought, maybe, it completely, is.
In any case, I would have no place to put all the guts, but I suppose I could re-purpose them as bribes, in the tradition of steaks and cartoon cats, for the packs of mangy street dogs which snarl and bark each night under my little balcony. They don't seem the type to turn their noses up at anything.
*********
Mohamed is a refrigerator salesman, but you would swear he was the deposed king of some un-named Arabic country, instead. That is, if the prerequisite for being a king was looking the part, which is to say regal, which any glance through a history book, filled with the potato-faced monarchs of Europe, will tell you that it, sadly, is not.
In any case, there is a certain striking quality to his face, having mostly to do with the impossibly wide set of his smoky, round eyes, and the yellow golden tone of his skin, but he also has that youthful, open expression, which is nice on the young, but which is really stunning on someone who, like him, is no longer an actual youth. He's thirty. He has full, rose-colored lips too, which sort of blossom out, you know, just perfectly, though behind them are like a whole barrel-load of teeth, all crammed together, not crooked, so much as appearing to continually jostle for space. But still, it's a testament to his overall pleasing appearance that this overabundance of chompers seems almost charming. Anyway.
Now that I live in Nouakchott, I had to do what all good members of the twentieth century have to do, and that is buy a refrigerator. Opting to buy one brand new is both stupid and breathtakingly expensive, although buying one used comes with its own, obvious, perils. This is where the men are separated from the, I guess, people who aren't men, or whatever.
I have another “friend” -meaning, in this case, someone whom I've allowed to penetrate into the outer circles of my life, owing solely to the fact that he found me my apartment. This friend is coincidentally, but not at all surprisingly, named Mohamed as well. One day last week Mohamed 2 and I went to the carrefour Madrid which is where refrigerators come to die, and be reborn.
Stretched along the road are large-ish warehouses, complete with bored proprietors, spilling refrigerators out of their doors, in various stages of decay and reconstruction, in all imaginable shapes and sizes, and most of which bear the proud logos of brands that you have never heard of.
The one I ended up getting is emblazoned with some unpronounceable word which looks like Dutch, although there were many more names that just screamed 'lemon' including one brand, called simply, 'Candy'. There were a few decrepit 'Whirlpools' and 'Phillips' scattered in among them, like good vintages, though I seemed to be the only one aware of their position as a trusted household name. Oh well, the better for me.
I wandered through a couple places, poking inside a musty ice box here and there, arguing rudely with the owners and telling them why their stock was no good, until I found something that I could possibly live with at Mohamed's shop. We went through the whole process of negotiating and talking about returns and payment in Hassaniya, and it wasn't until he was writing up the receipt that he asked me “Do you speak English?”
It turns out that he had lived in the US for seven years (seven years!) in various places including Chicago, and Florida? until he had been deported after an incident involving something about a change of address. He threw it out there really casually, as in, "yeah, and then I was deported", with no touch of anger or embarrassment, which I didn't quite know how to take, because like all obnoxiously self-righteous people, I'm an underdog-guy, and so I always assume the worst that could happen in situations like this. (As in- "what did they do to you?!")
Like I mean, what does happen when a Middle-Eastern looking person gets deported for visa violations in today's US? Maybe nothing out of the ordinary, 8 out of 10 times, or maybe more, or maybe less? I have no idea. Its only that, at the same time I was comparing him to something out of Arabian Nights, I also realized that to some people, he probably looks like a terrorist. I hesitate to even say that because 1) it is already such a complete and overplayed cliché that Americans see terrorists hiding around every grocery aisle, and 2) it is strange for me to remember that there is a whole country, my country, where there are people who think like that. It's strange because, there are people who look, shall we say, as though they take their religion straight-up, no ice. I've learned that you might do yourself a favor and give them a wide berth. I know what they look like. But they don't look anything like Mohamed.
After I handed over an absurd amount of cash, we “strapped” the refrigerator to the top of Mohamed 2's tiny sedan, and took it away. The strap consisted of two thin pieces of rope, and so I reached my hand out the window to steady it, as if I would be able to save a 250 pound appliance with one skinny arm if it decided to slide off the roof. Sheesh.
A week later, sitting here listening to it hum, I can definitely report that the freezer freezes like a fracking ice- berg, but the refrigerator barely approaches the coolness you might get from a root-cellar. Maybe I should have gone with the 'Candy' after all.
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