IMAGINATIVE TRESPASSER [R]*

I so hate myself to be pinned down. My mind is always leaping ahead. People sense this. They resent it. Their little bit of truth is enough. Their life stops on their doorstep... I'd like to get a head start. I'd like to be a confederator in this new world. I've long outgrown my small little one. They have the signs up all over - trespassers will be prosecuted - but I am an imaginative trespasser. There are no real barriers then.

(Bessie Head, 3 October 1965)




(Souls) From Cape Town to Serowe and Back...

(...) There’s Bessie Head, of course, in extracts from “Imaginative Trespasser” (Letters between Bessie Head, Patrick and Wendy Cullinan 1963 - 1977) – a true literary treasure for me. I found it some three weeks ago and it took me to the good old days of the fine art of letter writing, which is all but dead nowadays, and has probably renewed in me this “bad habit” of writing to people… BJ, you certainly know her story: she eventually made peace with the ‘biggest African village’ and the village with her; she even came to deeply love the country, having at some point ‘fallen in love’ with the images and legacy of Khama the Great and Tshekedi – the very founder of the school where she had been given so much grief; built a little house with the proceedings of one of her books, became a citizen of the country and some sort of ‘honorary Mangwato’ even if only in her own complex and challenging (challenged?) mind…
You are one of the few I told about that afternoon I stormed out of Gabs and ended up in Serowe for the first time, where I spent a pleasant night in a thatched rondavel and the next day went around the place: visited the Kgotla, where the Chief (also a member of the clans Khama and Seretse) kindly received me, told me about the History of the place and the country and then offered to take me to the Khama graves, having walked me half the way till I asked him not to make the effort all the way uphill; went to the Khama Museum and even passed by the Tshekedi Memorial School. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t know about the details of Bessie’s life in all those places, or of her arquives in the Museum, otherwise I would have certainly spent more time there just to find out more about her. I’m even tempted to go there again to complete the visit before I leave for Cape Town.
I had been wanting to go there since I read a book about a year ago by Gasebalwe Seretse, “Tshekedi Khama: The Master Whose Dogs Barked at - A critical look at Ngwato Politics”… Now, picture this: just now, I went to fetch this book to double check the author’s name and just ‘discovered’ that, among an all bunch of books on the Khamas and Botswana that I bought in the last year but still haven’t had the time to read, I have “A Question of Power” by Bessie, which I was in the last few days thinking about buying after reading “Imaginative Trespasser”… and more: Seretse actually quotes from Bessie's twice in his book to help the reader visualise Serowe… What a find!

(From a letter from me to some friends, SEP 2005)


*[First posted 25/01/07]

I so hate myself to be pinned down. My mind is always leaping ahead. People sense this. They resent it. Their little bit of truth is enough. Their life stops on their doorstep... I'd like to get a head start. I'd like to be a confederator in this new world. I've long outgrown my small little one. They have the signs up all over - trespassers will be prosecuted - but I am an imaginative trespasser. There are no real barriers then.

(Bessie Head, 3 October 1965)




(Souls) From Cape Town to Serowe and Back...

(...) There’s Bessie Head, of course, in extracts from “Imaginative Trespasser” (Letters between Bessie Head, Patrick and Wendy Cullinan 1963 - 1977) – a true literary treasure for me. I found it some three weeks ago and it took me to the good old days of the fine art of letter writing, which is all but dead nowadays, and has probably renewed in me this “bad habit” of writing to people… BJ, you certainly know her story: she eventually made peace with the ‘biggest African village’ and the village with her; she even came to deeply love the country, having at some point ‘fallen in love’ with the images and legacy of Khama the Great and Tshekedi – the very founder of the school where she had been given so much grief; built a little house with the proceedings of one of her books, became a citizen of the country and some sort of ‘honorary Mangwato’ even if only in her own complex and challenging (challenged?) mind…
You are one of the few I told about that afternoon I stormed out of Gabs and ended up in Serowe for the first time, where I spent a pleasant night in a thatched rondavel and the next day went around the place: visited the Kgotla, where the Chief (also a member of the clans Khama and Seretse) kindly received me, told me about the History of the place and the country and then offered to take me to the Khama graves, having walked me half the way till I asked him not to make the effort all the way uphill; went to the Khama Museum and even passed by the Tshekedi Memorial School. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t know about the details of Bessie’s life in all those places, or of her arquives in the Museum, otherwise I would have certainly spent more time there just to find out more about her. I’m even tempted to go there again to complete the visit before I leave for Cape Town.
I had been wanting to go there since I read a book about a year ago by Gasebalwe Seretse, “Tshekedi Khama: The Master Whose Dogs Barked at - A critical look at Ngwato Politics”… Now, picture this: just now, I went to fetch this book to double check the author’s name and just ‘discovered’ that, among an all bunch of books on the Khamas and Botswana that I bought in the last year but still haven’t had the time to read, I have “A Question of Power” by Bessie, which I was in the last few days thinking about buying after reading “Imaginative Trespasser”… and more: Seretse actually quotes from Bessie's twice in his book to help the reader visualise Serowe… What a find!

(From a letter from me to some friends, SEP 2005)


*[First posted 25/01/07]

PERSONAGENS (VII)

O TIO

Nunca se soube muito bem por que vias afectivas se tornara tio daquelas maninhas.
Nem de onde lhe vinha a kigila que parecia ter com uma delas…
Sabia-se apenas que a conhecia de um tempo de tragedias revolucionarias e de uma idade de inocencias pueris. O tempo era o dele; a idade a dela. Figura paterna, projectava ela; coisa a explorar, vislumbrava ele.
E assim se foram ondulando entre o sul e o norte do tempo e da idade; se foram cidadaniando entre picadeiros e largos; se foram confrontando em tabuleiros de xadrez; se foram contando entre letras de musicas, prosas e versos. Um dia ele disse que queria explorar mais os dela. Ela que nao, que ainda andava em busca de certezas da idade de brigadistas. Ele que sim, qual brigada qual que, ia logo-logo po-los entre os do tempo dele. E assim se lhe impos com sua certeza de figura paterna…
Qual figura paterna qual que, olha maze’ pra mim com outros olhos; esses com que devias ver que aquele a quem dedicas todas as suas lagrimas anda por ai com outras – ainda ha’ pouco o vi com uma branca! Sera' que e’ a Kianda que mora aqui por baixo do predio que te tras assim toda fitiçada ou que?! Ralhou.
Mas, agora mudando de assunto, ha’ uns gajos do meu tempo que tambem me andam a fazer chorar, mas garanto-te aqui neste kubico onde a Kianda me pode ouvir, que nao hei-de morrer sem escrever um livro numa lingua nacional, do sul ou do norte nao importa!
E se assim falou o tio, assim o fez, num tempo em que nem ele sabia bem porque (talvez a globalizacao, talvez a democracia, talvez o ela nunca o ter conseguido olhar com outros olhos, talvez a perene falta de alianca no anelar dela…) as palavras que mais o excitavam e inspiravam eram ‘desconhecimento’ e ‘promiscuidade’. Era a idade da razao dela e as lagrimas e os ouvidos da Kianda estavam entao longe de ambos. Talvez por essas vias se encontrem as razoes de todas as kigilas.

O TIO

Nunca se soube muito bem por que vias afectivas se tornara tio daquelas maninhas.
Nem de onde lhe vinha a kigila que parecia ter com uma delas…
Sabia-se apenas que a conhecia de um tempo de tragedias revolucionarias e de uma idade de inocencias pueris. O tempo era o dele; a idade a dela. Figura paterna, projectava ela; coisa a explorar, vislumbrava ele.
E assim se foram ondulando entre o sul e o norte do tempo e da idade; se foram cidadaniando entre picadeiros e largos; se foram confrontando em tabuleiros de xadrez; se foram contando entre letras de musicas, prosas e versos. Um dia ele disse que queria explorar mais os dela. Ela que nao, que ainda andava em busca de certezas da idade de brigadistas. Ele que sim, qual brigada qual que, ia logo-logo po-los entre os do tempo dele. E assim se lhe impos com sua certeza de figura paterna…
Qual figura paterna qual que, olha maze’ pra mim com outros olhos; esses com que devias ver que aquele a quem dedicas todas as suas lagrimas anda por ai com outras – ainda ha’ pouco o vi com uma branca! Sera' que e’ a Kianda que mora aqui por baixo do predio que te tras assim toda fitiçada ou que?! Ralhou.
Mas, agora mudando de assunto, ha’ uns gajos do meu tempo que tambem me andam a fazer chorar, mas garanto-te aqui neste kubico onde a Kianda me pode ouvir, que nao hei-de morrer sem escrever um livro numa lingua nacional, do sul ou do norte nao importa!
E se assim falou o tio, assim o fez, num tempo em que nem ele sabia bem porque (talvez a globalizacao, talvez a democracia, talvez o ela nunca o ter conseguido olhar com outros olhos, talvez a perene falta de alianca no anelar dela…) as palavras que mais o excitavam e inspiravam eram ‘desconhecimento’ e ‘promiscuidade’. Era a idade da razao dela e as lagrimas e os ouvidos da Kianda estavam entao longe de ambos. Talvez por essas vias se encontrem as razoes de todas as kigilas.

LUANDANDO (II)

O CANTEIRO DE OBRAS

Marco, 2009

O CANTEIRO DE OBRAS

Marco, 2009

KENYA YETU: HAKUNA MATATA? (II)

I have to do this:

Requiem for Good Old Lady Burberry’s

The good old lady is a genuine Burberry’s suitcase that has been faultlessly and efficiently helping me through my travels for almost a decade now. Yet, difficult as it is to separate one from the other, it’s not the label that I mourn, but the quality: she has gone through countless air miles and some of the roughest airports in the world, mostly in Africa, in various airlines and through it all never let me down. I guess that on that account she should have earned by now all the special treatments afforded to ‘frequent flyers’ by any airline in the world. Except perhaps by Kenya Airways (KA)…

Interestingly enough, while on the check-in line for the first of the three flights that took me from Cape Town (CT) to Mombasa, via Johannesburg and Nairobi, having noticed some clued-up passengers having their luggage all wrapped up, I commented something like “there’s something I should but never do”…

I traveled on South African Airways (SA) to Nairobi, where I had to check-in again on a KA flight to Mombasa (my first time on the airline and the country). But before I could do that, I went through the most exhausting ordeal, during about two hours of back and forth through long corridors, just to get 50 dollars from the various bureaux d’exchange located inside the airport to pay for my entry visa in the country – only citizen residents of the East African Community get any special treatment in that respect in Kenya, something that I wasn’t previously aware of, and they will only accept dollars for visas.

All that to and fro, carrying along my handbag plus a heavy trolley containing laptop, books and some working documents, proved unsuccessful, forcing me to leave the airport, with the permission of a customs officer who felt like helping, to withdraw local money from an ATM located outside and exchange it for dollars at another exchange bureau, also past the airport border, after which I started to see light at the end of the tunnel…

Only to be denied entry to the airport again, until – after dragging myself and my bags through various entrances around the airport, all at considerable distance from each other, without being allowed to get in through any of them – a sympathetic airport employee, seeing my state of absolute despair, took me through the back doors to a customs office, from where I was taken back again to the customs counter inside the airport and finally got the visa. I could then freely pass the border and finally go to the carousel to collect my luggage. Good old lady Burberry’s was awaiting me nearby in the same condition I had checked her in at CT airport.

I finally arrived in Mombasa past mid-night, at which point I had been traveling since 5:30 a.m. the previous day… When good old lady Burberry’s showed up in the carousel, she was no longer as I last saw her in Nairobi: the zip ends had been cut off and the padlock was missing. I just (re)started crying… Well, to cut a long story short, I spent the next more than two hours trying to get someone, among airport security, police, customs and KA officers, to acknowledge the damage done to my bags (there was another one, but no damage had been done to it, perhaps because it wasn’t of such a recognisable label, apart from also missing the padlock).

They wouldn’t. All I got from all of them was total collusion, mockery and complete disregard for whatever I said… If anything, when they said something was only to anger me with the most pathetic attempts to deny the obvious and defend the indefensable! Until someone, perhaps on taking notice of my mention to the practice by any serious, competent and professional national flagship airline to register complaints about damaged luggage in a special form to that effect, got one such form to be filled in. I was then able to leave the airport to the hotel, more than 20km away, where I arrived as good as dead meat at past 3:00 a.m. (almost 24 hours since I left CT) facing the prospect of having to deliver a few hours later in that morning the first scheduled presentation at the workshop for which I had traveled all that way to Mombasa…

The following day I started corridors again to get KA to do something about the state they left good old lady Burberry’s in, i.e. unusable, as she was, for my return journey, even though, apparently nothing had been taken from her contents. After being put, for the next four successive days, through different people in different offices, they finally decided, on the eve of my departure, to collect the suitcase from the hotel and see what they would do about it promising to return it repaired or adequately replaced on that same day. Again to cut a long story short, they didn’t return the suitcase, un-repaired and un-replaced, until the next day and five minutes before I was supposed to leave the hotel to get my flight out of Mombasa… needless to say, I lost that flight and was only lucky enough to get on the next, just in time to catch the connecting flight to Johannesburg, where I arrived at around 12:00 a.m. and had to spend the night to get the final flight back to CT the following morning.

Only that this time I made sure at the Mombasa airport that good old lady Burberry’s was all wrapped-up, as if finally dead for good… and KA still hasn’t fully acknowledged responsibility for the damage, or liability for its reparation. Ah! And throughout this entire saga I never heard from anyone at KA words such as “our apologies”, or “we are sorry”, or “can we be of any assistance to you”, which, just as the words “please” or “thank you”, seem to be in short supply in the Kenyan English dictionary – just as the simple, congenial, African smile doesn’t seem to go well with the faces of staff in charge of whatever thing in Kenya Yetu, not even with the faces of KA’s flight assistants, particularly if they are facing other Africans, sorry to say…

And to cap it all up, when I arrived in CT, good old lady Burberry’s didn’t show up in the carousel… But by then I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have enough physical or emotional energy left in me to despair. So, I just filled in the missing-luggage forms that were promptly availed to me and other passengers in a similar predicament by the SA customer office and went home with only on thing in mind: get some good old sleep! Which I couldn’t, because it was ‘Jool’s Day’ – the Stellenbosh University’s students Carnaval, whose main parade happens exactly along my street…

Anyway, about three to four hours later, I received a call from SA saying that my old lady had just arrived from where she had been left behind in Jo’burg for whatever reason and a courier would be sent straight away to deliver it to me. And so it was. In the brief chat we had, I mentioned just how happy I was to be reunited with her given all that we had been through in Kenya which had forced me to have her all wrapped up, to which the courier, a white Afrikaans guy, said: “you know, you should always do that when you travel to African countries, because black people, sorry to say but that’s what happens, like to cut and scratch the luggage and steal the contents!”… I said nothing back, but thought to myself, “if only all those KA and Mombasa airport’s staff realised how many people gave their lives not to ever hear anything like that again in our lifetimes”!

Yet, they call themselves “the pride of Africa” and sport a slogan according to which “with KA African pride is flying high”!
Is it?!

As a proud African, I was made by KA not to be proud of such ‘African Airline’…

Sorry to say!

I have to do this:

Requiem for Good Old Lady Burberry’s

The good old lady is a genuine Burberry’s suitcase that has been faultlessly and efficiently helping me through my travels for almost a decade now. Yet, difficult as it is to separate one from the other, it’s not the label that I mourn, but the quality: she has gone through countless air miles and some of the roughest airports in the world, mostly in Africa, in various airlines and through it all never let me down. I guess that on that account she should have earned by now all the special treatments afforded to ‘frequent flyers’ by any airline in the world. Except perhaps by Kenya Airways (KA)…

Interestingly enough, while on the check-in line for the first of the three flights that took me from Cape Town (CT) to Mombasa, via Johannesburg and Nairobi, having noticed some clued-up passengers having their luggage all wrapped up, I commented something like “there’s something I should but never do”…

I traveled on South African Airways (SA) to Nairobi, where I had to check-in again on a KA flight to Mombasa (my first time on the airline and the country). But before I could do that, I went through the most exhausting ordeal, during about two hours of back and forth through long corridors, just to get 50 dollars from the various bureaux d’exchange located inside the airport to pay for my entry visa in the country – only citizen residents of the East African Community get any special treatment in that respect in Kenya, something that I wasn’t previously aware of, and they will only accept dollars for visas.

All that to and fro, carrying along my handbag plus a heavy trolley containing laptop, books and some working documents, proved unsuccessful, forcing me to leave the airport, with the permission of a customs officer who felt like helping, to withdraw local money from an ATM located outside and exchange it for dollars at another exchange bureau, also past the airport border, after which I started to see light at the end of the tunnel…

Only to be denied entry to the airport again, until – after dragging myself and my bags through various entrances around the airport, all at considerable distance from each other, without being allowed to get in through any of them – a sympathetic airport employee, seeing my state of absolute despair, took me through the back doors to a customs office, from where I was taken back again to the customs counter inside the airport and finally got the visa. I could then freely pass the border and finally go to the carousel to collect my luggage. Good old lady Burberry’s was awaiting me nearby in the same condition I had checked her in at CT airport.

I finally arrived in Mombasa past mid-night, at which point I had been traveling since 5:30 a.m. the previous day… When good old lady Burberry’s showed up in the carousel, she was no longer as I last saw her in Nairobi: the zip ends had been cut off and the padlock was missing. I just (re)started crying… Well, to cut a long story short, I spent the next more than two hours trying to get someone, among airport security, police, customs and KA officers, to acknowledge the damage done to my bags (there was another one, but no damage had been done to it, perhaps because it wasn’t of such a recognisable label, apart from also missing the padlock).

They wouldn’t. All I got from all of them was total collusion, mockery and complete disregard for whatever I said… If anything, when they said something was only to anger me with the most pathetic attempts to deny the obvious and defend the indefensable! Until someone, perhaps on taking notice of my mention to the practice by any serious, competent and professional national flagship airline to register complaints about damaged luggage in a special form to that effect, got one such form to be filled in. I was then able to leave the airport to the hotel, more than 20km away, where I arrived as good as dead meat at past 3:00 a.m. (almost 24 hours since I left CT) facing the prospect of having to deliver a few hours later in that morning the first scheduled presentation at the workshop for which I had traveled all that way to Mombasa…

The following day I started corridors again to get KA to do something about the state they left good old lady Burberry’s in, i.e. unusable, as she was, for my return journey, even though, apparently nothing had been taken from her contents. After being put, for the next four successive days, through different people in different offices, they finally decided, on the eve of my departure, to collect the suitcase from the hotel and see what they would do about it promising to return it repaired or adequately replaced on that same day. Again to cut a long story short, they didn’t return the suitcase, un-repaired and un-replaced, until the next day and five minutes before I was supposed to leave the hotel to get my flight out of Mombasa… needless to say, I lost that flight and was only lucky enough to get on the next, just in time to catch the connecting flight to Johannesburg, where I arrived at around 12:00 a.m. and had to spend the night to get the final flight back to CT the following morning.

Only that this time I made sure at the Mombasa airport that good old lady Burberry’s was all wrapped-up, as if finally dead for good… and KA still hasn’t fully acknowledged responsibility for the damage, or liability for its reparation. Ah! And throughout this entire saga I never heard from anyone at KA words such as “our apologies”, or “we are sorry”, or “can we be of any assistance to you”, which, just as the words “please” or “thank you”, seem to be in short supply in the Kenyan English dictionary – just as the simple, congenial, African smile doesn’t seem to go well with the faces of staff in charge of whatever thing in Kenya Yetu, not even with the faces of KA’s flight assistants, particularly if they are facing other Africans, sorry to say…

And to cap it all up, when I arrived in CT, good old lady Burberry’s didn’t show up in the carousel… But by then I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have enough physical or emotional energy left in me to despair. So, I just filled in the missing-luggage forms that were promptly availed to me and other passengers in a similar predicament by the SA customer office and went home with only on thing in mind: get some good old sleep! Which I couldn’t, because it was ‘Jool’s Day’ – the Stellenbosh University’s students Carnaval, whose main parade happens exactly along my street…

Anyway, about three to four hours later, I received a call from SA saying that my old lady had just arrived from where she had been left behind in Jo’burg for whatever reason and a courier would be sent straight away to deliver it to me. And so it was. In the brief chat we had, I mentioned just how happy I was to be reunited with her given all that we had been through in Kenya which had forced me to have her all wrapped up, to which the courier, a white Afrikaans guy, said: “you know, you should always do that when you travel to African countries, because black people, sorry to say but that’s what happens, like to cut and scratch the luggage and steal the contents!”… I said nothing back, but thought to myself, “if only all those KA and Mombasa airport’s staff realised how many people gave their lives not to ever hear anything like that again in our lifetimes”!

Yet, they call themselves “the pride of Africa” and sport a slogan according to which “with KA African pride is flying high”!
Is it?!

As a proud African, I was made by KA not to be proud of such ‘African Airline’…

Sorry to say!

KENYA YETU: HAKUNA MATATA? (I)

Ha’ uma cancao Swahili que e’ uma especie de hino do visitante do Kenya.
Ela comeca com #Jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani? Mzuri sana# (Ola’, ola’ senhor/a, como esta’? Seja bemvindo/a ao nosso Kenya) e termina com #Kenya yetu hakuna matata# (No nosso Kenya, nenhum problema) – note-se que nXi Yetu (nossa terra) tem exactamente o mesmo significado em kiMbundo e em kiSwahili.
E ja’ agora: repararam na imagem do Che a encimar a vela daquela canoa? A imagem dele e’ talvez a mais popular por aqui, depois da de Obama…


Mwana Yetu! Hongera Barack Obama!!

Aconchego Kenya Style

Indian Ocean Seafood Platter from the Jahazi Grill…

…Absolutely Food for Pleasure!

My Journey Through African Heritage, de Alan Donovan: eis um daqueles livros que sou (fui) capaz de comprar apenas pela capa. Ja’ o tinha visto publicitado algures aqui ha’ uns tempos, de modo que entre encontra-lo a venda na gift shop do hotel e compra-lo, embora tenha envolvido alguma ponderacao e discussao, nao foi um passo muito largo. O livro e’ totalmente feito a mao, pelo que e’ de edicao limitada. A capa e’ feita de pele verdadeira e os materias usados na sua ilustracao sao igualmente reais. Folheando pelo seu interior encontra-se uma rica coleccao de fotos eminentemente apelativas e estorias pessoais que deixam antever um relato unico da historia cultural, politica e social do Kenya ao longo de varias decadas. Mas, tendo embora sido capaz de o comprar apenas pela capa, nao sou capaz de o julgar apenas por essa razao, pelo que espero por uma oportunidade para o poder ler de facto e descobrir do que efectivamente trata essa jornada e, sobretudo, qual o conceito que o autor tem de ‘African Heritage’: pelo pouco que pude apreender do que dele folheei, nao me parece muito pacifico…

Eu e os meus ‘herois do mar’: Amani (Paz) – o puro homem da costa, nascido ali na vila da praia – e Patrick Lemachokoti – um ‘Masai’ com email address e mobile phone!
Estava eu entretida a a deixar-me levar saborosamente pelas ondas calidas da Praia Serena, quando o Amani se lancou ao mar na minha direccao, deu umas bracadas, mergulhou ao lado de mim e passado um bocado emergiu com essa concha ai, que me ofereceu dizendo que tinha acabado de a apanhar – bom, ele tambem podia te-la trazido de proposito num dos bolsos do calcao, mas o facto e’ que com aquilo acabou por obter algo de mim que nenhum dos outros vendedores de bens turisticos (passeios de barco, souvenirs de toda a especie, passeios de camelo, etc.) que por ali pululam tinha ainda conseguido: a minha atencao. Entretanto o Patrick aproximou-se e imediatamente nos embrulhamos numa animada conversa…

O Amani, tentando a todo o custo afastar o Patrick, tanto insistiu que acabou por me convencer a deixar-me levar por ele a um ‘aquario natural’ ali perto, onde, prometeu-me, poderia ver octopus, cavalos marinhos, caranguejos zebra e outros raros seres marinhos no seu habitat… e eu tinha que, absolutamente, ir naquele momento porque a mare’ estava propicia e sendo meia lua era o dia ideal, porque no dia seguinte seria lua cheia e a mare’ inchada cobriria completamente o aquario! Bom, la’ fui (ate’ porque estava a poucas horas da minha viagem de regresso e para mim nao haveria mais dia seguinte ali), mas acabei por ver apenas ovos e bebes de algumas das especies que ele tinha mencionado, o que nao tendo sido de todo decepcionante, era capaz de ser mais interessante a um/a estudioso/a de Biologia Marinha, ou de qualquer outra ciencia parecida. Para me consolar, ele ofereceu-me a concha mais pequena (essa vi-o apanhar…) que, disse-me, se chama ‘spoon shell’, porque era usada tradicionalmente como colher, antes de os europeus chegarem com os seus talheres.

Entretanto, foi-me dizendo que o Patrick nao era Masai coisa nenhuma, que apenas posava como tal para atrair os turistas: os verdadeiros Masai dizia-me ele, nao se encontram na costa, mas sim no hinterland, nomeadamente no chamado Masai Mara, situado a mais de 500 km dali. Este era talvez um Samburu (tribo de uma regiao mais proxima), que come peixe e eu nunca vi um verdadeiro Masai a comer peixe, acrescentou desdenhosamente…
Ja’ agora, esse e’ o recipiente, feito a partir de uma cabaca oblonga e finamente adornado com missangas e tiras de pele animal, onde os Masai misturam o leite de vaca e sangue de boi que – a semelhanca de algumas tribos pastorais do sul de Angola – constitui a sua base alimentar.

Mas o Amani falou-me tambem detalhada e sentidamente da crise que (tambem) assola o seu pais e particularmente os segmentos populacionais mais pobres, a que ele pertence – em troca das conchas e da visita guiada ao aquario natural que me tinha oferecido, pedia apenas que lhe trouxesse do hotel (onde a entrada aos desenrascas da praia como ele e o Patrick nao e’ permitida, excepto quando especialmente ‘convocados’ para improvisarem um mercado de artesanato para os turistas na relva do hotel, como aconteceu aos que se ve na foto que se segue) uns pacotes de cha preto, porque com a fome que passava, o cha preto pelo menos dava-lhe alguma forca para continuar o seu negocio de ensinar os segredos da sua costa natal aos visitantes... Trouxe-lhe todo o cha’ preto, mais todos os pacotinhos de acucar, de café, etc. que tinha no quarto e mais algum dinheiro.

Da crise (desemprego galopante, agravado pela seca que assola boa parte das regioes agricolas e pela retraccao do sector turistico, uma das principais fontes de rendimentos publicos e privados do pais, ainda nao completamente recuperado dos confrontos post-eleitorais do ano passado) ouvi falar por todos os Kenyanos com quem conversei, desde motoristas, taxistas, vendedores ambulantes, empregados de hotel, comerciantes mais ou menos estabelecidos, funcionarios publicos, etc. Uma afirmacao comum a todos eles e’ que ninguem parece acreditar que a parelha dirigente que forma o GURN resultante daquele conflito, o presidente e o seu premier, sejam capazes, ou estejam minimamente determinados a tomar as medidas necessarias para pelo menos mitigarem os seus efeitos nos grupos mais carenciados da populacao.

Portanto, no Kenya Yetu tem bwe’ de matata sim senhor/a!
Como em todo lado nos dias que correm…

Ha’ uma cancao Swahili que e’ uma especie de hino do visitante do Kenya.
Ela comeca com #Jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani? Mzuri sana# (Ola’, ola’ senhor/a, como esta’? Seja bemvindo/a ao nosso Kenya) e termina com #Kenya yetu hakuna matata# (No nosso Kenya, nenhum problema) – note-se que nXi Yetu (nossa terra) tem exactamente o mesmo significado em kiMbundo e em kiSwahili.
E ja’ agora: repararam na imagem do Che a encimar a vela daquela canoa? A imagem dele e’ talvez a mais popular por aqui, depois da de Obama…


Mwana Yetu! Hongera Barack Obama!!

Aconchego Kenya Style

Indian Ocean Seafood Platter from the Jahazi Grill…

…Absolutely Food for Pleasure!

My Journey Through African Heritage, de Alan Donovan: eis um daqueles livros que sou (fui) capaz de comprar apenas pela capa. Ja’ o tinha visto publicitado algures aqui ha’ uns tempos, de modo que entre encontra-lo a venda na gift shop do hotel e compra-lo, embora tenha envolvido alguma ponderacao e discussao, nao foi um passo muito largo. O livro e’ totalmente feito a mao, pelo que e’ de edicao limitada. A capa e’ feita de pele verdadeira e os materias usados na sua ilustracao sao igualmente reais. Folheando pelo seu interior encontra-se uma rica coleccao de fotos eminentemente apelativas e estorias pessoais que deixam antever um relato unico da historia cultural, politica e social do Kenya ao longo de varias decadas. Mas, tendo embora sido capaz de o comprar apenas pela capa, nao sou capaz de o julgar apenas por essa razao, pelo que espero por uma oportunidade para o poder ler de facto e descobrir do que efectivamente trata essa jornada e, sobretudo, qual o conceito que o autor tem de ‘African Heritage’: pelo pouco que pude apreender do que dele folheei, nao me parece muito pacifico…

Eu e os meus ‘herois do mar’: Amani (Paz) – o puro homem da costa, nascido ali na vila da praia – e Patrick Lemachokoti – um ‘Masai’ com email address e mobile phone!
Estava eu entretida a a deixar-me levar saborosamente pelas ondas calidas da Praia Serena, quando o Amani se lancou ao mar na minha direccao, deu umas bracadas, mergulhou ao lado de mim e passado um bocado emergiu com essa concha ai, que me ofereceu dizendo que tinha acabado de a apanhar – bom, ele tambem podia te-la trazido de proposito num dos bolsos do calcao, mas o facto e’ que com aquilo acabou por obter algo de mim que nenhum dos outros vendedores de bens turisticos (passeios de barco, souvenirs de toda a especie, passeios de camelo, etc.) que por ali pululam tinha ainda conseguido: a minha atencao. Entretanto o Patrick aproximou-se e imediatamente nos embrulhamos numa animada conversa…

O Amani, tentando a todo o custo afastar o Patrick, tanto insistiu que acabou por me convencer a deixar-me levar por ele a um ‘aquario natural’ ali perto, onde, prometeu-me, poderia ver octopus, cavalos marinhos, caranguejos zebra e outros raros seres marinhos no seu habitat… e eu tinha que, absolutamente, ir naquele momento porque a mare’ estava propicia e sendo meia lua era o dia ideal, porque no dia seguinte seria lua cheia e a mare’ inchada cobriria completamente o aquario! Bom, la’ fui (ate’ porque estava a poucas horas da minha viagem de regresso e para mim nao haveria mais dia seguinte ali), mas acabei por ver apenas ovos e bebes de algumas das especies que ele tinha mencionado, o que nao tendo sido de todo decepcionante, era capaz de ser mais interessante a um/a estudioso/a de Biologia Marinha, ou de qualquer outra ciencia parecida. Para me consolar, ele ofereceu-me a concha mais pequena (essa vi-o apanhar…) que, disse-me, se chama ‘spoon shell’, porque era usada tradicionalmente como colher, antes de os europeus chegarem com os seus talheres.

Entretanto, foi-me dizendo que o Patrick nao era Masai coisa nenhuma, que apenas posava como tal para atrair os turistas: os verdadeiros Masai dizia-me ele, nao se encontram na costa, mas sim no hinterland, nomeadamente no chamado Masai Mara, situado a mais de 500 km dali. Este era talvez um Samburu (tribo de uma regiao mais proxima), que come peixe e eu nunca vi um verdadeiro Masai a comer peixe, acrescentou desdenhosamente…
Ja’ agora, esse e’ o recipiente, feito a partir de uma cabaca oblonga e finamente adornado com missangas e tiras de pele animal, onde os Masai misturam o leite de vaca e sangue de boi que – a semelhanca de algumas tribos pastorais do sul de Angola – constitui a sua base alimentar.

Mas o Amani falou-me tambem detalhada e sentidamente da crise que (tambem) assola o seu pais e particularmente os segmentos populacionais mais pobres, a que ele pertence – em troca das conchas e da visita guiada ao aquario natural que me tinha oferecido, pedia apenas que lhe trouxesse do hotel (onde a entrada aos desenrascas da praia como ele e o Patrick nao e’ permitida, excepto quando especialmente ‘convocados’ para improvisarem um mercado de artesanato para os turistas na relva do hotel, como aconteceu aos que se ve na foto que se segue) uns pacotes de cha preto, porque com a fome que passava, o cha preto pelo menos dava-lhe alguma forca para continuar o seu negocio de ensinar os segredos da sua costa natal aos visitantes... Trouxe-lhe todo o cha’ preto, mais todos os pacotinhos de acucar, de café, etc. que tinha no quarto e mais algum dinheiro.

Da crise (desemprego galopante, agravado pela seca que assola boa parte das regioes agricolas e pela retraccao do sector turistico, uma das principais fontes de rendimentos publicos e privados do pais, ainda nao completamente recuperado dos confrontos post-eleitorais do ano passado) ouvi falar por todos os Kenyanos com quem conversei, desde motoristas, taxistas, vendedores ambulantes, empregados de hotel, comerciantes mais ou menos estabelecidos, funcionarios publicos, etc. Uma afirmacao comum a todos eles e’ que ninguem parece acreditar que a parelha dirigente que forma o GURN resultante daquele conflito, o presidente e o seu premier, sejam capazes, ou estejam minimamente determinados a tomar as medidas necessarias para pelo menos mitigarem os seus efeitos nos grupos mais carenciados da populacao.

Portanto, no Kenya Yetu tem bwe’ de matata sim senhor/a!
Como em todo lado nos dias que correm…

MOMBASA: III. FORTE JESUS

Construido pelos Portugueses (1593)

Capturado por Arabes Oman (1698)

Transformado em Prisao Governamental (1895)

Declarado Monumento Nacional (1958)

Museu Criado e Aberto ao Publico (1960)

Entrada Principal

{Escritos em Portugues arcaico}

Ancoras de navios portugueses ancoradas aos muros do forte

Entrada maritima adjacente ao forte

Testemunho do controlo do forte pelos britanicos (1895)

Construido pelos Portugueses (1593)

Capturado por Arabes Oman (1698)

Transformado em Prisao Governamental (1895)

Declarado Monumento Nacional (1958)

Museu Criado e Aberto ao Publico (1960)

Entrada Principal

{Escritos em Portugues arcaico}

Ancoras de navios portugueses ancoradas aos muros do forte

Entrada maritima adjacente ao forte

Testemunho do controlo do forte pelos britanicos (1895)

MOMBASA: II. CIDADE VELHA

No trajecto de quase uma hora a partir de Stellenbosch, as pessoas que me acompanharam ao aeroporto para a minha viagem a Mombasa engajaram-me numa interessantissima conversa sobre os chamados ‘descobrimentos’, durante a qual foram discutidos, entre outros aspectos, o ‘pioneirismo’ dos portugueses naquela odisseia norte-ocidental e o lugar nela tomado por Vasco da Gama – o que no fim me levou a cantar-lhes as estrofes iniciais da cancao que Masekela lhe dedicou e que elas nao conheciam. Mal sabia eu, ou elas, o que me esperava em Mombasa…

Entre outras coisas, a tentativa estranhamente frustrada de fotografar a cabeca de Vasco da Gama encimando a entrada principal do Porto Antigo de Mombasa, construido pelos portugueses… Nao faco a minima ideia das razoes tecnicas pelas quais ela pura e simplesmente se recusou a aparecer nas repetidas tentativas que fiz de a capturar com a camara. A unica explicacao ‘racional’ que me ocorre e’ que o fantasma do Vasco da Gama, que parece continuar a habitar pelo menos a Old Town de Mombasa (e nao so’… ha’ ate’ um Vasco da Gama Beach Hotel algures na cidade), nao tem achado muita piada a cancao do Masekela que por este blog tenho por vezes passado (como agora…) e me tera’, por isso, declarado guilty by association!

Mas, anyway, se quiserem ter uma ideia de como ela se parece, (re)vejam esta mascara Bakongo, que tambem aqui (re)postei em varias ocasioes – nao difere muito...

Aproximacao ao Porto Antigo a partir do (proximo) Forte Jesus.

A ‘Praca da Republica’ local: construida a volta do Porto Antigo, aqui se situam algumas das mais antigas reparticoes governamentais do estado moderno nesta parte do mundo.

Placa indicando (em kiSwahili) a Rua Principal da Cidade Velha e vista parcial do edificio em que esta’ colocada.

Ruas tipicas da Cidade Velha. Ao centro, um monumento ao espirito de boas-vindas da cidade, situado no seu largo central (entre o Forte Jesus e a Rua Principal), representado por uma cafeteira e chavenas do (bom) café Kenyano.

Entradas tipicas de edificios da Cidade Velha: uma habitacional, outra (encimada por um poster de Barack Obama) comercial.

Duas portas, situadas lado a lado no mesmo edificio, na Rua Principal: uma, disse-me um connoisseur local, que tambem me disse que "aqui, ao contrario de outros sitios, todas as racas sao iguais", e’ de traca Bantu, a outra de traca Indiana. Deixo aqui um desafio: sabera’ alguem qual delas sera’ qual e porque?

No trajecto de quase uma hora a partir de Stellenbosch, as pessoas que me acompanharam ao aeroporto para a minha viagem a Mombasa engajaram-me numa interessantissima conversa sobre os chamados ‘descobrimentos’, durante a qual foram discutidos, entre outros aspectos, o ‘pioneirismo’ dos portugueses naquela odisseia norte-ocidental e o lugar nela tomado por Vasco da Gama – o que no fim me levou a cantar-lhes as estrofes iniciais da cancao que Masekela lhe dedicou e que elas nao conheciam. Mal sabia eu, ou elas, o que me esperava em Mombasa…

Entre outras coisas, a tentativa estranhamente frustrada de fotografar a cabeca de Vasco da Gama encimando a entrada principal do Porto Antigo de Mombasa, construido pelos portugueses… Nao faco a minima ideia das razoes tecnicas pelas quais ela pura e simplesmente se recusou a aparecer nas repetidas tentativas que fiz de a capturar com a camara. A unica explicacao ‘racional’ que me ocorre e’ que o fantasma do Vasco da Gama, que parece continuar a habitar pelo menos a Old Town de Mombasa (e nao so’… ha’ ate’ um Vasco da Gama Beach Hotel algures na cidade), nao tem achado muita piada a cancao do Masekela que por este blog tenho por vezes passado (como agora…) e me tera’, por isso, declarado guilty by association!

Mas, anyway, se quiserem ter uma ideia de como ela se parece, (re)vejam esta mascara Bakongo, que tambem aqui (re)postei em varias ocasioes – nao difere muito...

Aproximacao ao Porto Antigo a partir do (proximo) Forte Jesus.

A ‘Praca da Republica’ local: construida a volta do Porto Antigo, aqui se situam algumas das mais antigas reparticoes governamentais do estado moderno nesta parte do mundo.

Placa indicando (em kiSwahili) a Rua Principal da Cidade Velha e vista parcial do edificio em que esta’ colocada.

Ruas tipicas da Cidade Velha. Ao centro, um monumento ao espirito de boas-vindas da cidade, situado no seu largo central (entre o Forte Jesus e a Rua Principal), representado por uma cafeteira e chavenas do (bom) café Kenyano.

Entradas tipicas de edificios da Cidade Velha: uma habitacional, outra (encimada por um poster de Barack Obama) comercial.

Duas portas, situadas lado a lado no mesmo edificio, na Rua Principal: uma, disse-me um connoisseur local, que tambem me disse que "aqui, ao contrario de outros sitios, todas as racas sao iguais", e’ de traca Bantu, a outra de traca Indiana. Deixo aqui um desafio: sabera’ alguem qual delas sera’ qual e porque?

MOMBASA: I. SERENITY

Serena Beach

Praia Serena

Mombasa

Serena Beach

Praia Serena

Mombasa

JAMBO!

BACK IN MADIBALAND

I've just arrived and will be based down here for a while, working on something that will make my blogging a bit less regular.
But I'll try to keep you posted as and whenever I can.

[I'm playing Masekela's Abangoma here because that's to me what best encapsulates the spirit of the land at the moment, but my next door neighbour is actually playing Miles and Coltrane on Kind of Blue, which is only appropriate because I can hear Coltrane in Abangoma...]

I've just arrived and will be based down here for a while, working on something that will make my blogging a bit less regular.
But I'll try to keep you posted as and whenever I can.

[I'm playing Masekela's Abangoma here because that's to me what best encapsulates the spirit of the land at the moment, but my next door neighbour is actually playing Miles and Coltrane on Kind of Blue, which is only appropriate because I can hear Coltrane in Abangoma...]

REVISITING SOUTH AFRICA (V): PLEASURE!*

During this stay I finally could experiment, at the Lanzerac Spa, something I’ve always wanted, but never got to do, because whenever and wherever I tried to have a go at it before, sessions were all either temporarily unavailable or fully booked: stone therapy.

It was a full body massage with stones bathed in natural oils alternatively cold and hot.

It was a bit disappointing because I didn’t get to rest with stones sitting down all my spine as commonly seen in the advertising pictures, but it was a pleasure nevertheless.

***

I started this visit with some of the things that annoy me at the OR Tambo International Airport, only to leave it in the most pleasurable way: at the check-in counter, soon after I handed-in my documents, the assistant, a very young black man, started talking to me in Portuguese. It took me a few moments to recover from the surprise, upon which I said to him something like being always impressed at “how far Angolans can get” – yes, from his accent I could immediately tell that he was not Mozambican, which would be a more plausible hypothesis given the sheer numbers of our brothers from the Indic in South Africa…
He then explained: “nao sei se ja’ ouviu falar do 'Batalhao 32'… os meus ‘parentes’ faziam parte desse batalhao e eu nasci aqui” (note that ‘parente’ in Portuguese means ‘relative’, but he really meant ‘parents’, or ‘pais’ in Portuguese). I then asked how come he could speak Portuguese, to which he told me that they normally speak Portuguese at home.
I was really pleased to meet him, not exactly, although also, because he spoke Portuguese, but mainly because I felt like I had found a long lost relative from whom I had been separated by the war… I was also pleased at the fact that he was well employed in a country where foreigners or their descendents find it very difficult to get integrated.

So, the end of my “revisitation of South Africa” was all marked by one thing: pleasure!

*Pleasure!: that’s how South Africans generally answer to something like ‘thanks’.

During this stay I finally could experiment, at the Lanzerac Spa, something I’ve always wanted, but never got to do, because whenever and wherever I tried to have a go at it before, sessions were all either temporarily unavailable or fully booked: stone therapy.

It was a full body massage with stones bathed in natural oils alternatively cold and hot.

It was a bit disappointing because I didn’t get to rest with stones sitting down all my spine as commonly seen in the advertising pictures, but it was a pleasure nevertheless.

***

I started this visit with some of the things that annoy me at the OR Tambo International Airport, only to leave it in the most pleasurable way: at the check-in counter, soon after I handed-in my documents, the assistant, a very young black man, started talking to me in Portuguese. It took me a few moments to recover from the surprise, upon which I said to him something like being always impressed at “how far Angolans can get” – yes, from his accent I could immediately tell that he was not Mozambican, which would be a more plausible hypothesis given the sheer numbers of our brothers from the Indic in South Africa…
He then explained: “nao sei se ja’ ouviu falar do 'Batalhao 32'… os meus ‘parentes’ faziam parte desse batalhao e eu nasci aqui” (note that ‘parente’ in Portuguese means ‘relative’, but he really meant ‘parents’, or ‘pais’ in Portuguese). I then asked how come he could speak Portuguese, to which he told me that they normally speak Portuguese at home.
I was really pleased to meet him, not exactly, although also, because he spoke Portuguese, but mainly because I felt like I had found a long lost relative from whom I had been separated by the war… I was also pleased at the fact that he was well employed in a country where foreigners or their descendents find it very difficult to get integrated.

So, the end of my “revisitation of South Africa” was all marked by one thing: pleasure!

*Pleasure!: that’s how South Africans generally answer to something like ‘thanks’.

REVISITING SOUTH AFRICA (III): “SHACK CHIC”

I already had the ‘coffee table’ book for a few years, but this time decided to buy (with this post in mind) the postcard set made out of it, in Cape Town.

Here’s how it is presented by its editors*: “This book is a documentary on the lives of ‘previously disadvantaged’ but presently overcoming individuals. It is about the dignity to be found in the dusty streets of South Africa’s shack-lands. While these people obviously don’t take pleasure in the poverty they live in, they stand proud in the face of it. These are people who are doing the best they can with the little they have and, in the process, coming up with something aesthetically unique and fresh to offer the world. This is creativity and ingenuity. This is Shack Chic.”

Yet, for some reason, I can't get 'round this question: is “Shack Chic” really about

CELEBRATING CREATIVITY OR GLAMOURISING POVERTY?

***

“victory: to build a shack and call it home”

“houses are built on foundations and walls and roof. homes are built with things much deeper and less concrete”

“temples are never built in one day. but mine, this shack, was built in half a day”



“there is something sensual about the rattle of rain on a corrugated roof”

“after the rain, earth, as whiff, comes knocking on my fragile door. earth as fragrance embracing the musk and unmasking the undressed breath of another night of tender love making under the naughty stars peeping through the transparency of a revealing plastic roof”



“on that chair there, we conceived Sipho the gift. that was before the bed and a job from Airflex Recliners (Pty) Ltd”


“jesus was not born here but sometimes he comes in through the little holes in the walls and sits on that chair”


“there are many ways to make music. sometimes it is a deep blue against the wall, a bright yellow against fear, another red to tribute imagination, hopefully an orange to earth bad vibes and my black voice saying my life is beautiful”



“these walls, thin as membranes, keep nothing outside. they are here to keep our beauty inside, away from that solitude out there”


“the tentacles of despair are challenged by the soft touches of eternal determination. many times between void and void it is only us testifying to creative essence as hope.”


Photography by Craig Fraser
Poetry by Sandile Dikeni

*Quivertree Publications, Cape Town, South Africa (2002)

ADENDA: Pela sua relevancia nao so' para o tema deste post, mas tambem para algumas discussoes aqui tidas, decidi colocar aqui em anexo este artigo publicado esta semana no jornal Capetoniano 'Cape Times'.

I already had the ‘coffee table’ book for a few years, but this time decided to buy (with this post in mind) the postcard set made out of it, in Cape Town.

Here’s how it is presented by its editors*: “This book is a documentary on the lives of ‘previously disadvantaged’ but presently overcoming individuals. It is about the dignity to be found in the dusty streets of South Africa’s shack-lands. While these people obviously don’t take pleasure in the poverty they live in, they stand proud in the face of it. These are people who are doing the best they can with the little they have and, in the process, coming up with something aesthetically unique and fresh to offer the world. This is creativity and ingenuity. This is Shack Chic.”

Yet, for some reason, I can't get 'round this question: is “Shack Chic” really about

CELEBRATING CREATIVITY OR GLAMOURISING POVERTY?

***

“victory: to build a shack and call it home”

“houses are built on foundations and walls and roof. homes are built with things much deeper and less concrete”

“temples are never built in one day. but mine, this shack, was built in half a day”



“there is something sensual about the rattle of rain on a corrugated roof”

“after the rain, earth, as whiff, comes knocking on my fragile door. earth as fragrance embracing the musk and unmasking the undressed breath of another night of tender love making under the naughty stars peeping through the transparency of a revealing plastic roof”



“on that chair there, we conceived Sipho the gift. that was before the bed and a job from Airflex Recliners (Pty) Ltd”


“jesus was not born here but sometimes he comes in through the little holes in the walls and sits on that chair”


“there are many ways to make music. sometimes it is a deep blue against the wall, a bright yellow against fear, another red to tribute imagination, hopefully an orange to earth bad vibes and my black voice saying my life is beautiful”



“these walls, thin as membranes, keep nothing outside. they are here to keep our beauty inside, away from that solitude out there”


“the tentacles of despair are challenged by the soft touches of eternal determination. many times between void and void it is only us testifying to creative essence as hope.”


Photography by Craig Fraser
Poetry by Sandile Dikeni

*Quivertree Publications, Cape Town, South Africa (2002)

ADENDA: Pela sua relevancia nao so' para o tema deste post, mas tambem para algumas discussoes aqui tidas, decidi colocar aqui em anexo este artigo publicado esta semana no jornal Capetoniano 'Cape Times'.