Casting Off

There’s a critical point required for a boat to leave the dock in my village. I used to think it was a number of passengers or cargo required before departure, but just now, as this boat I’m sitting on cast off, I discovered the key, the fuel to the engine is volume.

                You could argue that volume is directly proportional to the amount of individuals onboard, but I would argue back with you and win. Sometimes I’ll be pleasantly engaged in eating fish bones in my house and wonder at the volume of the crowd massed outside by the police station next door- reminiscent of Autzen Stadium on an autumn Saturday- only to discover all the decibels are generated by a pair of disgruntled women. Conversely, I’ve entered the community center expecting it to be deserted, but rather walked into the company of 30 souls feasting while conversing in library mumbles between mouthfuls.

                A fully loaded boat can sit for an hour. No tension on the boat would suggest it’s coiling to spring away from its mooring, in fact last anyone saw the captain he was headed for the palm-wine bar next to the river. But then at a shadowy point, at a moment that lingers like a burst bubble, the snowball of murmurs begins rolling. It’s not a gasoline ignition, but the reluctant burn of a damp log. No more than two passengers with a goat might have joined the after-capacity boat in the last, hot hour, but the listless fame of noise discovers it has friends… and cousins… and acquaintances… and then, as if an arm is told it will be slowly pulled out of its socket, the boat flexes and chests expand with air- with ammunition.

                I’ll take a moment to say how much I adore pirate ships and old-school warships. Build a wooden, floating box, then pack it with black explosives to feed eighty hungry mouths vomiting leaden death? I’d love to sit in the crows nest as an opponent pulls his iron-studded girl next to my own and we disintegrate each other in a Hollywood-sized helping of splinters, black smoke, and glory. I’ve never had an explosion of wood and sparks behind me before, but I imagine instead of ducking like a sissy my eyes would probably turn to steely storm clouds and my head would remain as motionless as the bust of a Roman conqueror.

                Anyway, instead of cannonballs, boats leaving from Mambolo’s warf exchange a fury of sounds with the concrete bank. The pulsing waves are almost visible, frantic as if the clutch of land can only be repelled by the diaphragms of those onboard and shore bound. Today I literally covered the ears of the baby on my lap as it groped for my useless nipple, wishing someone would cover my own. As if they’re stones driving away the last of a flock of birds, it’s not uncommon to see wads of money thrown by those on shore chased by deafening instructions for its use. (Honestly, couldn’t you have done this the last two hours we were sitting here smoldering?)

                A goodbye at this point can’t be delivered anywhere below the level of a preschool field trip in a candy shop, and any explicit missives should be delivered in the same range as a head-on train collision with a circus. But as the gravity of the shore is strained and the last word is flung fiercely out, at an indefinite time with an invisible exit, the sound waves dissipate into the wake of the boat and wind from the open water sets about its task of scraping sweat off of faces.

                Oh- and really unrelated- I’ve got a problem. Usually mice or rats in my house are whatever. the only time they ever bother me is when they forget to invite me to their diskotek parties on top of my ceiling tiles. Every now and then they’ll send a Champion to challenge me for possession of Mambolo Manor, but with Knut and my cutlass, I’ve managed to dispatch them effortlessly- even if with some excitement.

                So you can imagine my ill-ease when I found my coveted mountain-sized bag of protein powder had been nibbled through. The scattered, chocolate flavored powder suggested a nutritional orgy, and I balked as pictures of an angry Schwarzenegger with a rat’s head bowled into my mind. It was like coming home early from an 8-5 to smell cookies that my fully make-up’d housewife had just made for the new, buff pool boy. Uh oh. Might have a problem.

                Every day since then I’ve been listening for heavier than usual scuttles along my ceiling, looking forward to the dark day Knut and I will face a mutant army and I can utter the words, “Knut, you take the one on the left. I’ll take the thirty on the right.”

Banana Islands

Would you believe it, there wasn’t a single banana on all of Banana Islands. A textbook example of a sad misnomer, the whole three-island chain, as far as I could tell, boasted one lame Banana tree that even Charlie Brown would’ve written off. But, did this tragedy ruin my three day visit to the islands? Did the lack of crescent fruit spoil my fun? Did I spend my time listlessly staring up at the island’s Banana-less canopy? No. Because that place is overall fabulous.

                An obvious destination after the In-Service-Training that brought all the Peace Corps Volunteers back together in the southern city of Bo, a few handfuls of us spent our Christmas holiday surrounded by the blue of the Atlantic ocean several miles off Sierra Leone’s mountainous coast. I’ve never really been to an island before, and I was surprised to find myself gingerly walking on the trail from the harbor to Dalton’s Guest House, unsure of the ground. What, did I think the island was a big soggy sponge? Anyway, by the time we gained the guest house where we would spend the next two nights I had stopped walking all weird and the ground had proven itself sufficiently tough. The dinosaur trees on the island could’ve proven this by inspection…but then again, maybe the cacophony of vines weaving the jungle together were holding them up.

                Dalton’s Guest House is one of a few on the island. Getting there was a good bit of fun, Dalton himself picked us up from Kent beach on the mainland in an appealingly orange boat. Of course, like all transportation in Africa, everything managed to barely fit. If there had been ten of us instead of fifteen we would’ve barely fit, and if there had been fifty instead we would’ve barely fit. Magic.

                I see no reason not to shamelessly promote this place- everything was great. The big ‘ol beds very comfortably slept the two people that we assigned to them and in lieu of the soon-to-be-completed showers, the jovial staff supplied us with buckets of hot water to wash with. Our dinners of Texan proportion were served underneath a deck built up through the trees, both levels having a happy view of the small, sheltered beach which in turn had a view of the azul shifting carpet that rolled out till it defined the horizon. It was out of the ocean that ‘Gregory’ pulled the underwater mammoths that constituted our tuck. Simply fish and onions boiled in water from Dalton’s would make crusty Pirate Lords tear up a bit, and the three or four more dishes wee were attacked with brought our taste buds to their little, slippery knees.

                But we didn’t just sit around feasting. Dalton’s also offers several expeditions for various prices- everything from sitting in a boat big-game fishing, to taking a three –day scuba diving course to look at some of the many sunken ships around the island. Our main host during our stay was Gregory. He was from Greece, probably my favorite of his stories was about the backpacking trip he had gone on through the depth of Africa- “I planned to do it in dee one year, but… it took three year.” Anyway, he’s a dive master and, after seeing him walk out of the water in slow motion, spear gun in hand, I begged him to teach me to free dive and become an underwater hunter. He agreed, and I think I’ll be heading back in April during spring break. Fierce.

                So having seen an exotic aquarium’s worth of fish simply snorkeling off the beach, myself and some others set off to explore the length of the islands on foot. We went at our own paces, the walk was reportedly three hours one-way, and I was soon happily humming through the jungle by myself, vines and branches encroaching on my vague trail. I took the monkeys I saw just a ways down the trail as a good omen. I’m sure my resemblance to them is what made them reveal themselves to myself alone amongst the adventurers that day. The islands are narrow, and the trail often has picture-framed views of coves, boulders, and trees forming private beaches for the mermaids that could be seen sunning on the rocks.

                Just after the bridge between the two largest islands, my super powers fully activated. I was still glancing over my shoulder at the narrow rock isthmus that delicately threaded the two islands together when I heard a sinister sound I had suspected would assault my senses- a snake. I turned just in time to see the entire 20 foot length of its body coil before launching through the air at me, its body motionless as my mind all but stopped time. Almost with regret I firmly planted my feet as I backhanded its barrel sized head against a tree. There was a new king on the island today and he loved kicking snake tail. As I finished securing its body around the rock on the peak of the island’s highest mountain, I remember saying something menacing over my shoulder like, “Do that again and I’ll give you another snake hole.” Except I accidentally put the emphasis on “give” so it sounded like I was literally going to dig him another home.

                But seriously people, I saw a black Mamba. It was laying in the trail but slithered off a ways when I chucked a seashell at it. How cool is that?

                After reaching the end of the island, I asked myself, “What would Huckleberry Finn do?” then I stripped down and took a great swim before walking the entirely uneventful way back. News reports from Brazil say they saw a glow on the horizon from my nakedness, but it’s Brazil so they just chuckled and kept salsa dancing while deforesting the Amazon.

                As we puttered our way back to the mainland the next day, the merpeople sang goodbye in chorus on the rocks as schools of fish described shimmering semicircles out of the waves and a rainbow framed the strengthening sun that silhouetted a herd of winged pegasi. It was a good vacation.

Dry Season

                “The moon is glinting gently off my Papaya.” I noticed as I looked at the papaya in my lap- which, indeed, had glints of moon on it.

                The moon was actually glistening over quite a bit- the dust-filmed bucket of water next to me, the spoon in my hand, the car driving by stacked high with speakers and higher still with daredevil passengers, the fur on my dog Knut, and glistening quite a bit off the flowing hair on my own head (this is a guess. I can’t see that part of me).

                I’m sitting on my back porch thinking how it’s the dry season now and the game has changed quite a bit. The underwhelming volume of days since I last tried to tell stories seems attackable and retell able, but for now I think I might just have to generalize about the new season.

                So, “Dry Season.” As in- white fluff clouds only exist in my memory. As in- the winds breezing across the Sahara pick up every derelict particulate and pitches it up to be a thread in the blanket that is a gray screen across the sky. The blue yields its traditional place to the gray closer to the horizons and the colluding dust scarf turns even the afternoon sun into a perfectly red coin, a crown on top of thirsty palm trees.

The river that held no regard for its banks in September now cowers below them, leaving their muddy nakedness cracking as winds and temperature alike come up. The last of the unharvested rice in the fields that used to whisper in the wind now sounds like a waterfall of glass shards when the slightest breeze slides through the dry stalks. Are you getting the picture? If your picture resembles Mars on an especially warm day, you’re picturing right.

                Of course it’s actually not all that bad. The wind that muddles the sky also cools the evenings down to the lower 70’s (I had to actually buy a blanket) even if it does spike into high 90’s during the afternoon. People are generally in better spirits now- the harvesting work mostly done, people’s financial lives are about as vivacious as they get throughout the year. There are jams or outings every other night, and general holiday fatness prevails for the time being.

                I think traditionally students tend to trickle back to school this time of year, extending their holidays like Pinnochio’s nose after filing taxes.

                But not at Scarcies Baptist Secondary School, baby.

                If my school was a rockstar, it would eat Fenders for breakfast and never touch the ground when it walked due to the amount of garments thrown at its vibrantly sexy rockstar self.

The first day back, over 90% of the students were in uniform, taking tests and being smart. The full complement of teachers was present to invigilate tests, and I.S. and myself have even spent some time after-hours lately pretending to be electricians (we’ve got these dusty computers we’re trying to safely hook up to a generator…if we fail though, I’m going to sell them to a museum). Schools in Sierra Leone recognize that a student is most comfortable not fused to a desk, but rather blasting around a football field or diving on a volleyball court- we have a whole week this term devoted to sports wherein the four school houses compete against each other.

                So, that’s the “Dry Season.” Anyway, I hope none of you all have holiday hangovers (they’ll come again in less than a year, I promise) and I’ll bet you’re all furiously attacking all the opportunities this new year has to offer.