I let the couch gasp for air as I finally got off of it to
meet Chiara for dinner. She picked me up
in her car and we drove down the mountain and back up another one. Chiara has been in Swaziland for 2 years now
and we have grown close during my many visits.
Tonight we would join her friends at their cottage for dinner before
heading out to a party. The cottage was
warm with beef stew and the bottles of delicious South African wine just made
it warmer. I immediately liked the women
but when they brought out chocolate cake for dessert I knew I would marry them.
It was ok that we were roly from food and drink, because we only
had to roll a few feet from the cottage to the party. It was Swaziland Art night, Swarty, and bands
from South Africa came to perform in the sunken living room of an empty
mansion. Every expat within a 100 mile
radius heard the siren call of booze and music and packed in. The mansion was meant for Airbnb guests and so
it felt like we were children playing in an empty adult house,
unchaperoned. Anyone could pop behind
the fully stocked bar and pretend to be bartender, making concoctions just like
I used to do as a kid in the schoolyard.
But this time my drink was made of Jameson instead of mud and fancy berries
instead of the leftover ketchup in the fridge.
I felt comfortable.
Besides knowing many people from my previous visits, it was so easy to
lean back into that swaying feeling that comes from being more than 8,000 miles
from home. A feeling of freedom and
recklessness and familiarity with the unfamiliar. I love the small talk that happens seamlessly
at an expat party but would make me feel like a douche anywhere else.
“Oh I just got in from Johannesburg. You’re headed to Uganda? Nice!
Say hi to my cat for me.”
We danced under a disco light (??) to songs that were
popular 2 years ago. We played in a
sunken bathtub and slid around the kitchen.
I ran outside, to a hill on a mountain and called the boy.
“I’m calling you from SWAZILAND. OMG TECHNOLOGY. I MISS YOU. OK GONNA GO BACK
AND DANCE NOW.”
I’m happy that I’m here for 2 weeks but excited to go home
to my sweet apartment in Harlem. I never
once regret not taking the job overseas.
I like my happy hour on Thursdays and my bagels on Saturday. But when I get antsy in my cubicle and miss
the freedom of distance, I know I’ll be going to Namibia next month, and
Ethiopia after that, and then…who knows?
You can drive for hours without seeing anyone in
Namibia. A tumbleweed might literally
cross in front of your car. The capital
Windhoek, is surrounded by tall, sandy mountains making the horizon look like
Mars.
I was in Namibia for work.
Helping to run a workshop to adapt materials for our nationwide HIV
survey. Unfortunately this meant I saw
these mountains mostly from the window of my conference room. I insisted that even though it made the
projected materials a little harder to read, we have the windows open
every day.
Over lunches, I made friends
with Frida, a Namibian woman who worked at the Ministry of Health. One day at lunch, I bumped into a waiter and
said “lo siento”. Because I’m too old to
be juggling all these languages and random ones just pop out. (Most embarrassing is when I’m speaking to a
taxi driver in Africa and I start wagging my head like I’m in India. I’m confused.) Frida turned to me “Tu hablas espanol?!”
During the Namibian War of Independence, children were
smuggled out of the country to safety, many never to see their families
again. Frida’s boat went to Cuba. Not knowing a word of English or Spanish,
Frida and the other children spent the next 15 years growing up in Cuba.
“Most of us are now back in Namibia. Once a month we roast a big pig and dance
salsa all night long.”
Frida is trying to get into the University of Michigan for a Masters Program. I told her to
tell her story and she’d be a shoo in.
On Friday night we all went out to for Namibia’s famous beef
at Kapana. We ducked under the large
blue tarped area and pushed through the wall of smoke. In the center of the large outdoor market
were butchers using machetes to cut large pieces of the cow laid on the wooden
tables in front of them. The meat
was passed up front where men arranged
the pieces on open grills. The men
called at you to come and try their beef.
Theirs is the tenderest. I took a
few pieces from their hands, chewed, deliberated, and decided on the best
vendor.
I gave the man the equivalent of
5 dollars, and he chopped up a section for us and slid it to the bottom of the
grill. Then me, my friends and the smoke
stood around eating our pieces of the meat.
Large piles of salt, chile, and MSG were on pieces of cardboard next to
the grills for dippings. My coworker
handed me a plastic bottle cut in half with a sloshing brown liquid in it. “Dip it in this.” It was like eating raw garbage. He laughed.
Was cow bile.
After filled with beef and MSG, we sat in the back of the
tarped market on plastic chairs. A woman
dipped a ladle in a bucket of swamp water (?) and poured us each a glass. It was
a traditional fermented brew. Slightly
warm, it tasted like coconut water meets butter meets cholera. I drank my whole damn cup.
Super full, I said goodbye to everyone and told Frida I
would bring her back some Cuban Coffee from Key West. She laughed and said “get me into the
University of Michigan.”
It was a bright and crisp day at 9am when I first got
to the clinic in rural Uganda. A line
was already wrapped around the single clinic room and women were resting in
circles allowing their fat, naked babies to play in the middle.
“Afoyo, hello!”
The kids laughed at
the white lady speaking their language.
Today I would be looking over the record books to get a sense of how bad
the most recent malaria epidemic had hit this village.
Just before greeting
the nurse, a woman grabbed my arm. She was panicked and her nails dug in.
“I prayed, but
nothing. Help me sistah docter.”
At first, I did not
hear her. So many people call out to me
every day that I have become good at not hearing.
She almost threw her
little girl into my arms. The girl was too light and her eyes were glassy. I was trying to explain that I am not a
doctor, I am just a scientist studying malaria when, like a horror film, the
little girl turned and I could see the back of her head had been eaten away by
disease. The pulpy flesh was rotting and
covered in flies. I gave the baby back
to her mother, went into the bush, threw up, and then went into the clinic to
count the cases of malaria.
I do not believe in
god. I pray again and again for strength
of faith but I have heard no answer.
Maybe I’ve spent too many years looking down through a microscope to
hear the god above me. I’m a scientist and
thus a skeptic. We’re taught to be wary
of religion as it is unfounded in evidence (the only scripture of
science.) But there is a woman in front
of me, just a baby herself, praying that her little girl doesn’t die. How can I help her if I don’t understand her?
School did not teach me what sustains people beyond the antibiotics.
It’s the big
questions, the ones that catch in your throat, unasked, that are all around me
in Uganda. The questions about death and
faith. I’m terrified because if I fail
to save you, you will not live on in another world. I will be here, and you will be gone. I
am afraid that if I do not figure out a way to hear some god, I may not be able
to continue doing this work.
Sometimes, usually when I’m lying in bed at night, I
feel a tingling at the back of my head, and I have to reach up to feel if I’m
whole.
I told her I grew up in Red Hook. Which was only kind of true. I grew up in Gravesend and Park Slope, in Red
Hook, Key West, Gainesville. But Red
Hook, those were my formative years.
We lived in this brick house at the end of Beard
Street. It’s still the house of my
dreams. Wooden staircases, restaurant
stove, tin ceilings, fireplaces, an English garden. This house could eat my 400sq foot studio for
breakfast.
My mom worked at a nonprofit on Van Brundt street. My other mom owned an international shipping
company that worked out of the warehouse down the block. My parents were heavily involved in the
community and we went to city hall meetings to make sure the garbage dump
wasn’t built in Red Hook. We went on
marches protesting that “DAMN DAIRY PLANT” down the block. We built gardens on the waterfront and worked
to restore the old trolleys. I was extremely helpful by bringing art into
Red Hook by way of an outdoor performed modern dance to Let it Be.
Not many of my school friends would visit me so I made
friends on the block. There were 2
apartment buildings across the street and I guess they didn’t have doorbells
(??) because I would shout “Elissabeeeeth, Nelllsoooon” over and over until
their mom opened the window and leaned out.
“Can Elisabeth come out to play?”
Then the two of us would call for Kris. Oh my god Kris. I looooooved Kris. I spent hours looking out my window into his
window wondering what he was doing.
Asking my magic eight ball if he and I would get married some day.
“Krriiiiisss, can you come out to play?”
When the heavy door to his building squealed open my heart
skipped a beat. I bet if I heard that
door today I would still catch my breath.
Then I’d hear the basketball dribbling on the concrete sidewalk. Squeal of door, bounce of ball. Those are the sounds love is made of.
“Hey,” he’d say and pass me the ball.
“What’s up,” I’d say, and dribble the ball between my legs
like a goddamn pro. I was all curly hair
and jammed fingers. An 11 year old lover
in baby blue Air Jordans. (I scrubbed
those beauties with my toothbrush once a week.)
We’d play until the sun set and then some. We drew a square on the warehouse next to my
house. Hit it with your ball for a
point. (We once burned out a soda crate
and tied it to a fence for a hoop. But
someone stole it…) Quick 10 point games, every man for himself. Nelson sometimes joined us before he got too
old to play on the block. When no one
could come out, I would play by myself, practicing bouncing the ball against
the wall and catching the rebound for an ally-oop. If I was going to join the WNBA and if Kris
and I were going to live out my Love and Basketball fantasy, I had to start
getting good.
When we weren’t playing basketball we were at the corner
store buying candy. None of that
chocolate crap either. We liked the hard
stuff. Pure sugar packed into tubes that would turn our
mouths blue or maybe a pack of sour straws that we smoked like cigarettes. We
would shake up soda bottles and
leave them in the street for cars to run over.
Because. Hilarious.
In the winter we crammed into the hallway and played
monopoly. Yelled at people when they had to walk over our board
to get to the stairs and messed up our house placement. The hallway was dark but warm and thick with
the comforting smell of Ecuadorian food.
If it was summer, we would lay our bellies on the sun warmed
bricks in the garden and roll roly polys to see whose went farthest. Or me and Elisabeth would draw a whole house
out on a piece of paper and see where our slug babies would go.
“Look, yours is going into the bathroom!”
Elisabeth taught me all the Spanish words to the
Macarena.
We rigged a skateboard with a rope. One sat, one ran, both fell. Most of my scars are from those days. But the trick was never to go inside. Not for a band aid or to use the
bathroom. Because that’s when the
parents would remember you existed and make you come in for the night.
Things changed after 9/11.
My mom took pictures of the towers burning from our roof. My other mom lost her shipping business. My parents went to 6 funerals. The experience gave them pause. They were tired of the New York rat race and
wanted to slow down and live the life that New York collectively realized could
be gone in seconds. Within a few months,
they sold our house, enrolled me into Key West High School and my sister into
Montessouri. 3 months after that, my
fifth generation Brooklyn family moved to Key West.
I stopped playing basketball at school because the nearest
away game was an hour away. I lost touch
with Elisabeth and Nelson. Kris and I,
despite the magic 8 ball predictions, did not get married. It was 7 years before I visited Red Hook
again. There is an Ikea now and a
Fairway. There are man buns in Sunny’s
and a candy shop selling only chocolate.
My mother’s warehouse is owned by some artisanal artist brewing beer with
wood or making wood with beer. The English
garden has no light anymore because of some crab shack minigolf monstrosity
blocking the sun. I passed my house and
saw a blonde boy playing with his phone on my steps. But I could still see Kris’s name written on
the sidewalk from that time he wrote it in the wet cement with a stick.
I’m back in New York, living in Harlem now. It feels good to be back here. My world weary body is ready for it. I’ve lived in 5 different countries, 10
different cities. When people ask me
where I’m from, I’ll say New York. If I
feel they’ll get me, I say Brooklyn. But
if I’m feeling real, I’ll say “I grew up in Red Hook.”
Red Hook: May 2001, Van Brundt Street. Aunt is wearing Red Hook G.A.G (Groups Against Garbage) Shirt
Tonight I went to celebrate the Shabbat at Zahara’s
house. A group of 20 people crowded
into the living room, in chairs, on the floor, perched on end tables covered in
books. A
Visit Palestine poster was framed next to texts about the Torah and the
window was open letting in the smells of the Dominican Chicharones from
Broadway. We talked about queer activism, and the Torah, and what we were most
proud of. This is New York Pride week
after all. We sang ningunim, wordless
songs, that felt like they have been sitting in my throat all week waiting to
be heard.
The candle lit the wall with shadows as the room grew dark
and our singing came to an end. And in
the dark I realized, I had caught my breath.
Because I have been running through this city breathing in
short little spurts until events like Orlando knocked what little breath I had
right out of me. Days follow days without
singing, having a real conversation, without being in the dark, without
breathing.
Last week a man shot and killed 49 people. This week the Britain left the EU. Yesterday, I signed up to campaign for Hillary because I’m damn
scared.
I could run away to another country again. Pretend the world is bigger than it is.
But I’m tired. And my
feet hurt. And I want to sing not shout..
I took a deep breath tonight because things were good enough
to slow down. But I think I might be holding
that breath. Rationing it. Waiting for the next Orlando, around the
corner, to leave me breathless again.
At 3am, I woke up wide awake. Jet lag! Ugh!
Why hasn’t science fixed you?! But figured, I might as well head to the Tsujiki fish market to see the fresh fish being unloaded from the boats and catch a glimpse
of the famous tuna auction!
SO at 3am, I walked through my neighborhood to the subway
which all guides seemed to promise was open 24 hours. It’s not.
They were wrong. But I found a taxi
guy and managed to finagle a ride to the market for $30. (It should have been $60 but every time the
driver tried to let me out of the cab I kept pointing, silently and urgently
ahead until my google maps told me I arrived.)
It was dark in the fish market but men were already there
unloading their trucks with fresh fish and setting up their shops. As I made my way to the arena for the giant
tuna auction, I saw groups of white people walking away dejectedly. When I got there I was told that they had
sold out of tickets at 2:30! Earlier
than any guidebook had said possible. I
stuck a 2,000 yen fresh note ($20) in between my fingers and saddled up to the
guard.
“Sir, my friend is in there and she is waiting for me.” I casually laid the money by his hand.
“No sorry, tickets sold out.”
Drats! That would have totally worked in Africa!
“But sir, my sister is getting married in there!”
“Please leave now.”
With nothing else to do at 3:30am, I decided to head to
Sushi Dai a sushi restaurant in the heart of the fish market and the proclaimed
best sushi in the world. The fish was unloaded from the boat and straight into the back of the restaurant where the chefs take great care to tamper with the fish as little as possible before serving. The freshest in the world. Already there
was a snaking line. The restaurant
opened at 5am and there was already about 30 people in front of me. And the restaurant seats 12 at a time.
Oh well, still wide awake with nothing else to do, I settled
in and made friends with the group behind me.
6 fortysomething native New Yorkers.
It did not surprise me that the New Yorkers were where the good food
was. We took turns holding our place and
exploring the market place, going to the bathroom, getting coffee, and
purchasing delicious tamago (sweet egg) on a stick.
Tamago
It was fun being so still.
As a tourist, you’re always rushing trying to see the next thing but
missing everything along the way. The line
had me watch the sun rise over Tsukiji market and almost get hit (several
times) by men whizzing by on their trolleys, cigarette lit in their
mouths. The air was so laden with fish
you could taste it.
The sun rose and the non foodies, noodies if you will,
started to meander into the market. They
often came up to our line.
“What’s this line for, brah?”
“Sushi.”
“Oh sweet, how long have you been waiting for?”
“3 hours. We’ve been
here since 4.”
“Whaaaaa. That’s
insane!”
We smiled at their naivity.
They don’t know what it’s like to truly want something. To wait for it. To yearn for it. Noodies.
Meanwhile, I’m on the phone with my mother who is salivating
cathartically. She read the reviews over
the phone to me.
“Try the fatty tuna, I hear it’s out of this world. OH I’m so JEALOUS.”
When it was my turn, I was waved in. The benefit of being a solo traveler, I ate a
full hour before the group behind me. It
was 7:30 am.
I was sat at a long counter with 11 other chosen ones. Behind the bar was thick slabs of glistening fresh
fish and 3 chef masters. I was given a ceramic cup of thick green tea and a hot
towel. I patted my face, readying
myself. First course was a seafood miso
soup. Fresh large clams and pieces of
fish made the already salty miso taste like you were drinking the ocean.
Miso Soup
Next course was a cube of sweet egg tamago. With a consistency of an omlette but
sweetened with sugar and soy sauce, it was exactly what I needed to ready my
palette this early in the morning.
Tamago
The sushi was placed directly on the counter in front of
us. The chef used a brush to glaze the
fish with a hint of soy sauce and a dab of wasabi so it was ready to pop right
into our mouths.
The first sushi was the
fatty tuna, the most popular sushi in the restaurant. It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. So buttery and supple you barely had to chew,
it melted in your mouth. It was
sunshine.
Fatty Tuna
A large pile of freshest ginger was available for a chew in
between pieces to cleanse the palette.
Next was the snapper.
It had more of a bite to it than the tuna and almost had a citrus taste. I took to closing my eyes when I put the
sushi in my mouth.
Snapper
Then the chef put down a piece of sushi that was
moving. The clam on top of the rice wiggled as if saying
hello. I put in into my mouth and I
could feel it wriggling against my tongue. It was creepy.
Definitely more of a struggle to get down than the grasshoppers in
Uganda.
I ate red snapper. I
turned to my friends behind me still waiting just outside the restaurant, faces
pressed against the window. “It’s
amazing,” I mouthed, and they cheered and high fived each other.
Red Snapper
The sea urchin was so flavorful, fishy and salty and almost
meaty. But the slimyness threw me off a
bit.
Sea Urchin
Then came the Spanish Mackerel or Sawara. Sushi Dai you clever bastard, you had me
reeling. I Daid and went to heaven. It was plump and flavorful and smooth. Subtly fishy.
It took me there.
Spanish Mackerel
We finished the meal up with tuna, horse mackerel, tuna and
cod egg maki, and sea eel. When the chef
asked me what I liked best, I said the fatty tuna. And he gave me another piece!
Tuna
Horse Mackerel
Sea Eel
Tuna and Cod Eggs
I bowed to the master chefs and left. Now 9am, the fish market was packed with fish and tourists and restaurant owners. I was full and sleepy and walked around the market like a fatty tuna.
I rolled myself back to the apartment and took a nap. I had tickets to see Sumo wrestling!
It’s Sunday! The day
the Japanese Harajuku girls come out to play in their platform shoes and
rainbow hair and glitter makeup! I’ve
been obsessed with the Harajuku for years.
See vintage picture of me, 10 years ago: 17, dressed up as a Harajuku
girl for Halloween.
I scooched on down to the Harajuku district and took a walk
on the famous Takeshita street.
Everything was pink and smiley.
There was surround sound giggles.
The girls wore two main styles.
The innocent: lace bib shirt, tulle skirt, soft pink, barretes. And the wild: 6 inch platforms, teal hair in
pigtails, candy necklaces. I crushed it
in jeans and a tshirt.
Because I wanted to be supersaturated with sweetness, I went
to the pompompurin café. Pompompurin is
one of the many famous Sanrio characters in Japan. Hello Kitty’s cousin or something. I ordered this cute little pompompurin cup of
pudding with a chocolate beret hat. I
asked the old man next to me if I could take a picture of his pompompurin
rice. He obliged.
Just as I was leaving the district I saw what I thought was a parade of Harajuku girls. But no!
It was the Tokyo Pride parade! I
joined them for awhile, shouted for gay rights a little, took a few videos, and
then took a nap.
At dusk, I went to the top of the Mori art museum and saw
all of Tokyo from 52 stories high. It was
magic. Made even more magic by the
limited time only Sailor moon exhibit.
For dinner I stuffed my face with fresh, delicious sushi and
jetlagged home.
