hello all
three moons have passed since I last wrote, three bulbous delicious moons, moons of different character, of distinct color, moons of change and constancy, moons that mark my time here more real-ly than any calendar... ...the rain has ceased, to the point of leaving no memory of water, not a trace of a trickle of where a stream used to be... paths are dry as parched throats, women carry their bundles of clothes deeper and deeper into the shallowing river, the wells have begun to thirst... and with harvest came a wind to chilll and clear our air of any remaining hints of humidity... now mornings are spent beneath covers, the world has become a heavenly, un-africanly cool, my pores breathe comfortably, bike rides are sweet as plums, trees are losing their leaves and dusting me with the aroma of a diifferent sort of autumn... and now the moon rises orange and proud, not a wisp of cloud dares to block her light, more than ever we are in tune with h! er cyclings... when she goes dark a village goes to sleep early, the elders fast, temporarily die with the temporarily dead moon... and when she orbs round again, fires are lit for midnight tea, laughter ripples out into the late night, girls gather to sing as loud as the sky allows, bang rhythms out on rusted tin tomato-paste cans...
and in the mean time, i have been to Guinea, i have traveled with drums, i have fasted my first Ramadan... i have cried, lain ill, held a newborn soft Rokia in my arms... i have seen a hut go up in a funnel of flame, turn to ashes, i have watched a river be poisoned, up-belly its own fish, and rinse itself clean again.... it is now december. i realize i am very comfortable. i have forgotten the day when i did not have a bicycle and forevers of red roads... i can not recall when i used to pick up food with a fork, when this language was not on the edge of my tongue... how is it one can step into a world so random so far and become a member of its family???
now i go by memory, paint for you this triad of moons...
sigh
first was balance... magical Libra moon... moon of drums, moon of night-travel, round moon of wheels, of hill-trails, moon of teddungal, moon of release, a wanderer gypsy of a moon leading this sedentary Rokia to the road... yes yes, sweet late october moon found me with bolts of fabric, toothbrush, toothpaste stuffed into a rice sack and bungied to the back of my bicycle, off into a purple rain-cloud afternoon with a train of griots, djembes strapped carefully above their over-patched tires, parting the person-high elephant grass with our wheels, oh had i known then to where i was riding...
and thus it was we climbed the mountain from where the waterfall spills, and headed deep into the windy clear-stream hills of Guinea... our moving carnival led by Dugu Tigi, leader of griots, who smokes slow cigarettes while he rides, sings throatily through tea-stained teeth.... every village we pass there are offerings of food, water, a place to sleep... i realize i am traveling with a king... they hear the rattle of drums on the trail and come running... Dugu Tigi! Fijen! Fijen! ....and who is this pale girl with hair corded into long braids smiling wide behind him? ...the world comes out to touch me, turn the wheels of my peace-corps fancy mountain bike... i see we are entering territory where peace corps is not known, i am an anomaly, a mystery again.... it takes mere moments and i too am taken in with warm arms... language is the wind of humanity, connecting everyone...
and we rode, we rode, whether sun or moon... over rivers, under skies... to sweet Kerouane settled in a valley between the mountain of Mali and the strange pillared hills of Dande, where a stream runs fast and clean, and where a village sat awaiting the arrival of its bride....and our circus drifted in exhausted to be guests of their marriages...to witness feasts blood-red and simmering in army-sized pots...to lines of women (in there somewhere an indigo-clad golden-scarved Rokia) going back and forth from the river, beignoirs of granite-licked water on their heads... to twilights where fires are lit and drum-heads tightened and a morphing circle forms in a field of stars, where women leave their flip-flops in a colorful pile, one by one enter into the frenzy...and for a week i remember the call of rhythm... i am reminded of how to tell how many hours until dawn by the blueness of the night sky... for it is in the dark that the circle breathes... it ! is in the dark that feet pound into earth and scarves fly and limbs flail and women let out the wolf-yelps that they would not dare release at day.... we dance longer for the cake of mud on our feet, the circle rests and rejuvenates together, the curtsies to the music-makers are deep and grateful....and it is not a performance, no, it is a direct exchange... we give and take energy, stoke the drummers like coals, they drum because of our feet, we dance because the earth resounds, the sky echoes, everything about everything says 'do not stand still'...it would not stop but for the blue light of dawn... a pinkening of morning that signals a communal exhaustion, women appear from invisible huts carrying steaming gourds of breakfast fonyo, the drums are laid on their sides, we sit in our own footprints, drink together...
and so it goes for days and days... feet sore but dance anyway, drift-offs into afternoon half-naps between baobabs and an early-rising moon, a stomach that growls whenever the bowl appears...
and in the midst of an assortment of nyamakalaabe - drummers, calabash-tappers, bamboo flute blowers, rattlers, one-string tree-viola bowers, masters of song and ceremony, kola-nut crackers, tea-sippers, leaf-smokers, mystics, magicians, journeyers- i too am gifted... we are brought piles of sugar, tobacco, bowl after bowl of food.. lines of people come to greet... i am shown an overwhelm of respect... my escort and best village friend Sori Kebe takes me to the majestic cheif and head diviner, clad in turquoise robes, to be introduced, says " here is a certain Rokia Diallo, she is not from here but she knows something of this place, though she will swear that something is nothing at all, please give her Bismillah'... and this chief, this presence, removes his stark-white cap and take my road-worn corn-pounding bean-farming hand in his and says "Be here as you would your home..."
.... so I do, I can not help but follow the drums once they begin, they giggle at this rhythm-drunk Rokia who does not sleep, seeks the pulsing circle to all levels of exhaustion... and when I finally can not hold out any longer and Dugu Tigi is singing my name to the skies and they are all calling to me to enter just me just me into the center, I too leave my shoes to the mud and step in, let limbs fall free into paths they design... and in that dare of a moment I release it all, uncaring who sees, who thinks what, because the drums call and the yelping is loud and excited and this girl has needed to DAnce for a while, and i do not know if it was five minutes or one hour that i turn and turn and turn and turn, but my indigo is stuck to me with sweat and my breathing is Real, i bow to Dugu Tigi, the leader, the high griot-become-grandfather, for it is His rhythm that resonates... and exit... i am dizzy, lost track of it all.. i do not know if it! was graceful or strange but the arms i collapse into are warm.... and children come to pull on my skirt... and i did not even see but it was the grand chief himself that floated a golden scarf over my head, a gift of starlight among the crusty crinkled Guinean franc bills being stuffed into my palms, and then there he is, Alphajo the chief, to step in among the women to unravel something eloquent from his lips... he turns to me, says it is he who has gifted me this golden scarf, for I have come a long long way, left behind family and everything familiar to come here, to see, experience, learn. He tells me I am the voice, the connection, of worlds that NEEd to meet face to face... when I return I must speak, there are oh so many who need to hear... he says ' i have seen many a pale face pass through here but not a one have come into my home, nor gone to the river to pull water with my wives.. you, dancer, have just showed us your heart... my welcome i! s large as the sky....' ; And all worked up and sleepless and sweating indigo and high on night-drums, i cry.. i laugh... i cry... they bring me water... somewhere Sori appears and finds my hand... i realize that but for he and the drummers I have known everyone less than 48 hours... but i feel at home, eyes smile at me, faces are familiar, the coming of dawn is warm....
did this really continue for a week, tracing back over the path towards Dindefelo to mix drums with waterfalls, bike-wheels with car-motors? yes... yes.. in the end i was returned to Matakosi with light in my cheeks and legs that refused to walk me farther than our well... but oh it was a necessary delivery... all i could do was thank everyone beyond the bounds of normal courtesy, and praise whatever breeze of trees it was that landed me upon the surface that road... this gypsy needed to journey, needed to breathe magic, needed, more than she knew, to dance...
i must take a repose before moving on to later moons
wide and gleaming
linz