Equivocality

Eventually I realized that I knew nothing about Africa.

I’d heard something about millions of people starving, about AIDS, about war, corruption, and drought. I’d seen the infomercials. I’d caught snippets of Live-8 on television, and I couldn’t avoid the GAP’s huge advertising campaign. Donate money to the cause, Bono told me. But all of it was just a bit too mythical, heavy on pathos but shy on fact. There remained for me the central unanswered question: what is wrong with Africa?

So I went there.

I could go anywhere, anywhere at all, but I don’t want to.

I have discovered that I am a tourist. I am a market. My guidebook promised me exotic lands and I ignored the inherent contradiction of thousands of backpackers tramping through untouched lands. And I hated the camel trek. Actually, the camels were cool, but no one actually rides them anymore. The locals have cars now. I would have got just as much exploration done had I stayed home and gone to an amusement park.

Screw it. I’m going off the map. There may not be anything there, but I’m going anyway. I’m going to claw my way into a situation that wasn’t sold to me.

28 degrees North, 12 degrees West. A point of no importance in the middle of nowhere. That’s my destination.

When the overloaded Toyota pickup roared off there was nothing at all but sand under my feet and the black outlines of a few desiccated trees in the nearly moonless night. I had been dropped off somewhere along the 400 kilometer desert track between Timbuktu and Gao, and suddenly found myself standing completely alone, at night, in the most nowhere place I’d ever been. I had two liters of water, a tin of sardines, half a kilo of dates, and two mangoes. I needed to find civilization in the next forty-eight hours or so.

I have trouble with the exact emotion. I was too present to form the right words at the time. Now, so soon afterwards, the feeling is already slipping away. What remains most vividly is a succession of wide-eyed moments, vignettes into the larger experience. I’m going to write those down before I forget them, and […]

I just had mint tea with an old Berber woman.
She wore a deep blue blouse, and a black velvet skirt. Around her head was a dark shawl with gold threads woven through it. The palms of her hands and the soles of her feet were almost black with henna. There were ornate rings on her […]

I just slept in a mud-brick house belonging to an isolated shepherd family on a desolate plain near the Algerian border. It was a beautiful place, and a privilege to meet such people. And I paid good money for the experience. That’s the part which makes me uneasy.

It was when he said he’d be at the bus station at four o’clock that I began to ache for the strange little boy who had become my shadow. The bus left at five-thirty, and he knew that. I said I’d be at the station at five. He said again that he’d be there at four. What was nothing to me was far too important for him to risk missing.

Marrakech, but it could be any city in Morocco. Or just about anywhere in the touristed world, given minor changes to the script.
The man waves to me from where he’s trying to start his moped as I walk past on the sidewalk. I return the wave vaguely, turn back to looking straight ahead. At least […]

This taxi is pimped. You can tell from the outside even. For one thing, the wide banner at the top of the windshield says Mercedes in big white-on-black letters. It actually is a Mercedes too, complete with monogrammed mud-flaps, and the classic tristar ornament. Silver hubcaps, even. Doesn’t matter that it must be 20 years […]

Nowhere, notime, but they sure keep it clean.

My phone tells me it is 5:40 AM, but that’s on a different continent. There is a dull winter afternoon light streaming in through the windows, but I have to leave the concourse area to see it. My body is telling me that it’s no time at all.