Thursday, October 9, 2008

Can You Have Silverside Rare?

Cagliari




Pierfranco runs to the railing and back again, he stretched out his arms in the air and calls something in Italian, then he tried to put me a peach in the mouth. "They're good," he says, "these are mine." He gives me the peach, I rub the dirt from under the table quietly at my skirt. He watched me while I bite into it, nodded to me, as I begin to chew. I smile with your mouth full and I'm stupid in front of it.
As if him seeing me suddenly something occurred to Pierfranco runs from the roof terrace to the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, it comes with a carafe of iced coffee and two shot glasses back. "Drink," he says, "so you get good coffee anywhere." After he has poured himself, he runs back inside, gets cool lemonade and cookies. Finally, he sits across from me. His legs twitch under the table. "A Paradise, right? "He points to the plants on the railing, the sofa pillows on the wall, the basket lying on the floor. He points to the growing timber, which are only a bed, a table and a fan. "Up here you have complete privacy," he says. I sweat runs down the back, arms and face. For two hours I am looking for a room. "Tomorrow is the Pope," repeated the landlord, and looked at me in her half-open front doors as if I was disturbed.
Pierfranco however derogatory whistles through his teeth when I look down the street, which is closed today for vehicles. "This all the excitement, "he says," for an old codger. "His rooms are up to the sultry shack on the roof terrace fully booked anyway. He beckons me into the living room. Before a world map he stops and taps his index finger on red flags. "I've been everywhere, Iceland, America, Russia. In Germany I was in Berlin before the Wall fell. "He asks me where I come from exactly. I type on a tiny spot just ahead of Denmark. He pulls up the eyebrows. "From an island?" I nod. Hastily he bends down, pulls open a drawer, pulls out a red flag and stick it in the middle of the Baltic Sea. I look at him. "And," he asks, "how is it for?" "flat," I reply, "and usually cold." "Good." He runs slowly over the flags. "What is this island?" I grab a support from my backpack, leaning against the wall and pull it over my shoulder. While I put my other arm through the strap, he lifts his head in amazement.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Dog Have Rights To Drink Milk Fromboob

palaver in the crate



Kpawa, a young village came through heaped laterite soil of the pulsating vein network of paths and trails of breath, associated with the capillaries and veins from gravel and asphalt, through the small pickups, rusted, warped, revived countless times with their flow of goods, packed full of yams, held together by a tightly drawn plastic sheet, which bulges out beyond the frame, driven by the heartbeat of the trade.
The village has learned to walk, has become larger, has eaten country, the old and new fruits have digested. The village has around a sewage belt formed a ring of shrubs, similar to that of a city ring of a major European city. There are no latrines.

I sit inside this ring on a wooden chair in the shade of a crate not far from Issifous hut. No one moves. Even the wind, it's too hot. The heat presses on my body as blood flowed not but lead in my veins. I try not to move until me and I'm glad I do not have to speak, that the chairs are empty next to me keep that otherwise the men of the village their palaver.
Before me lie motionless three dogs in a narrow strip of shade thrown by a towering piece of corrugated iron of a roof.
called, "Who knows" (Qui sait), "or not" (ou bien) and "Speak for yourself" (dis pour toi). Names that are as appropriate responses to a possible discussion in the shade of the midday. Together, we try as little energy as possible to burn.
I wonder if a delicate piece of antelope meat with fresh basil leaves, the three might well open out.
"Who knows" turns subtly but clearly his left ear in my direction, without lifting his head for it, as if he had read my thoughts. The group of children who normally stick to one like the flies on the corrupt Cashewfrüchten, has evaporated in the few shady areas of the village. They lie on a sand pile, a table or a cold cement grave in the courtyard of the hut of their parents and siblings in addition to goats.



The square in front of me, a kind of connector to the marketplace, offers me a grateful light show. Hundreds of small reflections on flicker in plastic bags, their rags, tin cans and aluminum packaging of the drugs on the black market, as in a sea of rubies and crystals, until the wind takes her into the woods or someone makes a fire. The village is young, full bloom development. You can hear it grow, like the bamboo, which stretches every day a piece of the sky. The rate of growth, whether economic or population here is probably a thousand percent. Time for the priests and imams, the opium to the hook of their fishing and spear fishing to begin the soul. First, the construction of a mosque, beside a well, Life-giving water for the lost souls. The well runs dry, not drilled deep enough, it is the Koran.



Dieudonné comes with Innocent returned to the village from the field, hoe and rifle shouldered, the smell of earth and sweat meets their space. The heat seems Innocent identify not much. He greets the men, mothers, old people, us, with a smile that makes his face glow. His four front teeth have grown at a right angle from his jaw and pointing to the shed, under the same palaver begins and he is already looking forward. Whether he was with the self-made rifle already a dangerous I hunted squirrels, I ask him. Innocent he says have with this gun, from which peeped a cotton ball in front, killed a buffalo in his prime. I believe him and look forward to more hunting stories. Also Issifou is back in the village. He and joke with Dieuxdonné Issifous Malabou maids, the food prepared for us, Peuhlkäse with rice, her marriage promise as a second wife with me, the white man. Malabou means something like, "What have I done" I wonder what he has done for this to ask for later in the shed under which the men sit on the field work so much and get an answer.