Now that I am “this side” I am
reading about Africa, watching a TV series about a family running a game camp
in South Africa, looking for Africa in the news. I would never have thought I
would miss Africa this much, but here I sit in a park in New York City
listening to people talk about personal trainers and watching them parade by in
their slinky dresses. “Three percent rise in
portfolio” drifts by on the air and I am seeing the bus rank in Gaborone and
the women dressed in long white dresses with white head wraps, their bulky
bodies seated on broken plastic chairs under the skimpy shade provided by anorexic
trees or tipsy umbrellas
I
see the tall slim fellow enter the bus with his bag of frozen ices. “Metsi!,
Cooltime!” he calls and tickles the children under the chin and makes the women
laugh despite the sweltering heat and for the first time I wish I had learned
more Setswana. I wish I could understand what he is saying that pulls people
out of their stupor.
I
see the beautiful conductor on the 3:30 bus to Kopong. She was a woman of
indeterminate age, dressed more modestly than most. Her shoes were solid
leather always polished. Her skirts were long and her blouses did not reveal the
usual six inches of décolletage. I don’t think she was Motswana. Her face was
more sculptured, with rounded eyelids and a generous mouth. When I saw the
carved wooden figures in the main mall, I bought one immediately—it was her
face. I kept it on my desk, thinking I would give it to my son, who has four
daughters. It was called family tree and had the heads of four women carved out
of a single piece of wood. After a few months of admiring it I realized one of
the heads had an eye that seemed to wander. The Irish in me was superstitious,
afraid it could be unlucky and so I found another family tree for him (these
carvings are everywhere) and kept the flawed one for myself.
The
last time I made the trip back to my village I stood on the side of the A12
highway in the sun, resigned to a long wait and a packed bus. As if in a dream,
the bus pulled up within minutes and when I boarded I was stunned to see I was
the only person on it. This had never happened in the two years I was in
Africa. Add to that, it was the bus with my favorite conductor. I sat down
across from her and asked if I could take her photo. She smiled at me and
nodded. I told her I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had seen in
Botswana. She smiled at me and nodded.
When
I unpacked my shoes here in America, red dust fell out on the bedspread. That
red scrim covers the edge of my notebooks, sits inside the zipper of my
backpack and filters out of things even now, three months after I walked across
the tarmac at Sir Seretse Khama Airport, boarded the flight to Jo’burg and
looked out the window at the dry cattle and sparse branches of my village, five
miles away.
What
do I miss? I don’t miss the chickens and roosters under my window waking me
throughout the night. I don’t miss the dogs barking and jumping all hours day
and night. I don’t miss the bus windows locked tight while people sit on top of
me and cough. I don’t miss the nonexistent customer service, the frustration of
finding no one available to do the job they were supposed to do.
What
do I miss? The sky. The clearest bluest largest sky I’ve ever seen. And time. I
miss time. There is plenty of time in Africa. Time enough to wait for the bus,
the combi, the hitch. No one is late,
unless they have died. There is always the possibility the bus will come, the
person will show up, the meeting will begin, if not now, at some point. If
there is no possibility, if the breath has left your body and you have been
sung into your grave, then and only then, are you “late.”
Thank you.
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