Thane: A Missed Train Stop. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

I’m heading back to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj station. It’s been an interesting day.

I bumped into some chill guys on my way back – a bunch of tattoo artists. No, I think just one of them was a tattoo artist. The other guy was into digital art generally.

We started talking under the umbrella of an Egg Pav vendor, while we waited for our bread and eggs to be ready. I was surprised to learn that there was a language barrier between the artists and the man selling the Egg Pav. They spoke different dialects, so it took some back-and-forths for them to communicate with one another – that was very interesting for me to see. For some reason I just would not have expected to bump into Indians having communication complications on the streets of Mumbai.

I actually saw the artist guys earlier – at the Jehangir museum, while I walked around, looking at the interesting art on display. We smiled at one another as we crossed paths. They seemed like chill people – friendly.

But I wasn’t really thinking about them. Nah. There was this really interesting-looking Indian girl I had spotted earlier, and I was scanning for her out of the corner of my eye, trying to plan out a way we could “accidentally” bump into each other.

I was like “These guys seem friendly, but this is not my priority right now”.

Haha.

We actually did cross paths eventually, me and the interesting-looking Indian girl. We had eye contact and smiled at each other, but her body language didn’t give me the impression she was up for a conversation.

So I left it at that.

So I was there, about five minutes away from the museum, chatting with the artist guys. I thought, “Ehh, there’s nothing else to do anyway, so I might as well just chat with these friendly people”. We talked about their work, and the interesting language divide between them and the Egg Pav man. At some point we looked up one another on Instagram, and I sent each of them a message. One of them followed me.

To be honest, I find the whole “following” thing confusing. What exactly does it mean when you follow someone on say, Instagram? Especially in a situation like this. I literally just bumped into these guys, we were having an interesting time together, but I didn’t know if I would want to engage with their Instagram posts on a day-to-day.

That’s what following means right? “I like your posts and I want to see more of them in my feed“? And if you follow me, I’m supposed to follow you back right? To be polite. Right?

I personally prefer messaging, because sometimes I might enjoy interacting with a person but I’m not that interested in their posts. So that way we can just keep building on the rapport in the DMs. “Following” just feels like a whole-nother layer to the interaction that can feel very different from normal real-life engagement.

I also get sort of miserable when I follow a lot of people whose posts I’m not that into – I scroll through my feed and I feel lost. I then begin to ask myself why I’m putting myself in such an uncomfortable situation to begin with. It’s not like anyone put a gun to my head and said I should follow all of these people.

I guess I also don’t really care about having a large number of followers on social media and stuff. Especially if they’re people I don’t really have one-on-one conversations/connections with. So for me there just isn’t much of an incentive for me to do the whole “Let’s follow each other on social media and increase our follower count” thing.

The whole thing is just strange.

Somewhere in the vicinity of the Jehangir Museum. Some guy at the museum said I wasn’t allowed to take pictures (while he posed for a group picture with a photographer. I just wasn’t interested in arguing).

I’m at the train station. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

On my way here from Thane earlier in the day, I got a bit lost. I somehow lost track of what train was going where, so I fumbled around the station for a bit. Some random Indian guy asked where I was going. He was in like his early-to-mid thirties.

So far I’ve found Indians super friendly and helpful in giving me directions. That guy seemed a bit different though. Somewhat stern. And his voice was loud. It almost felt like he was shouting at me.

I’m not sure if I even asked him for directions, or if he just looked at me and took it upon himself to guide a lost tourist.

He asked me again, “Where are you going?”.

Well, more like he shouted at me, with his annoyingly loud voice.

I knew where I was going. I was going to the train station at the end of the line. The one with the name that had like four different words in it. The Chattara-

Chatta-

Fuck.

I realised I didn’t know how to pronounce the name.

So far I had been navigating with Google Maps, and if you’re using Google Maps alone, you don’t actually have to read any location names out loud. That means you don’t have any practice pronouncing the names, when you’re trying to get directions.

Apparently that can be problematic. Especially when the name you’re trying to pronounce is “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj”.

The Indian guy bellowed at me a couple more times before I told him not to worry. He was making me nervous for no good reason. And people walking by were beginning to give us stares.

I’m here for fucking sightseeing Mister man- it’s not like I’m going to miss an urgent job interview if I don’t get directions from you right now.

Eventually I found my way to the train station with the unpronounceable name.

Apparently everything in India (or Mumbai?) is named after the “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj” guy. The Mumbai airport is also named after him.

While we were walking by a park named after him in Thane, Ninad told me he was some sort of great warrior in early India who fought a lot of enemies and did a lot of heroic stuff. So he became like a legend in their culture.

He said “Raja” means “King” in Hindi, and “Maharaja” means “Great King”. Pointing to just how great the Chhatrapati Shivaji guy must’ve been.

I stopped by the park to read some text about him on a plaque hewn from some sort of black rock. Or maybe the text was engraved on black tile. It was dark, so I wasn’t sure.

I read the brief synopsis on his legendary status and his fourteen wives or so.

Hah.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Station. Girl on the left lowkey staring at me.

I’m on the train.

I’m to get off at Thane. I got a ticket from one of the dispensing machines. I think rail transportation here is impressively low-cost. I’m paying such a small amount of money to cover such a large distance, it’s crazy.

While I was purchasing the ticket, it was really interesting to observe how all of the adverts around were in Hindi, and they all had pictures of Indian people on them. You travel to a new place, and you see how the adverts there are tailored to the major demographic of that place.

So far India has also felt pretty homogenous racially, so that likely contributes to why advertisements seem exclusively targeted towards Indians. Or at least Indian-looking people. Whatever that means.

The train is on the move.

Today was interesting. Ninad suggested a number of places for me to visit. Tourist bucket list spots. There was the “Gateway to India” or something like that. Along with a bunch of other stuff.

I didn’t even get there.

I guess I’m not super into the whole “Visit a country and check tourist attractions off your bucket list” thing. Usually I just head out the door and see what I run into. See what people I cross paths with, and try to get a sense of how the people around live their lives on a day-to-day.

Ninad would later say I’m more of a traveller, not a tourist. Hah. That’s interesting to hear.

So when I headed out today, I didn’t have any specific location in mind. I took a train from Thane to Chhatrapati, and then I just began walking about and looking around.

At some point I popped into the Jehangir museum and found myself following the interesting-looking Indian girl as she moved between the different sections of the building. I lost track of time at that point. Haha.

More people join the train, as we progress on the journey. The Chhatrapati station was at the end of the line, so we walked into an empty train. Now with every train stop, the train-car fills up some more. I think most people are just getting off work. Everyone seems to be dressed in office clothes – shirt, trousers, sometimes a briefcase on the side.

Every now and then I catch someone staring at me. I’m the only black person here, so I draw stares. I’m used to it at this point. I’ve been in Mumbai for a few days, and I haven’t come across another black person. I was in Udaipur for like a week, and I came across two. Haha.

We’re at Thane.

I’ve been watching our location on Google Maps. I also just heard the automatic speaker voice go “Thane!”.

Strangely, Thane is actually pronounced “Thanuh”. It sounds like when you say “Aha!”. I was surprised to hear that. I wouldn’t have guessed there was a twist to the pronunciation.

On my initial flight from Mumbai to Udaipur, I was chatting with this guy next to me. His name was Chirag. We were talking about—-

I’m trying to get off the train.

I just got up from my seat, but I’ve just realized that I can’t move. The train is choked. Like, to the brim. It is packed full with people.

I try explaining to the people around me that I’m trying to get to the door. They seem completely unbothered. Looking at the door, I realise that there are people who’re trying to get in. They’re scrambling and pushing and shoving and trying to get themselves on the train.

Wait, how the hell am I supposed to get off?

This place is completely cramped, and yet there are still new people trying to get in!

What sort of a situation is this?

I try pushing my way through, but the crowd doesn’t even budge. I’m being squished together by this immovable wall of stocky middle-aged Indian men who don’t care in the slightest, about my predicament. I keep struggling and pushing, mostly in disbelief. I’m shocked to realize that a crowd of people can be this dense and immovable.

The automatic speaker voice says “Thanuh!” for the last time. The doors are beginning to close. The people who were scrambling into the train, begin to make some final adjustments to their positions as the doors come together.

The train begins to gather momentum. I stare at the receding Thane in resignation.

I have no idea what to to do now. It’s like 9pm or so. Ninad’s family stays in Thane. I don’t know where the hell this train is going. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to get back.

I stand there dumbfounded, my arm holding on to one of the railings along the ceiling, sandwiched amidst the rush-hour crowd, trying to make sense of what just happened to me.

Image: At the train station, on my way back.

Sal Island: Biblioteca Jorge Barbosa. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

My first time here was like 2 weeks ago. I was just a few days into my time on the island.

I probably just randomly headed out of Casa Varela – the inn where I was lodged, for an unpremeditated walk about, to get some sort of orientation with my new environment.

The water situation at Casa Varela could get annoying. My first few days were pretty fine – everything seemed to operate smoothly. The owner (I think she was the owner of the place) decided to bump me up to an interesting room on the topmost floor. I thought the room was cool – it had its own bathroom, and a balcony. I liked that.

On like the fourth day or so, I was shocked to realise that there was no water flowing in the bathroom.

What? Why is there no water? Is there something wrong with the pipes? Some control knob somewhere is stuck?

It felt like a very strange situation. The past year I had spent across San Francisco and Berlin, had made me accustomed to multi-hour showers and discretionary-lengthed bathtub soaks and central heating, without really having to think about how the underlying plumbing or water supply mechanism worked.

Okay so in San Francisco we used to discuss California’s droughts in class, but that felt like a distant, intellectual concern. I never had water abruptly stop flowing mid-shower because of concerns about a California drought. Things usually just worked without a hitch.

So it was surprising for me, suddenly coming to face this entire layer of operational abstraction that I had been completely oblivious of, for like the past year.

I communicated the issue to Nilton, the building manager.

Initially he just acknowledged the problem and promised to get it resolved ASAP.

When the same issue came up again not long after, he opened up and described the workings of the building’s water supply to me: There was a man who drove by every few days in a water-truck. He had a tank of water attached to his truck, and as he drove by he delivered water to his customers along the route.

Apparently there had been a complication with the arrangement. I’m not quite sure now- maybe he suddenly increased his prices, or he missed a delivery date – something. So essentially there was an issue with the water-truck guy, and consequently we had no water to use at Casa Varela.

Oh.

Okay. On the one hand I’m annoyed that there’s no water, but on the other hand I’m amused at the sort of logistical setup these guys have for their water supply.

Sal island is mostly desert. They get very little rainfall, and so there are practically no freshwater bodies to draw from. I don’t know where the water-truck guy gets his water, but apparently it’s generally in short supply.

I can’t help but wonder if there’s a desalination plant somewhere on the island. It seems paradoxical to be completely surrounded by a literal ocean of water, and yet experience a scarcity of water for domestic use. Strange.

I’m no longer at Casa Varela.

I checked out after about two weeks or so. I was running out of money.

Haha.

I do not have a source of income here, and so I generally do what I can to really stretch out every Euro I have. My two week stay at Casa Varela was generally to provide me with essential living amenities while I got a feel for the environment.

Now I live in a cave.

Haah. Haha.

I was walking around Murdeira one day when I came across this small cave by the ocean. I had spent the previous night camping close-by, and then when the sun came up I decide to move about and look around.

I thought the cave looked cool. Eventually I decided to spend some time there, while I pondered on my next steps after leaving Casa Varela.

So far it’s been chill.

Quiet (well except for the waves crashing against the rocky shore about ten feet away).

Serene. Lots of space to think and dream and imagine. And contemplate my life outside the constructs of the societal expectations I felt somewhat boxed-in by.

Living in a literal cave however, you don’t have access to fundamental living amenities. So every now and then I visit a nearby town to charge my electronic devices, use an actual bathroom, and generally reacquaint myself with the foundational infrastructure of human civilisation.

This place seemed like a cool location to do that. Biblioteca Municipal Jorge Barbosa.

My first time here was like 2 weeks ago. I was just a few days into my time on the island. I probably just randomly headed out of Casa Varela for an unpremeditated walk about, to get some sort of orientation with the new environment.

I found the ambience of the library calming and entrancing somewhat. Or maybe I just generally found the whole of Sal island entrancing, because so much felt peculiar and surreal.

Cape Verde is my first time being in an African country that’s not Nigeria. And apparently there’s a unique psychological experience that comes with that.

Being in the US and in Germany – those where mind-unfolding experiences in themselves, but generally I expected those places to be different from what I was familiar with. Consequently I didn’t have any deeply-ingrained expectations for what those societies would be like, or for how people would behave there.

Here in Cape Verde it’s different. This is a society of mostly black people. And apparently 19+ years of living in Nigeria gave me this internalised intuition for how a society of mostly black people generally behaves.

So it’s surreal for me interacting with that society, and then having them mildly conflict with my expectations. For example I come across some random black Cape Verdean guy: In my head my brain has already prepared a template of what I should immediately expect from him, based on how my life experience around black people makes me interpret his visual impression.

And then he opens his mouth and begins to speak Portuguese. Portuguese is soooo different from anything I’ve ever personally heard black people speaking. It shakes up my brain a bit, having to superimpose a black face over the disorienting stream of alien sounds I’m hearing. It feels surreal having people here jar my expectations like that.

It’s like I’m hallucinating. Or I’m being pranked, and the Cape Verdean guy is just speaking Portuguese to weird me out.

It’s just startling in this stimulating, other-worldly way – like someone is passing a mild electric current through my body. Haha.

Hitching a ride to Santa Maria on the back of a lorry.

The library is chill. Quiet.

I still get surprised by just how few people are on this island. At any given point you’re like a 15-minute walk away from being smack in the middle of the desert with no human being in sight. It’s crazy.

Right now I’m the only one in the library. Me and the librarian at her desk by the door. I think there’s someone seated in a corner by my right, but I don’t know for sure. The view is obstructed by a bunch of bookshelves.

I recently got in touch with a Biodiversity NGO at Santa Maria – the touristy town at the southernmost end of the island. Somehow I persuaded the Spanish Directors to give me a bunch of their Sea Turtle Nesting data, so I could carry out some AI/Machine Learning analysis on it. The aim is to uncover patterns/inferences which’ll be useful to them, so they paid me some money for it. That was great. I need money.

So now I’m here, chilling in this library surrounded by Portuguese books that are mostly unintelligible to me, sitting on a chair and with my things on a table, in an actual building with walls and a roof, connected to electricity and doing some stuff on my computer.

I like this vibe. Haha.

End of Part 1.

Image:

Chilling in the library.

Train Ride to Mumbai. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

It’s getting colder. And quieter.

Before long, the primary sound enveloping my hearing is the hollow metal clanging of the sleeper train as it rumbles along its familiar tracks, ringing out into the dark Rajasthani night.

I am squished along one of the side berths of an SL Sleeper coach. I’m sharing a lightly-cushioned teal-coloured collapsible bench, with a young fair-skinned Indian man. He has a light beard.

My guess is he’s in his early thirties. He has this amusing tendency to crack into a smile at the smallest thing. In fact, his lips look like they are permanently on the verge of breaking into a smile- the edges of his mouth poised and waiting for the signal to curve upwards.

My legs are packed closely together at the distant end of the bench, next to his shoulders. His feet are beside me. Apparently this is how aisle passengers sleep in these trains. Hm.

What is a Rajasthani night?

I don’t know, I’m not quite sure.

But looking out through the window right now, into the vast expanse of densely-occupied buildings now only vaguely visible in the dimming evening light,

I can imagine the people indoors- with their flowing saris and Sikh turbans and marigold necklaces and the countless numinous Hindu statuettes decorating their homes,

moving about in their rooms, wading through the piquant vapours of burning incense, speaking to one another in Hindi or possibly whatever Rajasthani dialect is spoken in the region currently whizzing by the train window,

and it’s obvious to me that this is not just any night.

At least not for me who is having this specific experience for the first time, No.

This is a Rajasthani night.

Whatever that means.

I’ve got some snacks in my backpack.

I have no idea what they’re called. I was on my way to the train station earlier this evening, chiding myself about the Mumbai flight I missed a few days ago, and emphasising that I needed to get to the train station on time and not miss another booked trip.

I was walking by this shop that had a bunch of Indian men frying some stuff in oil, next to show-glasses displaying a number of different pastries and snacks. The snack names were all in indecipherable Hindi, next to their prices in Indian Rupees – a currency that had begun to make some quantitative meaning to me over the past couple of days being here.

I recognized one of the snacks from a few days earlier: Small smooth roundish brown balls of whatever- I had no idea. Some mysterious Indian flour? Very sweet and juicy and sticky. Like they were soaked in some sort of transparent syrup.

I tried it for the first time a few days ago, and I loved it. A classmate from college saw my story on Instagram and expressed excitement about Indian snacks. He mentioned “jalebis” and “gulab jamuns” and described the experience of biting into one, as being “heavenly”. I googled the names and – “gulab jamun” – that’s the sweet round brown ball that’s soaked in sticky syrup. That’s the thing I liked a lot.

I bought a number of gulab jamuns, along with other stuff- some sweet cakes which had been cut up into small cuboids – all good stuff. Some were more brittle- like cake. Some others were more chewy – like gum, but not so much.

I paid for the snacks, stuffed them into a transparent food storage bowl I had in my backpack, and continued on my urgent expedition to the Udaipur train station.

The storage bowl has proven very useful so far. Earlier this week I was attending an expense-paid conference at Radisson Blu in Udaipur. At some point it occurred to me that I could stash a bunch of snacks from the breakfast buffet, to nibble on later. It seemed like a pretty sensible thing to do.

So at breakfast I took a bunch of small cakes and other sweet stuff, put them in a ceramic plate and took them up to my hotel room. There would still be some snacks at lunch and dinner, but the breakfast snacks were special and weren’t repeated later in the day. So it was good to have my personal stash I could access at a later time.

After the conference I still had a bunch of snacks squished into my bowl from the last day, and so while I went around the city of Udaipur, hopping between backpacker hostels and meeting people and generally exploring the city, I would snack on items from my stash and re-immerse myself in the gustatory experience of the just-concluded conference.

Plus, it took a while before I figured out what Indian bank ATMs worked with my Nigerian debit card, so it was helpful to have something to chew on while I tried to access the money in my account.

The train experience has been fine so far. The people seem chill. I’ve generally found Indians very friendly, since I got here.

From the young airport official guy trying to chat me up in Hindi during my arrival at the Mumbai airport, to random people helping out with directions and generally engaging in friendly conversation, to some random guy in a festival crowd gesticulating and yelling “Hip Hop” to me (apparently black skin has the tendency to be associated with Hip Hop culture), to a group of shisha-smoking friends at a restaurant welcoming me into their circle as they rolled and passed around a glowing stick of hashish.

They also stare a lot. It seems there were very few black people in Udaipur, and so I really stood out. I wonder how different Mumbai is going to be.

I expect it to be more multicultural- being a major Indian city, and so maybe people will stare less given that it’s possibly more racially heterogenous, but I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.

Like yesterday or so, I was in a conversation with Kunal – the manager at “Raahi”, a backpacker hostel where I spent a few days. One of the things he was telling me about, was how skin complexion varied with latitude in India. So in the northernmost parts of India- like Kashmir, people were very light-skinned. Practically Caucasian. But further down in the country, the people got darker due to being located closer to the equator. I looked on the map, and Mumbai is significantly lower in latitude than Udaipur. So I expect the people there to be somewhat darker. I guess we’ll see.

Kunal also mentioned that there’s this inside joke among Indians where the lighter-skinned Indians tease the darker-skinned ones about them being more “fried”. Haha. That’s interesting to hear. He says some people will have a teaseful reaction to me- especially the darker ones – possibly in Mumbai, because with me they’ll be encountering someone who is “even more fried” than they are.

Hahaha. I wonder what that is going to be like.

The train makes a stop. Some new people come on board. This coach was pretty scanty when we left Udaipur. It’s gradually been filling up as new people come on board at various stops.

End of Part 1.

Feel free to share your thoughts! 🙂🙂🙂🙂

Header Image: Picture out of my seat window. Somewhere along the trip.

Moments from Halloween.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

I am seated in the BART. We’re zooming through the subway tunnel.

Classmates said the Halloween procession is happening somewhere called the Castro. Castro district- something like that.

So I’m headed there. In my black suit and formal leather shoes and my fake sideburns drawn with shoe polish.

I’m Samuel L. Jackson for halloween. A Spanish classmate is my John Travolta. We’re the Pulp Fiction duo. We just came up with the idea like this afternoon. We were popping in and out of thrift stores around Nob Hill, scouting for costumes and ideas, and then at some point we decided to be Pulp Fiction.

I watched Pulp Fiction for the first time like last year. It was this movie I had always heard about, but had never really gotten around to watching.

So there was this night where I was in bed – in the dorm room I was staying back in university in Nigeria. I was lying on a top bunk bed with a roommate’s laptop in my hands, probably also with my legs up in the air and my feet pushing against the concrete ceiling- I liked to do that, it was a relaxing position.

I was looking through some files on the computer and then I came across the movie.

I was like “Oh the Legendary Pulp Fiction! The one everyone is always talking about! I have to watch it!”.

So I plugged in my earphones and began to watch. It was like 1AM at the time. I got groggy very quickly. I watched like the first 15 minutes in a heavy-eyed daze, and then eventually I gave up and shut the laptop as the unrelenting embrace of sleep slowly smothered me into quietness.

From the 15 minutes of Pulp Fiction I managed to watch that night, I could tell the Samuel L. Jackson character was like this crazy heartless always-swearing-and-screaming negro with literal steam shooting out of his ears at any given point in time.

As I head towards the Castro in this subway train, I’ve kinda made up my mind. I don’t think I’m interested in the whole violent negro screaming on top of his lungs while brandishing a gun in people’s faces trope. I think I’ll just wear the look.

Haha.

I was in a conversation with this guy earlier. At the station, while we were waiting for the train.

He was from Finland. He looked very scruffy somehow. Scruffy and snot-nosed looking. Chill guy though, we chatted for a while. That was my first time talking with someone from Finland. I left the conversation somewhat wondering if everyone from Finland was scruffy and snot-nosed.

Now I’m talking with this other woman. We’re at the back of the train.

She’s in like her forties. She’s telling me about her horses. She says she has a stable just outside SF. That she manages it with her husband, something like that.

I think that’s really interesting. And very random. Just randomly bumping into someone on the subway, and it turns out they own a stable somewhere. Hah.

A couple months from now, I’ll be heading down Ceasar Chavez street here in SF, and I’ll find myself thinking about the woman I met on the subway- the stable owner. I’m not sure why. Maybe the name of the city where her stable is, somehow sounds like “Ceasar Chavez”. Possibly.

California and all of its Spanish names. Of course they’ll give me deja vu.

I am at a party. A halloween party. At somewhere called the Negev. The place has incredible vibes. A couple people were passing a marijuana joint around in the backyard just now. It was interesting- a bunch of random people who had likely never met each other before that moment, puffing and passing this weed joint that seemingly materialised from nowhere- all of us in quiet, almost-religious reverence of this unrehearsed weed ritual.

I’m currently talking with someone. His halloween character is Tony Stark. I could tell from the beard, the moment I laid eyes on him. He has the like zigzag thing at the point where his moustache connects with his beard. I thought it was super cool, and I mentioned it to him. He seemed very happy to hear that. He said some people didn’t get that he was Tony Stark. I mentioned that I found that strange. It was glaring to me, right off the bat.

We’re talking about a bunch of things. He’s a Tech guy.

I’m telling him about the college I study at.

I tell everyone about the college I study at. Hah.

At some point a friend of his joins in the conversation. As we talk, we randomly find out that he used to be a software engineering intern at my school, at its very initial stages. Before the school even began admitting students. It’s a new school, so that was just a few years ago.

Regardless my mind is blown. Wow. I would never have expected that.

Is it possible San Francisco has this software engineer community that is just integrated enough that everybody knows everybody? I don’t know. Maybe. It definitely does feel like that right now.

We keep talking.

I’m at a different end of the building.

I was playing beer pong with a bunch of people just now. It’s pretty fun. I think that was my first time actually playing beer pong. It used to be something I would just see in Hollywood college movies. Now I’m in the movie. Haha.

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen anyone play beer pong at our dorms, and I’m not sure why.

Are we allowed to? I don’t know.

Most of the people in this room are working class adults, so they can probably do what they want. It’s likely there are some restrictions on what we’re allowed to do in our dorms, that I’m not explicitly aware of.

I was talking with this girl for a while. She was tall, and she was dressed in this goth-ey costume. I thought she was cool.

At some point a guy joined in.

Just from watching him, I got the sense he liked the girl. Like, was interested in her. So I stayed in the conversation for a bit longer, brought him in so it was the three of us engaged in the chat, and then left to ostensibly get myself another drink.

I just got back, and the conversation between the both of them seems to have fizzled out. There’s a lot of space between them. The guy looks somewhat crestfallen. I rejoin them and bring up a topic we were excitedly chatting about earlier. The conversation seems to regain a new life. We’re talking for a bit more. I intend to check out of the convo and keep walking around the room, once I feel like the two people have got some good momentum going again.

Hm, so I’m like a matchmaker. Haha. Mayowa the matchmaker.

Hahaha.

I feel full of vibes this evening.

Image: Somewhere in Chinatown.

December Nights in Berlin. 2.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

I am at the Berlin Tegel airport.

I am very apprehensive. I jumped out of my cab the moment we got here.

I’m late for my flight.

Until about thirty minutes ago, I didn’t even know the flight was for today.

Fuck.

I left the apartment at Adalbertstrasse in a rush. There was no time at all to prepare myself mentally for this. I haven’t had the luxury of soaking in any sort of pre-flight nostalgia: I’ve spent the past like four months in Berlin. Leaving now, I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back.

There hasn’t been the time to get myself into an appropriate state of mind for leaving. An hour ago I was in the bathtub, lying down in warm water and soaking in some serious vibes as the bathroom resonated with poignant music from my bluetooth speakers. I was just chilling- singing along and staring up at the ceiling, watching drops of water condense from the steam that filled the room, and then drip back down to the white square tiles on the bathroom floor.

Fifteen minutes ago I was in the passenger’s seat of this Turkish guy’s cab, swearing and cursing and interrogating myself about how I could possibly have been oblivious to my flight being today.

I’m at a counter in the airport. I’m talking with this North African looking woman. I give her my flight details. I think she looks at her computer screen to check some stuff.

She looks back up at me.

“Oh the plane has already gone”.

Wow. Great. Just great. Wonderful. Nice one Mayowa, nice one.

“Is there anything that can possibly be done? Rescheduling? Some sort of partial refund?“

“No sorry, there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Wow. There goes the money someone paid on my behalf for the flight ticket. Dammit.

Aaaarrgghhhh!!

I’m at Barbara’s office.

Something’s up with her MacBook keyboard. I think a key is stuck or something.

She mentions it to me. I take a look at the computer. I’m not quite sure what’s going on. It doesn’t seem like something I can help with. She’ll probably have to get it looked at- I don’t think we plan to experiment on her computer while she’s at work and using it.

She’s in-between a number of things. She’s trying to figure out how she could possibly help me buy a flight ticket out of Berlin, she’s co-ordinating some other issue with another student, and she’s ironing out some other details of people moving out of their apartments for winter holidays.

It’s interesting for me, just watching and seeing how she’s thinking about all of these things at the same time- she recieves a call from the other student, then she sends an email to someone in San Francisco on my behalf, all the while planning where to put some incoming furniture and stuff. It’s like she’s in the middle of all of these things, and she’s kind of navigating through each of them a couple steps at a time, one by one. It’s interesting to watch.

Someone is at the door.

I go open.

It’s Jiamin. She’s the student Barbara was co-ordinating something with, on the phone. She’s heaving along this big framed picture of some sort of black-and-white Chinese calligraphy painting. It’s a bunch of characters written in black ink, in a vertical line. I have no idea what it means, but I think the calligraphy looks cool. It was probably hung up on her wall, and now that she’s leaving Berlin there’s nowhere to put it. We put it somewhere in the corridor of the apartment.

Barbara and I are outside. On the apartment balcony.

She’s having a cigarette.

There’s this class we had during the semester- Knowledge-based Decision Making or something like that. We had this interesting study about lung cancer and its possible causative factors. There was this interesting question of whether people who smoked cigarettes were more likely to develop lung cancer due to something in the cigarettes, or if people who tend to enjoy smoking cigarettes have some sort of genetic predisposition that makes them more likely to develop lung cancer anyway. Some sort of confounding variable. I thought that was a really interesting perspective on the lung cancer question.

I bring that up with Barbara on the balcony as she’s taking puffs from her cigarette. We talk about it for a bit.

Thinking about it now, I don’t know though. Smokers’ lungs are usually disturbingly black and stuff. And the blackness has something to do with the cancer doesn’t it? Non-smokers don’t usually have such black lungs.

Barbara has this really cool jacket hanging around. I’m wearing it while I move furniture out of the dorm apartments. It has a hood, and there’s this nice fuzzy fur on the inside of it. The lush fur feels very comforting- it’s warm, and it also provides me with some much needed emotional succour in the face of all of the uncertainty ahead of me. It makes me feel safe and insulated from the outside world.

In her office she gave me a book. It’s some sort of black-and-white photography compilation printed out on sheets of paper that have been bound together. She said it was a gift from a friend. I flipped through the book – it seems to be some sort of photography memoir. It’s got different snapshots from the person’s life- dinner with friends, outdoor scenes, etc.

In about a month I’ll be living on an island in Cape Verde, on a gap-year from college. I’ll be living in a studio apartment on the ground floor of a defunct beachfront hotel.

I’ll hate the curtain in the room. I’ll find it too musky and stifling. It’ll feel like it’s made of thick stiff jeans, blocking out all of the light and air in the room whenever it’s drawn.

I’ll take down the curtain and in its stead I’ll take out pieces of paper from Barbara’s photobook gift. I’ll paste these pages along the windows to form some sort of translucent screen. I won’t need a curtain after that- the paper screen will provide privacy, while still letting sunlight into the room.

My windows will be pasted with random moments of this person’s life.

But I don’t know all of that now. Right now it’s just a book filled with interesting-looking pictures of people I don’t know.

Barbara’s husband is around. We’re moving furniture together.

He’s a geologist. I make some sort of a joke about how his job rocks.

Haha.

At some point I’m standing on a sofa, taking down some curtains. I sneeze.

Someone says “Bless you”.

Barbara’s husband says something about how the phrase “Bless you” came about.

Something about the Black Death or the Plague, some epidemic that occurred in Europe sometime in history. He says the clergy used to bless people who had the disease, because it was pretty much certain they were going to die, something like that. So they were blessing them as a way to send them to heaven after they died.

And so today’s “Bless you” was some sort of continued emulation of the clergy’s blessings during that time.

Hm.

I thought it was an interesting story.

I’m heading out of the airport.

Now it’s clear I’m not leaving Berlin today.

I’m berating myself as I walk out with my hurriedly packed luggage.

I need to book another flight. Argh.

I need to find a U-Bahn station.

Image: Me in Barbara’s lush fur coat.

This post is one in a Series. You can access the other posts here: https://mayowaosibodu.wordpress.com/2000/01/19/december-2016-january-2017-series-index/

San Francisco: Classes, Dances and Cafes. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

It’s a sunny afternoon in downtown San Francisco.

We’re on our way back to the dorms. From a cafe.

We’re walking along one of the streets off Powell. One of those with the short, monosyllabic names. Like “Pine”, or “Polk” or “Post”.

I’ve spent about two months in San Francisco. I think the architecture is interesting. There are a lot of buildings which look like they were built in the style of Victorian architecture. It’s usually an exciting experience just walking along like, California street and staring at the interesting buildings lining the road- them all being in architectural styles which are very different from what I’m generally used to.

Victorian architecture? Right? That’s the term?

I don’t have the words to describe all of this building/architecture stuff. At some point later in my life, I’ll take the time to really learn all of these terms. And then I’ll be flagrantly describing buildings like an expert – using jargon to highlight nuanced structural distinctions that people generally don’t even notice haha.

Some of the buildings have windows high up, in like the top front-facing corner of the roof. Like a cool attic window of sorts. Some have like a balcony with a really thrilling view.

Interesting stuff. It makes me begin to think of penthouses.

You know, what exactly is a penthouse?

I’m actually not sure. I know it has something to do with living spaces on the very top floors of buildings, but other than that, I don’t know so much for certain.

We keep sauntering along the sidewalk.

She’s giving her own perspective on penthouses. I’m asking about the difference between a penthouse and a rooftop balcony. Something like that.

She seems pretty emphatic about what a penthouse is. I don’t think I have much confidence in her explanation, but it’s interesting to hear her talk about it.

Every now and then she says something about her past relationship. Back in Canada. Something about the person who used to be her boyfriend. Back in high school.

I hear people talk about their relationships, and that makes me wonder what that realm is like. People use terms like “my boyfriend”, “my girlfriend”.

I’ve never actually been in a relationship before, so I’m usually amused to hear people talk about their relationship experience.

What are they talking about?

Hello, where is this boyfriend place you speak of?

We’re heading back from a cafe- Red Door cafe. I was there for the first time, about a week ago.

We take our college classes online via interactive group video sessions, so that means there’s considerable liberty with regard to where you take class from. All you really need is internet and electricity.

My first time taking class at a cafe was interesting. I had spent the first few weeks just doing the class video sessions from my dorm room, getting a feel for the whole thing. At some point I felt comfortable enough to take class somewhere else.

And then at some other point I thought Ehh, why go alone? Why not invite someone along?

We’ve both been getting along these past few weeks, working together on some assignments. Mostly on chill evenings in her room, when her Chinese roommate is not around.

Hm come to think of it, her Chinese roommate is never around. I don’t recall ever meeting her in the room before.

I listen to her talk about ballet and stuff, and I talk about skateboarding. She tells me about what life is like in Canada, and the different things people do on frozen lakes. I ask questions – I find it all to be really interesting stuff.

She talks about the pains and the stress of ballet. At some point she told me about this strict male ballet teacher who used to make her do some very painful stretches before dance sessions.

Hm.

It was surprising to me, hearing some of the things that happened in the background of the elegant ballet performances I used to see online. To think ballet dancers who usually look very happy and elated on stage, go through such painful and uncomfortable experiences during practice. Hm, I would never have thought.

There was this evening in her room when we tried some sort of ballet move. I think I had both hands around her waist- she stood right in front of me, and I was to swivel her around in like a semi-circle around me while her feet stayed in the same spot. Something like that.

The move was a bit shaky- I wasn’t used to supporting a person’s weight with my arms and my back at that sort of an angle. I thought it was still alright nonetheless.

She looked pretty dissatisfied. For a professional ballet dancer, that was probably a horrible attempt.

Haha.

And then she was like, “Jonathan is actually pretty good at this. He can support my weight pretty well. He’s a gymnast, so his experience really helps with this move”.

In my head I was like, Ohhhh, so you’ve been dancing with Jonathan! He has been wrapping his arms around your waist and supporting your weight while you lean around in semi-circles, Oh I see! I see!

There’s this song she introduced me to. Step. By Vampire Weekend.

I like it. I really like it. It’s so good. It has these really poignant, nostalgic vibes. I put it on replay every now and then. Sometimes when I’m skateboarding along the bay and generally just getting chill vibes.

There’s this other one. This song about some woman singing in French about Kraft Dinner.

She says Kraft Dinner is this brand of food or something like that.

I recently saw the Kraft Dinner thing at a grocery store. I was walking along one of the aisles in the Walgreens just off Powell, and I was like Ah! That’s the Kraft Dinner thing she was talking about!

I took a picture and sent it to her.

Hm, interesting to learn about all of these ubiquitous tokens of North American culture.

Kraft Dinner at Walgreeens

Image:

At Red Door Cafe.

Udaipur: Flight to Mumbai. (?)

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

The tuk-tuk is weaving through the vehicles on the road.

We’re currently passing through a section of the road which is under construction. The tricycle driver is deftly manoeuvring the handlebar as he navigates his way around potholes, and past the slow heavy trucks full of sand in front of us.

I’m in the backseat berating myself.

Ah, Mayowa! What is your problem??

Again?! Late for a flight again?!

My flight for Mumbai leaves in like twenty minutes.

No, that was like five minutes ago.

At this point the flight leaves in like fifteen minutes.

I am God-knows-how-far from the Udaipur airport.

I honestly don’t know why I keep finding myself in this situation.

I’ve realized that I just seem to have this tendency to miss flights, and I don’t know why.

I think I just haven’t learnt to respect flight departure times. I think that’s it.

My first ever flight – from Lagos to Dubai en route San Francisco about seven years ago, I was late. But I still managed to get on board before the plane departed. I think that experience gave me an exaggerated impression of how likely it is to still catch a flight, even when you get to the airport late.

And so for some reason I usually don’t feel a serious sense of urgency about flight departure schedules. I’m usually just living my life and doing whatever it is I’m doing, until it’s like last minute and then I begin to fumble to the airport in a self-berating fluster.

Since the Lagos-Dubai flight, I’ve been late for two other flights- both international. And I missed the both of them.

Now I’m late for another.

Well I’m definitely learning now. I’m definitely learning. This whole missing-flights trend has to stop.

It has to freaking stop.

“Ah, remember we still have to find an ATM! I need to withdraw some money – a HDFC ATM!”

I’m talking to the driver of the commercial tricycle. I don’t have the cash to pay him right now, and so I need to withdraw it from an ATM.

My first few days walking around Udaipur taught me that my debit card only worked with the HDFC bank. I learnt this after a string of frustrated attempts to withdraw money at the terminals of other banks.

Now I know right from the get-go that we need to find a HDFC. There’s no time for any experiments and even more frustration right now.

Now we’re on the highway. There are very few vehicles on the road, and so the coast is clear. Now we’re no longer weaving through vehicles, we’re just moving in a straight line.

At this point I realise that although the tricycle was great at manoeuvring tightly-packed roads, it’s just horrible on the highway. The top is speed is like – I don’t know, but it’s slow – it is very slow.

The engine is revving very loudly and I’m certain the driver is pushing the vehicle to its limits, but looking out the window it’s obvious we’re not moving all that quickly.

Ah! Man! I think I’m going to miss this flight. I don’t know if there’ still any hope.

Rushing to the airport in the Tuk-Tuk

“How far are we from the airport?”, I yell at the driver over the laboured revving of the tuk-tuk‘s engine.

“Not far! Not far! We we, we going!”, He responds to me in his jerky accented English, and gestures with one hand that the airport is just around the corner.

We spend some more time on the highway, and then he turns and drives off into some sort of compound-looking place.

I recognise the lush topiary and nicely trimmed hedges from my arrival at the airport like a week ago. We’re here. Finally.

We stop at the car park. I quickly pay the tuk-tuk driver and run into the departure hall.

The hall seems ominously quiet. There are just a few people here, and most of them are airport staff.

I walk up to one of them and tell him I have a flight to Mumbai in — let’s see — right about now.

He’s laughing. I think he’s laughing at me.

He’s laughing that I think the plane is still boarding.

He says the flight left a long time ago.

Ugh.

I really have to be more serious with flight schedules man. This situation does not make any sense.

I ask him what other options exist.

There’s another man standing next to him. Tall and light-skinned. He seems more compassionate. He’s not mocking me with his facial expressions.

He says it’s possible to get a train to Mumbai.

Ohh! A train! Interesting, I didn’t know that!

He brings out his phone and looks through the train station schedule. He says there’s a train that leaves later today. In a couple hours.

I ask for the price. He says it’s like four hundred rupees or something. He says I can even get it for lower, depending on the train class I decide to book.

Wow.

Oh wow. India is really doing some great stuff with low-priced cross-country transportation. Wow.

Okay, I feel a bit relieved. There is another option. I don’t have to start thinking about paying money to book another flight to Mumbai. Okay. Okay.

I say thank you very much, and I head out of the airport.

I’m not entirely sure what my next step is going to be. I think I need to get back to the Backpacker hostel where I was last night. When I settle down and get my head together, then I’ll decide on what to do next.

Okay. Okay. This doesn’t seem all that bad.

I sling on my backpack and head towards the exit.

Image: Somewhere in Udaipur.

Impressions in January. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

I’m unpacking my backpack, bringing out its contents and placing them on the bed.

Clothes, electronics, footwear.

There are a bunch of folded-up pieces of paper. I unfold them to see what they’re about.

One of them has “CAPE VERDE” written in bold emphatic letters, across it with a pen.

This piece of paper was taped to the wall of my room in Berlin.

–

December was weird.

I was just submerged in this cloud of anxiety and uncertainty and discomfort and annoyance and frustration.

I would lie on my bed, wallowing in this mire of emotional turmoil, and every now and then an idea would occur to me. I would get out a sheet of paper and write the idea across it, in bold insistent strokes.

I would then tape the piece of paper to the wall opposite my bed, looking up to it as a strident message clamouring out at me.

These ideas screaming at me from the wall were the Saviours which were going to jolt me out of my indecisive circles of self-beration, and impel me towards a decision about my next steps.

Before the “CAPE VERDE” paper, I had one that said “MADAGASCAR”.

Or was it really one before the other? I think at some point I had both sheets of paper taped to the wall.

In the end, “CAPE VERDE” remained on the wall while I took “MADAGASCAR” down.

I got to Sal island this morning. Sal island, Cape Verde.

A taxi from the airport brought me here into Espargos.

The taxi cruised out of the airport and onto the highway, its windows ushering in the relieving rays of warm afternoon sun that did not exist in Berlin. There was a song playing on the radio. I liked the song, but I didn’t know enough to identify it. I just knew it was interesting music that had to be indigenous to Cape Verde.

Right now I’m in a white two-storey building called Casa Varela– I paid for a room here.

I’m on the first floor. The room looks okay, it has some space. And there’s this interesting-looking white lounge chair close to the door. I spread some of my clothes across it.

There’s another room close by, on the same floor. A little further, there’s a shared bathroom with a bathtub in it.

I recently saw a lady walk out of the bathroom and into her room. Her skin looked very dark and shiny. I’m still getting used to being surrounded by so many people with such dark skin. I was surrounded by very few dark-skinned people in Berlin.

Looking through the window, the buildings around look strange. They all have flat tops. They are all generally like cuboids of different heights, lined along the road.

Coming straight from Berlin, this is a marked difference in architecture. In Germany I got used to walking along their large, grey marble buildings styled in Greek Revival architecture, and looking up ahead to see interesting attic windows peeking out of Dutch gable roofs.

Oh and yes, the streaks of ever-present patina.

Here things are different. It feels like you could run across the roofs of a line of buildings- climbing over hand-railings and dodging clothes-lines and flower pots, while you jump between rooftops. The building tops are generally that flat.

I’m taking time to sort out my things, generally soaking in the ambience of this new environment.

The flight from Berlin had a layover at Lisbon – Aeroporto de Lisboa. As I walked through the hallways, trying to find the check-in counter for the flight to Cape Verde, I saw a counter that had “MADAGASCAR” written above it. There was a man at the counter, presenting his travel documents. He was a tall black man, and he had a heavy head of long dreadlocks. They looked like some of them reached down to his waist.

I kept walking.

That could have been my queue.

Hm.

Decisions and stuff.

Lisbon was interesting. I was there for like twelve hours, waiting for the Cape Verde flight. I spent the time walking around and making acquaintances. I met this guy from Mozambique, Ahby. He had just rounded up what I think was a seminary posting in Cape Verde. He spent a year or so (maybe longer), on the island of Boa Vista I think.

I spent time generally asking him questions about Cape Verde- trying to inform myself to an extent at least, because I knew next to nothing about the country I was headed.

I just got back to Casa Varela. I went on a quick trip to get some food, and use the internet. There’s a town square about two minutes away that has free WiFi. I think that is super cool. I don’t have a SIM card or anything here yet, and so it’s really helpful to have access to free municipal WiFi.

I’m talking with the building supervisor – his name is Nilton. He pronounces it “Nil-tonne”. I think that’s a bit strange. He tells me that the woman who owns the building just stopped by. She took a look at my room and decided that I should be moved to the topmost floor. I say okay.

He escorts me to my room, and we move my stuff up the stairs- my clothes, shoes, electronics, skateboard.

I stop to look around as we get to the second floor.

Oh okay, this is definitely an upgrade.

The new room has an adjoining rooftop balcony which has an interesting view of the streets and buildings around.

Iiinteresting.

We move my stuff into the new room. It has its own bathroom with a shower and a small water heating unit. I’m excited about the new space. I thank Nilton, and he heads back downstairs.

I got some sliced bread from the grocery store. Along with some margarine, some juice, and this interesting brown sweet Cape Verdean candy thing that I’m eating for the first time. It’s lumpy, chunky and brittle. You break chunks of it into your mouth, and then chew. I like it.

From the balcony I have an even clearer view of the cuboidal buildings around and their flat rooftops.

And the sun – Oh the sun.

Berlin was very interesting, but the later it got in the year, the duller and greyer and more sun-starved the city became. I would walk city block after city block, just chasing after the elusive sun as it mockingly drifted away from me, sneaking behind the tall buildings that populated the city skyline.

The sunlight here is definitely a welcome introduction.

Image: My luggage, on my way out of the apartment in Berlin.

Some interesting Cape Verdean music. This could very well have been the song that was playing in the taxi. I just don’t know now.

Gin-Breath Reverie.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

It’s dark.

I’m on the backseat of a motorbike. There are two people ahead of me – there’s the driver, and then there’s someone in-between us.

We’re bobbing in our seats as the motorbike navigates the sandy, bumpy darkness ahead of us. In the gleam of the yellow headlight, I can see a glimpse of the formless ground ahead.

The guy in front of me, his breath smells like alcohol. Like gin.

I think it’s gin. There’s this brand of Chelsea gin that’s extremely popular in Lagos’ roadside stalls. It’s gin in a small satchet – like the size of satchet travel toothpaste. I think it’s extremely popular because people can get a quick shot of alcohol for like fifty Naira. Which is practically the smallest denomination of the Nigerian currency you can actually buy anything with these days.

Generally whenever I come across people in the street whose breaths smell like gin, I just assume its the Chelsea satchet gin – it’s that ubiquitous. Extremely portable: Commercial bus drivers can squeeze in gin shots while they drive along the expressway, and commercial motorbike riders can sip on some quick alcohol in-between rides – In Lagos that thing shows up everywhere and in every possible situation.

So we’re here in the dark, bobbing on this motorbike as it careens about in the sand. And every now and then I get hit by this guy’s gin breath.

His breath reminds me of Grogue. Traditional Cape Verdean rum.

That’s what comes to mind whenever the whiffs hit me.

In fact, right now his gin breath is making me think of one night in particular:

It is dark.

I am drifting along a cobblestoned square somewhere in Espargos.

Espargos, Sal Island, Cape Verde.

I feel tired. Tired and listless.

I’m dragging my feet across the contours of the cobblestones – the square is quiet.

I think there’s some sort of a pop-up market thing happening here. There are rows of wooden stalls on both sides of me.

They are all empty.

I keep walking in-between the rows of quiet stalls – at some point I walk into one and sit down.

I feel directionless.

My living space was burgled earlier in the day. My things were stolen. My computer was stolen.

My phone was stolen a little over a week earlier. That incident made me relocate elsewhere. And now the new place has just been burgled.

I’ve generally been strapped for cash, and so accommodation security – that hasn’t really been something I can afford.

Gap year struggles.

Usually I just get a place with shelter and privacy. Things like security aren’t guaranteed.

And now I’ve been dealt a double-dose of worst case scenarios.

Right now I’m not angry. I’m not sad, not really.

I’m just tired. Like, spent.

I don’t even feel worried. The MacBook was my last way of conveniently connecting to the internet and communicating with people I knew before landing in this country. Losing it – that was what I was worried about.

Now that it’s been stolen, there’s no worry left in me. Like, what more can happen?

I’m looking around in the dark empty wooden stall, and I’m vaguely reminded of the Christmas markets in Europe. They have a similar vibe. Wooden stalls arranged in rows, all out in a wide open space.

Right here in the dark, the general ambience of these stalls make me feel like I might as well be somewhere in Europe right now. These markets aren’t all that different in the dark.

I leave the stall and keep drifting through the square, still dragging my feet across the contours of the cobblestones.

I am in a bar.

A local Cape Verdean bar.

Cape Verdean Creole is being spoken all around me.

The interior walls of the bar are a shade of blue – what shade exactly is difficult to tell in the dim light. Or maybe I’m just too unenthusiastic about life to care right now.

It’s a small bar. Its really just a few benches along the walls, and a chest-high platform in front where the bartenders pour drinks.

I’m seated in corner. I’m not sure what my physical posture looks like on the outside, but on the inside I’m cowering. Life has been dealing me some really hard knocks.

Opposite me there’s a group of Cape Verdean men. I’ll say they’re like late forties upwards. They’re chatting excitedly, in-between sips of grogue.

Local Cape Verdean bars will have the smell of grogue permanently emblazoned in your brain.

Permanently.

I envy their excitement. They seem so carefree. So playful. Excitement is an emotion that is so far away from me right now.

There are two people on the other side of the bar. Initially it was just one boy – teenage-looking, serving drinks.

He has just been joined by someone who I think is his elder sister. Light skinned, mid-to-late twenties likely.

From her dressing, the impression I get is that she works in hospitality somewhere – hotel, restaurant – somewhere. She’s here for a bit to help run the bar her family owns, right before heading for her night shift at work.

That, or she just completed her shift at work and is now here for a bit to help run the family bar.

That’s just the general impression I get from looking at her.

The sounds from the laughing Cape Verdean men are a bit different now. Now there’s some playful flirting with the teenage bartender’s older sister.

Ahaha okay 😄

I don’t completely understand what they’re saying in Creole, but they’re definitely teasing her.

She’s one female in a room of chattery tipsy men. She’s definitely the centre of attention.

I take glimpses at her from my end of the room. Through the shadowy lens of my present despair, her skin is gleaming in the dim light of the electric bulb.

She’s completely ignoring everybody. It’s like she has everyone on mute in her mind, and she can’t hear any of the loud playful teasing from the laughing group of Cape Verdean men.

She has to be just about heading for her shift. Her indifference feels fresh. I doubt anyone’d have this much resolve right after hours of work.

At some point one of the laughing Cape Verdean men orders me a drink.

I’m grateful.

I have no money. I don’t know if I was craving alcohol, but I was definitely being amused by the happenings in the bar. My posture/body language was probably conveying my emotional state, and he felt for me.

I express my appreciation to him, and obtain a glass of grogue from the unconcerned bartender who is just about to go start her shift and has absolutely no time for us.

I recede to my place on the wooden bench and begin to sip on the small glass.

I haven’t felt this in a while.

This feeling. This feeling of being taken care of.

The feeling of having someone provide for me.

I haven’t felt it in a while.

Wow.

This gap year has been me thinking about practically every aspect of my life, on my own.

The kind gesture of the laughing Cape Verdean man makes me realize this, very starkly. In a way I don’t think about on a day-to-day.

For a brief moment in time, I feel safe.

The sort of safety you feel around your parents as a small child – like that. Like the world is this huge cushy blanket you’re wrapped in, and you don’t have to think too hard about anything because someone else has all of that taken care of.

Strange that this feeling would ever be something I would need to be reminded of. When it used to permeate most of my life until not that long ago.

Strange.

I wonder how much more the laughing Cape Verdean man can figure out on my behalf. I wonder how much more of my problems he can automatically discern and solve. Maybe he can help me find the people who stole my computer and retrieve it from them with his mysterious laughing-Cape-Verdean-man superpowers.

I don’t know.

I keep sipping on the small glass of grogue, completely submerged in my inner listlessness, hearing the bubbling laughter and Creole conversation on the fringes of my perception.

Vroom Vroom Vroom!

We’re still bobbing in our seats as the motorbike navigates the sandy, bumpy darkness ahead of us.

I’m still getting hit by the gin-breath of the guy in front of me.

The gin breath that smells like Cape Verdean rum.

Image: People playing a roadside gambling game in the streets of Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde.

Sal Island, Cape Verde: An Unrealized Tattoo. 1.

Posted on by Mayowa Osibodu

We’re at the bar. The defunct bar. The one in front of Hotel Aeroflot.

I’m at the central table, munching on some chicken and engaging in conversation. Tony is talking about something- every so often he walks over to the grill, to tend to the pieces of chicken he’s barbecuing.

The afternoon is bright and sunny, and the weather is great.

As it usually is on Sal island.

Tony is saying something about squid season. He says it’s currently squid season, and that soon some guys’ll be going out to fish for squid in the ocean.

Hm. Sounds interesting.

I imagine squid has a special place in the hearts of Cape Verdean locals. Because amongst other things you generally don’t really need money to access squid meat. You just need to go out and fish, or something.

For me right now- sitting on this wooden bar stool, staring at the crystal blue Atlantic Ocean barely ten metres away from my position here in the shade, squid meat feels especially accessible to me right now.

Like I could walk right into the ocean right now, and straight-up grab some squid.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just hungry.

I probably just need to accompany people on a squid fishing expedition or something, to get some of that calamari in my system.

But stuff like eg sausages? Imported stuff you can only get at the mini-mercados? All that stuff costs money.

And honestly, thinking about anything that requires me to have units of bank-issued currency right now- That- that just gives me a headache.

I’ve got no money.

The sorts of currency I possess, exist in other forms: I’ve got time. I’ve got my hands and legs to walk about and do stuff.

Accessing my needs via these channels – that feels way less stressful than having to think of bank issued currency as a factor intermediating between me my essential life needs.

Hm- You know, I might just go along on that squid-hunting expedition with the people Tony is talking about.

We’re still chatting.

There’s me, Tony, Danny and his wife who are on vacation (from the US, I think), Roberto, and sometimes Romano.

Tony has been friends with Danny and his wife- for like a number of years I think. They visit Cape Verde every now and then, and when that happens they meet up with Tony and co. They’re very nice people. They’re generally the ones bankrolling our supply of barbecued chicken right now.

I can’t complain: I live for free in a studio apartment here at the defunct Hotel Aeroflot. I spend my time generally trying to figure out my next steps in life – me being on a gap year from college in the US and all.

Again, I have no money. These wonderful people periodically set some chicken here up on a grill – about thirty seconds from where I wake up in the morning. They provide food, drinks and much needed company.

I’m not complaining. I’m not complaining at all.

Danny’s wife made fun of me one time. We were through with the chicken- and then not long after, I mentioned that I wanted to head somewhere to do something.

She looked at me and went, “Yeah go ahead. Eat and Run”.

Funny. Very funny. Great wordplay.

But I didn’t find it funny. Not at the time at least. I was actually pretty hurt. It spoke too directly to the reality of my financial situation. I didn’t even notice the wordplay until much later.

Haha. Hahaha. “Eat and Run”. Hah.

I’ve been thinking of getting a tattoo.

The thought has been very pronounced in my mind.

Like an impulse. Not a rushed spur-of-the-moment impulse, no.

It feels like something I absolutely need to do. Like something necessary. Like something vital – something that fulfils some deep-seated psychological need.

I don’t really get it.

It’s like there’s this groove in my personal space of thoughts, that I find myself periodically being sucked into once I’m in its vicinity.

Like:

Hm, I need to figure out what to do today. Mohammed says I can get some bread and coffee at the Baye Fall meeting later this evening. I need to go charge my laptop at some point – some documents I need to work on. Tony is saying something interesting about the tourist agencies on — TATTOOOOOOOO

Like this screaming voice that hijacks my thoughts every now and then.

I don’t really understand the feeling.

But I’m not fighting it.

I’ve been thinking about what sort of a tattoo to get.

Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons has really been on my mind over like the past year or so.

I got introduced to it in freshman year of college – in Multimodal Communications class.

It’s supposed to be some sort of abstract art, but with words.

So- similar to how abstract visual art generally doesn’t seem to have obvious denotative suggestions, but rather depends on some sort of mental state/contextual understanding that you project onto it to give it meaning, Tender Buttons does not make sense when you read the literal words in its pages.

It has sentences like “The change in that is that red weakens an hour”.

Sorry, the change in what?

It generally requires you to think about words and the intention behind a sequence of words in a different mosaic-esque sort of way, to make some meaning of it.

Stein’s intention behind the work was to enable the reader “understand without remembering”– something like that. Like you’re reading English words you come across every day, but these words elicit images in your mind that remind you of nothing you’ve ever encountered before.

I think.

Honestly with art sometimes I can’t tell if something is profound and surreal and shockingly non-intuitive, or if the whole thing is a scam and everyone’s just having an “Emperor’s new clothes” effect.

Regardless, there’s a specific line from the book that has been resonating in my thoughts since Berlin.

“All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.”

It has honestly felt like some sort of a spiritual mantra to me in recent times. Like a bible verse I clutch tightly to and build my life around, because it makes me feel safe.

That’s what that has been like.

I’ve been thinking of getting that as a tattoo. Around my arm somehow.

I’m still trying to figure out how to do it exactly.

Hm.

Image: Sal Island. Hitching a ride to Santa Maria with two UK tourist guys on the hood of their quad bike.