Human life is human life everywhere.
Even so, I am
told that human life began on a continent far from here.
I
visited the land of Africa once. I was
in a great mood over in Laos a couple months earlier, and I had the credit to
add the Egyptian pyramids on the way from China to Germany, so before I knew it
I was in Cairo. After a few days
exploring the city I finally explored the pyramids, which is a different
story. A great story, but a different
story.
The day
after the pyramids I paid a taxi to drive me to a bus station. I remember listening to a lot of Islamic
prayer chanting as we navigated the sea of cars on dusty, crowded and somewhat chaotic
streets. India is more chaotic, but
everything is relative.
Once at
the bus station I got crammed into a little van with a bunch of other Egyptian
people, and we drove out four hours (not miles, as previously written :) into the Sahara desert, which is the
largest lifeless landscape on the ball.
We
arrived at my first true oasis after my first real ride in the desert. I had never been to the American southwest
before, so this was my first exposure to a landscape so opposite from my
previous experience of life. I knew the
desert existed, had experienced it in movies and pictures and video games and
the internet, but none of that can compare to first-hand real one-on-one
contact with life.
Eventually
we arrived in this oasis, whose water would save us from dangerous thirst, that
is, had we been stranded in the desert.
I did
not have anywhere to stay in the oasis when I first arrived. I just knew that it was an important place
for me to be. In The Alchemist he meets someone very important in the oasis, someone
who he remembers throughout the rest of his journey to the pyramids. I had just come from the pyramids, but maybe
this place represented an oasis I had been to before...
I walked down the dirt main street of this small collection of houses in
search of a hotel I had noted from the internet. I had only been walking for about three
minutes, with really no idea of where I was going, when a man slowed his dusty
rusty jeep down to a stop next to me. He
had a dark mustache, wore a long one-piece robe, and smiled.
“Excuse
me, my friend. Where are you going?”
“A
hotel.”
“I know
a good hotel. -----------.”
I was
actually looking for ------------- Hotel, so I figured that was a good
sign. “Where is it?”
He
smiled again. “I’ll give you a
ride. It’s a few minutes by car but
maybe fifteen on foot. Also, do you like
camping? Are you interested in a
safari? I do safaris.” I looked around. The oasis was not crowded, or pressured. It was hot, but not as hot as Giza the day
before. It had reached 114 while I was
at the pyramids. I looked back at the
man. People do buy safaris and that was
the hotel I was looking for.
He saw
my hesitation and smiled some more. “Come
on, don’t worry. It’s right near
here. And then I can tell you about the
safari and you can decide.”
I didn't sense anything bad about this man. Sometimes you just have to trust your instinct.
I
shrugged, walked up and opened the door.
We shook hands and introduced ourselves.
We talked a little on the way to the hotel, which was only a few minutes
away. Meanwhile, I tried to read a sign
from a neighboring hotel advertising safari packages so I wouldn’t get a raw
deal, but we were going too quickly.
The
hotel was actually decent, considering some of the places I had stayed the
previous six months. I saw the room,
paid for it, and then went back out to the empty dining area to negotiate a
desert safari with my new business partner.
“How is
the hotel?”
“Great.”
"Excellent. Let’s get down to business.”
Money
talks. Negotiating. Always fun…
“Sure.”
“So my
safari package includes a ride in a 4 x4 Jeep into the Black Desert, and then
the White Desert, specially cooked dinner, and camping beneath the stars. The total cost for one overnight is $125.”
That
was actually the same price I had been quoted by a pesky tout in Cairo, which
wasn’t bad, but I was still hoping it would be less since I had gone directly to the
source as opposed to some convoluted city system. But I didn’t want to give in that quickly. I hadn’t seen any other prices. I knew there was a hotel right nearby that
had package tour prices posted outside.
“That
sounds like a great package, and it seems like a reasonable price, but I need a
minute to consider. I just got off
of a five hour bus ride through the desert, so I
need a minute or two to think it over and consider my finances, since they are
very limited. I’m going to take
a short walk outside, and I’ll let you know in five minutes.”
He
smiled to himself, onto me immediately.
He looked down at the table, paused a few moments, shook his head, and
then said, “You Americans, you are very clever.
Very clever, you Americans.”
“How
so?”
“You
want to shop for other safaris?”
“I just
need a quick walk to sort through my finances.
I’ll get back to you in five minutes.”
He knew
he didn’t have a choice, and he’d already gone through the trouble to drive me
there and wait for me to get a room, so he wasn’t going to quit that early.
“Okay,
five minutes. You are very clever.”
I
couldn’t have been that clever if he saw through it that quickly, but it worked
anyway. I went around the corner and saw
the neighboring prices, which were only slightly higher. I walked around the other corner and didn’t
see anything, so I figured three quotes were enough for a decision.
I went
back inside and sat down across from him.
I’m hazy on the details, but somehow I talked him down to 108. My first truly successful haggle on the
journey.
“Very
well. It is a pleasure doing business
with you. I will meet you tomorrow at 8
am in front of the hotel, and we will pack the van to go into the Sahara.”
We
shook hands, and then I went back to my room.
I was pleased momentarily, and then a subtle wave of fear crept over me. I was once again alone in an empty room….
But the oasis! It’s important! Well, there was no one else in the hotel, it
appeared, so I walked outside in search of whatever I was supposed to
find. I eventually found a table near an
outdoor restaurant filled with many local villagers. I asked what kind of food they served, and I
didn’t know what any of it was, which sounded good to me, so I took a seat next
to some Egyptian men who relaxed in the late evening sunset.
One of
them smiled and said, “Where are you from?”
I smiled and said, “America.”
He stopped smiling, nodded, paused
for a while, and then said, “Welcome,” and then turned back to his friend. Meanwhile, several kids ran around screaming,
and the other people at the table smiled at me.
I was very hungry by the time the
food arrived, but whatever it was, it tasted great and kept me alive.
The next morning I showed up by the
Jeep at 8 am, only to be told by the previous day’s ride/business negotiator
that he was going to be handling a different client personally, and that his
brother would be driving me. Also, his
brother didn’t really speak English. But
everything would be fine, he knew exactly what to do.
So we packed the Jeep and then
picked up another man who didn’t speak English.
Supposedly he was our cook. Then
we drove off into the Sahara Desert together to see just how hot the sun could
really become.
For several hours we drove around
the sand dunes of the black desert.
Every so often the driver would stop the Jeep, point to some large hill,
and indicate I was supposed to walk up it.
So I would get out, walk up the hill, look around, take some pictures
and then walk back while they waited in the Jeep. Whenever we saw a steep hill, my driver would
go after it full throttle and try to come as close as possible to making us
skid out or even turn over, without ever wiping out. His job was basically to drive around the
desert like a crazy man until he had quenched his passenger’s thirst for adventure.
After that was the White Desert,
which is filled with giant chalk-like structures sticking out of the landscape,
making it one of the strangest and most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. At one point the driver made one of his
unclear “go do that” pronouncements, and when I got out of the car he
immediately sped away from me… and kept going… and kept going… and then finally
stopped about a third of a mile away. So
I looked at the ground, which I guess I was supposed to touch to see how
chalk-like it was, and then walked to the car, I guess so I could get a sense of
what it was like to walk through the desert.
Then we found some shade to spread out a blanket and drink tea that our
cook prepared. He was a very smiley guy,
but spoke no English at all. The driver
knew a couple words, but not really.
As I sipped tea stretched out on
the sand in the Sahara Desert under the bluest sky I’ve ever seen, I thought
back to New York City. Yes, this was
different.
We walked around sand dunes for an
hour after that, where they let me wander wherever I felt like going. It’s impossible to describe the silence of
that place.
A piece of cardboard rolled along
the top of one dune. I wondered how long
it had been out there, being blown about by the wind.
We drove around some more, survived
a few more of my driver’s sand stunts, and then set up camp right before
sunset.
I sat lotus style doing whatever it
is I do that puts me in the state of mind others describe as meditation,
although mine often involves music at some point. But I watched the final sunset without any
sounds. All I can say is that I’d never
seen anything like it before, and I felt validated in undertaking the whole
journey just for that moment.
We ate a delicious dinner cooked on
an open fire, and I turned down my host’s offer of hashish. I’d smoked a little in Delhi and Varanasi
when I first arrived in India six months earlier, but I’d currently gone
without smoking anything for over two months, and I wanted to continue that
feeling until I made it home.
Most importantly, I wanted to
experience the most star-studded night of my life in the clear state of mind
which the pyramids had helped me find.
After dinner my hosts went to sleep
in their mattresses beneath the open sky, and I walked about fifty feet away,
barefoot, in only my Thai fishing shorts, enjoying the warmest yet driest
evening of my life.
I listened to some of my favorite
songs from the journey and for stargazing, an art I had been practicing seriously
since I graduated from high school seven years earlier. A few times I would see the shining eyes of a
desert fox coming close. Sometimes they
walked within ten feet of me, but acted like I wasn’t even there. Other times they sensed my presence and
scurried.
When I had enough music for a period, I sat in silent peace beneath the whitest
blackest sky I had ever seen in my life.
If only that cloud would get out of the way… wait a minute, that cloud
is THE WAY. That is, the Milky Way. Wow…
I don’t know when I went to bed,
but it was only a few hours before the sunrise, which was, obviously, a great
life experience.
The next morning we raced through
the desert to get me back to the oasis in time for the only bus back to Cairo,
which was a necessity, as my flight to Berlin left early the next morning.
We sped along the desert highway
for two hours before reaching the oasis.
My driver dropped me off at a café where the bus would supposedly stop
in ninety minutes.
I sat alone waiting outside the café
for quite some time before a man in a turban and long robes sat down next to
me. He asked me where I was from, and
when I said America, he did that pause thing again. Then he said, “I like America. I do not like your government or what it
does, but I know that the government is not the same thing as the people.” Six months later his words would take on new
meaning…
Soon another man came to sit down,
but he didn’t seem too interested. But
then another man came in, and he was dressed differently from the others. He wore western clothes, with a
buttoned-shirt, glasses and a well-trimmed mustache. He appeared to be in a very good mood. He slapped some backs and shook some hands,
and had a look of contented peace about him.
He also asked me where I was from, and when I said, “America,” he said, “Excellent! We need more Americans to come to the Middle
East. We must get to know each other.”
When the bus pulled up, dozens of people
filtered out. Eventually the bus was
empty as people rushed to get supplies, but before I could even approach I saw
the man with the mustache and smile waving from the doorway. “Hey, American! Come here!”
He waved me over.
“I saved you a seat!” he said as he
walked inside and motioned for me to follow him into the empty bus. He had indeed saved me a seat. He made sure I was comfortable and told a man
who entered the bus to make sure I could still sit there, as the hordes of
people were coming back on as quickly as they had gotten off.
Then he said, “I saved you this
seat. But there is a condition. You must go back to America and tell everyone
that Egyptians are a kind and hospitable people, and not to believe what they
see on the news.”
I said, “You’ve got a deal.” We shook hands. He had never stopped smiling the whole time,
even when revealing his “condition.”
Then he posed for a picture with my new bus neighbor, who spoke no
English but was very honored to be helping somebody he didn’t know after being
asked by someone else he didn’t know.
When we finally reached Cairo I
noticed that the pyramids looked a little less magical through the window on
the highway, with all the car exhaust and power lines. But I had the right music on, had just had a
great adventure, and was still alive and thriving from the energy of the stars. That’s all that mattered.
_____________________________________________
Today I returned three books to the
library, all from Maya Angelou. The
first book takes place mostly in California, but in the second book she moves
to Harlem in New York City. Then she
meets this really suave guy in New York. He's from her homeland, to which she longs to have a deep connection. He is very charming, connected and respected, and she decides to marry him and be
his “strong African nationalist wife” in Egypt.
She loves Cairo for a while, but her marriage falls apart because her
husband just keeps on cheating on her. A council of friends actually convinces her
to stay in her loveless marriage for six more months. For the good of the race. In the third one, titled All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes,
she finally leaves her husband and goes on to her next adventure.
I returned the books after
class. The students seemed really tired
today, perhaps the offshoot of a picnic in the park yesterday. I was overdue on a field trip, so I followed
one of the students’ suggestions of row boats in Golden Gate Park. We had a picnic, and then all got in row
boats or paddle boats and wandered around the “lake” for an hour. I think everyone had a great time. In fact, the whole event felt like it ran
itself. It wasn’t even my idea. All of the students brought amazing food,
people laughed, and the boats were a huge success. But then today we had a vocab test, and after
that they seemed spent. I felt it
too. I don’t know why. We don’t do anything that rigorous. It was then that I wondered how the class
would do if I did leave soon. Do they really need me? After all,
many of my students have come and gone, and even the ones who might miss me
would eventually leave themselves too. Is this class really the best I can do right now amongst the brilliance of the Milky Way?
While the students were engrossed in the conversations exercise, I
looked through the third book to find a quote:
I
thought of my grandmother who said, “If you want to know how important you are
to the world, stick your finger in a pond and pull it out. Will the hole remain?” (pg. 135)
After
class I walked over to the main library to return the books, but I decided to copy
that quote and another quote onto an envelope before I put it into the super
futuristic conveyor belt they have in libraries out here on the American
frontier.
If
the heart of Africa still remained elusive, my search for it had brought me
closer to understanding myself and other human beings. The ache for home lives in all of us, the
safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. It impels mighty ambitions and dangerous
capers. We amass great fortunes at the
cost of our souls, or risk our lives in drug dens from London to San
Francisco. We shout in Baptist churches,
wear yarmulkes and wigs and argue even the tiniest points in the Torah, or
worship the Sun and refuse to kill cows for starving. Hoping that by doing these things home will
find us acceptable, or failing that, that we will forget our awful yearning for
it. My mind was made up.
I would go back to the United
States, as soon as possible.
I was
already in the United States, but the “United States” to me meant something
very different before the past year I’ve spent living in or around this city. I wondered why I felt so slow lately. Is it the pace of this place? There’s always that hot sun beating
down. Especially since I moved to
Oakland. I’m not really feeling it here
either. I am at somewhat of an oasis
right now, a garden in the ghetto, but you can’t stay at the oasis
forever. After all, if you’ve read The Alchemist, you know where he finds
out his treasure has been the whole time.
“It
would be good to see my family and old friends.
Suddenly I was excited at the prospect of being back in New York City
and back in the fray.” (Angelou 196)
Don't worry about the finger in the pond and what happens
after you pull it out. Do those pyramids look like they're worried about the pond kicking them out?
(Added an hour after initial publish, because I just read this above my roommates' desk):
"Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can't tell me that we are done making the world." - Jerry Holkins
Right
now I’m looking up at the sky at an enormous crescent moon, and I can see a
pulse beating through the antenna of one of the pyramids in the distance.
The
pyramids and the moon are everywhere though.
You might not know exactly where they will be, but if you trust your instincts, a little faith can go a long way.
