Monday, 28
I'm always afraid of breaking something. Be it things or relationships. Something that my father in particular passed on to me, who kept pointing it out to me when I was too rude or even rough. Especially when it comes to materials. For example, if I was impatient and tried to force something open violently, he warned me to be careful. First of all, I should take a good look at what I have in front of me before I do anything and then consider which tools are most appropriate. It was very uncomfortable for me then to realize how stupid I had actually behaved.
Saturday, 26
A few years ago my mother gave me a small book (10x6.5x1.3cm).
She likes to show attention by bringing something.
Philosophers Sayings
--------------------------Sappho-----------------------------
Even if they are only breath, the words - my tongue will make them immortal.
--------------------------Ágnes Heller-----------------------
Myths are timeless as long as they live; the temporal is their death.
--------------------------Gertrud von Le Fort---------------
One masters mountains, but one stumbles over a stone.
--------------------------Rosa Luxemburg------------------
Have courage, we will take on life no matter what.
--------------------------Seyla Benhabib--------------------
Having no sense of the past means, losing your self and your identity, because
who we are is revealed in the stories we tell about ourselves and the world we
share with others.
--------------------------Ursula Wolf-------------------------
A meaningful life consists of doing things you love to do and having personal
relationships with other people.
--------------------------Olympus of Gouges---------------
Freedom consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others.
--------------------------Simone Weil-------------------------
Evil is unlimited freedom and therefore it is monotonous.
--------------------------Mary Wollestonecraft--------------
A modest person is steadfast, a humble person is fearful, and a vain person
is arrogant.
--------------------------Anna Akhmatova-------------------
How do I live with this burden they call MUSE; they say: one lies with it in the
grass, they say: Divine gossip. The muse hits you worse than cholera, and
then no sound for a year.
--------------------------Luisa Muraro------------------------
I was born into a culture where women weren't taught to love their mothers.
And yet this is the knowledge and skill without which it is difficult to learn the
rest and be original in everything.
--------------------------Margaret Cavenisch----------------
While reason explores the depths of nature and seeks the true causes of
natural things, the imagination creates whatever pleases it.
--------------------------Jeanne Hersch----------------------
True philosophers are those who exert coercion on the freedom of others to
go deeper.
--------------------------Rahel Varnhagen von Ense--------
Thinking is digging and measuring with a plummet. Many people don't have the
strength to dig, and others don't have the courage or the habit to sink the lead
into the depths.
--------------------------Hannah Arendt----------------------
Since time immemorial, truth seekers and truth tellers have known the risk of
their enterprise.
Translated from German to English by myself.
Philosophinnen Sprüche. Minibibliothek. BuchVerlag für die Frau. 2003, 7. Edition 2016
Sunday, 20
practicing DADA at art school times
New York sketchbook,, p 63/64, 1982
Wednesday, 16
Every time I look in the mirror, I realize that my wrinkles are creeping deeper into my face. I've been told unrefined shea butter, which I bought on the market, should be reducing wrinkles. But it doesn't really help either. I try to prevent stress as much as possible. Well, I don't live in a spa, but in a cultural center. Out of conviction. That means I have certain demands that cause stress. In addition, there are requirements that are not my choice, but a duty.
In Gambia you have to renew your residence permit and driving license every year. It had been done for me for the first years, when I had my shop in Sukuta and worked as an art teacher. In fact, I was too busy and could justify someone standing in line for hours instead of myself. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea how this process went, precisely because someone else was doing it for me. However, later on I gave up both -Think Tank Tintinto and teaching- in favour of TintintoHouse. Then, I myself did the renewal of my papers. I had enough time in between and I saw no reason to hire anyone to do it. For the following years I was able to avoid queuing with the help of officers. I didn't know then that it was actually bribery. I just thought that's how you do it. This year I experienced it differently. Totally normal like everyone else. Standing in line and waiting for my turn. Watching how it is when you wait there, on the wooden bench or even standing, as the ones who bribe an officer simply rush past you and are served adhoc. After this procedure I saw the wrinkles on my face deepen again. Finally an official said: Let this old woman enter first. In fact, in the line of foreigners waiting to pay for their Alien Card I was the only woman.
Not only my aging face, but also living with a man thirty years junior contradicts today's conventions. As one of my close acquaintances said, there must be something unsane about him getting involved with a woman that much older. Disappointed about her negative apraisal, I conclude that the majority of people cannot understand our relationship. Shouldn't he rather be interested in getting a good education or even starting a family instead of wasting his time with me? And indeed, I follow how he keeps struggling with himself and his life. Just this morning on our way to the immigration office to have his face scanned for ID (which took a whopping five hours), he said the life he is leading at the moment "doesn't have an impact on his future". It's not the first time we've dealt with this topic. Of course I'm concerned about. I doubt myself and my ability to shape our lives in a meaningful way, when he is talking like this. Older women with much younger men are not uncommon here in The Gambia though. What means we're reflecting something that's a reality here, and even has a positive connotation from some families who see it as an opportunity to make money. The fact that the women involved are actually serious is just fine with them. The young men, however, are not really satisfied with what they have achieved. Something is not right. The other boys around them are more free and allowed to behave like young men. I tell him that if he lives this life with me, he must work to justify it and finally endorse it. Otherwise he harms himself. His immediate answer is that he would lie to himself if he saw a meaning in it. The only thing he can recognise is that he is depending on me. I don't see it that way. Since we live together, we share the money, and to some extent have the same obligation. I am dependent on him as well in many regards. He doesn't really understand that. What he wants is doing something that satisfies him, which is connected to making his own money. He cannot find satisfaction in what we are doing - in the doing itself, as I keep emphasizing, in management and maintenance of the House of Culture Tintinto. No, it's not really of interest to him. What he is looking for is financial independence to lead a more self-determined life. In fact, I don't see my life as particularly self-determined. And yet I find moments when I am satisfied with my life.
Sunday, 13
Foundobject 13022022
This morning, as I was about to water the plants, I heard a truck shunt in front of our gate. Still in my morning exercise shorts I opened the gate to see what was happening. A truck reversed halfway down our driveway. They have already partially ruined and softened it by filling it with sand - the part directly in front of the gate is still intact without sand, as we had prepared it - and I wonder how we will get through there in the rainy season. I stand behind the truck to stop it. It turned out that they only wanted to load sand and not unload as I assumed. Okay, I didn't mind that one. But when I look over the wall a few minutes later, I see that the truck is now completely parked in our driveway. So I go out again and say that they are damaging our entrance road even more. A man tells me they're sorry. I should forgive them. Already turning my back on him, I answer with a resounding NO. He almost can't believe that I'm not ready to forgive and calls after me that they would help me then. We'll see how much help comes when rainclouds gather. It's almost unnervingly quiet at the moment. But I don't bother going out again. Something like this happens all the time. If I comment on something, everything goes even worse. That's why I mostly wait, especially to calm myself down. Usually everything doesn't look as bad as it did at the beginning and I have time to find other solutions.
In fact, it's late afternoon now and no trucks have come for a couple of hours. As if my exclamation had smoothed the waters.
Monday, 7
Congratulations to the team of Senegal.
Sunday, 6
first walk to the beach since 2nd April last year
View across the plain now created towards the path to the sea
Facing South from center of plain
Facing North from center of plain
Crossed plain and view to the sea
View Back across the plain
Beach to South
Beach to North
The plain is to be assumed behind the dune
Climbing on the way back
Home in sight
Saturday, 5
sand mining update
It's really frustrating to find out that the person you've become is actually what your mother, aunt and grandmother had envisioned. Really, I did everything to make myself an independent personality, follow my own vision of life free from the conventions of my female ancestors, and of course the male ones too, but them, I more often contradicted. No, I'm more or less what they wanted - affable, humble, following, compliant, peace-loving, understated. Rather drop my own will in favour of peace with the people around me to the point of self-humiliation. While I was known in my youth for arguing - albeit more in the spirit of a "Let's talk about an anti-authoritarian upbringing" group experience - they thought, after all I was young and would later find what they thought was the right path anyway, in other words finding and marrying a man who would protect me, having family and children. As they had done themselves, except for my aunt, who had a different CV and had never been married, but who also shared this patriarchal perspective. They tolerated my freaking out only on the assumption that I'd come to my senses one day, not because they actually understood what was going on inside me, but because they somehow firmly believed in their power over me. They also suspected that it would be too exhausting to take a closer look at my visions and so skilfully pulled themselves out of the loop.
Art Space Work of the Month
Claus Wallner (1926-79) - At the Spanisch Steps, 1962, lithography, 44.4x34.8cm