Saturday, 31
people repeatedly tell me they see me as a human being. of course i like that they see me as what i am. anyway, as people often shout after me - toubab, toubab - i consider the statement that i am a human being as: toubab, we understand, you are a human being like us. what in other words means though my skin is of light colour i am a human being.
Friday, 16
I say to myself all the time, I am in Gambia.
Monday, 12
a holiday, The Prophet's Birthday - whole day reading Tram 83 written by Fiston Mwanza Mujila - hmmm - delicious
Fiston's novel has lifted the veil Africa has been compelled to wear over years, and she now stands naked before us. His voice original, a genuine breath of fresh air...
Foreword by Alain Mabanckou
Sunday, 11
Adama Barrow for president. Finally. After the long period of twenty two years the people of The Gambia could free themselves from their oppressor. A firestorm of joy and happiness followed the pronouncement of the results on December 3. Before, an outcry for changes had configured the canvasses. Eyegee, eyegee - step down. Colourful dresses and elated voices of the oppositional coalition displaced the cold bottlegreen of the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction. Not by coup d'état, but by a proper election the Gambian people decided for progress and democracy; the Western world no more regarded as enemy, the source of every evil, but as associate to collaborate with in future.
On first hand the former dictator Yaya Jammeh gave in to the result. The international world observed and appreciated his behaviour towards his own resignation. But how could a mind proved as working neither rationally nor empathetic really mean it? No, and, of course, due to his megalomaniac personality he tried an attack after four days. On top of that, he proclaimed on Friday (after one week) that the result of the elections are invalid and that he would convene a re-run of the elections - what for sure will not happen.
Saturday, 26
Inshallah - I hear it with increasing frequency (I don't believe in God in the sense of the Mediterranean monotheist religions, but anyway, I know what it means) and I ask myself if it is connected to me and my personality. If there is something in me that provokes people saying inshallah... we meet tomorrow, or maybe not. They don't feel like confirming assuredly, but leaving open what will happen. I noticed that I use the word maybe also more often - maybe = inshallah.
Tuesday, 22
Down with the World
A song from my childhood, by Fairuz, Lebanon's most famous singer, goes like this:
I wish
You and I were in a house
A house the furthest house
Erased behind the frontiers of darkness and wind
And snow falling, wounding the surface of all things,
Making you lose your way, so that you would never leave,
And you would remain,
Next to me you would remain,
While a thousand season of jasmine would blossom, and wither
And you would remain,
Next to me you would remain,
Next to me you would remain,
And not one drop of oil would be left in the lantern
I wish
I wish
The song is considered romantic, like most of her songs (except the patriotic ones); the musical arrangements are vanilla-sweet, and the tonality of her voice is pure, with a touch of melancholy. These are all the ingredients needed to make a cheesy pop song about love, which the YouTube videos uploaded by fans have internalized, adding images of isolated cottages, flowers and hearts to the formula.
But is this song about love, really? One could argue that it isn't, that the lyrics—which were actually written by a man—are more about possessing the Other rather than loving him, which leaves no place for love or desire to unfold, to blossom. This is perhaps true; the lyrics' juvenile character, their immaturity, their remoteness from how love is experienced in today's world, make them very unconvincing.
But in spite of all that, there is something very strange about these lyrics: they are knit together to create a universe of total darkness, "behind the frontiers." The singer wishes to redesign the entire world in order to keep the man she loves next to her, which she does not by inventing a new world but simply by rearranging the elements that make up this one. In this universe there are no paths, because they are covered by the violent snow falling on the world, making it impossible for the man to leave the house even if he so wishes. This situation presupposes that the woman is already contained in the house and it is the man who arrives, after which the elements of Nature, redesigned by the woman, keep him from leaving. In this universe, there is no time: the moment of intimacy lasts for a thousand years, while flowers come into being and collapse into oblivion. In this universe there is no light; it is a universe of total darkness, where the absence of light is necessary to abolish the act of seeing, further locking the man in a universe with no points of reference that would help him orient himself.
Tony Chakar,
e-flux Architecture 09/11/2016
Wednesday, 9
I've been here in The Gambia for four months. I should be used to the system by now, but I feel more scared, somehow.
An indefinable shakiness and unease has overcome my initially perfect satisfaction
of having succeeded in translocation.
I am part of and the same time I am trapped in inactivity. Every step seems to seep away in clearance. Futility and absurdity give space to and absorb my protestant education that configured my brain sustainably quasi unable to be disinvented.
Self induced self doubts nourish a self destructive humility and prevent me from living my life to the fullest. Fears of doing wrong as well as fears of not being accepted shape my flow into automatic in appearance and behaviour. Though self determination is beyond dispute (in my eyes) it is therefore temporarily reset.
