Bambi

Last night I walked into a supermarket and past a teenager with wild eyes. He was chugging something sugary. With one hand, he chucked the empty plastic bottle onto the pavement; in the other, he cradled a live deer. The deer was for sale. It had wild eyes, too. It looked at me but I looked away. Never lock eyes with something you know is about to end up in someone's soup. 

Mint

A very old friend went to Jamaica once to meet his family. I asked him if he thought about living there. "Absolutely not," he said. "It's way too poor."

We were teenagers but I always thought that was a really cruel thing to say -- I've been looking at him sideways since. (To be fair, I'd have found some reason to give him the evil eye regardless. We'd dated for a week or two. It was all very Rated G.)

A few years later, in 2004, I came to Liberia for the first time since the beginning of the war. And did I think about living in Liberia then? Absolutely not. It was way too poor.

Thankfully, no one ever asked me that question so I only ever horrified myself with my response.

Imagine my shock when, a few years later, I find myself not only celebrating a year here but signing up for another nine months. I'm almost afraid to get into school. What happens when you leave Liberia for London? Mint.com starts to judge you again.

"You have spent $1,800 on clothes this month. This is $1,900 over your budget." 

"You have stopped contributing to your IRA. You will be working for the rest of your life."

"Your short-term goals do not include buying a ship. What is the matter with you. You embarrass me."

Once you've paid rent, fueled your car and stocked your fridge, it is bloody impossible to spend money in Liberia. You can't find a proper cocktail or a level pool table. There is no retail therapy.
There is almost no advertising. You want to stay home and cook dinner and read Vonnegut. You're happy.

Except now I've got DStv and the West (via Nigeria and South Africa) is telling me to spend $7,000 on a wedding dress, to lighten my hair, to fill my kids with frozen fries.

I've got no qualms about living in a poor country. It's the rich ones that scare me.

Bewitched

- Hi Uncle Newman.
- Where were you??
- Cape Town. 'Sup?
- I was dying. I called you.
- What!?
- Yeah-oh.
- When!?
- Wednesday.
- What!?
- Everyone was here, crying, crying.
- What's the matter?!
- I couldn't move.
- Couldn't move what?
- Anything.
- You can move now?
- I can sit up small. 
- What did the doctors say?
- That it's not medical.
- It's not...medical.
- No. It's juju.
- It's -- what??
- Juju.
- From where?
- Coworkers.
- Coworkers?
- I got promoted.
- So they...
- Yes.
- Can you ask them to lift the, uh...
- Juju.
- Right.
- There was no quarrel. But jealousy is strong-oh.
- Paralyzing envy.
- That's it.  

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

So I'm squatting in a township in a crowd outside Mzoli's eating braai from a bowl on the sidewalk when...

Wait. Let's go back a bit.

I find myself in a recurring predicament when I have to give my address to Liberians.

"Where you live?"
"Thirteenth St."
"Fifteen?"
"No, thirteen."
"Fourteen?"
"No! Thirteen. One, three."
"Twenty-seven?"

The problem is that Liberian's pronounce thirteen tight-teen. I really can't bring myself to scream those words into a phone so I just end up picking up my own take-out. Meanwhile, another number became unutterable, too. I spent four weeks really losing the plot over it. I'm surprised no one had me medicated.

So like an old dog padding off alone to leave this world, I went to Cape Town to turn thirty. It was as far from home as the continent permitted. I almost had a grip on things until the night of my birthday, when I was sitting in an opera house watching Porgy and Bess. Someone asked Bess how old she was and Bess said, "Twenty year." The cast howled; someone shouted, "Dat girl's thirty if she's a day." The saddest little eeeep! flew from my throat.

Soon it was midnight and I was really out of my twenties and everything was alright. Then the fog of narcissism lifted and I was acutely aware of being quietly watched by South Africans. (The irony of this is not lost on me, having spent much of that next week staring down animals of all walks.) I had fallen into one of my favorite parts of any book:

"It had taken some time but the tables had been turned; now I was in the zoo, and they were watching."

Cape Town is full of beautiful things; what it lacks are multicolored couples. No one says anything rude out loud (apart from those baristas in Stellenbosch -- thanks guys) but the air is oddly heavy and you remember how recently apartheid ended. Liberia isn't the most diverse nook of the world but here I never feel like I'm breaking the rules. So for all the thrills I had there, Cape Town can have its horses and vineyards and haute cuisine and antelope steaks and fancy meats and ostrich rides and penguins and sanctuaries and whale-watching and bed-and-breakfasts and clean water and bungee jumping and zip-lines and vistas and water sports and malls and gems and hikes.

Just let a girl walk hand in hand with her dude. What else is there in this life? (Note: I will retract this statement after a week in Monrovia.)