Watchin' the Grammys in Gotham

I am perched. In a small hotel room. In Manhattan. It's been ages since I've written. I've been in Ghana for a month. Holidays have come and gone. I started an Etsy store named Found Alchemy, just for fun. (It's here.) And I've spent the week ordering tents for and thinking about going to Haiti.

I was reminded today. In a good way. How none of us ever knows what our days will be like. I left for NY. Thinking I hate the city. But really. I only hate. LaGuardia. Which feels like an overgrown bus station with gum on the floor. By the time I get into the city. And see the restaurants. And small groceries on nearly every corner. I like it. I get to Manhattan. And I remember it's a place where women can walk at night.

And riding on the Super Shuttle from the airport. I was on Rockefeller and in Times Square in riding past Broadway theaters. None of which. I anticipated. I'd see today.

Out with the Negative

In less than a month. I'll be in Ghana. But this week. I missed. What sounded like a great celebration. A day of running. A day to cast one's sins and negative experiences into the sea. Shouldn't we all. Have a holiday. To clear the bad juju. And launch it into. The sea.

Garden Pests

My friend from Kenya and I. Survey my garden. He’s giving me great advice. On organic techniques and ways to maximize a small space. We’re pulling weeds. And talking about pests. We look at some beetles. And I tell him about 13-stripe ground squirrels burrowing in my yard.

And then. He says. “Hippos like yams.” He lives on the shore of Lake Victoria. Where hippos heave their massive bodies out of the water. A fence between them and the yams. Will do the trick. But the monkeys are another story.

Conversation on the Bus

There are some conversations. That shouldn’t happen. On a bus.

Because only one side is heard. By those nearby. It seems private. But it isn’t.

He started the call when I got on. And ended it when I got off. I only heard his half. But it was too much.

Here is his side of the conversation. Boiled down. To the core.

Hi. Did you go?

Planned Parenthood?

You should have asked me. You would have saved a lot of cab fare if you had gone to Planned Parenthood.

Listen to me. Make a photocopy of the bill. This one and the next one. And mail them to him at home or work or whatever. He’s a jerk. Tell him you expect him to pay half. It’s costing you a lot, you know.

You need to learn to be tough Clarise.

When I stepped off the bus. And into the park. Green all around. The conversation. On the bus. Hung in the air. Over the lake. Even after. It ended.

Four Days in Panama

Geckos and frogs sing me to sleep at night. A herpetologist’s paradise. And a herpetologist it is that has invited us to stay. In her home. If we don’t mind the snakes. Next to the ice cream. In the freezer.

The house is set off the road. In the village. Down a grass path between fences. Concrete. Rented for $40 a month. A couple of bedrooms. An outhouse and a shower several yards away. Water comes in from the stream. Clean and clear. Above the point. Where it will get contaminated.

We sit into the night. Listening to stories of snakes. And the venomous ones. That have taken lives. Because of the distance. To the hospital. Snakes are her life’s work.

I shake the bugs from my bag and shower looking over the concrete wall. At the mountains. Showering outdoors. Is wonderful. I wish the little black and white monkeys. That she’s told us about. Around the house. Would sit on the edge of the shower. So I could see them up close.

The real world of snakes. And the mystical world. Collide in the national park. There was a severed finger. At the site of the plane crash. On the top of the mountain. Where Omar “If I fall, pick up the flag, kiss it, and keep on going” Torrijos died in 1981. Locals living near Omar Torrijos National Park believe. That their populist leader still lives in the jungle. He’d be 80 now. And they defend his land. It’s likely that they’ll continue to do so, with faith in the unseen. Long after he would be 111. Omar vive.