Africa Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

July 12, 2024July 12, 2024

Ethiopian Theater and the Hidden Stage

It was night already as the bus bumped its way through the town of old Addis Ababa.

I was with Liam at the back. The open windows allowed us to peak out onto dim lit streets, street seller stalls dotted along the sidewalks, open spaced parks with meandering iron-post lamps followed their paths.

Liam and I had gone off to take a nap in the sleep house while Lizzie and Siobhan separately went shopping. But now we had to join them to see the play at the old theater.

I held Baby Liam in my arms on the bus and together we looked out through the windows of the bus.

And once we arrived at the old theater building there was already quite a crowd.

The building was yellow with red lined Ethiopian text above the huge double oak doors which also had red lined trim. The text was embossed against the flat of the wall.

The steps leading up to the doors were packed with people jostling to get in.

I spotted Lizzie, she was half way up the steps, and I called ahead to her. I knew that we had seats up in the balcony but we had to get the tickets first.

“We’re here. You got the tickets?” I yelled over to her and unexpectedly, she turned when she heard me.

Lizzie spread the tickets out in her hand, four of them, like they were a tarot deck, shiny and dark green and she reached over to us with them, as we pushed our way up the steps.

The four of us passed through the doors and together we climbed the stairs to the balcony.

All the seats were covered in white sheets, apart from a kid’s size wicker chair that was positioned in the aisle, next to our row. The chair was painted red and brown and must have been for the porter.

At the front there was a cream colored curtain and no view, apart from a slit at foot level were you could peak through to the ceiling of the stage.

Siobhan started complaining about the view.

“It’s the same with everyone,” I told her but the porter indicated the wicker chair for her if she wanted.

“I don’t want that!” she complained again.

We inched along our row, some three rows back from the front. Baby Liam went first and then myself, followed by Lizzie and Siobhan.

Liam was fussing by the time we were all seated. He sat next to an elderly couple who were sat by the wall. They wore brown turbans and long white jellabas and, on their robes, he sprayed grey felt pieces that he’d found from somewhere. They were from the seat cushions, I thought, as he continued to break apart more felt.

In front of us, from the balcony roof, were suspended ornate dark wooden lamps. They were unlit, and instead the balcony sconces were on.

“Liam is going to have swap places,” I called over to Siobhan.

“Why?” She was irritated.

“He’s making a mess with the couple next to him.”

So Liam and Lizzie swapped places just as the lights dimmed.

The cream colored curtain rose, and with it were raised the orchestra and the stage, so that both were directly in front us. The orchestra in front of the stage, a magnificent entrance.

And the view was perfect apart from where the cellist and the stringed instruments sat, where the tops of their instruments poked above the floor of the stage.

Then the musicians started up a low dirge but I wasn’t sure how long we would last.

I mean it wasn’t Broadway or the West End.

Photo by Steffen Wurzel via WikiMedia Commons.

May 4, 2024June 9, 2024

My Holiday was Better Than Your Holiday

It is a thin man, a DJ, who shows Leif and his escort onto a thin embroidered grey carpet that follows the length of the tent across the grey sand.

Leif and his escort walk along the carpet, her arm hooked under his, to the entrance at the near side end of the tent. His escort is demure, her dark Thai eyes turned down to avoid my look. She wears a tight silver skirt and she holds by his side until they reach the entrance, where the DJ parts the curtain to show them to their table.

Each table is long, it fills the length of each tent, and each tent is dedicated to an individual party. Leif and the Thai woman are invited through their entrance.

A gold ornament shaped like a netted leaf provides privacy from the rest of the table. I’m not clear what the other end of the table is for when only a couple are sitting at it. Maybe it is a place to put the courses that follow the usual Harira starter.

The tents are lined up in rows, our tent next to Leif’s, and we wait at our entrance for the DJ, for our escort.

Once Leif and his escort is settled, our own escort shows up at the far end of our own tent, at the beginning of the runner. She too looks Thai, but she is old and her brown thinning hair is plastered across her forehead. She smiles at me in greeting, but her teeth are also brown and she is missing two of her top teeth; only three of her teeth, on the right side of her mouth, remain.

At first I think she may be OK, and though we make not be able to communicate, that too may be OK.

But then, “This will not do!” I tell the DJ.

I think I am with Siobhan, I cannot tell, but we will complain, I think.

We enter the tent, leaving the DJ behind with the old Thai woman, and we push past our table and past the gold leaf ornament, until we we find a back room that must belong to the manager.

On the wall are rare framed pictures of gold and platinum LPs. The wall is maroon and shielded top to bottom by a thin glass wall which protects the mementoes behind it. There is a brown electric guitar, a Stratocaster I notice, behind the glass.

Guitars are propped on stands in front of the manager’s desk and, of course the desk is big and mahogany in the dim lit tent, but the manager is not there.

“This will not do!” I repeat, and I push on the glass wall. I am not sure whether I am trying to break it, but when it cracks unexpectedly, I want to go for it, we want to go for it. I kick at the glass wall, then I take one of the guitars from its stand and wield it at the glass to shatter it.

The whole glass wall falls towards us, and with it, the gold and platinum LPs, and the encased Stratocaster. They fall altogether, towards the desk and the glass smashes satisfactorily into splintered pieces, and spreads around us, across the carpet.

Photo from our trip to Morocco, April 2024.

March 7, 2024March 20, 2024

A Guest House in Alexandria

After the long walk along the Nile I arrived at the hostel. An old man, in a white jellaba led me through a warren of rooms. He had a greying beard and was a little portly. “There is a place,” he assured me, “only one pound.” The Egyptian pound was pegged one to one with the British pound in those days. Still, it was very cheap.

I just didn’t remember coming here before visiting Uncle Vartan.

April 20, 2023May 2, 2023

Attacked by a Drone in the Old Fort

Attacked by drones in the old Moroccan fort.

Siobhan, Liam, Lizzie and I went on holiday to Morocco or a place like that and after we had arrived and settled into our hotel, we went wandering around the souk. It was nearby and still filled with people in colorful costumes so we took lots of candid pictures.

The souk was quite open plan but still dusty, and had rich ornate rugs swung over the wooden frames of the stalls to protect the shoppers from the sun’s dusty glare.

The locals’ costumes were many striped, in reds and orange, golds and blues, the colors of the rainbow, and you had to be fast to get the pictures but I played with the iPhone buttons instead of the app button and snapped them really fast. I was not even looking to frame each picture so that even if a head got in the way I would still snap it.

I looked at one photo and sure enough I had frozen it in time. The focused head of a man captured through a blur of people. I was proud to have gotten a good picture just like the kids showed me.

And later on we walked over to an old fort which had a broken wall and an old blue door; you could walk around the right side of the wall, to the other side without opening the door. Behind the wall was a moat and a series of steps that went down to the water line and then came back up again to the rear side of the door. And intersecting the moat was another wall that acted as a bridge, that you could walk across the top of, that was quite wide and able to accommodate all four of us side by side.

We walked along the bridge and a drone flew by; and the drone was bowl shaped and black with a yellow trim up by its wings. It hovered briefly over the water before snapping out of sight.

And once we turned back and were returning to the fort’s front wall we noticed the water level had risen, perhaps because of the tide, and the drone was back again. This time it was a bit more menacing. It flew closer to us, just missing Lizzie and I, and then it went after Siobhan who had walked ahead. She was up by the intersection where the bridge and the wall’s steps met.

Siobhan ducked down to avoid the swoop of the drone and dived into the water which now covered the steps. Then she surfaced where the steps rose up close to the door. Only her head and right arm visible, she was holding onto the top step, but also she looked dazed.

Liam and I ran back along the path and I thought to walk down the first set of steps and up the second to where she was. But then I would have gotten my camera wet because all but the top steps were covered in water. I didn’t think it would survive that amount of time in the moat.

Then Liam had an idea. “Why don’t we try the door from the front?”

And so we walked back around the wall. And the door was old with chipped paint and we weren’t sure we were allowed to open it. I turned the heavy round silver knob of the door and we stepped through.

No one stopped us.

“Good idea, Liam,” I acknowledged as I closed the door behind us.

Next to the door sat an old cart leaning with its wheel barrow handles on the path. It was right next to where the steps began, where Siobhan held on.

But there was no trace of Siobhan.

A few bathers were paddling out in the moat but she was not one of them. We looked out across the water, and briefly one woman in the same dark brown bathing suit as Siobhan surfaced, but she had long dark brown hair.

Perhaps she had slipped unconscious while holding onto the step.

We peered into the water but it was murky and there was no way to see anything deeper than a few feet. And this time I thought to dive down to see if she had drowned.

Then Liam cried out.

“Mama,” he wailed in a plaintive voice.

Photo from Wallpaper Flare

July 21, 2022February 1, 2023

Reunion with an Ex is High Risk

I am on a wooden boat at night. Siobhan and I have a cabin. And I am on the lower deck trying to clean up with the leaf blower. At first it will not work, but I remember that once I add the attachment it won’t overheat; only then will it start to do the job.

Once I’ve cleared the deck of pine needles, I go to the toilet. It is on the same level and the deck, an open plan space, has the toilet starboard side. At first I was going to sit down like I normally do, but Zach was there watching, so I stood and peed into the bowl instead.

He sits up high, looks down at me from his step ladder, not three yards away.

“Strange that they put all these vegetables around the toilet,” I say to him, as I survey the baskets of onions and potatoes that surround the bowl. ”It must be to hide the toilet.”

When done I go outside to look at the night sky. Karin is on the boat, I know, and I wonder how I will bump into her.

I could just knock on her door, directly. Or I could hang around until she comes out and we pass each other in the walkway. I will turn around as she passes by and will exclaim, “Karin!” Then we will look at each other, our older faces beginning to recognize each other. Despite my balding spot.

Karin is in room 23, I am sure of it and I could just knock.

I look out onto a black sea and there are fabulous waves, blue and white tipped against the moon. With strange creature patterns big enough to engulf the boat, they are meters high, with tentacles and tendrils.

“The boat sails smoothly, but how is it gliding so smooth?”

And the captain tells me, ”We’re on the canal alongside the sea so that we avoid the waves. That’s how come we are able to go so smoothly along. Otherwise the boat would get tossed around and we could drown.”

I see the brick barrier that separates us, it runs parallel to the shore but I want to be out there in the waves instead.

“Where are we?” I say. I think it is Africa, that we are coming down the south east coastline. And he tells me yes, but the country begins with an R, it’s a country I won’t recognize.

“Later, when we’re all sleeping we will join up with the sea and the waves, when they’ve died down a bit,” he says.

Ship of Fools, cropped, accredited to Hieronymus Bosch via Picryl