‘Firdoos’ - Paradise

Chapter 1 The Arabian Notes


July 2001
Yemen
Ahmed Rassas had been walking for two days along the west road to Sana’a under a sun that seemed to hang forever in the sky. And as he raised his eyes over the road winding up to the top
of the stony escarpment he thought only of the German Embassy, waiting for him there in the city at the roof of Arabia.

He wore a black scarf wrapped twice about his head, tied and thrown back to protect his neck from the sun. Squinting against the bright glare on pavement and stone his blue-gray eyes folded into small wrinkles at the corners, white against the weathered, reddish-brown of his face. His nose was broad and straight, his moustache and goatee brown flecked with grey. He wore a white robe, a slightly curved jambiya dagger on a belt over the robe and a dark blue jacket. On his shoulder he carried a tattered canvas pack. Hidden underneath the robe he wore a thick vest strapped about his chest.

A breeze came from the west blowing his scarf so that he'd sometimes have to hold it on his head. He stopped to gaze back across the mountains and green valley cut by canyons below. White clouds gathered over the valley a mile below. Terraced fields, green, tan and coffee-brown wrapped around the mountainsides like a carefully woven patchwork quilt. He watched the clouds and followed the shadows they cast, moving slowly over the terraced fields.
A farmer plowed a field below, guiding a wooden blade hitched behind a camel. 'Hss, hss,' he called, urging the camel on. The farmer wobbled side to side over the plow, barely scratching into the earth as the camel strode effortlessly ahead, long limbs slowly lifting and unfolding. Ahmed thought of the fields that he'd left behind and the farmers plowing the land, praying for rain. His parents were now gone. His mother had died just two months before. He'd sold the fields and the old stone house his father had bought in the village. Their debts had been settled.
A white Toyota pickup loaded with passengers in the bed, some standing, others sitting, passed him along the road: engine groaning and hissing up the steep grade and then pulled over to a stop.

"Heya! Come on brother," the driver beckoned. " Sana'a is not far now."

"No, but thanks," Ahmed called back, waving him on.

"There’s room for more."

"Thank you," Ahmed said as he approached the driver. "I enjoy the walk."

"Allah is with you, young man! There was a day when I walked this road, but it was only a donkey trail then!" he laughed. "Have some qat," he said, passing a small, black plastic bag out the window. Ahmed took the bag, thanked the man and put it in his shoulder pack.

"Allah is with all of you," he said, glancing back at the jammed-packed passengers smiling and chatting in the truck bed.

The truck lurched forward grinding and sputtering, the rear end nearly dragging against the tarmac as it pulled away slowly, passengers smiling and waving until it disappeared around the next switchback. It was several minutes and many switchback turns above before the grinding noise of the engine and the gearbox faded into the ancient stillness of the high Arabian mountains.

He took the bag of qat out of his shoulder pack and lifted it to his nose, inhaling the scent of the green leaves. 'Cut this morning,' he thought. Then returning the qat to the pack, he strode on.
He'd walked for nearly six-hours. Beyond the bend of every switchback he expected to see the road flow up and over the top of the escarpment onto the broad level plain leading to Sana'a. Finally, several more switchbacks above, he felt the grade lessen beneath his feet and the road began to level over the rolling, barren plain. He sat down on a stone outcrop just off the road with the valley behind him and the narrow road to Sana'a ahead.

A roadside garbage heap of red and black plastic bags, bottles, old tires and rotting refuse simmered and smoked. The burning plastic was choking. He pulled the scarf, cupping it over his nose and mouth. Ravens strutted across the dump, wings spread wide while others wheeled in the sky above. Looking at the birds fighting over the steaming heap, tearing scraps of rotten flesh, he thought of 'Jehinum,' the burning dump of hell. Gazing once more back across the mountains and the green valleys, he stood, shouldered his pack and continued on. White smoke circled into the sky behind him.

He stepped off the road at a petrol station with a small restaurant next to it. Stooping low, he entered the restaurant through the arch of a stone doorway. Inside it was dark and he waited to let his eyes adjust. A roar of propane gas jets filled the room. After two days of peace in the mountains the noise was deafening. A fat chef in a blue apron stood on a stone platform shouting at the customers in jest as he ladled a stew into stone pots set over the gas flames. Ahmed motioned to the chef, lifting one finger and shouted "selta," then took a seat on a bench at a long metal table. A boy brought a blackened pot of bubbling stew topped with green, foamy fenugreek and a large disk of barely leavened bread, setting them at the table in front of him. He ate slowly, dipping pieces of the bread into the stew.

When he'd finished and paid he grabbed his pack and walked out looking up at the sky. Dark thunderheads were rising from the valley. A moist breeze carried the smell of rain from the west. He looked at his watch, a Longines with a scratched jewel-case. It was just after three. Looking up at the clouds again he walked over to an attendant sitting between the gas pumps.
"Is there a place to stay anywhere near?"

The attendant sat slunched against a gas pump chewing qat. A large pile of discarded qat leaves lay in front of him. One cheek bulged. He smiled, arched his eyebrows high and said, "lokanda," nodding towards the back of the station.
He walked behind the station to a stone building with a large palm-mat veranda in front. Woven palm cots were scattered about inside and on the veranda. Several travelers in headscarf and jambiya sat on cots chewing qat and smoking a tall water-pipe with a large terra-cotta bowl of tobacco on top. A light rain began to fall, tapping a soft cadence on the palm canopy.

Walking into the shelter he swung the pack off his shoulder and took a cot against the wall with a view to the door. It was raining heavier now. Thunder rolled and echoed across the sky. Sitting down, he took the qat from his pack and began to select the tender light green leaves to chew. He thought of the German Embassy in Sana'a. Friends had described it to him. He knew the location and the layout. He saw himself at the gate, passed through and on to the Consul Office. They would pass him through, of course. He had an appointment: ‘perfectly logical,’ he thought, adjusting the vest underneath his robe. Closing his eyes, he could see green mountains, distant blue valleys and beautiful women with long blonde hair flowing in arcs as they danced. And he could almost taste the falling streams and rolling rivers of fresh, clear, cool, mountain water, the smell of rose-laden fragrant air and misty mornings in the garden. 'Firdoos,' he thought, Paradise.

He woke before dawn the next morning. Outside, dogs howled and fought around the garbage pit as he gathered and packed his gear. He adjusted the belt underneath his robe and washed his hands and face at a small sink. Lifting his pack, he walked to the restaurant for beans with bread and a cup of hot, milky tea.

It was still dark when he set out on the road to Sana'a. The black dome of sky carried a million stars. It was cold but after walking for a few minutes he couldn't feel it. He'd walked for nearly an hour when the red glow of dawn lit the horizon, warming the sky before the golden flash of the sun raced over the earth. The land was flat and red, strewn with rocks except for the occasional green patch of a garden-field. The road ran straight into the sun. Birds sang from barren thorn trees. A truck rushed past in the direction of Sana'a.

At midmorning he followed an earthen trail off the road down to a small meadow where palm trees swayed. The temperature dropped in the shade under the trees as if a natural A-C had been switched on. A thin waterfall flew over the edge of a cliff above into a pool and flowed away through the meadow. Sitting down to rest near the waterfall he felt the cool mist on his face as his thoughts drifted from the German Embassy to Paradise.

He had walked for several more hours when the road turned and he could see a long walled fortress and tower on the rocky outcrop of a hill far ahead on the left. Police stopped vehicles at checkpoint beneath the tower, searching some and waving others through. He bought a bottled-water at a small shop on the side of the road hammered together from old crates. Taking a long drink, he watched the police as they checked the vehicles. "Weapons?" they asked, before waving the cars along. They had stopped one truck at the side of the road. The driver complained that he was delivering a load of frozen fish from the coast. A few people walked on through the checkpoint. He joined in, trying not to think about what he carried in the vest. 'These dogs smell fear,' he thought, passing along the side of the road through the checkpoint.
"Wou! Wou! Hey brother," a voice called behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he saw a young policeman striding directly towards him.

"What's in the bag?"

"Just clothes." He opened the pack and offered it to the policeman.

"Where are you going?"

"I have a meeting in Sana'a. I want to sell some land."

"I'll need to search you."

"Of course," he said, turning around and lifting his arms high. The policeman ran his hands quickly from his shoulders down to his ankles.

"What's that underneath you're wearing?" he asked as Ahmed turned back to face him.

"A belt with some papers," he said, trying to stay calm.

"An awful lot of papers." The policeman's eyes narrowed as he looked at him.

"The deed and family papers."

The shrill cry of police whistles filled the air as a semi-truck pulled up to the checkpoint behind them. The policeman took a step in the direction of the truck then stopped, turned around and said, "Alright, go ahead," waving his arm toward Sana'a.

Ahmed walked up the last stretch of road over the lip of a granite outcropping and stood looking down at the city of Sana'a surrounded by a ring of mountains in the broad plain below. The winding road led down past the Chinese graveyard with its red pagoda, past a ferris-wheel and park before leveling out on to a wide stretch where white Peugeot taxis waited in line for passengers to the coast. There was a bustle of people everywhere. Women sat underneath umbrellas selling fruit and vegetables laid out in careful, colorful piles over blankets. A man with an umbrella fixed over a cart pushed by selling cigarettes and candies. Busses, cars, and trucks honked relentlessly. A young boy with a megaphone stood in the back of an open-bed truck filled with white, black and red bras shouting "two-hundred riyals" as a horde of black-veiled women rifled through the merchandise. Rows of men sat on the ground selling qat wrapped in green banana leaf or in black plastic bags. A policeman ran to the road blowing his whistle and jumped astride the cab of a semi-truck whose boat-horn blast was in full throttle, waving his arms at the people to let the truck pass.

He ducked into a selta restaurant. The steady roar of the propane stoves seemed a relief after the urban cacophony outside.

After lunch he caught a micro-bus on to Haddah Street where he took a room at a small hotel. Pulling the curtains shut in his room he undressed, took off the vest and put it carefully into the closet then fell into bed, exhausted. Later that evening he went for a walk along Haddah Street and bought a grey suit and white shirt.

The next morning the sound of traffic drifted into the room through a fluttering curtain. He showered, taking care to perform the ritual ablution before prayer and dressed, putting on the new suit. Facing Mecca, he threw a clean headscarf over the floor in front of him, bowed low and then knelt in prostration five times. He prayed out loud, repeating, "Allah u Akbar." At the end of the fifth he sat on his knees with his legs tucked under him and meditated for a few minutes. Eyes closed, he held his hands on his lap with palms upturned and repeated 'la Allah, il Allah,’ 'there is no god but God.’ Finally, he turned to his right and then to his left saying "Salam alaykoum wa Muhammed barakatu," 'Peace be upon you and blessings of Mohammed be with you,' to the angels gathered with him in prayer. Standing, he straightened the suit, took a pair of socks and polished brown shoes from his bag, put them on and tied a clean, blue scarf about his head. He took the vest from the closet and tied it around his chest inside his shirt, checking the mirror to see that it was concealed. Gathering the rest of his belongings, he left the room and went downstairs to the desk.

"Checking out, sir?" the clerk smiled.

Ahmed hesitated, looking out the window at a cat walking along a wall topped with glass shards.

"Yes. Well, I will leave my bag here if I may. I don't know what my meeting will bring."

"Then, checking out?" the clerk looked at him over his glasses.

"Yes, for now," he put the keys and cash on the desk.

"As you like," he said, taking the bag. "Are you staying long in Sana'a?"

"God knows." he said, gazing vacantly out the window. The cat was gone.

The clerk took the keys and turned around to hang them on a peg. When he turned back, Ahmed had left.

Out on the street he stood in his new suit and headscarf looking like a tourist sheikh in the morning sunshine. He waved down a taxi and got in. "German Embassy," he said, checking his watch. He watched the traffic and let his thoughts again pass into paradise.

"This is as close as I can get," the driver said, stopping in front of a row of large concrete barricades about a block from the German Embassy. Ahmed paid him and got out. His heart raced in his chest as he walked down the street to the embassy. Images of green mountains and silver-blue flowing rivers flashed in his head.

At the gate a guard asked if he had an appointment.

"Yes, Ten o'clock, Consul."

"Name please?"

'Ahmed Rassas,' he said, pulling the passport from his pocket and handing it to the guard.'

"Step inside," the guard said, leading him into a small security room with a metal detector and iron door leading onto the embassy compound. The guard leafed through the pages of the passport, then picked up the phone.

'Ahmed Rassas, ten-o'clock." There was a pause, the guard stood with the phone to his ear looking at Ahmed. "OK," he said, putting the phone back on the receiver.

"Welcome to the German Embassy, Mr. Rassas." Smiling, he handed the passport back.

Ahmed walked through the metal detector, looking up as he passed through, his heart pounding as if it would exlpode through the vest. A light flashed green on the detector, a buzzer sounded and the heavy gray security door clicked open. "The consular building is on the right," the guard said as he passed through the door onto the embassy grounds.

Inside the consular building was cool and quiet. The high ceiling and recessed skylights made him think of a church he had once seen in a movie. In the front of the auditorium, down an aisle lined on both sides with theater seats, German Consul officials sat behind four security windows at a long counter.

"Please take a ticket, sir," a guard motioned him toward an appointment kiosk. He stood in front of it, unsure of what to do next. "Just press the red button," the guard said. He pressed the button and a small ticket rolled out, number 227.

He turned and took a seat. A man next to him held ticket number 189. On the wall above the windows a display counter flashed 176.

"It seems to be going pretty quickly," the man sitting next to him said. "We came in and it was at 156." Ahmed sat back in his seat and watched the display flash 178 and 179. Closing his eyes, he adjusted the vest underneath his shirt and tried to calm his racing heart with thoughts of paradise. The silence was broken occasionally by the 'swish-boom' sound of a stamped passport reverberating through the auditorium. When he opened his eyes again the man next to him was at one of the windows with his family. He looked around at the other Yemenis waiting patiently. His heartbeat echoed in his ears and he began to sweat. Getting up quickly, he looked around the room for a bathroom and rushed across the hall, almost falling through the swinging door. The bathroom was polished white tile and porcelain with chrome. His reflection in the mirror looked strange to him in the neon light. He ran the cold-water tap and washed his face. Looking at himself in the mirror he thought, 'Not today.' He would make another appointment; find an excuse. He could always start a new life in Aden as his father had. The thought occurred to him, 'No one will find me.' He stared at his reflection for a long while until his face seemed to change to something he recognized. 'It's now or never,' he thought. "NOW," he whispered to himself. Taking a deep breath he pushed the door open and walked steadily back to his seat, listening to his footsteps echo through the hall.

The appointment counter switched from 222 to 223 and then 224. Only a few people remained in the seats. A small group had gathered at the back of the hall to discuss their situation. They had been turned down. Sitting down, he took a few final deep breaths and watched the counter intently. It flashed 226. At the swish-boom of several stamps he jumped to his feet and swayed unsteady, like a man on the edge of a cliff. A family moved away from the window, one of the children clapping. Hand on the vest, he could feel himself walking slowly to the open window counter as if in a dream, the vision of far away blue mountains again in his head.

A young woman wearing brown frame glasses smiled behind the window as he approached. 'Long, blonde hair,' he thought as he made the final step to the window. Reaching under his shirt into the vest, he hesitated for a moment and looked closely at the young woman, then brought out a pile of old yellowed papers and photographs, setting them on the counter. "My name is Ahmed Felix Rause, Rassas in my Yemeni passport," he heard himself say. "My father was a German citizen; my mother, Yemeni. I'd like to apply for German citizenship."

The Consul’s face morphed from a professional smile to stony bewilderment. She stared at the pile of yellowed documents in front of her then took off her glasses and squinted, looking at Ahmed through the wire-mesh safety glass, standing there in front of her with a scarf tied about his head, as if he had just dropped a bomb.
















Chapter Two "Al Mohajjir"
2001
I met Ahmed Felix Rause in Sana’a a few days after the September 11 World Trade Center Attack. Meeting Ahmed gave me the opportunity to travel throughout Yemen with a local and observe the country firsthand as something more than just a tourist - we were on a mission to discover more about his father. But I suppose we should begin this story where it really began.
In the late winter of 2001, with a failed marriage and graduate school behind me, I was ready for a change. I was working for an investment bank as a junior level ‘executive investor.’ The title was invented more for the pride it installed in some of the junior staff rather than any real reference to the job. For in reality I was nothing more than one of a team of telemarketers for the bank. I thought the work dull and it had nothing to do with the M.A. degree I had earned. Often, I found myself reverting to a tendency first noted by my second-grade teacher in my report card that year: ‘likes to stare out of the window.’
From the window near my desk I looked out counting the days as the weather was beginning to turn. Patches of green peeked out here and there from the snow on the lawn of the university across the street. On a few of the warmer days brave girls ventured out in their spring gear, short skirts and high heels, walking carefully so as not to slip on the patches of ice left on the street and sidewalk. I watched as they turned men’s heads in passing. But I wanted nothing to do with all that. I was in search of something I then considered more meaningful - an adventure on the largest scale a middle-class boy from the Middle West could muster. I had sent out over eighty resumes to development organizations around the world. I was determined to work abroad, to live in a grass hut, an outpost somewhere in the high mountains of Tibet, on the African Savannah, anywhere far from the urban, western civilization I had tired of. It was an altogether foolish and fanciful notion.
One afternoon I received a phone call at my desk from my mother. An organization called CAREGIVING had called. They wanted to interview me in Washington D.C. for a project management job in the Republic of Yemen. "If they call again tell them yes, anytime," I told her. I had heard of Yemen but was only vaguely aware of it as a country somewhere in the Middle-East. A suicide bomber had attacked the U.S. Navy warship Cole a few months earlier, killing seventeen servicemen. I thought Yemen might be on the Persian Gulf. A quick internet search showed Yemen situated on the South-West corner of the Arabian Peninsula, below Saudi Arabia, with a coastline stretching from the Indian Ocean around to the Red Sea.

I took off the headset, put on my jacket and walked over to the university’s library. Looking through the Dewey decimal catalog, I found three books under ‘Yemen.’ ‘Three books in a library that boasts nearly a million,’ I remember thinking, ‘Not a good sign. There’s probably more books on necromancy in this library.’ The thought freaked me out. I wrote down the reference numbers on a small scrap of paper, collected two books and walked up the stairs into the ‘stacks,’ a section of the library where books no one read were shelved for the final book. The musty smell of old books brought me back to my years as an undergraduate student there nearly ten years before. I laughed at myself for having come full circle; from idealistic university student to jaded employment seeker in so short a time-span. And yet there I was, once again, in the musty old stacks.
I found the third book, took a seat at a desk next to a window and leafed through the books, setting two aside immediately. They were dense college texts filled with words. I could read them later. I was after images, instant gratification, something that would give me an immediate sense of place. The third book was oversized, like a coffee-table book, and as I opened it a world I thought had long since disappeared came to life in photographs. Turbaned men with grizzled faces leading a train of camels, veiled women in colorful, flowing dresses taking water from a well – children hiding in the folds of their skirts, stone and mud houses next to date palm trees, smiling men in white robes wearing swords and daggers, a blinkered camel tethered to a grinding mill on a sandy plain led round by a barefoot, shirtless man in a white, wraparound toga. There was not a single car, nor power-line, nor paved road: not a thing to indicate that the twentieth century had arrived in this place. And the people smiled. I thought ancient people were supposed to compose themselves straight-faced for photos. Every picture looked like a scene from the bible in two colors: soft, dusty brown with an occasional dash of spring green. As I turned the pages the browns faded from my recognition until green was the only ‘real’ color in the earthen, mono-colored landscape. Each scene was magical and timeless. It was a simple and beautiful land. I was transfixed.

I closed the book and looked out the window. An old man sat on a green bench spinning a yellow, red and blue umbrella. The world outside suddenly seemed quite unnatural, technicolor. Opening the book again I looked at the publication date, 1959. I took the checkout card from a small file pasted into the back cover. The book had been checked out four times: twice in 1962 by the same person, once in 1976 and again in 1979.

I collected the books, returned to the catalogs, and searched for texts on the
Arabic language. I checked out five books in all. I was surprised to find that as a graduate of the university, my driver’s license was accepted in lieu of a library card. The desk clerk politely accepted my license, scanned it, handed me the books and asked if I would like to pay the fine.

"What fine?" I asked.

"Well," she said, looking into the computer, "It says here that you have a past due fine from 1990 of two dollars and thirty-five cents."

I paid the fine. It would turn out to be the most valuable investment in my life: but more on that later – much later.
I took the books and went straight home to study for the interview.

The technicolor world could make do with one less telemarketer.

Hi All: If you've read this far and you aren't asleep then my hat is off to you! Perhaps you're a bit confused about what this is all about. Is this real? Is this fiction? Well, what you have read so far is fiction. These are stories that I am working on. However, an awful lot of this comes from things that I have seen and heard. The exception would be the first post which is a prologue to a novel I am writing about Yemen. I'll post chapter one of that novel here next. In the future I intend to also add occasional bits and stories from my personal travels.

Thanks for reading. Kyle

Running On Water - Part 1 - from The Mali Matrix

The Mali Matrix:
The Bamako Brawl and Other Adventures of a Gold Runner
By: Kyle A. Foster

Running On Water

Easter Sunday in Mali is a festive holiday, as is Easter Monday – a national holiday. This might seem odd considering that the population of the country is ninety-percent Muslim and, at least in theory, theologically opposed to the idea of Christ as the Risen Son of God. However, I’d been in Mali long enough that nothing much surprised me any longer and given that the national motto may as well have been, ‘Party till you Drop,’ there was a perfect logic to this seemingly theological contradiction. Any excuse for a holiday was acceptable.

While I was there we celebrated Independence Day, The Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday, Revolution Day, The Chinese Vice Premier’s Visit, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday and National Voter Registration Day. Each of these occasions brought with it a full day off of work, backyard barbeques (pork of all things), visits to the local bar, and raucous nights of dancing. This wasn’t just for a select group in the society. I was trying to avoid these things because I had a job to do. This was EVERYBODY. And therefore I found it very hard to avoid. As my hippie friend said to me at the beginning of this book, ‘When in Rome do as the fuckin’ Romans.’

Of all of these holidays, though, Easter Sunday was anticipated and celebrated with more ‘joi de vivre’ than any of the others. I had been invited to a barbeque at our client’s home. Predictably, he called to cancel because it was Easter Sunday. So when Sam Baldwin called to invite me to a picnic on the River Niger, I accepted. Baldwin was already at the river with Clint Eastwood and Hemingway so he gave me instructions to catch a taxi, point the taxi east on the main road out of town and then call him back. He’d guide the taximan in. ‘And bring your swimsuit,’ he added.

I put on my smimsuit and, following my doctor’s orders, a hat and sunglasses, before going out to the street to catch a taxi. I got the taxi pointed east and called Baldwin. He told the taximan where to take me. We drove out of town through green fields and then turned south along a dirt trail following the river. We’d bounced along the trail for about fifteen minutes when the taximan pulled over and stopped. I looked around. There wasn’t another person in sight, just a long stretch of river and trees running to the horizon. ‘Illegal for taximan this place,’ the driver said looking back at me. I offered him more money. ‘No, sorry, illegal.’ I paid him and got out, watching the taxi slowly move forward bouncing on the rutted trail – in the direction that I should be going. ‘Expect the impossible and don’t take anything for granted.’

I was in the middle of nowhere. This is one of those rare occasions when the modern cell phone actually comes in handy. I called Baldwin and, as I expected, they were somewhere up ahead in the direction the taxi had taken and, ‘across a beat to fuck old bridge.’

I walked ahead under the hammer edge of the African sun, thankful for the wise, practical advice of my doctor. I’d walked for about half an hour with no bridge in sight when, in spite of my anti-sun equipment, I started to wilt from thirst and dehydration. Heat exhaustion was surely just around the corner. This is where Mali culture has provided a very practical solution for the wayward traveler. In Mali, you must always have water available at your place of residence and you must always offer it freely to anyone who asks of it, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, highway robber, brigand or strange looking white dudes with hat and sunglasses. I had witnessed total strangers walk in off the street, point at a bucket of water without a word, receive a drink and then walk away without a word of thanks. I was determined to take advantage of this wonderful hospitality and I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of peopled habitation. Another ten minutes or so walk up the river I saw a traditional hut in the distance with an old woman sitting outside. I walked off the road to the hut where the old lady sat and said sternly, ‘Hey, old lady. Water!’ pointing to the clay jar in front of her. She smiled as if she understood my joke completely and ladled a big scoop of water into a tin cup and handed it to me. I drank it all down and was surprised to find it refreshing and cool. Then, unable to carry my ruse any further, I broke into a smile, handed her the cup and said, ‘Merci.’ She returned a huge, toothless smile and gave me a little bow. I bowed in return and walked on, finally coming to the ‘bridge’ fifteen or so minutes later. It wasn’t so much a bridge as a ramshackle concrete dock two-hundred yards long spanning the river where it flowed over barren, black volcanic rock. Whitewashed concrete tombs straddled some of the higher, larger rock formations. ‘Ali’ was painted on the side of one in big, bold, black letters with a large Christian Cross next to it. I wondered if Ali was a Sufi or just hedging his bets.

Across the bridge I could see a large crowd of four or five thousand people on a grassy meadow down along the river’s bank to the right. I stood up on the bluff overlooking the scene: colors, tents, drums beating, a group of two or three hundred men and women line- dancing, thousands of motorbikes lined up perfectly parallel parked around the green and the Niger running white and blue over rapids behind it all. I called Baldwin. This is another case where the mobile phone has a practical application – when you’re lost in a crowd. ‘Hey, I see you white boy!’ he said. ‘What?’ I asked, scanning the scene. ‘You’re the only other white man here and you’re wearing a hat and sunglasses. Come straight down the path and you’ll find me.’ I walked straight down into the crowd and there was the smiling, shirtless Baldwin. He was wearing some kind of dainty silver slippers. ‘Nice shoes, Baldwin.’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘These are my jelly sandals, everyone wears them here,’ he said, handing me a beer. It was cold. ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked. ‘You can get anything here,’ he said, looking around. There were little stalls everywhere with women selling cold drinks out of coolers, kebabs off the grill, homemade jewelry, clothing, candies, sunglasses…

He led me down to the river across a series of stones in the water to a large boulder where Eastwood and Hemingway, both in sunglasses, sat looking back over the crowd on the riverbank like two King-Stewards in their realm. Bongo was there in a strapless yellow bikini and sunglasses sitting between them. Eastwood stood to give us a hand-up.

‘Hi Boss,’ Bongo purred, lifting her sunglasses.

‘Hi Bongo. How do you manage to keep that suit on?’

‘You’re a bad man!’ she said, slapping my leg as I sat down behind her and Hemingway.

‘Yes I am. But not as bad as Hemingway here, he’s dangerous.’

‘Wayae!’ Eastwood laughed, sitting down and slapping his knee.

Baldwin sat down next to me. ‘So what took you so long?’

I told him about the taxi letting me out in the middle of nowhere. He said that taxis weren’t allowed to cross the bridge but couldn’t make sense of why he’d let me out three miles down the road. ‘Maybe he thought I needed the exercise.’

I looked out over the crowd. There was a lot of energy there. The line-dancing group had grown, I guessed it at five or six-hundred. Someone had pulled a purple school bus onto the green and rock music blasted from makeshift speakers on the roof. A rock n’ roll crowd was gathering there. There was a real sense of community and abandoning of the self to the crowd. I also got the sense that one or two wrong moves by the wrong person and the whole scene could go Rwanda very quickly. I was glad we were alone on our own little island.

The air was cool here and behind us the rapids rushed and rolled in a white frenzy. Hemingway had a big plastic bag with ice and beers. Bongo was making sandwiches. Eastwood was rolling one of his left-handed cigarettes. This was turning out to be a perfect Easter picnic.

To be continued....

Buck Naked in Bamako

By. Kyle A. Foster
From: Buck Naked in Bamako and Other Stories

I checked into the Mali Afrikana Hotel in Bamako. After relaxing in my room and I stepped out onto the blazing hot, dusty streets of Bamako to ‘get my bearings’ and educate myself about the new work environment. There was no better way, I believed then, to get to know a town than by immersing yourself in it with a long walk and a grounds eye view of all that it had to offer, all of it’s inconveniences and all of its dangers.
I looked left down the dirt road in front of the hotel. The road ran and rolled into the distance lined with leaning palm trees that did not stir in the breeze. Across the street a sign on the wall advertised the ‘Peoples Commune’ with an image of Che Guevara painted on the gate. Behind the wall the commune looked more like a bombed out concrete bunker with a burned palm tree in the courtyard. I wondered what they did in there. I turned right and walked towards a busy asphalted road. Most of the traffic was small cc motorcycles and scooters with a few Mercedes sedans thrown in. As I approached the street a large heavy duty road bike piloted by a black-leather spirit in goggles rocketed down the center of the road at at least one-hundred mph and disappeared in the distance faster than the roaring echo of the motor dissipated over the dust cloud he’d left behind. No one appeared to notice. It seemed that a motorcycle madman rocketing down the street at death speed was a normal occurance in Bamako. This was my first real lesson. ‘There are crazy and dangerous people in this town. There are enough of them to have cowed the general population of good people into indifference. Walk carefully. Make no decisions lightly. Look four times before crossing any street anywhere.’
I watched the traffic closely then crossed the road quickly and walked left along the side of the road and an open sewer trench, past two Castel Beer bars and a small metal workshop where a lone, shirtless engineer in plastic sandals, with no protective eyegear blasted away at a large sheet of metal with an acetylene torch. The shower of sparks made me regret that I’d left my sunglasses and hat in the room. Within a few blocks I was drenched with sweat and dizzy from the smell of the sewer in the baking heat. A little further on up the road the sewer mercifully dropped underground and I came upon a clean, open air bar painted peppermint red and white, called ‘Crazy Horse.’ I walked in and took a seat at the bar with a clear view to the street with traffic passing just a few feet away. I ordered a bottle of beer from the smiling, Indian barman. As he delivered the beer the leather and goggles madman rocketed back up the street from the opposite direction. The barman smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What can we do? This is Bamako.’ I thanked him when the roar faded.
The beer was refreshing ice cold but the bottle was sweating at approximately the same rate as my body. By the third swig the beer had been reduced to the general terpidity of hot swamp water. I was sipping the beer slowly and watching the road when a midget in a dragging L.A. Lakers jersey walked by balancing a sewing machine on his head with a watermelon balanced on top of that. I sat there sluggish in the heat trying to gulp the hot beer down. 'Wait, that was a midget with a sewing machine and watermellon on his head,' I realized. I jumped up, grabbed my camera and ran down the street in the direction of the midget. I couldn’t have been more than two minutes behind him but he was nowhere to be found. This was my second lesson. ‘Expect the impossible and don’t take anything for granted.’ I gave up and walked back up the road to the Crazy Horse. The sun was low above the horizon and cast long shadows across the road.
I was considering the possibility of introducing wrap-around beer coolies to the local market when a shirtless, ageing hippie with shoulder length blonde hair dripping with sweat walked in off the street. He tripped and stubbed his sandled toe on the single step-up in and swore, ‘FUCK!,’ turning back to look at the step as if it had jumped up and kicked him. He turned around slowly and limped up to the bar and took a stool directly next to mine.
‘Dude, it’s fuckin’ hotter ‘n’ fuck,’ he said, looking at me with a wild eyed-stare as he sat down.
‘Well, that’s one way to say it,’ I laughed.
‘Fuck yah. I don’t believe in fuckin’ mincin’ words. You uhMerican?’ He asked without a pause.
‘Yes, well, I’m originally from there.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘You here to buy gold?’
‘Actually, I’m doing an investment analysis for a bank in Hong Kong,’ I lied.
‘Analysis my ass! Don’t bullshit me, brother,’ he said as he turned and ordered two beers. ‘I could spot you from a fuckin’ mile away. I was just like you once, all fuckin’ fancy in a nice fuckin’ shirt.’
I managed to laugh. ‘When was that?’
‘Bout six friggin’ weeks ago, dude. Seems like a fuckin’ lifetime,’ he said as the barman set two bottles of beer on the bar. ‘Here’s to ya,’ he said, handing me a beer and clinking his bottle to mine. He lifted the bottle straight up and chugged it all down in four or five gulps, then knocked it back on the bar. ‘You gotta get this shit down quick. It’ll be hotter ‘n’ piss in a couple minutes.’
I stood there, full beer in hand, looking at his sweating, bulging, bloodshot eyeballs and trying to imagine what I might look like after six weeks in this heat. I tried to throw the beer back but instead sneezed it out through my nose. I grabbed a towel from the bar and pretended as if nothing had happened.
‘So, are you here to buy gold?’ I asked, wiping my face with the towel.
‘Fuckin’ was, dude, fuckin’ was,’ he sighed. ‘That was before I got ripped. Two hundred fuckin’ grand U.S. All that my old man left me. Now I just say "fuck it," and I’m fuckin’ existing, know what I mean?’
‘Sorry man, I said, and managed to drink down half the beer.
‘You gotta watch your shit here, man,’ he said, bulging eyes watching me drink the rest of my beer. ‘This place will fuckin’ fuck you up, dude. Everything.'
I asked the barman to bring two beers.
‘Tell me more,’ I said.
‘First things first, he said, pointing at the barman putting the beers on the bar. He grabbed a beer and, clinking the bottle to mine he lifted it and slammed it back in several large gulps before knocking it back on the bar.
‘It was the day after I got ripped, I think. I got fuckin’ hammered, ya know, and the next day or the day after, I don’t know, I found myself kind of wandering the streets in a daze. I didn’t even have money for a hotel. I burned it all or maybe got the rest of it ripped. But I still had my ticket, wallet, credit cards and passport so I figured in the end everything was cool and I figured I’d do just like the fuckin’ Romans do around here and go to sleep under a tree. So I kicked off my rubber sandals and laid down under a tree next to the road and passed out. I don’t know how much fuckin’ time passed it could have been a few hours or a few days for all I know.’
His eyes seemed to bulge out towards my beer as I struggled to gulp the rest down. I turned to the barman and ordered another round.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘when I came to I sat up and looked around for my sandals. The sun had changed and my sandals were, like, in full sun heat on the sidewalk. I tried to pick them up and the bastards were fuckin’ stuck, melted into the pavement!’
The barman set two beers on the bar in front of us and my gold buying friend stopped for a few seconds to drain his down.
Knocking the bottle back on the bar, he said, ‘Fuckin’ melted flat into the cement,’ shaking his head.
‘What did you do?’ I asked.
‘Well, later when I knew I was really broke, with some bran’ new fucked-up shoes, I came back at night after things had cooled down and scraped them up off the pavement.’
I looked down at his sandals and laughed. They looked vaguely like a couple of blue Folger’s Coffee lids with toe straps attached.
‘But then,’ he went on, I figured, "what the fuck," ya know? I didn’t have anywhere to go and nothin’ to do so I went back to sleep. Then when I woke up again I thought I was dreamin’ because this old-as-fuck bitch had my pants down and was suckin’ strong on my schlong! Dude, I mean she was really goin’ at it fuckin’ lickin’ the old lizard.’
‘What!’ I gasped, nearly sneezing out more beer. ‘And what were the people on the street doing? Didn’t anyone stop her?’
‘Everyone was just mozeying on by minding their own business. I guess maybe they thought she was my girlfriend or something.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’ I asked.
‘Fuck no, dude, I wish I was. And it gets frickin’ worse, I tell ya.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ I said, motioning to the barman for another round. ‘I think we both want another beer for this.’
‘Thanks, dude,’ he said taking a beer from the barman. He drained the bottle and wiped the sweat pouring off his brow before continuing.
‘It’s all fuckin’ true. I tell you this as a brother gold runner. Just watch your shit. This town will fuckin’ fuck you up, dude,’ he said, eyes bulging.
‘Go on, go on.’
‘Well, I frickin’ thought I was hallucinating from the sun or loads of alcohol or both and anyway even if she was an ugly-as-fuck, old, toothless bitch it felt pretty good so I figured I’d just let it roll and I passed out.’
The motorcycle madman roared back down the street. I wondered what kind of a mission he was on. The sky was fading red into dusk. Colored lights like Christmas twinkled in the doorways of the bars up and down the street. I stood up to pay the bill and looked at my wild eyed friend.
‘Don’t you want to know the rest?’ he asked, looking at the wallet in my hand.
‘More still!’ I laughed and ordered him another beer.
‘Yeah, dude, the best part,’ he said, reaching across the bar for his beer. He tossed it back with one swig and knocked the bottle down on the bar. ‘This is where I get all bogarted and shit.’
I sat down thinking, "Holy Smokes! How can this get any worse?"
‘So I woke up and the old bitch was gone,’ he said. And I thought, "whew, it really was a dream!" But then I looked down and my pants were totally gone! And to top it off the old bitch, or someone, made off with not only my pants but my wallet, credit cards, ticket home and my fuckin’ passport, dude!’
I was laughing so hard I was nearly crying.
‘I’m sorry, I said when I finally stopped laughing. So what did you do then?’
‘Yeah, I guess it is kind of funny. Well,’ he went on. ‘So I’ve got no fuckin’pants, right? And no fucking ticket, passport, credit cards or Jack Shit anything and my sandals are still melted into the cement – so I just figured "what the fuck, I aint never been naked in public before, might as well go whole hog." So I took off my shirt and just started walkin’ up the street. I tell you what, dude, you aint never seen so many scared Africans beatin’ cheeks like when you get your white self buck naked and go for a stroll in Bamako, Mali.’
Now I was crying. I was laughing so hard my ears hurt. After a while I managed to choke out, ‘Where did you go?’
‘Well, I could see the church steeple in the distance so I marched my ass there and the priests gave me some money and some clothes. Fuckin’ cool dudes, those priests. I just might have to pay me them another visit. The shoes they gave me were too small though so I went back and pried these fuckers loose,’ he said, looking down at his drooping sandals.
I got up, wiped the tears from my eyes and paid the bill, handing my would-be gold buying friend a ten-thousand cfa note. He thanked me and said, ‘Just remember, dude, this place will fuckin’ fuck you up, so watch your shit!’ He stood up and walked out into the street. I didn’t even get his name. I followed him out and watched him shuffle slowly down the street.
Just then all the lights on the street went dark. A great cheer rose from all up and down the street and people rushed out from everywhere dancing into the road. This was my third lesson. ‘Faced with a disfunctional system these people will use any occasion to bring joy into their lives.’ I made my way through the crowded street back to the hotel. As I entered through the gate into the garden a generator sputtered to life and a single bulb slowly pulsed to a yellow glow, swinging in the breeze over the bar. I pulled up a stool at the bar, sat down and ordered a beer, sipping it slowly and thinking about my nameless friend no doubt now dancing somewhere down the street.
Mukella, Yemen. April 2009.

The Mali Matrix:
The Bamako Brawl and Other Adventures of a Gold Runner
By: Kyle A. Foster

The Writer. On the Edge.
The gold deal clearly was not going down as we had planned. Pressure was rising from all sides. First, what we expected to be a week to ten-day in and out job had stretched into more than one-month with no end in sight. Second my wife and first-born newborn baby girl were waiting for me back in Yemen - and my wife was threatening to leave me, if she even answered my phone calls. Third, my seller-associates were jerking me around and it was becoming clear that they were not serious businessmen but jokers. Fourth, I was coming down with some unknown disease that I described to my boss as, ‘water ass’ (no further explanation) and I was trying in vain to combat it with various pills and anti-biotics. I was tired and sweating profusely like a drug addict in withdrawl. Fifth, my technology schemes were failing. My computer hard drive had announced that it was irrepairable and in the final stages of disintegration. I was sweating so much into my phone that it had gone into a coma and I had to take it apart and blast it with a hair dryer in the hopes that it would revive. The local internet provider was 128 slow and overloaded – when it wasn’t completely down which was about half the time. Sixth, my inability to communicate properly as one does within first world business conditions was leading my boss to question both my ability and my commitment to the project. Finally, I had slipped on a wet sidewalk and sliced my big toe open to the bone. I was a wounded, limping, sweating, ill, tired, lonely, frustrated and angry man. It may be more accurate to say that I was angrier than a caged grizzly bear in heat. I was a human time bomb ticking – and I was about to explode.
With all of these pent-up emotions and physical problems I couldn’t sleep one evening so I finally got out of bed with the idea that I’d get something to eat. The Mali-Africana had no room service and outside of regular meal hours the kitchen was closed, so I limped out onto the dark road and turned towards the flashing lights and thumping discos of Blah Blah Street. I crossed the street to ‘Snak CafÈ’ where I ordered a burger. As hungry as I was I could only stomach a few bites due to my upset stomach, my shot-to-hell nerves or both so I had the burger wrapped to go and walked back out to Blah Blah Street where I was immediately accosted by about ten different taxi-men. This didn’t help my mood because they all knew I lived less than one-hundred yards around the corner. I waved them off with a glare saying, ‘Helicopter, Helicopter, no taxi!’ and limped on. When in doubt let them think that you’re crazy.
‘I am really strung-out,’ I remember thinking. I am mean and I must look like hell.’
I turned the corner onto the dark, dirt road to my hotel and a few limping steps later four very large men stepped out from the shadows to block my path.
‘Take us to your room,’ the leader said in English. I had been told about this scheme. Local boys try to get into your room where they think they can get your money.
‘NO!,’ I responded with force giving each man a hard stare straight into the eyes.
‘You WILL take us to your room,’ the leader insisted.
‘NO.’ I affirmed, looking each man in the eye again, ‘I WILL NOT!’
I walked directly towards them trying not to limp, ducking between the middle two and intending to continue walking back to my hotel. Then I felt two arms wrapping across my chest from behind as if to get me in a ‘full Nelson’ lock.
In an instant my mind and instincts became one. I thought of my baby. I thought of my wife. I thought of my boss friend Raja back in Bangkok and how hard we had both worked for this project. I wasn’t about to let these goons come between me and any of that. Not on this night. ‘You must get out of this hold.’ I dropped straight down tucking my chin in so as not to give any angle they might hold on to and jettisoned the burger. ‘What have I got that they don’t have?’… ‘Baseball, you’re an American, you can throw, they can’t.’ As a boy I spent three years in the basement throwing baseballs at a small chalk circle drawn onto the brick wall. I can throw with accuracy.
Dropping out of their grasp I scoured the rock strewn road and grabbed two baseball sized chunks of granite and jumped back, taking aim at the closest man four feet away. Right handed, two fingers on top and thumb on the left side of the stone I cocked my arm back, took a step forward and threw my hand and elbow full force directly at the man’s face, launcing the rock at fifty to sixty miles per hour. The missle hit him directly in the face between the mouth and nose. He dropped straight down, instantly, into a motionless heap as if he’d been shot through the head. I pivoted, moving the other rock into my right hand and took a step forward launching the stone straight at the next closest man. This rock struck somewhere between the collar bone and the adam’s apple. He fell backwards onto the road clutching his throat with a look of surprise on his face.
Immediately I turned and scanned for the remaining two men. They were both backing away. One was backing directly towards a concrete wall. ‘Use your speed against him.’ I am not a big man but I can run the hundred in around eleven seconds and the mile in nearly four minutes so I rushed at the man backing towards the wall at full speed. I had forgotten about my toe. As I neared him and he backed nearer to the wall I thought of my friend, Micah Heibel, a University of Nebraska Fullback famous for his crushing blocks. I tucked my shoulder like Micah aiming it at my opponents chin and flicked my shoulder just as it came into contact with his jaw. His head whipped back hitting the wall with a sound like a grapefruit dropped onto the pavement. He slid straight down, arms spread wide.
All of this happened in three of four seconds. I turned around bursting with adrenaline, determined to finish the fight. The last man, the ringleader, was backing away, eyes wide with fright. I realize now that for all he knew he had just seen a skinny white devil kill three of his friends. At the time though I wasn’t in much of a mood for contemplation and so I launched myself full speed in his direction, not really knowing what I would do if I caught him. He turned and ran. I knew then that I had won the fight. This big goon was never going to outrun me. I jogged behind laughing and almost feeling sorry for him. I pursued him leisurely, easily keeping pace while stopping to pick up handfulls of smaller gravel stones which I threw at the ground three feet behind him ‘cricket style’ so the stones would bounce up in his face and keep him dancing. A block or two later he looked back in panic and realized that he couldn’t outrun me. Then he scrambled up into a tree climbing high into the upper branches. I stood at the foot of the tree picking up stones and pelting him with each one. There were no street lights and I could see only the whites of his eyes high up in the tree, big and scared like an owl. With each hurled stone I heard a ‘thud’ as the rock struck paydirt and the eyes would momentarily disappear, wincing in pain. I hurled an insult with each stone. ‘Wanna come to my room now, pretty boy? C’mon down here, how about a little manlovelove, sister? You better give up your life of crime because you don’t have what it takes!’
Finally, out of insults and beginning to pity the poor guy I left him in the tree and began to walk back, limping with purpose this time so as to shame him further. I was thinking about the first man I had drilled in the face with the concrete fastball at close range. The way he dropped lifeless and limp made me worry that I’d killed him. When I got back to the scene of the brawl the three were gone. This gave me momentary relief. But then I thought, ‘maybe he was dead and the other two carried him away. Or maybe he is dying somewhere right now.’
I had the hotel desk call the police and report my concern over the incident. The police said, ‘Don’t worry, no problem. Whatever you did, you did the right thing.’
The next morning the police called to congratulate me. The four were known as ‘Ivory Coast Mafia Boyz,’ the man said, and I had succeeded in kicking them off of the street – something which the local police had been unable to do in six months.
I had a meeting that morning with a potential sellers group so I put on my best shirt and suit and polished my shoes before going down for breakfast. When I walked out onto the street I noticed a new group of smaller young men with decidedly friendlier faces than had been there before. Someone let out a yell, ‘Mali Boyz!’ They all started to clap and cheer. One young man came up to me and said, ‘Boss, we want to thank you for giving us our street back. What should we do now, Boss?’
‘Thanks, I said, but I am not your boss. Just promise me you’ll all behave like gentlemen with honor. Don’t hurt anyone. And don’t pick on me!’ I laughed, pointing at the new leader. They all laughed. What else could I say to this group of poor young men faced with such limited opportunities? I wished them well and got into my waiting taxi. From that day on they all called me, ‘Boss.’ And I never had a problem on the street again…until the last day. But more about that later.
The thought that I might have killed my attacker still haunts me. At the very least he was knocked out cold and left in need of major reconstructive dental surgery. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I am normally not a fighter. In fact I am a peaceful kind of guy and that suits me just fine. I acted instinctively that night, when cornered. Normally, I would have run and they would have had no chance to catch me. I suppose that with my wounded foot my instinct that night was to stand and fight.
Land pirates like the ones that attacked me know the rules of their business when they enter it. I was lucky. But they picked on the wrong guy at the wrong time and that is a risk they will always face in their line of work. I sincerely hope that my attacker is alive and well, gumming jello and pudding somewhere in the Ivory Coast and saving money for dental surgery. I hope he is thinking about how to make an honest living. But I’ll be forever haunted by the possibility that I killed a man in Bamako.
Mukella, Yemen. May 2009