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Sunday, May 3, 2009

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.

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