| |
 The cover of Newsletter N.2
Kenya can't solve it alone
Last developments in Kenya
Local initiatives
Have you taken the ethnic route?
The political crisis in Kenya
Let's drink the Tea of Peace
 African Pride
|
|
AFRICAN PRIDE
Carmen Pace Gueye is an Italian writer and peace activist
Hello everybody, my name is Carmen. I will tell you about myself a little bit, because you have to know how I feel about Africa.
I’ve been a tourist, not a traveller. I have often asked myself why people love touring: big question, so many big answers! Perhaps because the western world has more means, women travel, society has changed. Books that we have read, pictures that we have seen, moved our desires, made us dream and escape daily life with our fantasies, even if we cannot do anything else. Modern tourism history began thirty years ago, more or less, and the confusion doesn’t stop. Does indeed the risk of accident exist? The chance of it does not frighten the tourists. What represents your typical tourist? Normal people, two journeys a year, photos, memories, until the next escape. I have been a similar person!
I went to Africa only once, and this is a short report of my trip. Tragicomedy, it seems to me.
Morocco is not considered a dangerous destination; it’s not necessary to take pills to prevent health problems – and anyway- I didn’t care about it. On the plane we tried to take business class, ‘cause there were only eight passengers, but the pilot chased us away! After the landing, at the customs, there were long and strenuous checks and the young people were controlled more and more.
Agadir: very long sandy beach, strong smells, noisy deals at the fish market, a ruin of a castle above the country; bad boys hassled us to buy a joint, but you know that you must refuse: it’s easy getting into trouble over there. The room was simple, without “comforts”; only distraction for the guests, the gymnasium and the trainer always looking for single female tourists, a handsome and exotic boy smiling at foreign girls. My husband, Roberto, advised me to relax: drinks, vegetables, we were thinking it was all going to be easy and we counted on luck. The teeth! My God, we will not buy mineral water for this. And that’s what happened: dysentery and the husband in bed for two days.
Seaside: fully dressed women were taking a difficult bath. I was very, very angry!
Then we tried an excursion to Tarouddant; next we went to the locations shown in many pictures. Our assistant was Alì, a fat boy who was repeating all the time: I hate German people! But there were only Italians! I was forced to drink a cup of very strong tea. I couldn't refuse: local people would be offended! My stomach hurt a lot!
My husband and I were talking with two Italian women; the younger one, a fat forty-five years old teacher, announced that Arabian males loved women like her very much... A dealer shouted at Roberto:" Mon ami, I'll give you something for hot love nights!". Roberto didn't appreciate it. We visited so many shops! Inside one of these, the clerk, a young boy, said he loved my blue eyes and placed a coloured veil on my head; then, he proposed to marry me in exchange of many camels, but Roberto didn't need camels :"take her for free'', he answered... The teacher was jealous of me, thin as I am, and a skeleton, after...the dysentery.
We walked ten kilometres to visit a village named "Inetzgane", such a glamorous name, but a nice Berber man almost forced us to buy a lot of merchandise, amongst which olives, cumin and tuja spices; and, naturally, we had to give a tip to our new tour assistant!
There was a night show for all the European groups together. At the beginning, we ate speciality "nouvelle cuisine": almost nothing in the dishes. There was a performance "en travesti"; the singers were French people, unknown to us, speaking in many languages, but when they spoke Italian… Italians protested! The entertainer, a failed dancer coming from low level nightclubs, could only say "ciao"
The belly dancer smiled at all the males, at my husband too: he was still suffering, but the exotic beauty cured him very well! Drag queens, beautiful girls, but nothing, nothing for women: it's an old story!
Second part of journey: Marrakech.
We saw old motorcycles, vans, bikes, trucks, a bit broken but running more or less; the richest people were driving R4; someone said that almost all the vehicles were stolen ones, often from Italy! Every minute, we were scared by the shouts of the women, with their tongue vibrations.
We were lodging in the Tikida Hotel, downtown, in the middle of a wonderful oasis. We chose it from the Italian advertisement, at the travel agency: swimming pool, shopping centre, smart Arabian furniture... The local assistant, Mohamed, who looked like a playboy, dressed in French style, arrived driving a R4; Roberto wanted to be reassured about the theft risk and his questions immediately offended him. Bad start.
Followed the city tour, with the very thin Mustapha, a rude fellow, envious of Mohamed’s wealth; which was really nothing special after all; he mistreated us and the trip was very short. But I wanted to taste the local atmosphere. I had a photo taken with two snakes around my neck, while Mustapha was laughing. Roberto and I decided to take the risk: we wanted to take a look out of the hotel- without assistance, finally! But rien à faire! A lot of children were running around us, asking bonbons and coins, throwing stones. We soon came back and were prisoners in Tikida until the end of the journey.
"The life of that sea was like the endless destiny of the humans, forever fixed in equal waves, moving within an unchangeable time. And I was thinking with loving pain about that immovable time and the dark civilization that I had abandoned." ("Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - Carlo Levi")
I'm not a tourist anymore, I don't even know why. Perhaps, because my life has changed so much, I look elsewhere; I'm older, tired, and poorer.
I remember my last travels: the world was ruining itself and I was imagining myself as an old pacifist, a revolutionary woman, fighting against the fast food near the temples, with my sense of guilt: my travels would help the poor- of the world, they work, they earn, thanks to tourists! I also remember the poverty that I saw - you think, I didn't see the worst - and the trouble of the world:
children in war, baby whores, illness, hunger, while I eat up my "croissant au chocolat", before work. Here I am, not Che Guevara, neither Florence Nightingale, me, just me!
I have to live as best as I can, that's what I repeat to myself every day, it's my right. I forget all around me and I look at the sky. What else? Soon after, I must run, to catch the train, to go to the market, to the hairdresser, to the doctor, I'm in a big mess. I'd like to live in the city of Donald Duck, because now I don't feel good, here, in my country. The new system, the global system pulls me away, it doesn't need people like me. F... off. If only a place, one place, called, telling that it needs me, just me.
It was the time I believed Africa to be the place of my dreams, but "she" came to me and for now it's enough, but we can move ourselves also without a plane, using our inner strength, our feelings, our will. African pride can be our pride, too, if we can forget, for a moment, the little troubles of every day.
We must remove some behaviour; pity, ideology, legend, space to dream, states of mind good for us, but for them? Africa is not an escape for our daily tiredness; we have to assume it as another reality that belongs to the human gender. We don't have the mission to change it, we must respect it, that’s all, without posing conditions… Africa won't change for us; maybe, instead, we will change for Africa.
My logo: I'M AFRICAN. |
|
Newsletter N.1 English Version