Tunisia, part II.

It is windy, very windy and the sand blows over the desert in a gauzy white veil. We are there, my son and I, part of group coming from Spain in which we are the exception – the other 20 odd folk are all young Spanish university students, from Barcelona and Madrid, Valladolid and Granada. We mount the camels that are waiting for us and begin our saunter into the dunes: a tame ride on the fringes of the Sahara, where the sands have not yet taken on the reddish-ochre glow of the “deep desert” postcards we have seen. In fact, this is but a common ride offered to tourists, two or three camels pulled by taciturn men who seem disgruntled with their task. They become even more so when I exchange my odd mount for a better one - the fiery red Arabian horse who is offered to me, too tempting not to accept after so many years of nurturing my own “Orientalist” fantasy of deserts and desert horses…


As the days go by, we get to know our fellow travelers better. The young Spanish students in our group seem to take in everything with a definite enthusiasm for difference (the “natural”, the “cultural”) on occasions with awe … yet without any apparent signs of discomfort. Of course, our contact with the local people has been basically limited to the perfunctory – bargaining at the marketplace, primarily, and then there are the linguistic barriers that leave us content just to take in the long descriptions and explanations that our guide, who is quite fluent in Spanish, provides us. There are few moments when the barrage of vendors subsides. They are there even when rocky surge of the Atlas mountains separating Tunisia from Algeria rises before us, or while eating succulent dates in an “oasis” that looks more like a park in a small city than that which our long-kindled fantasies have led us to expect…

From the window of the bus, rapid succession of images: arid landscapes, arid towns. Peasant women with scarves and headgarb, or working alongside other members of the family in orchards and fields not so unlike “a roça” back home, occasional shepherds with their diminished flocks picking their way through the incongruous juxtaposition of new constructions and old mosques, people hawking their wares on the highway, a young woman waiting at an empty train station in the middle of nowhere. Driving through one small city at twilight, I see a neon sign outside a long flat building that says something like ‘Faculte d’Études Sociales et Politiques’, seeming so strangely out of context (my bias, albeit.)

Grabbing at any chance I get to talk to anyone, with whatever linguistic resources I have at my disposal – the cab driver, a gracious woman pharmacist with whom I share a brief exchange when I go in to purchase a pair of tweezers, the handsome young man whose horse I ride over the sands that in this case, are but the “gateway” to a Sahara I will never really enter. As days go by, we get better at the tasks at hand: bargaining at the medina, photographing peasants, veiled and unveiled women from a bus window as the scenarios whizz by, framing everything in transient perspective. Our guide is perpetually taking advantage of the hours spent riding our tour bus to feed us tidbits of information on his country: its long history since the days of Carthage and Rome, its route into modernity, the current political regime and the historic, improved status of women within this Muslim country, how Berber shepherds who still live inside caves carved into the stony hills depend also on the few dinars we drop into their boxes after our brief glimpse at their abode. I am not sure how many of the young folk on board pay attention, but some, I am sure, are as interested as I am. For others, perhaps much less.

Like most of the places I have been through too quickly, I feel like I should come back. There are things around me I try to grasp in too little time. Too many days spent on the bus, with all those landscapes and dun-colored towns whirring by. A calm afternoon in Sidi Bou Said and the gleaming blue sea stretching out behind it, Lucas and I drinking mint tea and almonds with the young ladies from Barcelona, and gentle caress of the Mediterranean sea and feeling just so damn lucky to be in a place I had never dreamed of getting to. Time, travel and strong(er) currencies are a privilege I know are not to be taken lightly. To greedily drink from the fountain of what this world has to offer and to perhaps give something back: just some coins, just these words?

Day three in Tunisia: reflections on “consuming place” and searching for the Other…

Part 1.

When we venture out on our own in the late afternoon, I stop to ask for directions from a young man who has anxiously offered his services in escorting us to the city center in his horse and cart. We hesitate a bit, wondering whether to accept or to continue our trajectory on foot. I gather all my available linguistic resources to carry out our conversation in bits and pieces – as much French as possible, with Spanish and English thrown in whenever I get stuck. Twenty year old Mohammed takes a liking to us and offers to show us a bit of the city “not for money”…and then to take us to a store where we can pick up some swimming trunks or a pair of shorts for Lucas. When he drives us a bit out of the way, into what is evidently the periferia of a city that, with the exception of its row of luxury hotels, in itself has a shabby and chaotic appearance, I wonder for a moment where he is taking us… just as I am grateful for the chance to get a bit further from the beaten path. He seems kind and interested in conversation, and I feel frustrated with myself for my still so very limited ability to express myself in French. I believe him when he says he is taking us “not for money” and attempts to refuse the coins I give him…

My son, who complains that I am “too optimistic” about everything, most of the time, believes that the local folks’ interactions with us could hardly be based on anything more than immediate interest in financial reward and seems to find my attempts at communication rather silly. Even when we stop some young women on the street, and I use my feeble French to ask for directions, what I interpret as shy smiles are to him grins and laughter at my linguistic limitations. Of course, I do not fool myself… we are little more than part of a huge mass phenomenon, coming now to a country whose economy is moved by tourism, traveling the world at any chance we get. “You must be a sociologist”, said a young man whom I talked with at convenience store, “you ask so many questions!” Just as he is perceptive, I suppose I am obvious. And I also suppose one could say, this is one of the many moments in which my professional and my personal interest come together. Perhaps also, for many of the people who deal with the throngs of tourists crowding their markets and streets, sociability, communication and curiosity intermingle with their need or interest in making a livelihood from the foreign visitors who come to their shores. (After all, haven’t notions of pure sentiments, actions, borders and boundaries lost their credibility? )

Snapshots of a place and time

Vai passando muito tempo sem nova postagem.
Para não deixar os dias passar assim, "em branco" -- na verdade, não,
mas outros trabalhos têm tomado muito meu tempo -
decidi postar hoje este pequeno texto,
"work-in-progress" que comecei a escrever ao sair de
uma exposição de fotos à que tinha entrado, um dia,
por acaso, num passeio pelas Ramblas...)


A blue dress hanging on the cottage porch
Small fingers of a girl pushing back her hair,
Adjusting her barrette
Rows of cinderblock apartments, and inside –
a fragile dining table covered with plastic,
a stunned grandchild looking out the window.
Perhaps his green eyes follow the road winding out,
An intuition that somewhere something else
Might happen. On the tv, there are layers of
Snow covering highways and train tracks
And a warm place where buildings crumbled at dawn
Under the terrible tremors of the earth
(And now no water. No mouthfuls of rice or potato.)
Or perhaps what he sees is a still time, the uncertainty
Of change, the tedious repetition of childhood hours
with nowhere to go beyond the rusty playground
of a dusty vila -
A small blue bicycle left to its busted wheel.

Walking out into the lights of this port city, i am reminded
how lives can be different. Tonight there is fresh snow on the
ground,
children calling from back home where it is summer,
where people prepare for another season and its endless
rainfall. Passerbys pushing like thick traffic.
Choices stretching out in all directions like too many
corners to turn. Mistakes that can still be
Rectified.

Contribuições...

Com este poema da escritora curitibana e grande amiga minha,
Claudia Borio, @s lembro que a proposta de Juntando Palavras é cultivar um espaço de troca literária. Assim, espero neste ano receber cuentos, crônicas e poemas de vocês, querid@s amig@s, em inglês, português ou espanhol...


Separação

(para Giorgia)

Ela estava incrivelmente bela
E digna.
Eles a tinham convidado
Para tirar fotografias de uma festa,
Nada menos,
Como se ela não tivesse
Mais com o que se preocupar.
Ela tomou somente uma cerveja
E tirou algumas fotos,
Desinteressadamente.
No entanto, lembrava-se.
Seu cãozinho, que morrera,
Luto por uma relação, por uma época,
Tudo o que acabara.
Lágrimas concentradas.
E hoje ele estava aqui,
Aquele homem,
De cabelos raspados, como ela
Sempre o descrevia,
Tudo o que ela deixara para trás,
Tudo ao que renunciara,
Tudo o que tinha dado errado
Ou que tinha significado
Algo que fracassara.
Ele viera para a Grande
Divisão dos Bens.
Era um bom homem,
Diziam os que o conheciam.
Mas ela também, fôlego,
era
Uma Boa Mulher.
Dividiram, então, os CDs
E ele ficou com os Rolling
Stones. Mas eu gosto mais
Do que você, disse ela.
Ele não se interessou
Por seus argumentos
E ficou com todos eles,
Mesmo aqueles de que ele não
Gostava

-- Claudia Borio

First post of the new year!

Here´s my newest "work-in-progress":


This is not a love poem…

Hey babe, just in case you haven’t noticed
we are not nor have we ever been in
Hollywood.
There are girls out there for you, a true plethora
but not one with Angelina’s eyes and mouth, Raquel´s
bra-size and a roll of witty comments written
into the script.
No one out there for me
as sleek and daring - and gentle -
as Johnny, and of course, no endings with that perfect
closure
of babies and no-place-like -home.
Around here things are looking more like
a freak show these days,
the littered carnival grounds where after hours
a few desperate creatures come scampering in
to scavenge,
or many unedited hours of footage
and when the lights go on
or when the sun comes up
i am here alone with my headache and you,
across town, with your change
strewn across the floor to
remember how much you spent last night
looking for happiness or at least
a few cold moments of pleasure.

Hey babe, this is just the first cold winter of a
new millennium
where we can still sit in warm cafés and read
the newspaper and argue
about the worth of our words. Put your
pen to the paper. Love
your daughter. Open your heart and
this time, don’t be late:
next train to paradise, quarter past twelve.
.

O corpo é meu! - Denise Duhamel

Vai uma nova versão/tradução, para fechar este primeiro ano do blog
"Juntando Palavras". Tradução minha, com revisão de Sabrina Lopes.
Como sempre, comentários e sugestões serão bem-vindos.


“Era-se um tempo em que a Barbie nem podia dobrar
os joelhos”, eu falo para minhas sobrinhas Kerri e Katie
que sentam na minha frente no chão da sala
desta América de colarinho azul e rosa. Estão abrochando as minúsculas
calças de courino
nas suas Barbies Roqueiras
e grandes guitarras pretas
sobre seus ossudos quadris de relâmpago. Katie me entrega
sua boneca porque precisa da minha ajuda
com os pequenos botões que serpenteiam nas costas
da blusinha tomara que caia da Barbie. “Minha primeira Barbie
nem podia mover a cintura”. Eu estou falando como alguém
que já vivesse o suficiente
para ver mudanças significativas. Minhas sobrinhas
estão de costas para a TV que parece estar sempre ligada,
onde eu estiver. E atrás de suas cabecinhas
loiras inocentes, Jessica Hahn
faz uma aparência-relâmpago num vídeo da MTV.
Ela roda como uma sexy bola de pinball ,
e tenta desesperadamente sair de uma jaula côncava.
“O corpo é meu”, recentemente ouvi ela dizer
numa entrevista matinal na TV. Ela começou
justificando suas fotos nuas na Playboy.
“O corpo é meu”, ela repete
como uma boneca Chatty Cathy
com um disco arranhado enfiado nas costas.
“O corpo é meu”, ela começava a responder
a toda e qualquer pergunta do entrevistador –
onde ela cresceu, se ainda vai à igreja.
“O corpo é meu?”
Ainda assim as palavras eram as mesmas,
mas quanto mais acusações, mais mudavam
suas inflexões. Jessica olhava para além
do set onde alguém lhe parecia estar dando
pistas. Meu namorado dava risada.
“Que tal pôr um pouco de convicção nisso, Jessica?”,
ele falava para a TV. Então, tentando estimular
mais a conversa, ele me dizia, “Olha, meu bem,
ela nem parece saber se o corpo é seu
ou não!” Ele tinha razão
mas sabia enquanto o colocava
que tinha escolhido as palavras erradas.
Eu tinha bebido muito café. Encontrei-me
defendendo Jessica energicamente,
culpando sua desorientação
como resposta a nossa sociedade misógina –
o deslocamento que todas as mulheres sentem
do seu eu corporal.
E depois com todas essas teorias que eu vinha lendo!
Ele foi trabalhar mais ou menos concordando
mas dizia também que o tinha deixado exaurido.
E agora minha irmã me culpa da mesma coisa
porque assinalo para Katie que ela está errada
ao pensar que só meninos devem sujar-se
e só meninas usarem brincos.
“As pessoas devem fazer qualquer coisa que desejarem”.
Discorro sobre minha amiga que usa capacete
quando vai ao trabalho onde mexe
com eletricidade igual seu pai.
Katie brinca com seus cadarços
e pede suquinho. Minha irmã diz,
“Deixe ela em paz. Nem entrou no primário ainda”.
Kerri, a maior, se concentra, tentando
passar um grande pente para humanos
no cabelo sintético cheio de gel
da boneca. Por tanta força que exige desemaranhá-lo
de repente, sem querer, sai a cabeça da Barbie,
e uma menor, sem rosto, suporte apenas,
emerge do pescoço. Por um instante
nós todas – dois pares de irmãs, com um
intervalo de vinte anos – compartimos a epifania
sobre Mattel: lavagem cerebral, pedaço de plástico
que nos diz quem Barbie é. Mas logo
o rosto de Kerri é todo pânico, como esperando um castigo.
As lágrimas despontam no canto dos seus olhos.
Faço um resgate rápido,
enfiando a cabecinha moldada
de novo no corpo, seus traços maleáveis
se distorcendo sob meu polegar. Apesar de boneca adulta,
sua moleira ainda está aberta. Sob a pressão
do meu toque, seu rosto esmaga, como alguém
que se olha na casa dos espelhos.
Mas ao soltá-la, ela imediatamente volta,
o sorrisinho educado, o nariz perfeito
e pronta para pôr tudo em seu lugar:
a Barbie pertence à América -
metade vítima, metade pequeno soldado
cor-de-rosa.

"It´s my body" - Denise Duhamel.

[A nova tradução está quase pronta... por enquanto, posto em versão original]

“There was a time when Barbie couldn’t even
bend her knees,” I told my nieces Kerri and Katie
who sit before me on a living room floor
in blue and pink collar America.
They are strapping their Rock-n-Roll Barbies
into tiny leatherette pants
and big black guitars
with jagged lightning hips. Katie hands me
her doll because she needs help
with the tiny buttons that snake the back
of Barbie’s off-the-shoulder blouse. “My first Barbie
couldn´t even twist her waist”. I am talking
like a person who has lived long enough
to see significant change. My nieces
have their backs to the TV which seems always on,
wherever I am. And behind their blond
innocent heads, Jessica Hahn
makes a cameo appearance on an MTV video.
She rolls like a sexy pinball,
then tries to claw herself out of a concave cage.
“It’s my body”, I recently heard her say
on a morning talk show. She started
by defending her nude poses in Playboy.
“It’s my body”, she repeated
like a Chatty Cathy doll
with a skipping record stuck in her back.
“It’s my body,” she began to answer
her interviewer’s every inquiry –
where she grew up, if she still went to church.
“It’s my body?”
The words stayed the same,
but as more accusations came, her inflections
changed. Jessica looked beyond the studio set
where somebody seemed to be cueing her
that message. My lover was laughing.
“How about a little conviction there, Jessica?”,
he said to the TV. Then, trying to coax
more conversation, he addressed me, “Look,
honey, she doesn’t even seem to know if it’s her body
or not.” He was right,
but he knew as he brought it up,
it was the wrong thing to say.
I’d had too much coffee.
I found myself energetically defending Jessica,
blaming her disorientation
as a response to our misogynous society-
the dislocation all women feel
from their physical selves.
And then came the theories I’d been reading.
He left for work kind of agreeing
but also complaining that I’d made him exhausted.
And now my sister is blaming me for the same thing
because I am pointing out to Katie that she is mistaken
to think only boys should get dirty
and only girls should wear earrings.
“People should be able to do whatever they want.”
I lecture her about my friend who wears a hard hat
when she goes to her job and works
with electricity, just like her daddy.
Katie fiddles with her shoelaces
and asks for juice. My sister says,
“Give the kid a break. She’s only in kindergarten.”
Older Kerri is concentrating, trying
to get a big comb for humans
through her doll’s Moussed synthetic hair.
Because untangling the snarls needs so much force,
suddenly, accidentally, Barbie’s head pops off,
and a smaller one, a faceless socket,
emerges from her neck. For an instant
we all –two sets of sisters, our ages
twenty years apart – share a small epiphany
about Mattel: this brainwashed piece of plastic cerebrum
is underneath who Barbie is. But soon
Kerri’s face is all panic, like she will be punished.
The tears begin in the corner of her eyes.
I make a fast rescue attempt,
spearing Barbie’s molded head
back on her body, her malleable features distorting
under my thumb. Although a grown doll,
the soft spot at the top of her skull
still hasn’t closed. Under the pressure
of my touch, her face is squashed, someone
posing in a fun house mirror.
But the instant I let go, she snaps back
into a polite smile, her perfect nose
erect and ready to make everything
right: Barbie is America’s –
half victim, half little pink soldier.


- Denise Duhamel, from her book, Kinky.