Red Road

The sight of the street fascinates me. It’s as if I were given the eyes of a newborn baby while being able to maintain my adult consciousness. Yesterday, for the first time I walked in the street with Abou’s brother to find a taxi. When the gates to the house were opened, everything leapt out at me as if my eyes suddenly belonged to someone else and I was unable to comprehend my own perceptions. The first man I passed on the hill road couldn’t take his eyes off me either. What was I doing here? “Now you know what it’s like to be a minority” R. threw at me mockingly. On the side of the road, a man was piling up porous rocks that looked like eggs, in order to form a pyramid. He could have been building a kiln or perhaps constructing a nest for termites. I didn’t dare ask him what he was making with such precise and careful minutiae. Next to him, a woman was seated, leaning forward, her baby tightly swaddled on her back with a piece of colorful fabric. Little wooden stalls are lined up along the road; some of them are covered with advertising slogans and paintings of stylized faces. Cotton t-shirts, plastic sandals displayed like bouquets of flowers in basins, peeled fruits stacked up in pyramids, cellophane wrapped candies sitting in metal dishes, packs of obscure cigarette brands, and a hundred and one other things, sold in bulk, boxes or sacks. Street commerce is the one activity thanks to which most of the inhabitants of this city survive. The earth is bright ochre and it seems to be everywhere. Laterite accumulates on the edge of the few paved roads, stains people’s bare feet and advertisement posters, fills up the nooks and crannies of walls and roofs. The color of the earth fills every crack. Two women wearing large, print dresses are sleeping in fetal positions under the table in their stall. Others, a big basin at their feet, are peeling off the skin of pale oranges in small strips. Abou’s brother and I head down the road. The crowd is growing. We cross a narrow river; the water is bottle green. Near the bridge, a huge pile of garbage has formed. Kids dressed in green uniforms from a nearby school are walking in groups. Others, wearing t-shirts and shorts, carry on their heads large basins filled with a hodge-podge of things. Everyone shoves and pushes at the intersection, which is called Lombili according to Abou. I make him repeat the name several times to be sure I will remember it in case I get lost. Now and then, someone waves hello to him. Small clusters of young men are sitting, or standing on the roofs of the shacks, or lying in the shade, watching the continual flow of people passing by. But in the street, it is me that everyone is looking at. Shall I fear their gaze, or is it just curiosity? An old woman – there are not many in Freetown – grabs my arm: she is carrying a tray of oranges that she wishes to sell me. I softly push her hand away and pick up my pace. A disquieting noise suddenly erupts from underneath the hood of a car right next to my legs. The numerous bodies don’t seem to be going anywhere and take up the entire space. Abou’s brother points to a car that appears to be on its way to the scrap yard. He speaks to the driver, sitting next to his taxi. 400 leones – the cheapest ride of the entire stay. Right when I get inside the car, three women and a man, who seem to have materialized out of nowhere, also get in to my great surprise. Four of us squeeze into the back. The man sits in the passenger’s seat and the other woman sits between him and the driver, her ass balancing on the hand brake, which makes her friends laugh. I have discovered a community taxi. I am an intruder and they all sneak glances at me. The car sputters and starts up. No one speaks. The radio is playing an American song. The air is rushing in through the open windows. I act like everyone else in the car, I watch the landscape slipping away. I am here and I feel fine. During the entire trip, I sense that I am a member of the crew; like all the other passengers, I am squeezed in between hips and elbows in the back seat of a run-down, jolting taxi. The dream of an exhilarated Westerner. Yet there is a certain serenity about our mutual silence. The roadsides are a permanent market. People sell to survive, and sell anything they can find. From cans of Coke to their own bodies. And the vendors will wait hours and hours to turn their meager possessions into a few leones. I am not quite ready to venture alone onto the sides of the roads. My appearance will betray me; I will be an easy target. But that is the only way I will be able to truly observe and feel. Ideally, I would have to speak to everyone I encounter, in order to sort out my new impressions.

Copyright Vagabonde, 2007.