Breakfast is sitting up but not for long. My back pain (S-I joints) is much better. Now eleven days after it started. (At least this sounds more like a stressed joint than a tumor!) Rather than retire to my little room, I dismantle the thin cushions of a couple of chairs and lie down on under the flamboyant tree - not in bloom. (It is on a raised concrete "stage" at one end of the little plaza.)
A jewelry hawker who has pestered me all week manages to talk me out of the equivalent of $30 for a few earrings - he needs the money more than I.
Then to my surprise, especially when there are plenty of unused tables - but none so isolated - a white French guy accompanied by five Africans takes over the table (these are all coffee tables, not real tables) practically on top of me! Barely a nod of acknowledgement! Two Africans are unceremoniously dismissed to a lower table and a noisy exchange ensures. I can barely make out a recognizable word - "donc", "voila", "aujourd'hui". Then the Africans get up and leave - obviously not very happy with the conclusion.
The
electricity stays off which makes my room into a caldron of stale
air. The makeshift mat in the
courtyard is a better choice and fortunately, now I am well enough to enjoy it. People
come and go – who knew how active the place was – a couple of
dread-locked young white French males, a woman with two children in
tow gives a franc note to the manager and departs, two different
black men come in requesting something (a job maybe) but are turned
down, the evening waitress arrives decked out in sequins and enormous
earrings, the owner and his wife are in the main bureau coming out
now for lunch, all of the whites chain-smoke, a young African with a
shirt identifying him as a polo player and his partner check out,
several other Africans come to check out (flight time!) but the
Moslem woman that I met yesterday is either staying in her room or
eating on the upstairs patio (I tried but couldn't manage the stairs
and, of course, she cannot come down to eat with me – among men).
The
lingering mystery of the private haggle that took place earlier is
answered somewhat. The white guy is checking out of the hotel with
an assortment of statues and small items – a dealer and, as I
watch the staff wrap his purchases, taking a serious collection with
him. The statues are beautiful, some appear more attractive than
those in the museum. There is an intrically carved footstool that I
could covet – he says that he will be able to sell it for the
equivalent of $12,000 but declined to tell me what he paid for it.
He brings out a sculpted hippo which is surely an antiquity. In all,
there were 30 statues, each about 30 inches tall, carved out of black
or blackened wood, and a metal chest 18” x 48” x 30”, the
contents a mystery. They are stacked onto a jeep to be hauled
where? And how? Seems like another rape of Africa.
Around 3:00 pm the electricity comes on - and activity slows down as the heat takes over.
Nicola,
the hotel manager, and I negotiate the time to go to the airport. I
want to be there three hours early when the airline opens its ticket
office – he wants to take me two hours earlier. I'd go in the morning if there is the slightest chance of traffic or barricades.
Again
there is no one else here in the evening for dinner. This time the
evening t-v is showing a peace rally that occurred in the football
stadium – greater than 25,000 strong, the press called it. It was followed by a march in the streets. Promising.
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