not writing well

11/10/2002:
i haven't been writing well lately... lack of focus???

9/11 came and went

9/12/2002:
well, Sept. 11th came and went. didn't write anything in here. did write a long letter to Carrie, though. afraid i misplaced it somewhere??? staff room or the Galegas [Kenneth's]... will check tomorrow.

concerns

 
9/4/2002:
Mira finally got here. waiting, worrying all day. they left Babadjou at 11am, Bamenda at 11am and got here at 5:30pm. road is BAD. said she paid 2000cfa! says she'll be here for 4 days. ahhh... some concerns:

concerned about the road. it's really quite bad. Paul's father spend 16 hours on it yesterday. MUDDY MESS. 2000cfa.

concerned about the humidity. mold on my clothes. mold on the cane furniture. mold on the Maggi cubes. rocks for salt. wet laundry. basically the rainy season. i won't say i can't wait for the dry season... but i may be singing that song soon enough.

tomorrow we've got a staff meeting. concerned about the upcoming year. sooo much to do...

also concerned about how thin this paper is and how floppy the notebook!

concerned about how tired i am now... goodnight.

blank pages...

9/3/2002:
blank pages [in this new journal]. got that recycled quality to them. tough writing on them with pencils. anywho... i pray i can fill the pages with:

thoughts/memories/experiences
enriching/enlightening/inspiring
WORDS...
how they move us
i can't wait to move them.

i've been much guested [visited] recently. Saidu just left yesterday. Mira says she'll be coming tomorrow. the weekend w/Saidu was pleasant. a decent fellow. spoke a lot of French with him. so much that it confused my English... French came out when i wanted to say something in English, Pidgin and (on one occasion when Yusuf and Adam were here) even Arabic. too many languages. confused. WORDS!

ahhh, this paper... ça marche [will it work]??? no choice right now... that i've begun.

i want to write about...

8/26/2002: 1 of 5
i want to write but i don't want to write. my head hurts. my eyes specifically. glasses seem to be hurting my head. prescription? also got a shot to my eye playing [basket]ball yesterday. not sure what's up?! anywho... i want to write about:

1. family phone calls and update
2. dinner with the young crowd (under 30)... PESTO!
3. talk w/Shawn about sustainable development and
4. Small is Beautiful

OK! i di come...

yummy yassa

Yassa Recipe
-veggie oil and marinated meat
-pepper corns and maggi cubes [w/MSG]
-vinegar and diced tomatoes (in water)
-onions (a lot), mustard (spoonful) and salt

1. cook meat (not completely) in a lot of oil, adding spices gradually: pepper corns, maggi, tomato sauce and vinegar.
2. when meat is almost done, add enough water to make it a stew/soup.
3. add onions and mustard then salt to the stew.
4. let cook/simmer until onions are fully cooked.

6/27/2002:
i watched and took notes as the yassa was being made yesterday... yummy! and it seems easy enough.

in Bamako now. at the volunteer house. came in on the train a short while ago. was supposed to leave yesterday morning, but the train was delayed into the evening. 11pm, in fact. probleme tala ["no problem"], though... once we got going, we got going. decent time. 15 hours.

my writing in here has been erratic. long days without much downtime alone. makes for poor reflection. at least calm, collected reflection. still haven't written about the garden. i will, insha'Allah... gotta pray now.

i'm looking forward to eating a cheeseburger tonight! feels like the lack of fresh veggies in my diet here (just rice & sauce) has me craving meat, ironically enough.

salman rushdie

6/12/2002:
i'm reading some essays by Salman Rushdie [from Step Across This Line]. a few on his The Satanic Verses and one on Palestine. interesting, to say the least. i'm asking questions and he's answering many. nevertheless, i don't find him very convincing. on the contrary... full of himself, irreverant and contradictory. i will elaborate further later.

thinking in circles

6/10/2002:
there's actually a cool breeze blowing out on the veranda. just got out of the shower, so that's also keeping me cool. the boys next door are reciting their morning Qur'an.

i'm thinking too much. wondering even more. have so many questions. a lot to say. even more to write. but i don't know where to start and, even if i did, where it would end. because, like my mind, my words would just go in circles.

"But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking outside the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat.

He was exasperated because he didn't know what the look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn't know that in some places, like the country Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance.

Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. It was never important enough. Because worse things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and horror of peace, worse things kept happening.

So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people's eyes and became an exasperating expression.

What Larry McCaslin saw in Rahel's eyes was not despair at all, but a sort of enforced optimism. And a hollow where Estha's words had been. He couldn't be expected to understand that. That the emptiness in one twin was only a version of the quietness in the other. That the two things fitted together. Like stacked spoons. Like familiar lovers' bodies."

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things.

what moves you?

what do you do when it moves through you? what do you do when creativity, passion and the need for self expression – is it really about the self? – all mix together and well up inside of you?

do you reach for a pen? to write or draw. do you clear your throat? to sing or speak. or do you dance? moving with those upwelling waves of whatever it is that moves you... what moves you?

is it the same thing(s) that move me? do you know its name? does it have a name? have you spoken with it? does it speak? or is that what we’re here for? to speak. or dance. or draw. or sing.

i’m a writer. i write.

when it moves me... i write.

don't feel writing

5/4/2002:
i'm tired... don't feel writing right now. maybe i'll outline:

• 1st Aid @ GPS / post-conference rain
• Lake Ilum
• Galaga and GBSS forms I & II
• Ardu Sule and mushroom achu

...tomorrow, insha'Allah.

only 5 of us left writing...

OK... it’s just about past my bedtime, but i need my Peace & Freedom fix. i’m trying to keep myself disciplined... trying to fall into a routine here. ride these next 9 months out in style... right.

i mean that i’m trying to stay focused, keep busy, be productive AND, of course, stay happy and healthy as well. i’ll spare you the details of what all that entails. suffice it to say that – well, nothing... ain’t much to say. probably up to the same sh@$t ya’ll are up to or in. excuse my français! :)

did i tell you my mother is coming? yup, it’s official... she’ll land in Yaounde on Sept 30th. i’ll be there for the EE [environmental education] meeting anyway. she’ll be here for 3 weeks. won-du-full!!! no, seriously... it is. i’m glad she’s coming.

i'll let you know how it goes. but hopefully in someone else’s journal. i'm tired of writing in mine! there are only 5 of us left writing [kay, nat, traci, robert and mohamad]... did ya’ll know that? hmmm...

aho!
Mohamad
9/17/2002
Wum

years from now...

me... mohamad! [2002]. in Bamenda with the NW crew. this my peace and freedom journal is still in Adam’s custody, so to speak... after having passed from me to Natalie to Kay to Adam to Kristen for a single entry and back to Adam. i just wanted to read through some of the entries. yours and mine. ahhh... nostalgia.

i was just telling Adam how happy i am that we’re keeping these books. keep writing ya'll! years from now these’ll be the memories that bring everything back. happy and sad. i hope everyone out there is well... healthy and in high spirits. i miss you guys!

aho!
Mohamad A. Chakaki
Bamenda
1/18/2002

not writing

10/30/2001:
sometimes you’re driven to write. sometimes you’re not. like now... but i’m writing and not really thinking about it, so maybe i am driven to do so. don’t have anything in particular to say. just writing...

(now i’m not writing)

...don’t have much to say here. i’ll stop. huh... OK, r-i-g-h-t!

new journal

10/25/2001:
new journal... i like the size and the line-spacing. worried about durability a little. anyhow... just wanted to open the book with a few thoughts. the last journal was the 1st i’ve ever finished. in terms of a whole notebook, that is. but in so many ways all this – “my peace corps experience” – has only just begun.

so i pray for many, many more happy, healthy, liberating and relieving books to go through, insha’Allah...

this morning i attended/witnessed my 1st assembly here at the GTTC. completely student run. impressive. anthem. gospels. announcements. sermon, too. took some photos. felt a little closer to the students. they became a little more like... people. thus far they were/are just “students.”

#2 fo' Cameroon

this is the first page of my new journal... "#2 fo' cameroon," as it says in the middle there. think of it as cover art... though it's on the first page just inside the cover. while i didn't do this for my first journal, all the rest (4, in total) have this kind of an image/inscription adorning the first page.

it starts with the basmalah... "in the name of God, the Merciful (in essence) and the Merciful (in action)." then that's my name (Mohamad A. Chakaki) in English, below the basmalah. flanking it, and just below, is my full name in Arabic (محمد عبد اللطيف الشققي).

"my own, personal journal..." is my nod to cameroonian special english. for some reason the double adjective "my own" is often used when expressing the possessive. that would make "my own, personal" a triple possessive, i guess. anyway... Wum is Wum, and N.W.P. = the Northwest Province.

the arabic in the middle is a famous verse of the Qur'an (20:25-28), known as the Prayer of Moses. it's a traditional way to start a speech or open a discourse... in this case, with myself. it reads: "Lord, expand my chest (i.e. increase my awareness), ease my task, and untie the knots from my tongue so that they my understand what I say."

finally, at the bottom, i quote from the Peace Corps World Wise Schools Handbook... in which Beth Giebus (Teacher & PCV in Morocco, 1990-1993) writes in her essay Sharing our Stories: "Speak to clear your throat of the stories welling up inside. Speak for the sake of peace. Keep the conversation alive."

Amen.

the god of small things

10/3/2001:
“Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity.” -Arundhati Roy, from The God of Small Things

it seems like every Wednesday it rains. in truth, everyday it rains. but on Wed and Friday afternoons i look forward to playing ball and i’m usually disappointed. the rain. come dry season it’ll be too hot or too dusty. i’ll be fasting, too. we’ll see... as always.

10/6/2001:
QUICK NOTE... just finished reading The God of Small Things this morning. wonderful book. so creative so real. how she wrote it with the freshness of a child and the wisdom of a grand old mother, simultaneously, i don’t know. but it spoke to me on so many levels. i’m thinking about recommending it to Rama. i’ll try to react to the book in more detail after it settles for me. driven by a quote from the back cover i finished the last page and flipped right back to the 1st. it’s that good. that full, rich and intricate. so real.

words

9/8/2001:
there’s this essay in the World Wise Schools (WWS) Handbook entitled Better Remember This. by an RPCV from Kenya. it’s beautiful and inspiring. there are many great essays in the handbook. PCVs seems to have a way with words. indeed, the last essay in the book is about words and it ends thus: “speak to clear your throat of all the stories welling up inside. speak for the sake of peace. keep the conversation alive.”

i’m uplifted by the stories. the shared experiences put in such eloquent words. at the same time, they make me want to stay here and do good but also to go elsewhere (the North or Morocco) and feel more at home. i’m not sure if that last part is accurate. i’m not sure if i’d feel more at home in either of those places. i imagine the longing for more familiar places and people is a typical step in this adjustment cycle.

it’s confused for me though. i don’t’ want to go home. i want to go to a place like Morocco. but who says that’ll make it better? or prefect. and maybe, like my recruiter said, i should stop trying to make it perfect and just let it be. and yet part of me is already writing hypothetical letters to Peace Corps Morocco and talking to our CD about the feasibility of it all. patience Muhammad. patience. don’t try to make it perfect. just let it be. and if it won't, then see what you can do. and we’ll see...

...this went into my Peace and Freedom journal. it should’ve been written in there in the first place. the WWS Handbook also made me want to write to my brother Omar. to tell him about the strange dream i had last night. the 2 big ugly fish i caught in my room. how i was scrambling to find something to knock them over the head with. the small rolling pin i found in his room that just wouldn’t do the trick. or maybe it was my futile efforts that were the problem???

and that vivid image of the fish flopping around on his bedroom floor gasping for air—or, more accurately, gasping in air. that noise of their wet, slimy flesh flopping around on his floor like wet flip-flops. or rain drops. wait! i’m up. it was/is raindrops. it’s been raining all night and the sound of water coming off the roof and splashing down into the mud filtered into my dream. oh... and that reminds me, i forgot to take my mefloquine yesterday. huh...

cry, the beloved country...

9/7/2001:
“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld. Below you is the valley of the Umzim-Kulu, on its journey from the Krakensberg to the sea; and beyond and behind them, the mountains of Ingeli and East Griaualand.

The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guard men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

Where you stand the grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. But the rich green hills break down. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For the grown red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it. Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept, or guarded or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men. The tithoya does not cry here anymore.

The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn way like flesh. The lighting flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth. Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and girls are way. The soil cannot keep them anymore.”

...that's the opening chapter of:

“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, not stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”

...and that's the title-phrase and paragraph from Chapter 12.

Lyric prose, is what the writer of the introduction called it. Not the entire book, although it is close. But the sections when he paints pictures with words like poetry. Often it is of the land, South Africa. a character in the novel just as important as any other... many have said. he’s also poetic when he speaks of the issues that surround the land and it’s people, not just the geographic landscape. of the political issues. the social issues. he describes a land so intertwined with its people (or vice-versa) that when he speaks of one, he also speaks of the other. they are of the same spirit. this land and its people. a richly diverse and seemingly irreconcilable people.

and, at least for me (one who has not seen all this first hand), this is full of paradox. non-Africans (as in the book blacks are simply called “non-Europeans”) laying claim to the land of an oppressed people and justifying that claim by saying they know better and are in a better position to care for it. but, again, i have not been there. and i imagine there are people there, "non-African people," who truly believe this is their land, too. the land of their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers. it is a complicated history and, now, an even more complicated present i’m sure.

Alan Paton says of the unborn inheritor of this land, “let him not love the earth too deeply... let him not laugh too gladly... let him not be too moved... for fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.” a sad truth. that the fear is inevitable b/c the reality is dire. that instead of combating the fear and its cause people are left only with giving up their love of the land and freedom. but luxuries are often mistaken for freedom. and one can give up luxuries, and even compromise on comfort, without giving up or even compromising freedom. in turn, the reward for this compromise is that one can continue to love the land. his/her land. and maybe even gain a deeper, more profound affection by realizing that it is also their land, our land. idealistic, i’m sure. but that is my own humble opinion.