Lost Without Translation

Traveled to Liverpool for my last interpreting assignment at the Women Hospital. It is a funny thing to be the middle woman between two people who need to deal with each other but cannot understand one an other. A bit like the filling in a Custard Cream biscuit.
This last job could not have been more different from the first one I did. It wasn't about recounting a story of abuse, death or desperation, although I guessed from a few words here and there that the young woman story wasn't an easy one. Alone, recently arrived from north Togo, she had an appointment in the ante-natal clinic to run some tests and determine when the baby was due.
I assisted to her ultrasound, and saw with her for the first time the baby's face, fingers and toes. I have been involved in other intimated moments while interpreting
(the most memorable until today being translating the modus operandi of masturbation from a fertility doctor to a middle aged man. I've discovered that a lot of people assume that because a person doesn't speak English they also must be dim-witted.)
but nothing as amazing as seeing a baby in a womb.
It was harder than usual to switch emotions off once the task accomplished today. She told me before leaving how things seemed daunting at times, and how nice it had been to speak to someone who could understand her. For the next few weeks , especially around her delivery date, I'll be wondering what will become of this woman and her baby, and their new beginnings.

History and Geography

Today I meant to write about the fact that i have received my open ticket from London Gatwick to Lomé leaving the 07/11, and how I have been taking a day off doing anything departure related because the chase for the the cheapest, as direct as possible, valid one year ticket has left mestrangelyy exhausted. Or how preparing to move this time around is so much complicated than 5 years ago when I crossed the Channel my own Rubicon. Or something that would have to do with the realness and the imminence of this new little adventure of mine. Basically, a topic in line with the "true" reason for starting this blog: keeping in touch while I am away.
Instead, I'm continuing what I've been doing from post one: breaking the only rule I'd set to myself of not writing about anything personal.

After calling my guardian to tell her the news of my departure, I started thinking of my family history. I never liked explaining it to people. When I was little, I would have had to say: I live in Paris with my white guardians and one of my younger sister, and I have parents and two younger sisters living in Burundi/Togo/RDC wherever they would be at the time. 2 sets of parents, 3 sisters.
Now if I were to give a complete picture, I would have to say: I leave in the UK, my guardian lives in Paris, her husband died in Peru, my sister also lives in Paris, but not with my guardian; my mother and my two younger sisters live in greater Paris, my father died in Guinée.
Of course don't give the complete picture, I just say I live in the UK and the family is in France.
For a long time I had only limited contact with my "African family", meeting relatives while on holidays in Togo, or a few awkward visits in Paris from un familiar Uncles and Aunties.
Since, I have discovered the two very different and feuding segments that compose my African family. We use to think of it as a Romeo and Juliet type of story: the Proud but Modest family living in the village (my father's), versus the Proud and Well-off trading family (my mother's). The hinterland versus the coast we would hear.
Things fell into place one day while researching on the Slave Coast of Africa. The well known fact of my father's people being transported throught the Middle Passage, and suddenlly, my mother's family name in a history book, recorded as traders of other human beings. Unlike the writer Ekow Eshun, I am not shocked because the clues were there all along: how else an old family could have made its money on the coast of West Africa?
The past lives on and fosters dislikes and inimities generations on.
Going home in a few weeks means going back to all of my family, their histories and my human geography.

At the Birmingham Book Festival

Tonight event: Writers without borders: Identity: Our writing World. Poetry in English, kiKongo, Ndebele, Farsi, Croatian, Urdu and Jamaican patois + music. Sounded interesting.
Tina reserved the seats; Rico, Ellen and Vanessa joined in.

Too tired to put anything in any real shape or form so I'll just more or less reproduce what I scribbled in my note book during the course of the evening.

The literary scene in Birmingham is small, nearly a year since I went to any literary event but same familiar faces still. White middle class and Black "conscious" Nubian queens and Dread Brothers. With my Afro today I am right in my element.

Some poets are better read than heard...

Why does identity related writing so often is so bleak?

After a perfomances from an Enlightened Sister Sue B
That is it! I will embrace the cliché my hair style seems to suggest: African Queen, Nubian Princess, Lesbian Black Panther if I ever cut my hair again.
Oh Erykah B, you've spawned so many lookalike, wannabes, caricatures. Renegation of ourrhythmss of life, fighting miseducation, breaking the bond of mental and spiritual slavery she says. I must be too cynical and "sold out" because I'm not impressed nor moved. I've heard way too many times that commitment to the "cause" that doesn't go beyond a few laborious verses and the "alternative" clothing. Would the poetry get as much applause if it was not for the frail, light skinned and dreadlocked Sue? Her yellow, red, green bubble is not mine. Mine is all shades of grey.

Our row composed of Rico, Tina, Vanessa, Ellen and Ireallyy ruined a performance. A sax player, a dancer, a poet: an improvised piece. A white woman screaming with different voices "I have an identity"and wildly gesticulating, pulling her cheeks (!) for more than 3 minutes. I'm stunned, I'm giggling, tears streaming, loosing my breath, rocking the chair. How awful of me, i know but I cant help it. I look around: Tina and Rico are laughing uncontrollably, Vanessa and Ellen are trying to keep it cool with some difficulty, the people behind us are laughing at our reaction, the rest of the audience is dead quiet. The sax is screeching, the white woman is loudly imposing her identity on the audience. We are laughing, and resisting at the same time. I have an identity too.

Romeo and Juliet and Reality TV

Just watched on TV and a saturday night Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet as performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet and a group of young people from rough parts ofBirmingham, who underwent classical training from 18 months. An other reality TV stunt I thought, and didn't bother watching any of it until last week, the penultimate episode. Rebellious youths, tragic personal stories, big egos and the discipline of ballet... it made for great drama. It turned out to be more of a documentary than yet an other reality TV show.
In terms of numbers, the experiment wasn't a a resounding success: of the 200 young people who started, only 60 made it through to the end performance, and except from the satisfaction of performing a challenging work in front of family and audience, there was no other reward. What did they take from 18 months of interesting and enjoyable at time I'm sure, but more likely tedious and repetitive training? How does it feel to be back to everyday life in middle England without the support coaches and youth workers, and a hefty dose of encouragement? That could be a documentary even more interesting than the original installment but I have little hope of ever seeing it made.
I'm not sure the project would have worked if it wasn't for the choice of a play ane troubled teenager could relate to: Romeo and Juliet, the most famous of family dramas, which can be read this way:
I like him/her/my Goths friends/hard rock
the parents don't agree
everyone in the family gets involved
I'll get shackled up with the unsuitable boy/girl friend/study music instead of dentistry/pierce my eyebrow just the same
they don't understand
I'll make them regret, I so want to die
I die/ go away and make it big and never speak to you again
they/parents/rest of the world/ spend the rest of their lives regretting/being green with envy
who's laughing now?

Real grown ups gloss on the inevitability of Fate, the use of deception and it's consequences etc... But the "yobos" and I know better: for once the kids got the last word and the opportunity to make everyone feel as miserable as they did.
Every teenager's dream.

All Clear

Nth visit to the hospital this afternoon.
Since Fall 2003, hospital appointment have been a recurring event in my diary.
Right ankle, left knee, neck, left knee again, right ankle again and finally right calf.
Surgery, x-rays- MRI, physio, more MRI, more physio, Ultrasound and finally re-surgery.
But now it's all over. Today was my last visit to the hospital. The knee pain is here to stay, the ankle will remain kind of stiff and with time the calf's swelling will go down and wont hurt as much.
The brand new second hand me has finally received the "all clear".
The last obstacle between me and Lomé (Togo) has been removed.
I've been thinking about going away, talking about it, but now I am going. The wheel is at last/already in motion.
Driving back from the hospital, I felt stunned and overwhelmed and quite sad. I could only think: That is it then. Up-rooting again, leaving well threaded streets and relationships behind. Getting ready to be alone and lonely again. Why? What for?
Not yet gone but already missing people, and places. A sinking feeling on a rainy day.
Physically "all-cleared" but mentally and emotionally still in need of treatment. Maybe until I have been and come back I will remain a patient of my inner psychic ward.
In a few weeks I will have given notice on my flat, sold my car, put my stuff in storage, and be on my way to Togo for anything between 6 months and a year, to do charity work.
That's big news... even/especially for me.