African Travel Log: Crickets and Canaries

strawberry jam that is almost hot pink in color called Al Diwan, with Arabic writing all over the label, and coffee which is best if you make it like this: mix a spoonful of powder milk, half a spoonful of sugar with a little water to get a milky consistency, then add a bit of instant coffee, then add hot water to the top of the cup. This way it eliminates the chunks of coffee stuck together.

Sometimes I sit and write, or have conversation with the girls that can stretch into the hot part of the day. There is swimming anytime. as it gets later, the sun can get so bright that you cannot see and it makes sense to retire to the girls hut where we listen to music on the ipod dock that Ghada bought in Johannesberg.

It is hard to avoid cliches to say things like this, but to sit in the hut and listen to music brings such simple pleasure — step out of the heat, stretch out on the floor and just listen, or sing... Mercedes Sosa's voice floats through the afternoon, as she sings Gracias a La Vida, what can you do but smoke cigarrettes and stare through the half open door and feel your heart open and break. Close and open, and break over, and over again. Ghada lays down on the bed and closes her eyes. Teah and I sit on the floor, legs stretched, sections of sunlight catch the smoke as it lifts itself through the air of the hut and rolls out the door.

At some point in the day I like to clean up my little room and sweep it out, refold any clothes from the night before, straighten the sheets, and organize my camera equipment so I can recharge batteries when and if the generator comes on in the evening.

When appetite comes in the mid afternoon it is cheapest to go outside of the beach — walk up through other little places and out onto the dirt road behind all the hotels which the tourists forget about as soon as they pass through the gates of vacation. It is 5000 shillings for seafood curry with rice, or a masala dish, coconut curry, things like this. 1000 shillings for a big bottle of water, a little more for a beer. As lunch is being made in the Kinjiji Cafe kitchen I realize that my body is ready for every meal, I feel hunger. It is different than in the last week or so in South Africa, where our road trips forced meals at gas stations, chips and sweets only, and generally there is an abundance of this kind of food. Hunger doesn't come the same like this, empty food brings emptiness.

I wonder how it is that a sunset here can make me sad at all, but some of them do. I guess the way the day plays out like this routinely and quietly I can hear everything inside of me. after sunset, we put on clothes, change the spirit with local maize vodka or whiskey, and then begins the music, the dancing, the moving.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song.

Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life

Jen Berkowitz is a documentary producer and writer. She has been traveling in Africa and is sharing her personal blog here.