Time passes; Listen. Time passes.
Could someone please explain to me how come it is already the middle of 2007? Sometimes I fear that I will be bald, toothless and incontinent very shortly, with no tales to tell about my three score years and ten.
I have been under increasing pressure to produce another blog posting, I have even been approached to blog ‘semi professionally’ however I am fiercely convinced that writing a blog is for me, it represents my view of the world, and unless a company or an individual were to offer me an unimaginably huge amount of money, I would NOT consider selling my innermost musings.
This posting finds me back where I love to be, my favourite spot on the veranda in the presbytery (for indeed it seems my house was constructed by an intrepid band of Belgian fathers), with my parrot children, soundtrack today supplied by Orchestra Baobab, and some very good spicy Tamil coffee (more on that later). The only thing to complete my ideal Sunday brunch would be some select human company and Shisha-al- toofah (and if you need that translating for you, well stop reading my blog).
More than ever I feel like a very fat, very contented smiling Cheshire cat. My soul has been so well nourished in the past weeks that I could write and write and write about my adventures from the top of skyscrapers in NYC to the floor of the stormy Indian Ocean. This is one of those many times when I kick myself for not having a diary.
The trip to New York was quite remarkable on many accounts, it permitted me to travel outside of the city to visit dear friends in Baltimore; a picturesque journey which took me through New Jersey, Philadelphia, and finally to Maryland. A short sojourn there preceded a very intense week of meetings in my NGOs HQ; that was a great chance for me to put names to faces and to learn more about the work that we are doing within the US as well as internationally. If the week was important professionally, then personally the experience of being in the capital city of the world (sorry London, you jus’ too Goddamn cold!) was one of the richest human experiences I have ever made. New York really seems to be the city that welcomes outsiders; and its undoubtedly the constant waves of people, refugees and economic migrants. It is this constant flow of cultures and people that in my opinion make it the world’s capital.
My first cab ride from the hotel in 42nd and 3rd Avenue to Penn Station: The concierge hails a taxi. The driver is obviously from East Africa, I guess by his features and scarification he is either Sudanese or Eritrean. I ask him where he is from; he appears not to understand or not to be listening. So venture to speak in Arabic. After a minute of so he stops me, and in very chaste English he says, yes I am from Sudan, and your Arabic sucks! We then proceed to talk about the situation in Khartoum; he is a dissident school teacher from Om Durmann who has been driving a taxi in Manhattan for seven years. By the end of the ride, I am invited to meet his family and to eat Sudanese delicacies the next day at his home in Brooklyn. We reach the railway station, and he refuses to accept the $6.50 fare from me! Such a Sudanese response. I insist on payment and thank him for his kindness. I didn’t see him again.
On my day off, I went walking with a friend. My mother had impressed upon me (with sewing machine like regularity) that I must visit two things in NYC. The first being the Irish Famine Memorial and the second, taking the Staten Island ferry for the best view of Ellis Island and that French Statue on that other island out there... The Famine Memorial is impressive, not big, but well considered and sobering, it lies directly between the Hudson River and Ground Zero (a place that didn’t interest me to visit particularly), it’s a little memorial considering the scale of the holocaust in Ireland in the 19th Century.
From there we walked beside the river to the ferry station. Apart from the boat trip, there was another important mission to be accomplished on Staten Island (which is a sudden leap into suburban America in comparison to Manhattan only a few miles away). Legend had it that the best Sri Lankan food in the world outside Sri Lanka is to be found in Staten Island.
For all true devotees, the pilgrimage is worth it, the place is called ‘New Asha’ 320 Victory Bvd. Mr. and Mrs. Asha run a Sri Lankan grocery store/ restaurant. They are Jaffna Tamils from Valvettithurai (VVT) who had moved to Colombo due to the troubles (a bit of historical background, VVT is the hometown of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and demagogue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). By an amazing coincidence, the day we decided to go and eat there, the Cricket World Cup Final was playing in Jamaica. Sri Lanka versus Australia. So the little restaurant was packed full of both Singhalese and Tamil Sri Lankan, the beer was flowing free and the atmosphere was electric. I was delighted to be able to speak Tamil and Singhala, they were quite happy to share the excitement of the match with us. What a privilege! Suffice to say I came away with $100’s worth of Sri Lankan groceries… no place like home.
The last NYC human story has a heavy Jaffna slant to it also. I had heard that in Washington Square Gardens, the centre of NYU, there was a Jaffna Tamil man selling proper Jaffna Food. I checked this out and ended up chatting with him for 20 minutes about life in New York, which pissed off all the other customers waiting to be served. Ended up with a huge platter of Jaffna vegan food at a rather huge discount. If that was not the end of this Karmic gastronomic experience, just after I had washed my hands in the bathroom, I walked straight into my Yoga teacher from Jaffna. The last time we met was in 2003! She got married to an MSF nurse and now lives in California, like me she was visiting New York.
There are lots of tales of New York that I can not tell yet, maybe in the future, but for now these will have to suffice. And as for being back in Congo? And for my misadventures in Kenya? I will have to write again. Now the muse is not here. To quote Bjork I am violently happy. Alone, inspired, empowered.
I have been under increasing pressure to produce another blog posting, I have even been approached to blog ‘semi professionally’ however I am fiercely convinced that writing a blog is for me, it represents my view of the world, and unless a company or an individual were to offer me an unimaginably huge amount of money, I would NOT consider selling my innermost musings.
This posting finds me back where I love to be, my favourite spot on the veranda in the presbytery (for indeed it seems my house was constructed by an intrepid band of Belgian fathers), with my parrot children, soundtrack today supplied by Orchestra Baobab, and some very good spicy Tamil coffee (more on that later). The only thing to complete my ideal Sunday brunch would be some select human company and Shisha-al- toofah (and if you need that translating for you, well stop reading my blog).
More than ever I feel like a very fat, very contented smiling Cheshire cat. My soul has been so well nourished in the past weeks that I could write and write and write about my adventures from the top of skyscrapers in NYC to the floor of the stormy Indian Ocean. This is one of those many times when I kick myself for not having a diary.
The trip to New York was quite remarkable on many accounts, it permitted me to travel outside of the city to visit dear friends in Baltimore; a picturesque journey which took me through New Jersey, Philadelphia, and finally to Maryland. A short sojourn there preceded a very intense week of meetings in my NGOs HQ; that was a great chance for me to put names to faces and to learn more about the work that we are doing within the US as well as internationally. If the week was important professionally, then personally the experience of being in the capital city of the world (sorry London, you jus’ too Goddamn cold!) was one of the richest human experiences I have ever made. New York really seems to be the city that welcomes outsiders; and its undoubtedly the constant waves of people, refugees and economic migrants. It is this constant flow of cultures and people that in my opinion make it the world’s capital.
My first cab ride from the hotel in 42nd and 3rd Avenue to Penn Station: The concierge hails a taxi. The driver is obviously from East Africa, I guess by his features and scarification he is either Sudanese or Eritrean. I ask him where he is from; he appears not to understand or not to be listening. So venture to speak in Arabic. After a minute of so he stops me, and in very chaste English he says, yes I am from Sudan, and your Arabic sucks! We then proceed to talk about the situation in Khartoum; he is a dissident school teacher from Om Durmann who has been driving a taxi in Manhattan for seven years. By the end of the ride, I am invited to meet his family and to eat Sudanese delicacies the next day at his home in Brooklyn. We reach the railway station, and he refuses to accept the $6.50 fare from me! Such a Sudanese response. I insist on payment and thank him for his kindness. I didn’t see him again.
On my day off, I went walking with a friend. My mother had impressed upon me (with sewing machine like regularity) that I must visit two things in NYC. The first being the Irish Famine Memorial and the second, taking the Staten Island ferry for the best view of Ellis Island and that French Statue on that other island out there... The Famine Memorial is impressive, not big, but well considered and sobering, it lies directly between the Hudson River and Ground Zero (a place that didn’t interest me to visit particularly), it’s a little memorial considering the scale of the holocaust in Ireland in the 19th Century.
From there we walked beside the river to the ferry station. Apart from the boat trip, there was another important mission to be accomplished on Staten Island (which is a sudden leap into suburban America in comparison to Manhattan only a few miles away). Legend had it that the best Sri Lankan food in the world outside Sri Lanka is to be found in Staten Island.
For all true devotees, the pilgrimage is worth it, the place is called ‘New Asha’ 320 Victory Bvd. Mr. and Mrs. Asha run a Sri Lankan grocery store/ restaurant. They are Jaffna Tamils from Valvettithurai (VVT) who had moved to Colombo due to the troubles (a bit of historical background, VVT is the hometown of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and demagogue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). By an amazing coincidence, the day we decided to go and eat there, the Cricket World Cup Final was playing in Jamaica. Sri Lanka versus Australia. So the little restaurant was packed full of both Singhalese and Tamil Sri Lankan, the beer was flowing free and the atmosphere was electric. I was delighted to be able to speak Tamil and Singhala, they were quite happy to share the excitement of the match with us. What a privilege! Suffice to say I came away with $100’s worth of Sri Lankan groceries… no place like home.
The last NYC human story has a heavy Jaffna slant to it also. I had heard that in Washington Square Gardens, the centre of NYU, there was a Jaffna Tamil man selling proper Jaffna Food. I checked this out and ended up chatting with him for 20 minutes about life in New York, which pissed off all the other customers waiting to be served. Ended up with a huge platter of Jaffna vegan food at a rather huge discount. If that was not the end of this Karmic gastronomic experience, just after I had washed my hands in the bathroom, I walked straight into my Yoga teacher from Jaffna. The last time we met was in 2003! She got married to an MSF nurse and now lives in California, like me she was visiting New York.
There are lots of tales of New York that I can not tell yet, maybe in the future, but for now these will have to suffice. And as for being back in Congo? And for my misadventures in Kenya? I will have to write again. Now the muse is not here. To quote Bjork I am violently happy. Alone, inspired, empowered.
posted by Gabriello Princip at 4:57 AM
2 comments
