chicken shit

i touched bird crap today with my fingers. not just any old bird crap, but chicken crap. yet more specifically, hen crap. it was black and white with streaks of red. the hen, not the crap.

it was 5:30 in the morning, pre-dawn, and i was approaching my seat on the bus to asmara. my friend was standing next to my seat, looking a bit perplexed, for whatever reason i had no idea. as usual i figured it was perplexity over nothing, nothing to worry about, let me sit down and let's get on with it.

i hear him say, "have a seat." so i do. still standing next to the seat i've just taken, he's still looking perplexed and muttering something and pointing at what looks like a large dusty feathery particle on my seat. again i figure, geez, what's the problem, it's all cool, we're all cool, and i cool-ly flick at the large dust and feather-like particle, thinking it will fly away and that's that, no worries. to my sleep and light-deprived surprise, it doesn't flick away, but instead spreads itself slightly while largely and goo-ily attaching itself to my middle finger. my reaction, not so cool-ly, "err, ehh, gross, what is that?" my friend replies, quite cool-ly now, "the waste of a hen."

"The waste of a hen?!"

"Yes, the waste of a hen."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I did, I told you not to sit."

"I thought you said 'have a seat'!"

"Then i pointed and said 'the waste of a hen."

"I saw you pointing, but i didn't hear what you said. I thought it was a large piece of dust or something!"

"No, you know there are many hens on this bus. Look," he gestured widely with his arms. "They drop their waste on the seats when we're not around."

we adjusted ourselves after i wiped my hen-shit-stained finger with a tissue and promptly threw it on the floor of the bus.


later we ate boiled chickpeas. my friend exclaimed, "haha, you ate the waste of a hen."

"I didn't eat it. I ate the chickpeas."

"Yes, but your finger had the waste of a hen on it."

I protested, yes, but it was wiped off with a tissue. so i didn't eat the waste of a hen, but the chickpeas.

"no no, heehee, you ate the waste of a hen."

"it was wiped off!" i protested again.

then i wondered to myself, sitting in a pondering silence, are we grade 7 teachers, or yet in grade 7 ourselves?

did i eat boiled chickpeas, or the waste of a hen?

i think the students are getting the best of us.

get naked.

get naked.
i mean that as an imperative.

get naked.
i mean that as a desire.

get naked.
i don't mean that as a sexual come-on. honest, this time.

get naked, i keep spelling it nacked.

get naked. that's all you can do these days. get naked. that's all you want to do these days. not because you're about to get lucky, or take a shower, or change clothes. but because it's so hot and you have one thought on your mind: nudity. because it's hot and your riding your bike home and you keep thinking about the first thing you're going to do whenyou get home, get naked. because it's hot. get naked. there's no water. get naked. get naked and rub whatever little water there is against your naked body and sit in the breeze. where am i, in the poor man's AC, or the rich man's sauna? whoa, i don't know. naked and wet sitting outside in the breeze eating lentils, what is it, the rich man's soup or the poor man's meat? whoa, i don't know.

as you might've guessed, it is hot hot hot here. not hot hot hot like the cure song. not hot hot hot like you wished you looked. but hot hot hot like i need to get wet and naked and into the poor man's AC. or the rich man's sauna. and not really hot hot hot here in elevated keren, but in agordat, where i have been in hiding for the past 2 months. and not really in hiding, but actually quite social, just social in a town that happens to be small and cut off from the rest of the world.

my dear friends, thanks for your emails, thanks for your job/internship/fellowship forwards which are now all closed, thanks for your photos, only one of which i've opened, thanks for your stories of events you think are significant but aren't sure, thanks for your engagement announcements (and congratulations). i'm receiving them all now, a couple of weeks, a couple of fortnights, a couple of months after you sent them. i've been busy being social in a small isolated town, getting hot and getting naked, getting naked and getting wet, first with sweat then with water, then again with sweat then again with water, i've been making lame teaching aids out of the cardboard boxes you sent me chocolates in, i've been playing bingo with my students as a mathematical exercise, i've been declining offers to coach the local basketball team, i've been lucky in avoiding the mysterious "welcome fever" that's come to town, i've been dreaming about eating indo-pak buffets at chinese restaurants while in reality i eat the same damn thing everyday, and it's definitely not an indo-pak buffet, i've been riding my bike underneath the hot hot hot sun waiting till i can get home and get naked. and once i'm naked, i think, can i not get more naked?

in the meantime, school has become farce. the director has opened up a bar in town, and he is more interested in tending to the bar than coming to school. he graces us with his presence once or twice a week. consequently, the teachers don't teach, they sit around or leave early. me teaching in a half full classroom while a thousand kids run around outside screaming and generally harrassing and disturbing my class as i try in vain to carry on with the lesson has become a familiar scene on campus. someone will open the door, i'll shut it, someone will open the door, i'll shut it, i'll put a chair against the door and order a student to sit on it, our makeshift lock. the thousand free and crazy ones outside will move on to slamming on the door or throwing rocks and breakingthe classroom windows. it's a challenge to even think. and my instincts aren't that good. i do think my classes appreciate my gallant, failing efforts, if not for the shambling trying-against-all-might failing valiance of it, then for the sheer entertainment value. how else could i explain the standing clapping chanting (shams! shams! shams!) ovation i received upon my return after semester break? it was one of those moments where you feel, redemption, affirmation, fame. glory. celebrity. holyness? inflated sense ofego? infallibility? you get my drift. whether comedian or clown or bingo master or failing teacher, something like that, redemption, was felt. for a whole 2 minutes. then it was back to business as usual. lockdown at the door! watch the breaking glass! maybe we can play bingo tomorrow.

and maybe, just maybe, if you've been nice, and you want to be overwhelmed by an incredibly sexy and exotic and oh-so-simple-third-world image, i can send you a photo of me, naked, wet with a toxic mixture of sweat and water, sitting in the breeze, in my poorman's AC. eating my poor man's meat. no pun intended.