by Tuttle, Dan;
his tenure at the institution there
for up to several years. They wanted him
to reach full fluency. He’d be a rare
resource. He hoped the skill would future limn
in gold: some time ago he promised Stel
he’d someday self past poverty propel.
42.
The emblem of achievement: silver piece
on necklace with emblazoned seals. The first
was classic armored dragon, epic beast
that through Chinese tall tales was interspersed.
It wasn’t standalone mid-cloud in flight,
but wrapped ’round second item: waxing moon,
a symbol of the darkness in the light,
the yin to yang in oriental rune.
The third was customized in Latin script:
the letters of its winner’s name spelled out,
proclaiming unequivocally who gripped
this medal ’mong authorities held clout.
Recipient was backed by Chinese state
that hoped in commerce they’d remunerate.
43.
Across the village, lone in little home
sat BLING and Stella at the foot of bed,
possessions all arranged in view. The tome
marked Annals (where their history’s retread)
was the first object in the pile marked ‘take’.
She sat, unclasped its buckle, opened to
the illustration of when they did break
into the shop for eggs, took rope in through
the window. “My, how risks evolved
since fearing framing as a petty crook…”
She worried inwardly she might dissolve
if her identity as writ in book
were soaked or burned or lost or marred by ink,
as if were soul and stories chain-tight linked.
44.
There weren’t too many things to choose between,
as poverty meant Grandmum owned but cows—
an asset small, but large enough for lien,
both useful for the sale and pulling plow.
The Annals, clothes, and satchel fit on BLING,
a couple half-used pencils, one small knife,
and necklace newly-liked were all the things
she chose to pack to start her Chinese life.
For all the while Abu was studying
sly Stel spent scheming, setting up escape.
She planned to shift her story, muddying
her real identity. Concealing cape
of words would let her con her way to fame
or, short of that, at least own life reframe.
45.
Soft “Hodi!” at the door caused BLING to YIP!
and trot to see who dared disturb their peace.
That gloam-lit silhouette had scholarship
that ought to give his life a newfound lease.
Yet somehow shoulders slouched still. “Hi, Abu!”
exclaimed the girl to her companion, “I’m
surprised you came. I thought today’s breakthrough
would be so big you’d spend the whole nighttime
in family celebration.” “Well, sure, but
you know I’m never in the limelight long,”
he said, while eyebrows did toward forehead jut
as if to cast resigned surprise at wrong
from kin, one more omission tragedy
from blood who doubt that he’d from rags slip free.
46.
His now-wide eyes as saucers with brows raised
bombarded brain with data girl’d gone nuts.
For taking all possessions out was crazed
unless intending to— “Stel, you’ve got guts.”
His eyeballs swept across the objects strewn
around the room, arranged in piles. “If I
were guessing, I’d say you were off to moon.”
“To you, you know I couldn’t say goodbye,
let’s celebrate both our departures!” Grin
met Abu still-bewildered, grew again
at hatching her grand plan from what coffin
made start as sad affair. “Ab tell me, then,
when China’s planned to send us oversea.”
And fast explained how she’d be attendee.
47.
It took no more than minutes fingers show
to walk through all that happened while Abu
had buried brain in books to overflow
with knowledge. Stella meanwhile had pursued
her dream to leave: she’d gathered property
and cash together to fund getaway.
She’d practiced lines in case of inquiry,
now memorized. Each story fit in gray,
not black or white. The kerosene-cast light
bathed room in hues that felt like setting sun,
like Stella’s Tanzanian pending flight
had ushered local night. “If boring, none
will want to listen. Blandnesses elide.
But I’ll need you.” “I’m always by your side.”
48.
“That’s what I’m counting on, because the truth
is that I’m mere hired help from here on out.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “The only proof
that’s needed is that Grandmum’s gone. No doubt
about it, when a girl is left alone
she’ll soon become a servant. You know how
it works.” And then it clicked. He said, “You’ve known
this whole time that I’d win? You sold her cows
to go with me, and never come back home.”
She looked him squarely in the eye. She had
instinctive flight ingrained in chromosomes,
and hoped it wouldn’t scare off her comrade.
“I think,” he said, conspiracy in smile,
“we’re going to make the most of your exile.”
49.
The conversation with his family took
an insignificant amount of words.
They said her Grandmum passed, then the rulebook
of customs by adults was soon referred
to, and the choice was made that Stella would
accompany Abu as second-class,
a housegirl paying own way where she could.
The Pioneers thus leaped past first impasse
they’d feared: permission. Getting it had freed
their tongues to talk in truer words about
their origins and intentions. To mislead
about such basic things ran risks. The grout
preferred back then was pure veracity
o’er lies’ backdrop, plus pertinacity.
50.
Departure morning dust had settled, breeze
confined itself two feet above the ground.
Wafts of last scent of loved acacia trees
would leave the Pioneers with noses drowned.
The inter-village dala dala came
on time, because it had no time to come.
For all things fit in place where time’s reclaimed
away from watch-hand by mere eyeball’s sum.
Abu and Stella boarded, fortunate
to have a seat in van considered treat.
As kids in cars oft packed are orphans, sit
on laps or stand with bodies incomplete
in coming or in going, feet on floor
with torsos stretched beyond the half-closed door.
51.
Their luggage cinched upon the no-rack roof,
in plaid two-handled plastic bags well-known.
For prevalence in region was clear proof
that cheapest way to transport stuff was clone
the one-use bag, quadruple thickness, and
add zipper strong enough to hold in roots.
That morning, as was typical, the land’s
tremendous produce sat in sacks, the shoots
extending past bags’ twine-rope ties and zips.
The women riding prior to dawn had reaped
plants stuffed in sack to sell. Their roles eclipsed
descriptions statisticians tried to keep
of what is formal work for GDP
and what is household informality.
52.
With infants squeezed by kangas to their chests,
those women simultaneously ran
home’s childcare work and finances, no rest
from cooking, sowing, picking, selling. Man
held stake in some small sums his wife had brought
through selling extra produce. That would change
when cash migrates to phones—they’d longtime sought
accounting privacy. On seats the range
of household heroines was fairly wide,
in patterned prints with proverbs, pleasures such
as ‘savings never go bad’ or the guide,
‘just bit by bit will fill the measure’. Crutch
for nation was their dedication, an
adhesive force as fierce as tie to clan.
53.
So Abu, Stella, and her puppy BLING
sat butt-to-butt with all these women who
brought business to the market. Life’s upswing
was driving off into emergent blue,
away from home where Gumi’s mystery
was faked, where fears were overcome, where speech
was known, toward lands with faceless history.
He’d gone for studies’ riches, she to reach
a place where expectations’ shackles fall.
Each window peek showed advertisers’ paint
in blurring colors, roadside sprawl, strip malls.
Their skipping minds danced freely, no constraint
in dollar, word, or warrant barred them from
their rags-to-riches tale: to feast, from crumb.
54.
Before they’d left, in accented decree
their light-skinned Chinese sponsor clarified
they’d be received by colleague appointee
in town. He said the air’d be rarefied
in airplane, that they’d best drink water so
they not dehydrate, that they’d sit eight hours,
and that the massive noise was apropos
of engines big enough to superpower
a hunk of metal through the sky. How odd,
Stel thought, not having ever seen a plane.
Its easy glide through air would leave her awed,
not knowing pressure can great lift attain.
Word blast from omnipresent stereo
engendered new concern: “Ab, where we go
55.
no one will understand us.” Bass wave din
shook dala dala. Bongo beats matched spat
Swahinglish, lyrics powered by old men’s sin.
Stel grasped accustomed tongue. “Guess our chitchat
can be a secret code, then,” he replied,
“for times we need to talk so no one hears.
Outsiderness in this case coincides
with opportunity: words for our ears
are ours alone. So when we need it we’ll
ongea Kiswahili, hakuna
matata. Don’t you think it adds a thrill?
It’s fun. We’ll learn. And soon we’ll attune a
quick ear to how they speak. Chinese I’m sure
is learnable.” (That hope proved premature.)
56.
The throughway hustle densified each mile,
with bustling auto shops, food stands, and bars.
White-collar signs and other versatile
small biashara plugged to passing cars.
Dar es Salaam grew up as port of call
for traders from the Middle East and from
much further, even: China did befall
its shores before da Gama rounded thumb
of Cape Point in South Africa. Schoolbooks
forget Zheng He, the Admiral, lived in
the fifteenth century and overtook
the seas. He could have conquered. But fleet thinned
when next Ming emperor’d abominate
non-Chinese worlds, and closed his border gates.
57.
The architecture altered, too, as they
steered deeper into city sprawl. Stel knew
that Muslims lived near coast not faraway,
but less what they would look like. Their debut
was curvature in building tops, designs
whose intricate geometry was matched
where sousing lustrous hues bucked anodyne
whitewash of plastered concrete. Gone were thatched
plant roofs, and huts of well-planned mud caked dry.
Though Zheng He was himself a Muslim, he
was not the culture conduit implied
by his arrival first. No, Dar’s esprit
was clearly from the Middle East. It mixed
the tongues of peoples it sprung up betwixt.
58.
Swahili as a language came about
when local Bantu language family
put sprinkled nouns from Arabic throughout
its lexicon. They fit uncannily
by making simply one new class of nouns
for ported words. It matched in syntax and
in structure what the Bantu spoke. Scale down
the breadth of words a speaker need command
to few, with fewer synonyms—voilà!
A language meant for trade, and quick to learn
emerged. And thus those following Allah
could come and talk and trade, go and return.
Their commerce spread the language nationwide,
and converse, threaded patchwork distant tribes.
59.
But snapping back to scene where Stella sat,
smooshed sideways, shoulders sloped, the sites she saw
were sadly sights themselves, some streets showed scat
on surface, sewage systems never drawn.
Sans sanitation, public people pooped
(as privately as possible), perceived
as practice permanent, for funding drooped
for pipes and pumps to problems there relieve.
Installing infrastructure there involved
injunctions to displace inhabitants,
insolvent individuals. Unsolved
was squatters’ illegality. Build fence
between the poorest and the richest, and
the wealthy slept in peace in walled dreamland.
60.
Their forward progress slowed as van began
to stop twice each kilometer, then yield
to standstill traffic. Hawkers’ walks outran
them. Slower snapshots of the streets revealed
a section of the population who
sold stacks of goods identically alike:
bananas, peanuts, crackers, gum to chew.
They’d wait to sense some eye contact, then strike
at passenger in transit van, their look
as if your purchase were to give them life
and otherwise they’d starve. At first it shook
young Stella, who’d seen less-grave urban strife.
She felt a desperation in the gaze
not seen in eyes in homeland’s lands of maize.
61.
“It’s tough to see, Abu.” “It’s more than what
we’re used to, yeah.” His rationality
cut in with explanations: “Better hut
in village than live here. House gals get tea,
food and a floor for sleep. Bongo maintains
a second personality it hides.
With one it’s farms, and fates fall with the rains.
With one it’s towns, and what you can provide
with self-made jobs.” Described part, though not whole
of how the migratory tides deprived
folks fighting for esteemed – yet lowest – role
that commerce could provide. Yet they survived,
packed in, found labors, built communities
contrasting ’gainst witnessed disunity.
62.
There lay before her new phenomenon:
expanse of color corn silk left to dry,
its texture grainy. Stel’s jaw dropped upon
the sight it bordered: waves all alkali
in litmus spectrum. Textbooks gave reprieve
from disbelief. She’d heard of oceans’ girth,
in dream alone could ever have conceived
of space that large not filled with dirt and earth.
Perhaps as contrast to depravities
she’d witnessed on the journey into Dar,
this view for Stel held striking gravity.
Her lifetime she’d spent hauling water far
from public tap to home, trudged can by can.
Her muscles twitched as eyes the water scanned.
63.
Its vastness frightened, weight mayhaps as large
as anything existing ever, she
believed. That sight caused daydream to discharge,
a recollection of the nightmare sea
that flooded mind and land some months ago.
Their van stopped finally not far from the coast,
She looked away from water’s dying glow.
Outside the door stood uniformed man, host,
the Chinese emissary they’d expect.
He welcomed them into the beach hotel.
He whisked them past front desk, “You are both checked
in, need not worry. Flight tomorrow.” Smell
delectable passed. “That’s bizarre and new,”
Stel said. Man smiled, “It’s Muslim barbecue!”
64.
Their bags were put in one of many rooms,
identified by number on the door.
From catacomblike corridors entombed,
they thrilled at thought of slipping off to shore.
Their minds were full and stomachs empty, so
their noses guided them next door to beach.
With drop of sun, mere charcoal afterglow
alight in half-drum barbecues cast peach
and orange light around. Some kerosene
in torches on the tables stayed the night.
They wondered how their lives had quarantined
them from these salty, spicy odors’ bite.
The saffron, cumin, cinnamon, and cloves
of rich pilau blew gently off the stoves.
65.
The food was wondrous in its novelty,
but vista wholly mammoth stole the show.
The twilight navy struck colossally,
its undulating waves aped strokes Van Gogh.
“I…” Stella started saying, then she stopped,