New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

  It should have come as no surprise that most of the other residents were white, but I failed to consider their racism. These were people who, now in their old age, were plagued by the fears and anxieties of Alzheimer’s, and some of these fears were triggered by me, my father and the Black staff. Violet, who seemed sweet and charming, could, in a moment, become vile and venomous. It was strange, almost surreal for my father to have to tolerate even such low-level verbal racism.

  The nursing home was my father’s home, it was a safe place in a world that was otherwise hostile or, at best, confusing to him, and at one level he coped with the offensive comments made from time to time by the other residents. There was no doubt in my mind that he both heard and understood what was being said. He gave each speaker a careful and thoughtful look and said nothing. It struck me that his dignity was as intact as it had been during those early years in England of overt and rampant racism. He may have had Alzheimer’s but that did not mean he was stupid. What bemused me about his situation, and no doubt that of other isolated Black people, is that when they are old, at their most vulnerable they may be exposed to more overt racism than when they were younger. I do not wish to exaggerate the extent of racism in old people’s care provision, and from what I have seen first-hand, it varies from home to home. In London, where many of the staff are themselves African or Afro-Caribbean, perhaps that sense of isolation is not so real as in locations where there are a few Black residents but no Black staff. Given the nature of Alzheimer’s in particular, and old age in general, older Black people need to feel safe and protected, yet these are often tough people, who have survived separation from home—building new lives amidst blatant racism and discrimination. By retirement age, a bit of offensive language is not a big deal.

  It is I who felt most offended on my father’s behalf but, like him, I said nothing. Partly this was because I knew my father could cope, partly because the old white people who made racist comments couldn’t be persuaded to change the habits of a lifetime. Ironically, it is the African notion of respect for one’s elders that enabled me to cope with the everyday racism in my father’s home. I saw those old people, white and wrinkled as my father was black and wrinkled, as people who had histories, as people who had learned either to hate and fear or to feel superior to people of African origin. In their older years, they too were vulnerable and neither I nor my father felt threatened by their words. I know that many Black staff feel the same. They can return to their own homes and families after each shift; they have a strong sense of both their own identity and that the old must be respected because of their age.

  I have often found a deep irony in the ways in which we Black people are asked to assimilate into British society and culture. This seems to include the way that British people treat their old folk. Even as a child born in England, I know enough from my father to know that shutting older people away and treating them with disrespect is not a universal practice, and that maybe African and Asian people can teach Britain something. Now I have even more reason to believe this to be true. My father’s generation may be the first older African, Caribbean and Asian people to die here in numbers, leaving their children and grandchildren to remain in Britain. Consequently, we may make a cultural contribution which adds something positive to British life. As we grow older and ourselves reproduce, we may be seen less as immigrants and more as settlers. We will make an impact on pensioners’ groups and in nursing home management. It is not just about Black faces being seen to be present in more areas of British society than hitherto; more significant may be how African, Caribbean and Asian attitudes to ageing are incorporated or, should I say, assimilated.

  I wonder what this society will look like when a generation of Black people born here have parents and grandparents from whom to learn and from whom advice and guidance can be gained. I know that such a sense of continuity did not exist for my father or for many others from Africa and the Caribbean. They made do without Grey Heads, but they retained the memory of them back home. It is we, who grew up here in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s who did not have that benefit and may not have even noticed it was missing. Now, I know what I have missed and am pleased and nourished by the sight of old Black people. Ageing for me is like completing a circle.

  Marion Bethel

  From Nassau in The Bahamas, she is an attorney, poet, essayist, filmmaker, and human and gender rights activist. She has published two poetry books, Guanahani, My Love, which won the Casa de Las Americas Prize in 1994, and Bougainvillea Ringplay (2009). In 2012 she produced the documentary film Womanish Ways: Freedom, Human Rights and Democracy, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in The Bahamas 1948–1962, which chronicles the journey of the enfranchisement of women and the significant contribution of this suffrage movement to the larger civil rights, majority rule and independence movements in The Bahamas. She serves on the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

  We Were Terrestrial Once, Maybe

  the sand feels sandy & loose

  until my bone & muscle grow heavy

  my sight short my breath

  shorter

  small waves now lap at my mouth & against my slit

  I am out of my head with the smell like fresh seaweed

  of our glide deep & slow our belly-to-belly glide

  south to the Tongue of the Ocean off the Andros shore

  where I lost you dizzy with sonic ringing

  bang & buzz now deep in my ear

  calling me to shore

  if in this merciful light-headedness

  my heart is a cork playful light with laughter

  afloat out there with you leading you oceanward

  understand my love there is nothing here but beach & shore

  (maybe a once-upon-a-time home) & the crushing weight

  of flesh without water

  the too-blue sky a mirage of ocean just above

  teases me I no longer feel the sun burn my skin

  we flukeflapped for love & flipperflopped

  in the deep deep where we breached for each other

  & dipped & dragged our flukes like drunken oars

  off the Nantucket shore while the tourists gasped

  the deep deep is so so far away muscular tail flaps away

  & an oh so slow deep swim in easy drag & glide with you

  In pitch col. & utter blackness your whale breath

  in my lungs

  thankyou for the guard of honour our humpback podmates

  you bring to steer me back to you outlandish my love!

  I would if I could just roll over roll to you roll all over you

  & suck another barnacle & another from your throat

  eat squid from your tongue I hear you your whalesong

  a dirge above the rest

  & you my love you still point your nose to the shore

  you would I know this if you could drag

  drag & drag some more the last bits of my imploded flesh

  back back back to the deep.

  Of Cowrie Shells & Revolution

  I

  In the marketplace of once upon-a-time

  cowrie shells tell and trade their own story

  the flooding of stalls with kola nuts

  the ascent of salt & copper

  the currency of silver & bronze

  and an uprising of gold.

  II

  I never wore the cowrie belt

  you gave me

  a gift from Kenya.

  Three rows of thirty shells

  a broadhipped sling of ninety lips and fine teeth

  threaded together

  in serrated chorus

  of daily Yes-es.

  I packed and unpacked it

  at every port of call

  after long periods of rest

  in apartment drawers,

  a sullen stowaway

  in trunks and boxes.

  Oh, yes! I was very African then

  headwraps
afro and daishikis

  full of black powder & marxist too!

  Cornforth’s Theory of Materialism in hand.

  But the sea-green leather strip

  of cowrie shells was too too wide & long

  for my rational hips—

  a black-is-beautiful clash

  with my dialectic pose—

  a primary contradiction!

  III

  This gift to me

  more worthy of the waist

  of a daughter of Yemaya

  possessed by the bass drum.

  It was not fit for a socialist and lover

  of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” in falsetto.

  Draped over outstretched arms

  you brought it—a deaconess’s stole

  a sling of Mau Mau grenades

  or a snake in concertina.

  You wrapped the belt around me

  your fingers in touch

  with each and every lip.

  IV

  I come to the belt now

  some thirty years later.

  I rip out one row

  of dryrot thread

  & the cowries explode

  in relief.

  I know now some

  of what you divined

  through these shells

  that gift day.

  A straitjacket of snakeskin

  translucent & cool

  yet not sloughed enough

  on time.

  I was unwilling

  in the late ’70s

  to stop and listen

  to the sacred story

  from the whorled lips

  of a fine-toothed shell

  that housed once

  upon-a-time

  a sea snail.

  Nina 1984

  (Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club)

  You have no mercy reliving

  “Mississippi Goddam”

  before our eyes.

  I cannot imagine the ’70s

  without your drumroll voice

  singing of a new world

  coming ushering the good

  news out of the church into

  the jazz & blues clubs.

  You say: “I would rather have been

  a classical pianist.”

  I do not question

  your loose vibrato longing.

  I want to rock you

  hush that sultry prophecy

  to rest.

  You hold down those jazz & blues keys

  until the dogs stop snapping & snarling

  and until the water hoses run dry.

  Nina, your voice is still now

  still the balm in Gilead.

  Tanella Boni

  Translated by Eileen Busby

  Born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, she pursued university studies in Toulouse, France, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where she obtained a PhD. Returning to Côte d’Ivoire, she became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cocody-Abidjan, served as President of the Writers’ Association of Côte d’Ivoire from 1991 to 1997 and organised Abidjan’s International Poetry Festival from 1998 to 2002. During the political strife in Côte d’Ivoire, from 2002 onwards, she lived in self-exile in France. She writes poetry, novels, short stories and children’s literature. In 2005, she received the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for her novel Matins de couvre-feu. Her first full collection of poems to be translated into English (by Todd Fredson) is The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn (2018).

  One Day Like No Other

  (Excerpt from an unpublished manuscript)

  My story begins one March 8. It is said that March 8 is the day of women whose presence is forgotten for 364 days. March 8 is the only day of the year when women are visible in the public square. Issa, my baby, accompanies me to the scene of a march. I usually take don’t take part in any demos. I flee crowds full of sound and fury, where words flow freely, words signifying nothing. My job as a school teacher gives me the right to speak in public, but I express myself so rarely. I don’t usually say what I believe and what I think.

  There’s no such thing as a silent teacher, but silence heats my blood because I am an angry woman. More than once a day, I have a rage in my gut. I wonder how I hold up in front of my students. I probably forget I’m in a class, in a public place. Then I build sentences that make sense, my words come freely; of course, I don’t talk about myself, I talk about others. I want to tell stories. Everything seems to run like clockwork. Now, by necessity, the school is closed. I have no idea when classes will reopen. I don’t have time to be bored, even if the war does not end and chaos persists around me. To deceive the anxiety lurking in the shadows, I walk with a notebook. And I note down a few sentences. This time, I want to tell what happens to me, what I see, what I hear.

  About nine o’clock, in a common courtyard where there are only women, I go to the meeting place. At the entrance, two young girls, sentinels in sportswear, are keeping watch. These are the bodyguards trained at the police academy or in a private club. And I imagine they are there for a good cause. They search all those who arrive. There is no time for Hello, or the endless salaams. As soon as I see the girls, I hear:

  —You seem to be a pregnant woman—come let me check you!

  —Do you have anything to declare? adds the other.

  They come near me. One lifts the cloth that covers the baby’s head. She smiles.

  —What’s his name?

  —Issa!

  —A beautiful baby boy. He’s asleep. My name is Estelle—

  —And I’m Nani. We provide security.

  I am far from being a round woman and I’m not expecting a child. Not anymore. My baby is nine months old. I’m strong, certainly, but mostly armoured. I wear on my body what matters in my opinion. What cushions blows from batons and would undoubtedly deflect the trajectory of an untimely bullet. These objects piled on my belly and my chest will serve as a bulletproof vest if needed. But this is all so ridiculous . . .

  —You know why we look under the cloths? adds Nani.

  —I have no idea. Probably to make sure we haven’t come here with a gun or something else, to stir things up . . .

  —You got it, said Estelle. You see, belts are the new fashionable games, apart from the usual much talked about objects.

  —Belts? What for? I asked, surprised.

  They saw my banana belt, which is my handbag.

  —Don’t worry, said Estelle, feeling the bumbag. I know you have nothing in your belt except a penknife, a stinging object or nail clippers, those little things that are so effective for scaring off a troublemaker . . .

  —We are talking about homemade bombs exploding in the markets and on the streets. These devilish things can kill hundreds of people in a second as you know, said Nani.

  —Women carry bombs on their bodies, adds Estelle, when they obey the orders of those who have lost their heads and who drug them. Well, you know what I mean. Even very young children don’t escape their grip . . .

  —Yes. I see . . .

  —Good. Let’s get on with business. We have placards over there, on the table. You choose what you want. There are also squares of white sheeting and pieces of cardboard. You have what is necessary to write and express your anger.

  Nani comes to see what I’m doing.

  —Is that all you’re writing? asks Nani.

  —I have a hard time expressing myself . . .

  —It will come on the spur of the moment! she says.

  I move away from them. While women of all ages flock to the scene of the demonstration, I head towards those who are speaking loud and clear, gathered under a big mango tree planted at the other end of the yard from Estelle and Nani.

  They look at me suspiciously.

  —You, you’re not a spy, by any chance?

  And, stung to the quick, I react without thinking.

  —Why?

  —We’ve never seen you at any of our meetings!

  —Leave it. She’s alre
ady been searched at the entrance . . .

  —Welcome!

  The one who interrupts the words of her colleague doesn’t want to know who I am or where I come from. It was one of the committee members. Among the crowd, no one knows me. I’m not wearing a women’s activist cap. In fact, I’m not one of them. Here, among the crowd, I’m in another territory that is not mine. There is no shortage of sidelong glances and whispers. I’m the stranger who intrigues everyone, with my baby that I should have asked someone to look after before coming to this unsavoury place. Yet I see so many mothers with babies in their arms or on their backs, some of them younger than my Issa.

  Around me float boubous and white scarves. Incense and other scents pleasantly perfume the crowded street. In the distance, I see women in black and red. Then the procession visibly grows, joined by very young girls and girls in short dresses. Very coquettish grandmothers, wearing boubous or multicoloured cloths, come out of their homes and join the march. In the middle of the procession, naked women, with kaolin-tattooed bodies and faces, form a group that does not go unnoticed. These clay-marked bodies speak a clear language that I cannot translate into words. I am not in front of a blackboard on which all the letters are legible. I realise that I am uneducated as soon as I leave my classroom and I mingle with a crowd that has a different alphabet to offer passers-by.

  In our world, sign interpreters are numerous. Because they understand the language of the traditions, they predict that the appearance of naked women in the street is a prelude to great misfortune, and they hasten to say so. Thus, onlookers observing the procession metamorphose into sign readers. Planted on the sidewalks, on both sides of the street, they move at times, while chatting cheerfully.

  In the procession, no one takes note of the presence of the foreigner that I am. We march together. Each of us is convinced that it is for the common cause, the only good cause. This cause, we don’t know what it is, even if one has the impression of touching it, of living daily in its grip. I look at the signs parading before my eyes. There are so many associations, NGOs, various groups that are concerned about the lives of women, their problems in relationships, their professional integration, all the violence they suffer, the exclusions of which they are victims. I imagine that violence among so much violence is nothing but harassment on a daily basis. Where a grain of sand seeps into an ordinary relationship. The little word assassin spoken on the street or in the workplace. This little word that shouldn’t be said, slowly descends in your memory of a woman, bothers you all day and, when evening comes, gives you insomnia. And worse, the damage to the dignity of your body pressed against a wall, wedged between two doors. How to explain this rage that lives in your body and your memory of a woman while weapons crackle, and your city sinks under piles of filth? Things feel even more confused when those closest to you—husband, friend, son, brother, father—do not make the task easy.