so my life. i told ponge that im queer. he kept talking about the future we will have together and i just kept thinking ponge you dont really know me. i mean, he knows me but less than he thinks. i was having a hormone day; that is this pill im is the 21 day cycle kind. the first part of the cycle i feel mildly nauseaus while for a day or two toward the end of the cycle i get super emotive and cant really handle the usual sorts of stresses that dont throw me otherwise.
anyway the day was saturday, i had been getting my hair tressed all day (literally, eleven am til nine pm) so i was exhausted anyway. getting your hair tressed is exhausting not just because you are sitting in one position for hours, but also because it hurts. each time the girls wrapped the fake hair around my real hair i would mildly flinch from the pain, and they wrap about five times before they braid it in. essentially this means you are flinching for hours on end, thus your nerves are totally shot by the end of the day. i imagine it is similar to chinese water torture. im not sure its worth all the effort, but its the only way i can keep myself from cutting off the hair im growing out, which is currently at the elton john stage.
so all i really wanted at the end of the day was to chill in abdulayes room with casey and drink attaya. chill, normal, low stress, english. but there was this mauride (type of muslim) event right outside my door in which a bunch of guys were singing verses of the koran and later a marabout came to speak to the people and, of course, people were drumming and such. so there were a million people everywhere and i was just not able to hack the social pressure of being all joyous and exchanging a million greetings (hello how are you good hows it going its going whats new nothing hows the family they are fine okay aside from all that how are you im fine okay see you later yeah see you later - except in wolof and french)
so i started crying; i hate to cry especially in front of other people but i seem to do this about once a month now (well at least im having really fucking great sex right) so i should probably get used to it. ponge and i were in his room and we started talking and such. he was telling me it wasnt worth it to get really emotional about things and i was saying that it wasnt normal, it was the pill that gave me these obnoxious tears without good reason. so we kept on and eventually we started talking about the future again and such and i just couldnt hide it anymore. i love him and i just needed to put it out there; i need him to know ALL of me. if he was going to leave me for it then its better to cut it off and if he wanted to kick me out i could live with honorine (my directrice) until i left.
so i said, ponge you know how i dont judge people by their classification. how i tell you that its whats in the heart that counts. when i look at someone, i consider them as a possible friend or partner without consciously taking into account their financial status, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or (deep breath) gender.
he reacts in a way that i know he hasnt understood. it turns out he doesnt know what i mean by genre the french word for gender. this also means classification, like a sort of thing. a genre of thing. i explain, i say, i dont differentiate between men and women. he starts to talk about women and men being equal and how women can do what men can do except for some things like kill a sheep (for religious occasions one often kills and cooks a sheep).
i laugh and say no problem i have no desire to kill a sheep anyway. but i say also; ponge you forgot what i said at the beginning, i said i also dont make the distinction concerning who im interested in. he just kind of looks at me like he doesnt know what im trying to say. so i make it a little clearer; i say ponge last summer i met a girl and we had a similar heart and thought in similar ways and i liked her and she liked me and we went out. he stopped and looked at me; wait i dont understand he says. i interrupt before he can say more, i say yes you do you just dont want to believe it.
i say, i never told you because here its forbidden forbidden, its even against the law. the culture here doesnt accept this at all but to me its totally normal. its just old rules that dont have meaning anymore that say its bad; like how a christian and a musulman can love one another and their parents and cultures can say its forbidden but they do it anyway or an italian catholic and a jew; when two people love each other and are kind to each other how can that be bad? i dont think god is against something like that (i dont know that i believe in god, but this is language he can understand and if there is a god i think thats true). its whats in the heart that counts. i said, but i couldnt hide it from you anymore because i love you and i needed to tell you so you can really know me.
he starts to tell me about how everyone has things they hide, even from people they love. he tells me he forgives me; i tell him i dont want forgiveness i want acceptance and that i have no shame for it and i would do it again. he tells me that he loves me and in fact he is proud of me, that i had enough confidence in him to tell him and he loves me even more for it. i dont think he has quite grasped my concept of gender and sex, but that can wait for other conversations. he tells me maybe one day he would tell me something; i dont remember if i just looked at him or if i said anything but he started to say look i hid something from you too you might not want to talk to me anymore or maybe you will detest me or --
i stop listening and i interrupt, ponge just say it youre scaring me, i imagine three things he might say:
-he is or has been with someone else while we were together
-he has a disease
-he has children elsewhere
i have a son, he says.
in a way im relieved. the other two are much worse, but im also a little too shocked to say anything. he starts to talk about him, and i ask questions too. he is named el hadji and is about two years old. he lives in casamance with his mother. ponge isnt really sure hes the dad but he accepts responsibility for him, visits when he can. casamance is not really safe, ponges high school was bombed and shot at (like military M-16 shot at) by rebels, etc. he never loved the girl, she liked him a lot and he after awhile caved in and dated her for a bit.
shit. the timer is about to go out on this cyber cafe program
to be continued.....
