Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Adventure Afoot

Just received word that I'm going to be spending most if not all of next summer in Central Africa! I'll be in Libreville, Gabon for about 2 and a half months...chillin'. Depending on timing and cash flow after I'm done in Libreville, I may head over to Kigali, Rwanda to visit a friend... by airplane of course. Trying to make my way through the Congo (especially eastern Congo) to get to Kigali by land may be a bad idea. Regardless of whether I go to Kigali, I'm sure Gabon will be a great adventure. No one seems to know anything about Gabon. I've been taking classes and attending lectures on Africa all semester, and I think Gabon has only come up once, and that was only in passing. So this will be totally uncharted territory, which means that it will just be teeming with opportunities for adventure. Beyond the fact that I've never been to Central Africa (only West Africa), one of the reasons that I chose Libreville was because the city is right on the Atlantic coast and equator runs right through the country. This will give me great chances to do some kayaking and jungle trekking while I'm there. The downside is that it's right on the equator and it'll be summer time, which means that it's literally going to be hot as hell!

So this is shaping up to be a pretty action-packed 8 months or so. In addition to Gabon next summer, I'm leaving for a month in India in about 3 weeks. Leaving just as soon as I'm finish with finals.

I think I may need to buy a new camera.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

J'aime New York Encore

It's Saturday night and I'm on my way to Brooklyn to visit my friend. I enter the station for the D-train on 125th St in Harlem. I descend the stairs and as I make my way through the station, I see a young man with a split-level high-top fade with multiple parts cut in. I was kind of surprised because you don't see that everyday, well at least not since 1994. I make my way through the turnstile and I watch the young man as he joins his friends: 3 guys and 2 women. To my delight, I see that not only is the first young man proudly reclaiming the early 90s, but so are all of his friends, and it seems that his "crew" is much further along the devolution than he. Not only are they rocking the fresh old-school haircuts, but they also have the phat rope chains, the large-frame glass with no lenses, door-knocker earrings and a boom box blasting old-school tunes.

Ain't no half-steppin'

As I follow them to the platform, all I can do is hope that they are getting on my train.

They do.

I slowly make my way to their side to assure that I get a space in the same train as them. Upon entering the car, I position myself in seat directly facing them: close enough that I can clearly see them, but far enough away that I'm not imposing on their personal space. Certainly I wanted to keep watching them, but I was more interested in observing the reactions of the other passengers as they got on the train.

Chiggity-check yo' self before you wreck yo' self

They're in a world all their own: dancing and jamming to D-Nice in total disregard of the presence of others. At each stop, I watch the faces of the arriving passengers to gauge their reactions. But other than a few double-takes and smiles of admiration and recollection, no one seems to pay them much attention.

That's why I love New York: people are free to do and be whatever they want. There are so many odd and unique people in this city that the "normal" people can't be bothered to care, well as long as your weirdness isn't negatively impacting them.

The hip-hop troupe exited the train at West 4th. I was tempted to eschew my plans in Brooklyn and accompany my new-found friends on their journey. Not only was I dying to know where it was that they were going, but I was intrigued by the thought that at their destination, there would be probably many more people just like them.