Gaudi, Robertsfield Highway & Other Thoughts

Wheels up again. On Sunday, I departed Monrovia for what I didn't know would be an epic journey through Africa by flight. Air travel throughout Africa is cumbersome as hell and expensive---and for once it's not a Liberia problem. My friends in South Africa, Ethiopia, and Ghana complain about the same thing. I swear it's cheaper to fly to the  US or even to Europe. The last time I quoted travel from Monrovia to Addis Ababa it was upwards of $3,000. 

Traveling away from Liberia is always bittersweet.  I'm a mixture of emotions handing out 200LD here another 200LD there, to workmates that have heard I'll be traveling. Despite my best efforts to not mention it. I'm then laden with a bit of guilt for the son's birthday I'll miss or just that I won't be in Liberia with them realizing that travel for most (even to a neighboring country) is a luxury or something done for medical care or because you're fleeing war...

I'm grateful for the respite though and the journey from Congo Town to Roberts International Airport is always punctuated with deep thoughts about everything. As we travel through the neighborhood called "Smell, No Taste", I laugh at my Liberian people's humor. Thinking of the foreign foods they could smell but to them, had no taste. I ponder my niece's tasting of that beef stroganoff creamy pasta concoction last week. I'm proud of her for even trying but after a few seconds in her mouth---she held the pasta there tentatively deciding not to chew or soil her taste buds further--I gave her permission to spit it out. I ponder the foreigners in Liberia then and now and the things they brought with them, the things they left behind. The ones still in Liberia for generations now, but thanks to our constitution, never will be Liberian. Too little Melanin. Tests of authenticity. Everything alas has a price. This. Is. Africa. 

I remember traveling this highway with a companion from California intent on capturing the termite hill mounds that apparently inspired the famous Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. She promised a friend she would take a few shots and so we stopped on the side of this 2 lane highway to the airport for the shot. Not the safest endeavor and I'm sure local passersby were thinking look at these "dumb foreigners" as we posed next to the termite hills naturally and beautifully designed. 

I contemplate Gaudi and the folks like him who aren't appreciated much until years after they die. Who, even upon death had lived such an ascetic life, was confused for a beggar when fatally hit by a car As if it should matter whether beggar or Gaudi, the loss of one life not equal to another. One of his great works began in 1882 and is still unfinished, yet a testament to the beauty of sanctified spaces.  I contemplate the value of life and the sum of 31 years of experiences I represent now as a woman about to embark on this African sojourn. Journeying across the continent for a friend from Penn I've come to respect and admire. I laugh thinking of my time in high school versus university and the difference in academic zeal I had at 18 vs. 22, Ahh those interesting 4 years when I got to know my friend Mark.  From Math 104 (Calculus) to Contemporary African Politics and now his wedding! :)

I contemplate my last trip to Ghana and the Rasta on the beach impressed with my playlist which included old school high life songs. High life music for me recalls Sunday mornings in my Dad's Bronx apartment, the smell of light crab pepper soup wafting, newspapers being gathered for our crab refuse, steam gathering on our 4th floor windows. The paradoxical warmth of the music and the food juxtaposed against a wintry, cold outside. Peace before the storm. Happiness. So it is, I'm often in a trance when listening to High Life and similarly was on a musical trip when the Rasta stares at me and says, "How is it that you have these old old songs?" "Do you know what they are saying?" I shake my head no. Complacent to just travel with the horns and watch the ocean waves crashing on Labadi Beach.

He translates:

"It is a song played often at funerals", he says. "It is a warning to love those who are alive now and appreciate them while they are here, because just like those we used to know, who used to be here with us, those alive now, will also go."

I love the song even more and my trance has become a spiritual soul dance as I think of the fleeting nature of life. Of my ancestors, once dancing, smiling, and happy beings no longer here. Of Gaudi and the monuments he built  now added to the UNESCO World Heritage site list. 

Arrival at Roberts International Airport. I smile and beeline pass the guy that sells locks, the second guy positioned to help me roll my bag into the airport, and make it to security.  I'm excited for another trip to Ghana, even if only for a few hours. I'm dreading the long flights I'm scheduled for afterwards but grateful I may finally get to finish this book I started in September.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to travel through music, architecture, plane, and the nature of silly inspirational things like the termite hills along Robertsfield highway.  

According to Wiki, when Gaudi received his degree the head of the school remarked: "We have given this academic title either to a fool or a genius. Time will show."

Fool or Genius. My departure from Cuba. My move to Liberia. Time will show. For now, I relish in thinking the latter because travel is genius!