I had the strangest dream. I was rehearing singing a canon with someone. Rehearsed until I was super clear on my entrance and the part. But then all of a sudden I started to mess up. I would forget my part and come in singing 'aktupa dekka elak'pata me', which is that ewe song I sang with my KG kids.
And we would stop the rehearsal time and time again, everyone would get annoyed, I would remember my real part, sing it once out loud to memorize it better, but as soon as we would start as a group, I'd forger the tune and go right back to 'aktupa dekka..."
It's been a while since my last African dream. I understand why now.
I am on my way to see the doctor. She's trying to identify the African Queen. That's what I've been calling this strange illness, which feels like something alive and active, like something that found a comfortable home in my ignorant white body. I keep imagining how lucky my Queen must feel. Out of millions of resilient African bodies that would've beat her in a second, knowing how to deal with her, instead, she found me. And has now had a good life there for over two months.
And I guess I am scared a little. So my spoke to me in my dreams.
The next morning (now) I get on the bus to go the Jacobi hospital to see the doctor, and the driver has a beautiful face and a very familiar accent.
"Where are you from?", I ask.
"Ghana", he says.
I knew it. I tell him about Give to Grow, he invites me next time visit his his home town in Ashanti region. I'll go I say. And I will, too.
And here we are, on the bus, the three of us, Almita the driver, my African Queen and myself, three strangers, strangely connected crossing the Triborough Bridge to the Bronx. The rain outiside is fierce, the air on the bus is cold, but the silence in it is full of some strange warmth, somehow.
Milica
