After the thorough screening at the entrance of the embassy, Raymond and I found the video store tucked away in a corner. Shelves full of videos were well organized and typical American junk food was sitting right there at eye level. Red Twizzlers licorice was staring at me….I could not believe it! Here I was in a video store with chocolate bars and Nacho chips! The attendant showed us the US memorabilia for sale, thinking that we would be impressed with the coffee cups and pennants printed with gold US EMBASSY lettering. My disinterest was obvious as I kept poring over the shelves for the much needed video. It was not there. So my attention turned to the candy bars. I turned to Raymond and to the attendant and asked: “Can we buy some of these? “ “Of course you may,” the attendant replied politely, “and let me show you other items that we have in the refrigerator and freezer.” My mouth gaped …what freezer and which refrigerator?
The attendant opened the freezer door and to our surprise there was cheddar cheese and 12 grain bread! “We’ll buy those,” I said so quickly that I surprised myself, as if this was a dream and I would be awakened and disappointed. We paid for the cheese, bread, Twizzlers and a Butterfingers candy bar. I just had to have good old American junk food. I was floating as we walked out of the Embassy, holding tightly to my new found treasures. I was keeping my wealth close to me, not wanting anyone to see what I was carrying in case it may vanish. I felt selfish not wanting to share any of my new found valuables, with anyone but Raymond. While I was paying the attendant, Raymond went to get the school mail which arrives on a regular basis here at the Embassy Mail Room.
We stepped outside and here we were back in Guinee, in the real world, in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun and the dust and hazy sky of the harmattan season.* Bivan, our driver was waiting for us beside the school car, as always, reliable and calm. As I sank in the back seat of the car, I dwelled on this sensation of glee that had overtaken me. Why was I acting like a kid in a candy store? I suppose it was because I WAS a kid in a candy store. For the last 20 minutes, I felt back home, back in the familiar of my life, back in a video store with the junk food temptations.
As the car moved on, I took the first bite of my Butterfingers candy bar and the chocolate and crispy peanut butter awoke my taste buds. Wow this is sooooo good! I was in a reverie and experiencing sheer delight! I felt like I was in my own world, reveling in my new found wealth, the chocolate melting in my mouth. People who know me, know that I am a chocoholic. Over the years, I have developed a taste for very good chocolate, Lindt chocolate being my favorite. Today’s Butterfingers candy bar was not about enjoying gourmet chocolate. It was about getting a taste of back home.
I had just found here in Guinee, of all places, 12 grain bread, cheddar cheese and a Butterfingers candy bar…..and then I saw her. She was standing in the roundabout, hailing down a taxi. She was dressed in black from head to toe, her face was completely covered: a Muslim woman. We rarely see them here in Conakry. Flashbacks from my life in Saudi Arabia popped in my mind at that very moment. I wonder if she knows freedom I thought to myself. Does she know what freedom is? I wonder if she has ever had the ecstatic feeling of eating a candy bar by herself and for herself? What if I was to trade lives with her? I slid lower in the seat and continued biting into my candy bar. The thoughts of this woman’s lack of freedom were haunting me as I saw 3 young children running on the side of the busy road, a stick and a plastic bag in hand, laughing and screaming as they saw the plastic bag inflate like a kite. The innocence of children I thought. Would these Guinean children ever know real kites, kites with rainbow colors, designs and funky shapes that climb ever so high in the wide open skies? Probably not. Would they ever experience the freedom that I grew up with? ? Does the average Guinean dream of freedom? Is freedom different for people in poor countries, what we call, being politically correct, developing countries….and what is it that they are developing anyway?
Are we more developed because we have candy bars and video stores on every street corner? In our North American world of overabundance, we know that everything we need and anything we want, we can get. We have experienced abundance to the point where we have not realized that our abundance has developed into overabundance. Does this overabundance give us freedom? I folded my half-eaten candy bar into my purse. My cheap chocolate craving was over. Freedom, I conclude is an inner state of being, wherever one lives in the world. It is our inner state that decides how free we really are.
*Harmattan is to Guinee as the chinooks are to the Albertans. Chinooks are a warm air current that melts the winter snow and turns a region into a spring day while harmattan is a warm wind from the Sahara desert that carries with it dust and creates hazy skies in Guinee.
