Fertile Myrtle

This is Ali, my tour guide on Goree Island. He's like a younger, taller, cuter Wesley Snipes. I generally avoid paying guys like him to guide me around during these types of outings, because they usually just talk a lot of fake local patois shit and get on your nerves, and you don't really learn anything useful.

But from the minute I looked up into his chiseled, deep cocoa face, I knew I'd need to spend some quality time with Ali, and I'd pay top dollar for the privilege. (No, we didn't duck behind some bushes and get Le Freak on, but in hindsight, I wish we had.)

In fact, now that I think about it, I was horny the whole time in Senegal. I swear to God, West African men are the hottest on the continent! Since I arrived in Kenya, there's only one guy so far that really fires up every nerve ending in my body. In Dakar, I was engulfed by wave after wave of raw lust. Even the kid who delivered room service one night almost got attacked, and he wasn't even really that cute per se. It was only because he was about 7 feet tall, and I could picture myself climbing all over him like a jungle gym!

I'm thinking this probably happened because I'd talked with my friend Roberta about how "sex obsessed" the Senegalese are right before the trip. Whatever the case, it's been years since I felt this ripe. And to top it all off, just when I was praying for a few more months of barrenness to confirm my entry into the blessed freedom of menopause, on Monday I got a surprise command performance from Aunt Flo! I'm talking gullywasher action, and I can't remember being so flabbergasted and completely unequipped to handle a bodily function before in my life. It's like I'd made my peace, bid adieu, psyched myself for another 20 or 30 years of complete freedom from monthly tyranny, and then, all of a sudden, I'm all "Fertile Myrtle" again.

It's "Always" something. Get it??? "Always?" Speaking of which, you should have seen me struggling through a fake-assed mime routine trying to get the guy at the stall across from the hotel to understand I needed some "feminine accoutrements." Guess I've received my warning...next time I'm in West Africa, it's gon' be ON til the break of dawn!!!!!

Pret a Porter

My goal is to one day own at least one dress from every country on the African continent. That is, if I don't catch a fatal beatdown during a fierce marketplace bargaining session. Sometimes, I even question my own lack of scruples for haggling over that last shilling, or franc, or pazooza, or whatever the currency du jour might be during my shopping excursions. Like I've said before, the difference between 5 dollars and 4 dollars doesn't really mean much to me, but it could buy a couple days' meals for families in many countries.

Anyway, this shot was taken at a market stall on Goree, after I'd finished my tour of the slave house. Once the women stopped gaping and running their fingers through my hair, they fell on me like flies on a red velvet cake. "Madame, Madame, I give good price," they pleaded. "Sees-tah, Sees-tah, you buy me."

After all these years, I've perfected the art of playing deaf in loud, crowded markets. I can sidestep with the best of them, and learn the proper term for, "No thanks," in many languages. But these Goree Gals wore me down. I fully intended to just finger a few items and head back to the ferry, but they weren't havin' it.

Now, don't ask me why I chose this particular dress, which makes me look like a walking purple TV test pattern, but by that point, I just wanted to get away. I'd been told that the best shopping was at Market HLM in Dakar, and besides, I needed to find the lewd fabric swatches like the one my friend Roberta gave me on Halloween. Still, I'll always remember Goree's Market Mafia, and how persistent salesmanship can erode even the most savvy shopper's resolve.

The Fourth Angel

Meet Ruth, the "Cheryl Tiegs" of the Dakar Dolls. She's the one who took a huge leap of faith and boarded a plane to Nairobi from Entebbe without any visa information, wound up on a waiting list, was stuck overnight, and finally made it on a flight to Dakar just in time to miss the entire pre-conference workshop.

But Ruth's determination and courage are exactly why I recommended her for the confer-

ence. By the time I left Dakar yesterday afternoon, she was right on board with everyone else, lining up interviews, preparing her radio

equipment...handlin' her bizness. Just like Irene and Joy, she's got the right stuff. Young women like them make me feel really great about the future of journalism on the African continent.

Innervision

After a challenging few days it hit me: I really DO know when to hold 'em, AND when to fold 'em. And I'm sitting on the balcony of the swanky-swank Le Meridien Hotel near Daker listening to the waves crashing along the shoreline, and I am fucking GOLDEN. 48 Karat, to be exact. One for every year of my richly blessed life.

"La vie est belle."

Dakar Dolls

You've heard of Charlie's Angels? Well, meet the "Dakar Dolls."

The one on the left is Irene. She's the the tall, skinny, model type, sorta like Farrah Fawcett. The one in the middle is Joy, who embodies the lovely bravado of Jaclyn Smith. The one on the end? That's me, Kate Jackson all the way. The nerdy/nymph-ish blend of beauty and brains (and belly).

We've just finished a journalists' workshop before the Early Childhood Development conference that starts tomorrow. I came as a co-trainer, and when organizers asked me to recommend a few participants, these two gals were first on my list. They are smart, dynamic and destined for great things in their respective countries of Rwanda and Kenya. I've been working with Joy ever since she entered a journalism training program at the Daily Nation in August 2008. I met Irene at the Kigali workshop I organized in August of 2009.

Young women like these two won't let me leave this continent, for heaven's sake!! They are so smart and resourceful and committed to making a difference. There are always 1 or 2 in every newsroom I encounter, and they latch onto me like baby chicks, hungry for any advice and support I'm offering. And because I never had any kids, I figure this a great way to nurture and mould young minds without changing dirty diapers or standing in a stuffy classroom all day.

I'm not saying women like Joy and Irene don't have any female journalist role models, but I'm positive they don't have very many. And I'm not saying that issues like Early Childhood Development would never be covered in African newspapers without my help, but I know that if I DO support people like Joy and Irene, the odds are better.

So there you have it: a journalistic vortex of African/American brains and beauty, so to speak. Basically, this picture is worth several hundred thousand words, if these young women just keep on writing. And this, er, "seasoned" woman just keeps on cheering them on.

Getting "Over" It

I probably shouldn't admit this, but at the moment this picture was taken, I kinda felt like Chevy Chase's character Clark Griswold, in the original "National Lampoon's Vacation" movie. Remember when he and Beverly D'Angelo and the kids were standing at the Grand Canyon viewing rail, and Clark stood there for a few reverent seconds, bobbing his head as if trying to absorb the majesty in a quick intravenous burst, and then abruptly ushered everybody back to the station wagon for the next leg of their hellish journey.

In my case, I had just shoved my camera at my tour guide, a FINE chocolate young brother named Ali, and asked him to snap me peering at the "Door of No Return" on Goree Island. That's what you do in a situation like this, right? I mean, it would have been crassly inappropriate for me to stand there facing the camera cheesing like a hayseed, given what some of my ancestors endured hundreds of years ago in a setting just like this. I figured as symbolic, reverential poses go, this one was adequate.

And then I waited. Waited for the gut-wracking sobs that hit me at the end of the Elmina tour in 2003, near Accra, Ghana. Waited for the voices of the foremothers to whisper, "You made our struggle worth it, Daughter of the Diaspora," or something equally lyrically mystical. But I got nada. Zippo. Oh, I'm glad I went, and I got some great photos.

But then I started to think, what's different now? Well, for one thing, in 2003 I was still smarting from Election Theft 2000, and enduring the Cheney presidency. I suppose if I'd known Dubyah was going to win another term, I might have flung myself through Elmina's door and crashed onto the rocks below. But six years later, there's an American President of African descent.

Is it finally time to stop looking backwards, and stay focused on the future? Should African Americans just get over all the slavery and racism and victimhood stuff and admit we've come a long way, and that we possess the power to do even better? Do we need to stop whining and just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and embrace the opportunities and challenges of the 21st Century?

Yes, of course we should. But it's still not quite that simple. Here's how I see it: You don't ask a victim of horrible abuse to pretend that what happened didn't happen, even as you help that victim move on with their life. Personally, I still don't think there's been enough discussion about, and acknowledgement of, slavery and its aftermath. At the same time, I fully acknowledge that I personally got over it years ago. Even when racism affects me now (and it still does, more than you might think), I'm still able to move forward on my own terms.

Anyway, here's my 'bottom'' line, so to speak. When I look at this picture, it doesn't just create a solemn perspective on how far Americans of African descent have come, or infuse me with gratitude for the agonies endured by my ancestors. It mostly makes me wish my butt wasn't so big. Now THAT'S progress.

"Was I Lyin'?"

...or did this kid need to sit his monkey-ass down somewhere???

He almost caught "Un Beatdown," vraiment. Fortunately, his equally drunk and smoked friend eventually regained enough consciousness to realize dude was making a damned nuisance of himself and led him away.

I mean, I know the spirit can overtake you sometime, but when your spirit looks like it's having a grand mal seizure during the concert of a lifetime, keep that shit to yourself.