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| bee and beenie. mystery moves pay off ;) |
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| the girl with the wine. |
I may be full of myself. I admit it.
But really…everyone wants to know who the girl with the mystery wine is. Yeah,
my skin is chocolate like my African ancestry. Yeah, my backside is curvy, like
my Sierra Leonean mother. Yeah, I wrap my head like my Madingo Muslim
grandmother. Yeah, I stomp as my hips sway side to side like my pretty American
princesses. But the wine…the wine…we have yet to place it.
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| even if i show them my lips, they might still question my hips...movement unidentified. |
To me, I dance like the Atlantic
ocean that touches my west African roots, I rotate my hips like the Caribbean
sea that surrounds the patois speaking islands, I shake my tumba like the
afrobeat in my Sierra Leonean songs. This mixture, this touch, this thing has
caused people some confusion here in Panama. They want to know where I’m from.
They thought maybe if they stare they might place me. Not. They thought if they
heard me speak, they might surmise. Then they saw me dance…and still, they
couldn’t. They would never know that I am an American girl, who identifies as
Sierra Leonean, who loves reggae, who dreams of dancing in the Congo with my
favorite Soukous group, who transforms stares into energy and motivation to give
a performance. They would never know that in my head, I am on a stage. On my
own stage. Each and every time. They would never know just from looking at me.
I would have to tell them.
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| what they were fighting for. closeness. |
And so on this particular day. They
didn’t ask, just yet. They pushed me, taunted me, pulled me, spilled beer over
me, called me puta and all. But I didn’t shake. I didn’t move. I simply gave
them the space to do all the rudeness they wished since they were determined to
make me so uncomfortable that I would move. Little did they know, I was
determined to stay in the space that they had once occupied. Hey, as the saying
goes, you move your feet, you lose your seat. Lol, well it was standing, but
you get my point! And listen here, we all paid however much to get in that VIP
Section and if I find an opportunity to get right smack in the middle and in
the front, best believe that I will take that opportunity. And that’s exactly
what I did. They just weren’t happy with it. They sent their best and rudest to
challenge me. She started dancing on me. Wining on me from her back to my side.
All in an effort to push me out of my spot or to get me pissed off so I would
start something so that the whole crew could jump me. Little did they know, I
would not be moved. Enty mi nah salone titi, ah don use for dance pan people
dem, so we all go dance. I was chill. I gave a little something but not too
much. She kept going and I kept going. They didn’t realize they had met their
match. But then the dancing/challenging girl, had a light bulb moment. She must
have recognized that mystery wine.
Suddenly, she stopped backing it up
on me rudely and stared at me intensely before asking, “I have seen you before
right,” in her Caribbean twang. I responded that I wasn’t sure. Then she
proceeded to explain where she knew me from. She said, “weren’t you dancing at
the Konshens concert, you had a green short pants on, I know you!” I replied
yes, smiled coyly, (yes, I’m a little shy when I get recognized for these
things). Then she high fived me and said she always wanted to know where I was
from. Her crew stared intensely and waited for my response. “You from Jamaica,”
she asked. The crew anxiously awaited my response…and then I silenced their curiosity.
I was born in Washington DC, to Sierra Leonean parents. I’m an African girl, I
said. Shoulders relaxed. Heads nodded. Everyone commenced to dancing again.
This time together. The crew was from Bocas del Toro, Panama. All black like
their Caribbean grandparents and African descendants. I was no longer the
enemy. I wasn’t the mysterious wining girl that had taken their spot. I was
just like them. Black, lover of reggae music, African. Same hips, same motions,
same passion, same blood.
