The Girl with the Mystery Moves

bee and beenie. mystery moves pay off ;)

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.

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.

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.