Not Such Idle Hands

(c) Daeya Malboeuf

On the way into work the other day, I overhear a discussion between otherwise unknown colleagues.

‘How are you settling in to life here?’ asks one interlocutor.

‘Actually, I don’t find it very friendly’ is the reply.

Instinctively, I chime in

Me neither

Later that morning, I have a similar conversation with new colleague Predrag, fresh from Croatia. He’s soon to be joined by his wife and small children. We swap pleasantries and notes about finding accommodation.  He then asks my thoughts on the city. I try to be diplomatic.

Well my experience moving here on my own would be different from yours…

Not missing a trick, Predrag sees through my evasion. He tells me his single Bosnian friends have found Strasbourg rather alienating too.

It’s great if you have a family but…

…As his friends put it, it’s a City with a village mentality.

When I share this conversation with sis and a friend, independently of each other they reply:

Strasbourg doesn't sound very appealing, or...if it weren't for your interest in the language, I'd wonder why you're still there.

A part of me feels it's unfair to give the town a bad image. It is so easy on the eye. It's just compared to a city like London where, for all its faults it is open, diverse and any and everyone can potentially find their own 'tribe', Strasbourg by contrast closes in on itself.

Speaking to Predrag about his friends' experience, it feels good to be understood. It’s not all in my head then, which has been a gloomy place of late. I’m also missing the regularity of choir practice after a sporadic start to the year on that front.

I'm doing what I can to resist the grim thoughts. The devil makes work for idle hands and minds. Thus, I’m in default busybody mode.  

My melancholy seems to be a good creative fuel. A friend in the UK and I are keeping each other accountable regarding our fiction exploits. We both agree that when inspiration flows it’s truly a spiritual experience. I believe I feel closest to God in those moments.

I’ve also volunteered to take on more tasks at work whilst a colleague is on extended sick leave. It’s certainly more hectic, and there are some teething problems adjusting to working with different budgets and management styles. At least the job feels more rewarding.

One afternoon in early January, the strains of fluid piano playing float down the corridors of Le Chateau whilst I’m on my lunch break. My curiosity leads me to two colleagues having an impromptu sing-along to Billy Joel’s She's Always a Woman. Of course I join in, mangled lyrics and all.  One should never pass up such serendipitous artistic opportunities. It’s as if for an instant, I've woken up in a musical.  Thanks to this happenstance I discover that a colleague at THRO regularly organises open mic nights. A suivre...

That weekend, I attend a short story workshop with po-faced American author, playwright, musician and artist Mark Safranco. A talking shop, more like, since we don’t get any writing done. Polymath Safranco is ironically averse to workshops, preferring a Q&A format. An audience with....if you will. It’s a useful session nonetheless. There's much to be gleaned as he discusses his journey and writing methodology. He graciously answers questions with a broad East Coast inflection over a two-hour period. Although we don’t do any writing exercises, I still leave with a short story idea.

That evening I meet up with Gael, a mutual acquaintance of the Afropean team.  Having reached out to me over the Christmas break, we’ve agreed to meet up in the New Year.  No romantic intentions; strictly platonic.

He has travelled all over Africa and Europe, thanks to his job as a chemical engineer. Add to this his Senegalese, Lebanese and French heritage, not surprisingly he's also multilingual. Gael is not a pedant like me, who wants to be a scholar in every language. He’s happy to make himself understood for functional purposes. His experience of learning Portuguese for example, was a baptism by fire whilst working in Mozambique.   

Gael and I spend an agreeable evening speaking about everything under the sun including a lively discussion about the Christian faith vs. indigenous practices; not too dissimilar to that I had at the Afropean symposium with one of his idols Tété-Michel Kpomassie.

Gael also has a passion for music and hospitality. He’s returned to his old stomping ground, Strasbourg to open up a bar that reflects the Afropean ethos.  He proceeds to qualify what that means. He extols the virtues of his European girlfriend who has a passion for Congolese culture and politics. He believes she’s more qualified to be called Afropean than those Francophone Africans born in France with little active connection to their culture. I agree culture trumps ethnicity. Someone of mixed-heritage like Gael, who was born and raised on African soil before moving to France, is culturally more connected to the Motherland than yours truly although I am ethnically ‘thoroughbred’. Still, I don’t think his girlfriend his automatically a candidate for the Afropean label. I am also frank about my distaste for what I call Kim-Kardashian syndrome; black men who want a ‘black-white’ woman instead of the real thing. I explain to Gael that although I don’t have any truck with the cultural appropriation argument, (there’s no such thing as single ‘black’ culture or identity for one) I do take issue with the apparent self-centredness of many black men. It's as if the struggle concerns them alone.

 They seem to ignore/be oblivious/indifferent to the plight of women of African descent. Neither are they self-aware of how much they have bought into the narrative of disregarding us whilst venerating Caucasian women.One can’t ignore the fetishisation either of the stereotypical African buck which has nothing to do with valuing culture.

I have female European friends who genuinely take interest in various African/Caribbean cultures and are married to men from that background. I too have eclectic taste in men. But let’s not pretend it’s a level playing field for women of all backgrounds. From a global socio-economic and media perspective, women of African descent are often at the back of the queue.

Gael and I discuss the desire of many immigrants to assimilate, in a country that insists you’re French before (or instead of) anything else. We speak about colourism. I remark that some of those of lighter hue aren't as sensitive to the issue as they should be. I tell him about the documentary Dark Girls and mention the case of former Brazilian carnival queen Nayara Justino, stripped of her title for being considered ‘too’ dark-skinned. We both acknowledge the reality that most high-profile brown women are light-skinned and/or mixed race. Gael nods sympathetically and makes all the right noises. Yet there seems to me a cognitive dissonance in regards to his reaction and whom he’s dating. It’s too familiar a story. I wonder if he has, or would ever, date a woman with a similar background to his Senagalese mother, for example. I mean to ask but somehow don't get round to it.

 It’s not to say every brown man that dates someone from a different background is a sell-out. I just don’t think they’re honest enough about how much of the European ideal (both aesthetically and economically) they’ve imbibed.

At the end of the evening, despite an otherwise pleasant exchange, I can't shake the vague sense of disillusion.

This Week's Soundtrack: Oxnard by .Anderson Paak, Sade Birthday Mix.