Ex-pats: Love is Money

Night two forced me to get out of the flat, hold my breathe, and jump once again into the bottom of Bamako. The night began in the Bla Bla Bar, an air-conditioned establishment with fancy imported liquors and three dollar beers. Another ex-patriate haunt and with more subtle of a meat-grinder atmosphere than La Terrasse.

The barista was an African girl named Nathalie. She was from Togo. Her father and sister live there and she is without family in Mali. My African francs are drastically dwindling and I'm trying to spend less, eat less, drink less. She kept offering me drinks, surprised when I declined, which I suppose is reasonable. A European man, who makes enough for a middle-class existance in Holland, lives like a King in Mali. My shallow pocket book simply does not compute. How am I not wealthy if I am white?

Nathalie saw a bracelet on my wrist and offered me hers, an African beaded number, as a trade. I agreed and she sat down next to me. She was beautiful, hair bundled up under an African beanie, soft skin, enormous eyes. We fell into conversation, the best we could with our language gap, and, as amorous connections go, time slipped away. Eva and Tom wanted to go to another bar and I told them I'd meet up with them later. They give mischevious smiles and left.

She described life in Togo using her entire body, like she was possessed by it, and spoke of Bamako as an isolating, lonely place. She talked of going back home to her family, though her voice made it seem impossible. She looked up into the lights of the bar and said softly, "Mais mon reve, mon grande reve, est-ce que je viens et vivre en Amerique." Her saucer eyes were watered over now. Once again, I never know what to tell people who consider America to be the promised land. Hopeful, abstract words like NEW YORK and CALIFORNIE are emblazened on the sides of bush taxis. Some cars are painted entirely with the stars and stripes. I will never possess the reality of an immigrant, but I pity the man who wishes he had stayed home, who finds himself in a true meat grinder, making a bit more money than he could have in Africa or Central America, but finds himself in cultural isolation and with little room to claim his piece of the pie.

I liked Nathalie at this point, because of the way she spoke, which seemed to hide nothing. My idealism and naivety must have shined through in my face. We decided to meet our friends at another bar called Exodus, and we got up. Nathalie was immediately approached by a slimy-looking American guy from Arizona who reminded me of the Son of Sam. They exchanged kisses. His little weasel eyes, like pools of oil, too dark to catch any light, shot up at me and he passed. Before we got to the door, another boy approached her, a French kid with a greasy smear of hair combed down in front of his eyes. He smiled solely out of the side of his mouth, a mouth that planted the same kisses on Nathalie's face.

In the taxi, Nathalie showed me cell phone pictures of herself with at least 10 different hair-doos. Salted throughout the photos were white guys, shirts off, staring up into her lens from the bed. We got to Exodus. I was really running out money by this point. We entered and said hello to Eva and Tom. There was a karoake set-up haunted by some shadowy ex-pats, and another playboy Algerian, who sang into the microphone with a hard drink in his hand.

I ordered two more drinks for Nathalie and myself. When they were finished, she asked for more and I told her I had no more money. She didn't believe me. I had a flash of remembrance of all the white men I've seen here with their arms around devastatingly gorgeous Mali women, oblivious towards the tab at the end of the night. Some bitterness began to seep into my voice and I told her in French, "Most foreigners come here and have lots of money in their pockets and can buy whatever is put in front of them. I'm not that man." And, eliminating all self-preservation and tact, I continued. "No. Me, I'm going back to Holland to eat out of the garbage and sleep on couches." She of course didn't like this image and things became very awkward and the only sound in the bar suddenly became the Algerian's falsetto adaptation of R. Kelly.

I went out with Tom to look at horses in a nearby stable, which made Nathalie ask Eva why all white guys were so bizarre. I walked back into the bar to find her on her cell phone, calling her ride, already plotting the points of the rest of her night. We split ways and Tom gave Eva and I a ride home. Eva told me one of the last things Nathalie asked her was, "Is he rich or not?" When Eva said no, the cell phone came out and she was as good as gone.

Going to sleep again with that heavy feeling in the pit of my throat. I woke up in the morning to find that I had scribbled in my journal, "We are only as poor as our expectations are high."