A praxis between Bamakø and Nøuakchøtt

I was leaving Bamakø, Mali to get to Nøuakchøtt, Mauritania by bus through some of the most desolate stretches of road through the Sahara. With a 30 hour bus ride ahead of me, I knew what I needed to do.



My view for 30 hours

My standard strategy for dealing with bus rides is to intoxicate myself to the point of no longer caring. Generally, this would be done with Diazepam, which can usually be obtained cheaply and prescription-free in most non-developed countries. However, for this ride, this was not an option. Why? Two factors -

- For some reason, pharmacies in Mali don't sell you diazepam without a prescription.

- and two, About 6 hours outside of Bamakø is the Malian-Mauritanian border. I did NOT want to show up intoxicated in a country where they search you and fine / imprison you if they find ALCOHOL in your car. This is the ISLAMIC REPUBLIC of MAURITANIA, and they don't fuck around with the name.

So, I went with Option 2 (actually Option 3, as Option 2 is reefer). Option 2 is the wonderful indigenous West African intoxicant, the Kola nut. Why might I do this?
Well, for starters, kola nuts diminish hunger. I don't eat much, if at all, when I take the bus in West Africa, due to a well founded fear of gastro-intestinal explosivity while on the road. My standard procedure outside of the bus is eat what I want and let my GI tract be damned! but imagine the situation when the next stop isn't for at least 3 hours and when the bus does stop, there's no guarantee it won't leave you stranded if you take too long. So I don't eat, except for a kola nut.
For second, as Wikipedia says, "Kola nuts are used mainly for their stimulant and euphoriant qualities. They have effects similar to other xanthine-containing herbs like cocoa, tea, coffee, guarana and yerba mate. However, the effects are distinctively different, producing a stronger state of euphoria and well being."

My normal dose is one nut. Every old guy I've talked to (and it's only old guys who chew the kola nut. Old guys and me) says one nut a day is about right. They're also bitter as fuck, so that's usually all I can stomach. But this trip is special. This trip is 30 hours. This trip deserves 10 KOLA NUTS. And me being a tasker, I figured I should make the best of the situation and write/draw a page after each nut.

---

So technically, this task was a failure for me. I only made it through 4 kolas. However, I was well good and fucked up, so as far as SFØ is concerned, it is mighty fine praxis.

I started with my bag of 10 kola nuts



Munched down the first one, gave it 10 minutes to get going, and wrote this:



A transcription:

Crossed Crenelations, like crossed eyes

Cross-dressed, the pose and Jesus and Natasha Horchata*

All Creatures Created Queer or Questioning

Feel Smooth Souls Slide about the sonnets

Steel fools, high helmets, berets on french artists and commandos

Close your eyes, you won't need them anymore. let the heat be your guide.

Let the BonDye* roll

(after 1 kola)

*Natasha Horchata is a transvestite I know; Bon Dye is the Haitian Creole word for God

This is pretty coherent, it goes in some interesting directions, but note that I still have the facilities for some basic poetic forms.



9 nuts left.


with a closeup on the diagram


A transcription:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
This is not the beginning

{God's ab - sent to - day
{God's miss - ing

What if the one behind the demiurge is even worse? what if he doesn't know we exist?

At least He hits us. Because he loves us.

the bombs and the guns and the gas and Auschwitz and Dresden and Nanking and Hiroshima and My Lai and Haditha and New York and Sudan and the time the girl lied to me about the school dance.

And That's just the 20th Century!

{But who can com - plain?
{But he's ex - cused.

DON'T! DON'T MAKE!

This is not the end
1 2 3 4 5

(After 2 kolas)

Wow, that one got a little heavy. I remember doing some experimentation with attempting to make couplets that make use of polyrhythms.



8 nuts left.



With closeups on the two diagrams




A transcription:

This may have been a bad idea.

Heart pounding in and out of Chest.

But now I hear secrets in the conversations of the passengers.

¿Laa nang iru?*

Bambara Malinke Hassaniya* if I understood it would all be so clear

ߓߍ߲ ߞߊ ߘߌ*
^
Ben is Good!

When all of our heads are gone and buried, they'll dig them up and learn all the secrets.

Something smells sweet.

ߓߍ߲߭ ߞߊ߫ ߘߌ߫*

Unity is a worthy Goal

?

(after 3 kolas)

*'Laa nang iru' is a transcription of something I heard someone say on the bus. Bambara, Malinke, and Hassaniya are the languages I would have been hearing on the bus. The next two phrases in the funny script (or the boxes, if you don't have the font) transliterate to 'Ben Ka Di', which means 'Unity is Good.'

Well now, I'm getting a little weird and paranoid at this point, no? My handwriting is getting even shakier too.



7 kolas left



closeup



A transcription:

Fourth kola force open fourth dimension

Makes clear that all these people are fine sliced like deli meat but theres a roast beef in the back.

Thoughts move so quickly approaching singularity. Kola is the thought key for singularity. After 6 kola. or 9 kola. (this is what the nut tells me)

PATTERNS. everything means something allow the strings between all of it to become clear and visible

(after 4 kola)

OK, I have to admit something here. I was so gone after the 4th kola that I couldn't even hold my pen to the page. I had to wait about half an hour just to be able to get this down, so this is a bit of a recollection. And after this point, I felt like my head was spinning on my neck like a top, everything started moving funny and I really started losing myself. That, and we were approaching the Mauritanian border, and someone informed me that there are police checkpoints every 50 km or so in Mauritania, and I didn't want to deal with the cops or the border guards all fucked up. Plus my stomach was starting to spin, too. So I gave up. 4 kolas in 6 hours is my limit.

Wow, rereading those notes makes me look like I went completely insane.