Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

There are places human beings know nothing about. Beneath infinity’s umbrella, among the flaming gases of the stars are unimaginable beings. Cocooned and comatose, they float, silently awaiting their next assignments. WaLiLa is among them. Her body hums with a bone-drenching sense of peace. Light suddenly suffuses her cocoon with a bright glow. Her journey is activated when energy pierces her skin and lodges in her being-center, her message-center, and her vision-centers. Flashing like shooting stars, the layers of her cocoon peel back and burn slowly until disintegrated. An organic tunnel collects its walls around her. The tunnel tilts itself downward, coaxing her body into motion. Soon she is slipping down, down, down, through places humans don’t know about, into the human realm.

Musicians, practicing an age-old tradition, scatter syncopated rhythms across the night sky. Through rapid hand movements and homemade instruments, they pay homage to fierce gods. The music tattoos the sky’s surface with patterns of prayer, patterns that transform themselves into welcome mats for beings in realms the musicians have no knowledge of. One such welcome mat beckons to WaLiLa’s tunnel. The tunnel dips and glides, then aligns itself with the musicians’ tones. Her body plummets, tumbling along the tunnel’s path as it shoots through space. Occasionally, she bumps the small of her back, her knees, or her toes against the tunnel’s pliant walls.

When the tunnel breaks into Earth’s atmosphere, it contracts, jostling WaLiLa into consciousness. She discovers herself crouched in the travel position: arms bound tightly about her, folded legs pressed close against her chest. The tumbling is dizzying, but tolerable. She throws her head back and grimaces as she struggles against the forces of motion to uncurl her body. Fully extended, WaLiLa picks up speed. She pushes her arms against her sides and points her toes to streamline her body as the tunnel narrows around her.

Within seconds, the tunnel recedes and deposits her into the air. Unaided, WaLiLa tumbles into the Realm of Human Being. When her toes reach the human altitude, they gently brush against a shoulder frosted with sweat. That shoulder smoothly dips down and across, making space for WaLiLa’s nude body. She slips into the opening, gentle nudges press against all sides of her being. A sea of swaying torsos, reverent palms, and open-throated song surrounds her. A pulsating mass of people—sealed into their own individual worlds behind the cloaks of closed eyes—rubs against her body. No one notices her arrival.

WaLiLa starts to push through the crowd, searching for some place on the edge where she can analyze her surroundings. Then, with the collision of a deeply-scarred palm against a taut drum, an explosive sound breaks through the crowd. Controlling beats roll forcefully toward the people. The peaceful trance is shattered. Every face lifts and faces east. Guinée lies east. Holy Guinée.

The drumming becomes feverish. As the frenetic rhythms burst above their heads, the crowd’s swaying becomes erratic. The drumvoices soar within WaLiLa’s chest like a command from the elements. Behind her, people begin to surge forward, straining to get closer to the drummers. Questions burn in her being-center. What land is this beneath my feet? What language is this dancing in my ears? What people are these surrounding my body? Her message-center reminds her to stay alert.

WaLiLa advances, following the demand of the drums. A sudden breeze slaps her into sharp thinking. You shall soon be seen , her message-center communicates. She tugs a piece of white muslin from a woman’s shoulder and quickly wraps it around her body. She turns around, searching for an exit through the sweat-soaked crowd, but finds none. The people between her and the drums begin to part. A narrow path is cleared, and the drums rush through and grab a tight hold of her throat.

Soon she is toeing the barrier around the drummer’s circle. An arc of drummers sits before the crowd. They are all of the male sex and completely oblivious to WaLiLa’s presence. Rhythm! their hands cry, Must maintain the relentless pace of the rhythm . Between the crowd and the drummers is a circular clearing. A woman in white whirls herself in swooping spirals around the clearing’s edge.

If WaLiLa weren’t positive that the soil beneath her feet was Earth’s, she would mistake the woman’s motions as bodyspeak: her own language. It isn’t—she knows this as well as she knows the danger of her mission—but the woman’s dancing unfolds into so many familiar movements that her wrists, arms, and calves ache to join in conversation. She has long since trained her sporadic arm flicks into oblivion, but when the woman expands her chest into an open position and juts out her swinging breasts, WaLiLa feels so welcomed that her neck dips, her arms swoop up, and she loses her body to rhythmic swirling.

Through bodyspeak, WaLiLa queries the woman about their surroundings. The woman’s brain tells her this is simply a dance, a dance she performs at religious ceremonies, or rather a dance that performs her when an orisha gets a powerful hold on her. WaLiLa’s message-center registers communication—an essential gathering of information. The woman’s responses to WaLiLa’s inquiries are so eloquent and clear that WaLiLa wonders if the woman is conscious of the communicative function of her movements.

WaLiLa learns that she is on an island in the Caribbean sea. Spanish is spoken here, and Africa is remembered. There has been bondage and savage killing. Twice determined youth revolted, causing citizens to drink optimism and communism like wine. After celebrated freedom, hardship rooted itself in the island soil. Today despair is as common as clouds. The local diet is resilience. The simple pleasures of work and food float beyond the reach of the common folk. The people have been losing family members with the passing of the years. Cousins, parents, and lovers try to escape by walking into the sea, as their tar-toned ancestors had done centuries past.

WaLiLa is so deep into the conversation she barely notices the new pitch the voices around her have engaged. A different tune is being expressed, and the woman’s motions change immediately. WaLiLa slows down her conversation. The woman opens her mouth, lets out a series of shrieks, and falls to the ground. The drumming lowers to a whisper. The chanting drops to a low rumble. Three people gather around the fallen woman. They clear the charged air around her with palm fronds. An old man stops singing long enough to bark some blessings over the woman’s body and shower her with rum sprayed from the fountain of his lips. The three lift her to her feet. Once on her feet, the woman opens her eyes. They shine like dark moons beneath the rim of her white head-wrap. When her eyes make direct contact with WaLiLa’s, the woman’s identity pops into WaLiLa’s vision center.

◊ Elisa Eguitez, 51, 5′4″, 201, Cuban ◊

Then the woman’s eyes flutter closed. The dark moons are strong , decides WaLiLa. This woman will be my host.

After the ceremony, Elisa walks directly to WaLiLa and asks her if she has a place to stay.

“You can stay with me, m’ija. What I’m offerin ain’t too special. I only have a small place, and I share it with my two sons, but…”

WaLiLa doesn’t question how Elisa knows she needs lodging. It has been some time since she last spoke this tongue and wants to observe more before she starts stretching sounds through her lips.

In silence, WaLiLa follows Elisa’s heavy, swaying flesh across a grassy field. Elisa stops at tree and leans over a rusty orange bicycle. She stuffs a bag full of mango and banana into a straw basket rigged to the front of the bike. Behind the seat, attached to the top of the back fender, is a plank of wood. Elisa motions for WaLiLa to sit. WaLiLa hikes up the cloth she had hastily wrapped around her body and sits. If Elisa notices WaLiLa’s shoeless feet, she says nothing. Nor does she comment on the flowers stuck to the soles of WaLiLa’s feet. With a grunt Elisa pushes the bike pedals into forward motion. After a couple of slow, strained pedal rotations, the bike takes flight. WaLiLa’s body jerks back. She spreads her arms and closes her eyes as the cool breeze rushes past her face.