Leaving on a Jet Plane

I’m leaving Toronto tomorrow. I’ll be spending the next month in Vancouver, with my whole extended family. It’s been a good two months. My garden is coming along nicely, particularly the lettuce, tomatoes and cilantro. My drumming and humous-making skills have both improved substantially, thanks to Suleiman at the Arabesque Academy and Nadav’s influence, respectively. I’ve seen a lot of soccer, in Angolan, Brazilian and Ghanaian bars, and on TV in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. I’ve read a lot of novels, and seen two very good plays, staged in a park and the back patio of a coffee shop. I’ve been keeping my distance from academia, interacting with it only through my jobs at Robarts Library and U of T Convocation. For now, I’m looking forward to getting out of the smoggy city, although I’m a little worried for the fate of my plants. I hope the neighbours take good care of them.

Mama Dee's

Today I went to watch the Ghana-Brazil game at Mama Dee’s, a Ghanaian restaurant in the basement of a strip mall at Jane and Wilson. The subterranean restaurant, bereft of natural light, was in a dark room next to the “Christ Apostolic Church of God Mission International (Centre of God’s Blessings)”. It was packed with Ghanaians, a couple of white girls, two TV crews and an elderly Asian man. On this day, the divine blessings were elsewhere, as Ghana was defeated 3-0 by a lacklustre Brazil side. Brazil got an early goal after 5 minutes of play, and a second in injury time of the first half, both of which appeared offside. Ghana controlled the bulk of possession, and had plenty of chances, but was not able to capitalise. The second goal at the end of the first half seemed to take the wind out of Ghana’s sails, and to demoralise most of the patrons of Mama Dee’s. All the same, after the game the crowd danced in the parking lot, to the music of an SUV’s sound system.

Soccer, Samba and a Theatre Festival

Yesterday I went down to Braziltown to watch the Brazil-Australia game. Cervejaria was packed, and apparently only letting in women, so I had to watch the game on a patio with some wannabe Brazilians. During halftime, with the score still 0-0, a samba band set up outside Cervejaria and played throughout the break. In the second half, Brazil stepped up their play, with an early goal by Adriano and a late goal by the supersub Fred making it 2-0. The samba squad, in matching blue T-shirts inscribed “Batucada Carioca”, returned to the street, and the party began in full swing. Unlike the Angolan revellers, who made allowance for oncoming traffic in the midst of their celebration a week ago, the Brazilians took over the street entirely. The police car had to drive through the crowd three times, siren blaring, to clear a path for a bus to get through. All the same, the stretch of College in front of Cervajaria was unofficially closed for traffic, with only cars bearing Brazilian flags allowed through. The party was a thousand times more lively than the yuppiefest “Taste of Little Italy”, officially closed to traffic, one block to the east.

In the evening I went to Dufferin Grove Park for the Cooking Fire Theatre Festival. On my way, I was passed by a cavalcade of cars bearing cheering Koreans, five cars long. The Koreans were celebrating their country’s draw with France. I arrived at the park in time for dinner, which was bean soup and slices of bread baked in the park’s outside ovens. I found my Czech Lit professor, and ate with her and her English/Zimbabwean friend, who supplied me with red wine and lectured me about recycling the plastic cup that I drank it in. Then we moved under the trees to watch the first play, as directed by a proper British lady on stilts and a women with a dog marionette. The first play by a theatre company from Halifax, was about two cooks and their baby, who is possessed by an onion. The resolution was ambiguous.

After a twenty minute strudel break, the next two plays took place against the backdrop of the playground. The first was an adaptation of a Japanese legend about a boy-warrior who brings writing to Japan, told using puppets by a company from New York. The second was by far the best of the evening, by a company from Victoria. It was the story of a cowboy who becomes split into two people by his unresolved love for a women that has left him. The play included musical numbers, complete with accompaniment by violin, mandolin and guitar, and dance routines. The last play, which took place in the Uzbeki yurt, was about the German artist Käthe Kollwitz, and didn’t quite have a point, but made nice use of mounted photos and the artist’s engravings.

Summer Shabbat

The city is peaceful in the evening breeze. The smell of burning cigarillos pervades the air. Cars flash down the side streets west of Bathurst. They flutter the flags of Italy, Portugal and Croatia, and honk intermittently. Crowds amass on College Street, which has been closed to traffic for a street festival. Pedestrians watch jazz fusion bands, play midway games, and sample the concession food for sale. A group of traditional Italian singers greets the audience: Buona sera per tutti! In a park near Little Italy, religious Jewish children play tag, and fight over turns on the slide. They are transfixed by a lone red balloon that floats across the sky.

Angola v. Portugal

Pre-game festivities



Watching the game at Yauca's



The audience



Post-game celebrations



Dancing in the street











All photos courtesy of Pablo Velez

Yauca Sports Bar

Yauca Sports Bar, on Dundas in the heart of Little Portugal, is likely the only Angolan sports bar in Toronto. Today it was packed with what seemed to be the whole Angolan community of the GTA, out to support their country in its inaugural World Cup match. Angola was playing Portugal, the southern African nation’s former colonizers. The Portuguese community in Toronto is perhaps the largest of all the nations vying in the world cup, and they are particularly well represented among the sports bars on Dundas and College. Every half block on Dundas seemed to have its own Portuguese bar, filled to the brim with supporters sporting Portuguese jerseys and waving flags.

Over at Yauca, the Angolans were equally enthusiastically adorned in their country’s colours of black, red and gold. The Angolans cheered every time one of their own crossed the halfline with the ball, or made a save off a Portuguese shot. The Portuguese team, having scored in the fourth minute, seemed content to sit back and let the Angolans take the initiative. Portugal was only half trying, but the Angolans were running at full speed, so the faithful in Yauca had plenty to cheer about. Although Angola had many chances, it was not able to deliver a goal, and the Portuguese held on for the 1-0 victory.

This did not seem to bother the Angolan supporters, who streamed into the street after the game, celebrating as if Angola had won. The bar blasted Angolan music from the outside speakers, and the people danced in the middle of the road. The Portuguese supporters, leaving bars adjacent and across the street, milled alongside the Angolans, and several of them joined the dancing. The dancing and flag waving continued for over an hour, interrupted intermittently to allow cars filled with Portuguese supporters to pass. The revelry was still going on when I left after 6:00.

Dawn awakening

This morning I was awoken by a shrill shriek, and some loud growling noises. I looked out my bedroom window, in the space underneath the South African flag that I use as a blind. I saw an animal, leaping across the lower half of my neighbour’s roof. Only its back half was visible, and only for an instant, as it leaped beyond the tree that straddles my fence. Its legs were extended, and its tail was long and thin, like a cat’s. Its skin appeared golden in the morning sunrise. The time was 5:40.

This evening, as I was washing dishes, I looked out the kitchen window. Perched on my neighbour’s upper roof was a raccoon. The raccoon was preening itself, liking its forelimbs and washing the fur around its face. Every few moments, it would approach the edge of the roof, and look down onto the lower roof below. Seemingly doubtful of its chances, it retreated slowly and cautiously, further up the roof. The raccoon’s fur was pale grey, and its tail was long and thin, like a cat’s. Once in a while it would turn to my direction, and the dark rings around its eyes made it appear as a myopic person unaccustomed to the daylight. At one point, it began lowering itself off the side of the roof, slowly and stealthily, like an expert climber. Its hind limbs extended first, it used its fore limbs to grip the siding and a wire that snaked down. Touching down on the lower roof, it moved out of my view. Remerging again momentarily, on all fours now, the raccoon ambled along, past the tree and out of sight, as the day drifted into twilight.

summer reading

I thought I would begin this blog by reviewing the books that I have read so far this summer. These books were all happened upon in the course of my shelving duties at Robarts Library. All were written in English, but the writers come from diverse origins: Iraq, Greece, Zimbabwe, Native BC, Black LA. Here they are, in order of reading:

Salam Pax, The Baghdad Blog

A collection of blogs written in Baghdad during the recent war. The blog precedes the war by several months, so the reader gets a good sense of Salam Pax’s personality both before and during the war. Most interesting to me was how Salam and his family dealt with the anticipation of the war, and its aftermath. Salam writes crisply and with a great sense of humour. He mixes his political analysis with music reviews, and stories of his fmaily and friends, in a highly compelling way.

Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach

The first novel by a young Haisla/Heiltsuk women living in North Vancouver. The novel is set in the Haisla village of Kitimaat, south of Terrace on the Northern BC coast. The coming of age story of Lisamarie, a young Haisla woman growing up in the village, set against the backdrop of the disappearance of the protagonist’s brother, Jimmy. The novel flits constantly between different time periods, and skilfully weaves in mythological elements, such as sasquaches, and local geography.

Iceberg Slim, Doom Fox

The final novel of Iceberg Slim, the pen name of Robert Beck, written in 1978 but only published twenty years later, thanks to Ice T. Iceberg Slim was a notorious Chicago pimp turned cult writer. This work is the saga of three generations of the Allen family, living in the black ghetto of South Central Los Angeles. The novel contains the standard pulp elements of prostitution, drugs and violence, but these are secondary to the story. The writing definitely transcends the pulp fiction genre, and the plot development is on the par of any literary work. The colourful language alone makes this a worthy read.

Panos Karnezis, Little Infamies

The first collection of short stories by a Greek writer living in London. The stories are all set in an unnamed, sleepy Greek village, in an unspecified time in the twentieth century. The stories refer to each other, giving the work the feeling of cohesiveness. The stories mix in elements of Greek mythology, such as Medusa and minotuars, and a healthy distrust of the nation state. The style evokes Garcia Marquez transposed to a Mediterranean setting. Highly recommended.

Dambudzo Marechera, House of Hunger

The first collection of short stories by the late Zimbabwean author. Marechera made a sharp break with the tradition of African realism, drawing more on Kafka and Dostoyevsky. His stories are highly autobiographical, sometimes uncomfortably so, as they are laced with hatred and disgust directed equally at the Rhodesian colonialists, Zimbabwean society, and the author/protagonist himself. The writing style is a little too wordy for my taste, and reminded me a little of Breytan Breytanbach. Interesting for its portrayal of the place of the black intellectual in colonial Rhodesia.