Single White Female Traveler

Our first trip to the market was something to behold.  Cecelia led us through a myriad of shabby wooden stalls where locals sold everything from flip-flops to smoked fish rolled into spirals. Periodically we would stop at a table to examine an item from a toothless, grinning vendor.  Cecelia provided her advice.

“You should get some beans,” she said, motioning the merchant to bag up legumes akin to that of black-eyed peas.

“You should get some palm oil,” another merchant handed us a half gallon of thick, firey-red liquid.  She offered us a taste of the unusual stuff.  One by one, we dipped our fingers into the bowl.  It tasted like buttered popcorn, the kind you get at the movies.

“Do you take peanut paste?” Cecelia asked at another vendor.

“Peanut paste?” one of us asked. 

“Yes, you know, made from groundnuts.  We make it for soup.”

She placed a jar of what Americans know as peanut butter into our basket.  We told her we spread it on bread.  She laughed.

“That must taste odd.  I will try it!” she exclaimed.

Cecelia was haggling with a vendor over tomatoes while the scene of the marketplace sank into me.  Hundreds of people crowded into an area that spanned a mile in any direction.  I saw a girl, perhaps my age, in the middle of a row of stalls. 

She was beautiful.

Atop her head was a box of clear-plastic panels framed by wood, revealing tan colored balls of unknown substance.  She was selling them.  Like most Ghanaian women, she carried the box on top of her head as though it were no trouble at all.  Such ease, such grace, she was a princess in a pauper’s land.

She was studying at me.  I was studying her, her deep, dark eyes enticing and intriguing.  I held my camera in front of me, but I did not take a photo.  I couldn’t, I didn’t feel right, without asking her permission.  I knew that if I did, she would surely say “no.”

It was a standoff of observation between two worlds.

I waited.  I waited until she thought that I was no longer watching her, but she kept looking at me.  She put the box on the ground.

The shutter snapped as she stood back up.

As regrets go, I wish I had asked her for a photo.  To have such a subject, to do her beauty justice. Her image encompassed everything I felt that day.

I never even asked her name.

New York City is an unattainable goal.  It keeps me at arms length.  I have traversed through its guts a hundred times over, I have crawled in and out of its rigid grid ribs - but nevertheless, it becomes a glimmer in my eye and a wave goodbye to this fair city.  Always in New York but never a “New Yorker.”  I know it better than some who have lived their whole lives in those glass-and-brick buildings.  It’s a snap and a tease and once more am I back on that long island.

I will never know what it’s like to spend half of my paycheck on a closet-sized room in a shared apartment with exposed brick in the living room and a bathtub in the kitchen.  I will never know what it’s like to lay in a park on “city grass” and stare up at a smoggy sky.  I will never know what it’s like to love a man from the Lower East Side, or work in an exposed cubicle on Madison Avenue.  I will miss out on boho wine cellars, Ethiopian eateries, community gardens, hand-stitched boutiques, music collectives and using the subway’s erratic scheduling conflicts as an excuse for being late to work.

Every other city in the world offers me respite.  But Manhattan keeps me coming back for more.

We went to Bohemia Bagel because it was the only place within the next hour that we could get free wifi and coffee before the show.  The decor was funky and I did like feel of the place, its earthy tones and familiar foods.  I bought a brownie and it was satisfying.  I also bought a mug of tea.  Tom got a beer and the rest bought other caffienated nicks and nacks.  Eight of us split two booths and Tom sat alone across the way.

Chatting and snacking.  A girl with a blond ponytail and a white t-shirt walks up to our group.

“Hey, how’s it going?  You guys enjoying your classes so far?”

Cautiously, we looked at each other.  “Yeah, uh, sure, it’s great,” we replied.

“Cool, yeah, it’s really exciting, Prague is such a cool city.  What did you guys have today?”

Again, sideways glances.  “Um, we don’t really have classes.”

Claire replied.  “It’s sort of an independent program where we do research in the field. Today we went to a lecture in a cafe about theater and the Czech National Movement-

The blond girl had a raspy voice, the kind that comes with too many cigarettes.  “Oh wow, well, that’s sort of cool.  So did you hear about the all-night party?”

No, we hadn’t.

“It’s going to be awesome, there’s a 24-hour bar crawl where we just go from bar to bar and some clubs, and there’s tons of beer, it’s a lot of fun.  It’s $25 for three hours but if you want to do the all-night party it’s only $40.  So do you guys think you’re going to come?”

No, we didn’t think we could make it.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind, the sign-up table is back in that room.  Hope we get to see you guys, it’s going to be a drunk-fest!”  She prowled over to the next table of eager young Americans actually looking for a good time.

We never went back to Bohemia Bagel.  I admit, I did stop in one day attempting to curb my Long-Island-Bagel craving, and was sorely disappointed after having spent 60Kc on a sub-par snack.  Bohemia Bagel represents everything I hate about other study abroad programs.  Czechs don’t even know what a bagel is and they really don’t care.

Get out of America.  Get out of the bagel shop.

We walked around the streets of Krakow without a destination in mind.

“Let’s just walk around and see where it takes us.”

A futile attempt, for we walked into a residential district.  All of the houses looked the same, there were no shops or cafes we could just “pop” into.  The weather was warm, the sun made the buildings look somewhat inviting.  But no one would open their doors.

Suddenly the signs and streets became unfamiliar, the words barely discernable and their meanings masked by a language we did not know.

“I’m going to head back,” I said.  “It doesn’t look like there is anything else around here.”

I was looking for something, but couldn’t find it.

I eyed the strawberries in their pale green paper containers, hundreds of them stacked in neat little rows on the grocer’s table.  They were of uniform size, about the size of a grape used for making wine.  The grocer could sense my suspicion. 

“Would you like to taste one?” he asked, in a sweet, country English accent.

“Sure,” I held out my little palm.

The berry was so sweet, sugary almost.  It packed a lot of punch and exemplified the phrase that “big things come in small packages.”  It was soft and the juice ran down my cheek a bit.

“Those are the greatest strawberries I’ve ever eaten,” was my reply.

The grocer smiled.  I bought a bushel to take back with me.  How could I resist?

“I didn’t think England was known for its strawberries,” I said to him.

He shrugged.  “It’s the summer months.  We harvest them from a farm close to here, so they are also good because they are local.”

“They are so small but so delicious.”

“We’re not permitted to use harsh chemicals.  The pests aren’t really a problem here though, because of the rain.  It’s those chemicals that make them bigger, inflates them.”

“And make them not taste nearly as good as these.”

I could have eaten every last one of them right then and there.

We parted ways, and I strolled the other market stalls.  Molly and I had escaped the study abroad crowd sifting through cheap poly-blend clothing at a nearby fashion shop, to explore the wares of the local merchants.  We stopped at a booth selling antique jewels.

“I love cameos,” Molly remarked, holding one up to her neck.  “One of my favorite necklaces was a cameo given to me by an ex boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I answered.  “Sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged.  “It just wasn’t meant to be.  I cared a lot about him, but there was nothing I could do.”

I didn’t press her further on the matter.

On a tray lay some clip-on earrings.  I picked up two small squares of purple bordered by rhinestones.

“I’ve started collecting clip-on earrings.  They make great shoe clips.” I told Molly.  I picked up two more for a total of three costume-style clips.

“How much for the three of these?” I asked the merchant. 

“They are six pounds a piece,” she replied.

My attempt at haggling had failed miserably.

I paid her for the one pair of purple and faceted glass jewels and put them in my pocket. 

English strawberries are the superior fruit.