Long, the parade

November 14th, 2011. Sarah had a breakdown. We think it's physiological, causing her to scream in pain for hours on end, starting yesterday morning in the middle of brunch as we talked over toast and cold eggs. A few volunteers took her to the hospital, and nurses who speak little English ask her, are you pregnant? Are you in labor? You have a Urinary Tract Infection. (The general diagnosis for white women, who are seen as promiscuous.) Your appendix may have burst. You have gastritis. She screamed, of knives in her stomach, shrill sounds following Simran, Natasha, and Aryian down the street, echoing outside the building to a man selling water across the lane. She doesn't eat, cries in her room alone, emerging this evening in dirty sweatpants and straggled hairs sticking up at odd angles, face chapped. Her roommate, Madison Miami, is on a rampage against the staff, especially Baba who takes off his glasses and lays them gingerly on the plastic table, rubbing his wrinkled temples, confused how to proceed. Madison struts around the tiled floors in tinght red shorts and a baggy trendy tshirt, reminding me of a TRex conquering Pangaea. We talk, those sitting, watching, at the dinner tables, of night leading up to this, of blackouts and boy-crazed obsessions, of the danger in being taken to hospital in Nairobi, of the missed Mafia game played with Phase Ten cards.
Before coming here for three months, Sarah had never left the state of North Carolina. She rarely speaks at meals, dragging Claire instead to pour over short texts wishing her a good morning beautiful, sent by a local, your face make me smile, I want see you tonite. I worry about her, but there is a part of me that if not saw it coming, is at least not surprised.
I have not felt drama, nor had a crush, in months. I read books, edit essays, sit in internet cafes and watch people pull wheelbarrows full of fruit and corn. I talk to my children, photograph them and watch videos of singing recorded in early morning as the brisk air still lies heavily on the valleys of Kilimanjaro. I read in my bed, on the porches surrounding the house, on the couches looking onto clothes lines and vegetable gardens.
We are the same age, and I see in her a reflection of myself months ago. Lydie says to me, we always see in others our own insecurities, impose on them our faults, strengths too.
Lydie says I'm too conventional, too boring, afraid to be different.
I wonder if she's right. I dwell on those statements, questioning myself.
Maybe not in my clothing, my political affiliations, my music choices. My differences come out in writing, I think, in paintings, the the way I talk with my hands, my continent-shaped birthmark on my calf, my inclination towards listening and silence.
My slightly turned out ears, my skin that bruised like a peach. My high and then low laugh, always loud, the way I pat my cheeks when I get excited. The way I sit in chairs, my observations on those that hum around me.