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CHANNELS

Posted by Erik Frey Tue, 03 May 2005 02:36:00 GMT

I ran into a girl in censored. She was sitting on the wide steps leading up to la censored. Below us, an old Afro-censored band was playing salsa. I had a beer. I sat down next to her and we talked. She told me about photography and the places she’d been. I watched her eyes while she spoke – I could see the glow of coals behind them. They betrayed an otherwise completely solemn visage, etched in stone into the downturn corners of her mouth.

She told me a story about opening an issue of Geo to a page that showed some unknown African straw-hut village against a backdrop of barren land. She was absolutely taken. As soon as she saw the picture, she knew she had to go there. The next day she booked a plane ticket to Dakar. Upon arriving to Dakar she made more inquiries and learned that the village she was seeking didn’t even have a name. It was in a remote, difficult to reach section of Mali. She went to the docks and paid a fruit-trader to let her ride with him along the Senegal river. She got off where she was told and hiked the rest of the way to the village.

She arrived in the evening, tired and completely out of food. No one greeted her as she walked up. She asked someone where she might get food and a place to stay and was given no answer.

She had nowhere to go. She had no idea when another boat might come along. She pleaded with villagers and finally they brought the village chief. He said to her,

“I don’t understand why you are here. We haven’t had an outsider here in years – they aren’t welcome. Leave.”

That night she slept on a dirt floor with no food. She left on another passing merchant raft the next day.

I loved her story because it fit so well in our surroundings and my recent experiences. It was a story about finding the smaller channels.

Imagine being dropped into the middle of the Amazon river, such a massive thing that from one side you can’t see the other. Imagine whisking along this roaring artery, then struggling out to a tributary. Imagine tumbling over rocks that branch off into a stream, then in turn to a babbling creek, trickling out to little rivulets that peter out to mud, then dirt, spinning still on unkown inertia. Then dust – the quiet unexplored, where the only sound is memory: a ringing in the ears. There is nothing for you here. It’s the end.

I come from the roaring Amazon. I come from a land of wide, smooth superhighways with brightly painted lanes. Usability experts design my toothbrush. Pink and blue forms tell me how much I am paid and how much I owe. Automatic doors whoosh open, beckoning me into a sea of designer clothing that all look the same. My whole life is expertly tailored so that all I have to do is mindlessly follow the direction of brightly colored signs.

It makes me anonymous. I swim in seas of people that all blur together, becoming indistinguishable, impersonal. I never have to think about them. Tinted windows shield them from my view when I punch the horn. Ticket dispensers keep me from having to stand too close to them. Caller ID lets me never hear their voice. I can go out, buy groceries through a checkout machine, and come home without ever having to interact with a single one of them.

When I arrived in San Jose I was firmly in Wide Channel mentality. I met a guy there who had crewed sailing boats along ports throughout Central America. I found this incredible; I’d heard stories of crewing but never before met someone who’d done it. I wanted to know all about it, because I couldn’t fathom how people ended up in this line of work.

I asked him, “How did you get this incredible job? At what company did you apply? Do they have a web site? What sort of prior experience did you need? Did you have to go to college for it? Or at least a two-year school? How about certifications?”

“Well,” he began. I was on the edge of my seat. “No. I just walked down to the docks and asked for a job.”

“Oh.”