My African Wedding

On April 9, 1976, K and I were married. It wasn’t the wedding we had planned. Ours was to be a bucolic event in the French countryside. Instead, we were married – along with 13 other couples – in a hot and dingy municipal building in the capital city of one of the poorest countries in the world.

It was civil ceremony. In French. We were the only foreigners in the group. And – to our surprise and unexpected shame – K was the only bride without a dowry.

Here’s how it happened…

Separation and Reunion 

About a year earlier, I had received a phone call from the Peace Corps, telling me that I had been accepted into their program as a volunteer. I was working as a bartender, and was looking for work as a teacher. The Peace Corps gig would have me working as an assistant professor of English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Chad. Getting accepted into the Peace Corps was a big thing at the time, and being able to go from slinging beers to parsing poetry was an opportunity I could not ignore.

K and I had been dating for a while. It felt like it was time for us to get married or break up. We decided that I should seize the day, she would stay behind, and we would see how the separation felt.

Flash-forward eight months… I wrote to K, telling her that I missed her terribly and asking if she would consider leaving the comfort of her hometown and family to fly across the ocean to France and then fly again to Chad to spend the next 15 months with me.

She said yes.

A Plan and a Budget 

Our plan was to meet and get married in Paris, have a honeymoon in Normandy, and then fly back to Chad to begin our life together. To cover the travel and honeymoon expenses, we would each save every penny we could possible save.

I was making just $200 a month, which covered my rent and food quite nicely, but didn’t leave much for anything else. But I was determined to make this happen. So over the next six months, I reduced my spending to the bare necessities. I limited myself to two very small meals per day and managed to save about half of what we needed, while losing about 15 pounds that I didn’t need to lose.

My wife-to-be was apparently not so motivated. Although her earnings were several times greater than mine, at the end of that six months she had managed to save… nothing!

It looked like we’d have to wait at least another six months and I’d have to lose another 15 pounds. But K’s father – perhaps thinking it was time for her to leave the nest – came up with the other half of the money.

We set about making to-do lists and researching hotels and wedding venues in Paris. Alas, we soon came up against French bureaucracy, famous for its haughtiness, arbitrariness, and inefficiency. As foreigners in Paris, we discovered, it would be impossible for us to be married there in so short a time.

Thus, Plan B emerged: Meet up in Paris. Honeymoon in Normandy. Fly to Chad. Get married  there.

So that’s what we did.

We spent several days in Paris, in a tiny room on the fourth floor of a small hotel on Rue Saint-André des Arts. The room was barely large enough to contain a twin-sized bed and a miniature armoire. No TV. No AC. And the bathroom was a cubbyhole beside the stairwell that we shared with the other hotel guests on our floor. But the cost was $25, and we had a window that overlooked the French Quarter. It was perfect.

We spent the rest of our “honeymoon” touring Normandy, staying at little inns, visiting churches, monuments, and graveyards, eating croissants for breakfast, baguettes avec jamon et fromage for lunch, and dinner in the local bistros.

Then off we went to N’djamena, the capital of Chad…

K’s First Night in Africa 

I can only imagine K’s culture shock – what it must like been like for her, after a week in the French countryside, to find herself in Chad.

As I said, Chad was, and is, one of the poorest countries in the world. It was also, at the time, being rattled by tribal antagonism, rebellion in the northern states, and an economy that was absolutely medieval.

I had been shocked myself when I first arrived. But Homo sapiens, as we know, are adaptive animals. Our primary evolutionary skill is to adjust to our circumstances. When you are older, such adjustments can be difficult. When you are young, as we were, it is fairly easy.

By the time I brought K to N’djamena, I had been there for nine months. I was inured to the ubiquity of poverty. I no longer noticed the unpaved roads, the tin huts and wooden shacks. I no longer smelled the stench of the open sewers. I no longer heard the droning in the fly-infested food markets. I no longer saw the cripples hobbling along on their elbows or the ribs of the shirtless beggars as they lifted their cups towards us as we passed by.

In contrast to everything K saw on the streets, my apartment (which was the size and had the furnishings of a freshmen dorm room) was a refuge from the outside world. It was located on the fourth floor of a six-floor building that resembled the sort of buildings you might see in a bare-bones housing project in America. But each unit had a small balcony with a view of the Chari. The Chari was the living artery of N’djamena, a river whose shores were littered, but whose water was clear and beautiful and glinted at night, reflecting a blanket of stars that was thicker and brighter than any we’d ever seen before.

This was to be our home for a while – and despite its limitations, K seemed happy with it. At least for the first week or so.

Until…

Cocktails and Fireworks 

It was a quiet evening. K was in our apartment reading. I was in the parking lot talking to Sergei, a Russian friend who was also a teacher (of history) at the university. He was proudly showing me his new motorbike.

“Even in Moscow, you can’t get a motorbike like this,” he boasted.

“I’ve been asking for a moped since I got here,” I admitted with a twinge of jealousy. “The Peace Corps said I’d get one, but it won’t be new and fancy like this.”

“I guess your Capitalism isn’t so great,” he teased.

And then, suddenly, an explosion! Then, moments later, another one. And then the sound of something flying through the air. And then machine gun fire.

Sergei covered his bike with a tarp and we rushed upstairs to our apartments. When I opened the door, I saw K standing on the balcony.

“What are you doing out there?” I shouted.

“What’s going on?” she shouted back.

I had no idea, but the noise was very close and very loud and very scary. It felt like our building was being attacked. I flashed back to an experience my parents had, early in their marriage, when they were living in Guatemala. One night, they found themselves in the middle of a civil war. Their building was bombed. A shell casing actually flew into their apartment. (I remember my father telling the story of how he baptized my eldest sister that night under the kitchen table.)

I turned off the lights and urged K to take cover under the bed. I stayed there with her for a while, and then, keeping as close to the ground as possible, crawled onto the balcony to see what was happening.

It was, indeed, a military assault. But our building was not the target. The target was the Chadian president’s compound, which was about 200 yards down the street.

I could see tracers lighting up the sky and then, in flashes, armed vehicles with soldiers behind them, firing their weapons and being fired upon.

I stood up, went back into the apartment, and was assuring K that we weren’t in any danger when the doorbell rang. It was Sergei, with a bottle of Johnny Walker in his hand. Beside him was François, holding a bottle of Pernod.

“We have come to enjoy the fireworks with you,” Sergei announced. I introduced them to K, who smiled at them and then looked at me quizzically.

For several hours, we stood there on the balcony, enjoying our drinks and speculating on the origins of the conflagration. We suspected (correctly, it turned out) that it was some sort of attack by the Muslim rebels that had been active until then only in the north.

Finally, the explosions ceased and then the gunfire stopped. And since our bottles were now empty, I bid my friends goodnight.

When they were gone, K turned to me and asked, “Has this happened before?”

The Church and the Agnostic 

I was born a Catholic. And though I had lost my faith when I was 14 or 15, I knew that a “proper” Catholic wedding would make our families happy.

As it happened, there was a beautiful Catholic church in Ndjamena – a stately cathedral in the center of town. But when I went there to arrange for our service, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t as easy as it was in the States.

No. To be wed in the cathedral of N’djamena, Father Jean Pierre explained, we needed to do more than write a check and fill out a form. We were required to pronounce ourselves to be true believers and observant members of the faith.

“I’m pretty sure my fiancée believes in God,” I told the priest. And I did my best to convince him that, although I had lost my faith, I was sure I could find it again. “And don’t forget,” I added, “both of us come from families that are very serious about their Catholicism.”

Father Jean Pierre was not impressed. He could not help us, he said. Unless I was willing to atone for the very mortal sin of leaving the church and spend several weeks relearning the catechism under his supervision, we could not be married in the cathedral.

Shuffling Towards I Do

And so we found ourselves several weeks later in a large, austere room on the second floor of a concrete structure that served as the city hall. At one end of the room was a table, where the “officials” sat. Facing that table were rows and rows of chairs.

We had been instructed to arrive with four witnesses. Two of our witnesses were a couple. (The husband was my colleague in the English Department at the university.) The third one was a fellow volunteer that I’d befriended during our early weeks in Chad. The fourth was an unfriendly American that worked at the embassy. He was rumored to be a CIA agent, perhaps because of his fluency in French and gruff manners. He made it clear that he didn’t want to be there, but he was obliged to witness the marriage and sign some documents so our marriage could be recognized in the US.

I wore my best pair of khaki pants and a blue dashiki (which I still have). K wore a simple cotton dress. She looked, as she was, beautiful and innocent.

There were, as I said, 14 couples. And since each couple had four witnesses, that meant a total of 84 people, with each couple and their witnesses sitting in their own row. First, there was a longish speech by the mayor. That was followed by 14 rapid-fire marriages that consisted of the couple answering a few questions, signing a document, and then leaving the room.

This produced a weirdly comical effect. As each couple left the room, the rest of us were required to get up and seat ourselves in the row in front of us. It seemed like an absurdly unnecessary procedure, but the mayor insisted upon it. So, we did it, obediently, as instructed.

The ceremony was done in French, the official language of Chad. This put K, a monolinguist at the time, at a disadvantage. Oddly however, notwithstanding the fact that she could not understand a word that was being spoken, she somehow picked up on some things that I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.

The most problematic was the little speech that the mayor gave before each marriage. It began like this: L’homme il es chef de la famille; ce que il dit, la femme doit suivre. (The man, he is head of the family; what he says, the woman must adhere to.) The moment those words came out of his mouth for the first time, K turned to me and said, “What did he just say?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered. “Just say oui when he says it to us.”

The Grand Finale 

Being a university teacher gave me privileged status with the embassy that the other Peace Corps volunteers did not enjoy. On top of the list of privileges was that my fellow university prof and I were often invited to embassy functions. The embassy crew generally looked down upon Peace Corps volunteers, but it was diplomatic to invite one or two to such events, and the ambassador’s wife seemed to believe that university teachers were the least reprehensible. So, we eventually became friendly with several embassy personnel.

One couple in particular adopted us socially. And when they found out about our dismal wedding, they offered to throw us a party. It was a full-blown affair, with music and food and several dozen invited guests. There was even a two-tiered wedding cake, with a miniature plastic bride and groom on top.

And so, despite setbacks and unanticipated surprises, we had everything we could ever have hoped for… just in different places and in a different order.

Bits and Pieces 

Networking at Art Basel 

Art Basel is probably the most important art event in the world these days. If you are even marginally involved in the contemporary art game, getting to one of their several shows each year is the cultural equivalent of traveling to Mecca.

On Tuesday, Number 3 Son MCF and I spent the late afternoon and evening at the Miami show with TR and LC, two amazing people recommended to me by ABO, my main client’s PR director.

A few months ago, TR and LC had spent an evening with me and my partner in the art business, talking about how they could help us promote my Central American Modernist collection, as well as Central American art generally.

Before I met them, I wrongly assumed they were from Baltimore, where my main client is located. I thought they had a small PR shop there. Note to future self: Before meeting a new business contact, do some research!. It turns out they are very successful movers and shakers among the hippest of the hip in NYC. And, along with Paris, NYC is the world’s capital of contemporary and modern art.

TR and LC are each remarkable in their own ways. LC has an amazing story of clawing her way to the top through curiosity, humility, and unflagging determination. TR, a black man, had a privileged background as the child of a very accomplished father and equally accomplished stepmom, and a childhood immersed in intellectual and cultural opportunities. I quickly developed a man crush on TR (as ABO had predicted) because we share many of the same interests, and because his personality – huge and magnanimous and magnetic – compliments my reticent grumpiness in some surprisingly congruous way.

TR and LC gave MCF and me a three-hour, VIP-guided tour of the show. LC answered my many questions about how the Art Basel sector of the art market works, while TR was breaking from us every two or three minutes to hug it out with a range of Art Basel influencers and celebrities, including artists and dealers and models and famous and wealthy collectors.

Afterwards, we went to Red Rooster, which is one of three such restaurants under the banner of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, who (of course) hugged it out with TR before giving us a personal tour of what turned out to be a very cool restaurant. A must-see the next time you are in Miami.

I am not accustomed to the sort of constant celebrity interactions that are apparently normal in TR’s quotidian life. I’ve had my share of interactions with wealthy and successful people, and occasionally with sports and Hollywood superstars, but I’ve never seen anyone so connected to celebrities as TR.

And here’s the thing: These rich and powerful people seemed genuinely thrilled to be able to hug it out with TR. And he seemed equally happy to be hugging it out with them.

I’m telling you this story because it corroborates something I learned 30 years ago: There is more than one way to skin the cat of success. Genius is one. Relentless hard work is another. And then there is a third way that TR personifies: Pure charisma.

For someone like me, (a relentless hard worker), meeting someone in any field of endeavor that has achieved much through hard work and persistence is both agreeable and also comforting. But having the chance to meet someone that can obviate much of the work and stress through charisma and good will is… well, it’s downright inspiring!

The “Languishing” Cure 

Most of what self-help gurus tell us about living a productive and fulfilling life is delusional. That’s so because they define “productive and fulfilling” in terms of achieving career success or making lots of money or becoming “all that you can be” or by finding the perfect “soulmate,” etc.

Such notions are not new. Yet they persist despite the fact that they are proven wrong every day. The true elements of a good life are not secrets. They are there for us to learn every time we take a moment to contemplate the question.

And the answers are not new either. They were discovered and explained thousands of years ago in virtually every literate civilization since the advent of human thinking. But Homo sapiens, however capable in other ways, learn the important things only through experience. And so, we need to be reminded of those things constantly and continually.

In the days of Confucius and Aristotle, that was the work of poets and philosophers. Today, psychologists and sociologists claim this fertile ground.

In a TED Talk I watched last week, Adam Grant presents his view on how to live well and fully in modern terms. Discussing how he escaped a pandemic-induced slump into ennui by playing video games with his family, he identifies the problem as “languishing.”

Before you watch it, a warning: His understanding of this problem is superficial. But don’t let that dismay you. What can you expect from a person in his 30s?

What he gets right – or almost right – is his formula for having meaningful experiences. He says it is a matter of mastering, mindfulness, and mattering.

Click here.

Lucian Freud Fraudulently Asserts His Painting Is a Fraud 

Almost 25 years ago, a Swiss art collector bought a Lucian Freud painting – a full-length male nude – at auction. Soon thereafter, he received a call from the artist, asking to buy it from him. The collector politely refused.

Freud called him again. “I’ll give you more than you paid, I’ll double it,” Freud said (according to the collector). Once again, the collector demurred.

Freud became irate. “In that case,” he shouted, “I will never authenticate that painting. You will never be able to sell it!”

And to the collector’s dismay, Freud kept his word.

After Freud’s death, the collector did not give up. He requested and received three independent evaluations that all concluded the painting was genuine.

“Standing Male Nude” by Lucian Freud

Photograph: Courtesy of Thierry Navarro 

It seems that Freud’s desperation to acquire the painting had been sparked by

embarrassment, because the male nude appears to be a self-portrait. He was famous for his female nudes and for philandering with his models. But he painted this one, according to the story, during a period of time when he was experimenting with homosexuality. He gave the painting to the great artist Francis Bacon, with whom he had an affair followed by a falling out. Bacon apparently abandoned it.

You can read more about it here.

Shoplifting Mania Continues in California 

You’ve heard about all the shoplifting going on in California, and in San Francisco in particular.

A recent example: 80 people drove their cars up to Nordstrom’s Walnut Creek store, blockaded the entry, and ransacked the place, getting away with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury goods before returning to their idling cars and driving away.

Fox News considers this to be criminal behavior. But those of us that are more enlightened understand it for what is really is: legitimate, non-violent social action by oppressed and victimized minorities.

And when we watch the footage on TV, these mass shoplifting events become even more admirable: a form of performance art, where dozens of actors and artists put on a beautifully choreographed display of correcting wealth equality in one of America’s wealthiest cities.

 I’m sorry to report that the grinch that runs Best Buy doesn’t see it that way. In a call with Wall Street analysts last week to discuss earnings, he accused the social justice warriors/performance artists with “aggressive” behavior and claimed, falsely, that they were “traumatizing” company employees.

He said that they “often carry in weapons like guns or crowbars” and they “threaten employees and customers.” So Best Buy has begun locking up products and hiring more security.

When questioned on this fascist tactic, the CEO admitted that locking up “creates a delay in the customer experience as an employee is required to open up an enclosure each time for the customer.”

He went on to say that San Francisco and other parts of California were “hot spots for criminal activity,” but there were problematic areas in other parts of the country as well.

So far, despite the CEO’s false statements and inflammatory language, Biden has not ordered the Justice Department to investigate him.

New Study Confirms: Natural Immunity Is Better 

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that people that have recovered from COVID-19 have very little risk of contracting the disease again.

Researchers in Qatar examined a cohort of over 353,000 people between Feb. 28, 2020 and April 28, 2021. After excluding approximately 87,500 people with a vaccination record, they identified 1,304 reinfections.

What that means: Less than one-half of 1% (0.4%) of people with natural immunity got the disease a second time.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases expert at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote on Twitter that the “study adds to the growing body of research that indicates that people who have recovered from COVID-19 enjoy high levels of immunity against reinfection, and even higher protection against severe disease and death.”

What the Media Didn’t Tell You About the Waukesha Parade Tragedy 

The headlines announced the terrible news: A red Ford SUV crashed into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on November 21., killing 6 people and injuring 62 others.

A video shot by someone shows the speeding vehicle coming behind the parade and then ramming into and running over the victims.

If you followed up on the story, hoping to find out who did it, and why, you would have been disappointed. Most of the early stories didn’t mention the driver’s name or identify him in any way. But it was reported that he might have been pursued by the police, trying to get away after a traffic accident or some such thing. You might have even thought, “Why did the police force him into that crowd of people?”

But then if you continued to follow the story by looking at alternative media sites, you would have gradually pieced together the facts.

1. The driver was not running away from anything. He was on a murderous mission. His intent was to mow down innocent people.
2. He was not deranged or clinically insane. He was a violent criminal with a long rap sheet.
3. In fact, he had recently been bailed out of jail for (allegedly) trying to run down the mother of his child under one of the new easy-bail-out policies that have been touted as social justice by the mainstream media.
4. He was a politically active person with a history of media posts expressing his racially biased views.
5. But, no, he wasn’t a White Supremacist.

Worth Quoting 

* “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

* “The greatest wealth is to live contently with little.” – Plato

* “A great man is always willing to be little.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Gubbins comes from an old French word for scraps or bits and pieces of something. When it crossed over into the English language, it became British slang for an object of little value; a useless person. (“You silly gubbins!”)

* To pronk – from the Dutch for to strut or show off – is to leap high into the air. The word is usually used to describe the way animals like gazelles do it by lifting all four feet off the ground simultaneously with an arched back and stiff legs.

* A yooper is a nickname for a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – i.e., a U.P.er.