Bees, Pirates, and Gypsies
by Sam Yada Cannarozzi

s I was reminiscing over fifteen years plus of international storytelling in front of an open hearth fire over New Year’s in southern France, I got to thinking. Not about the most incredible or god-awful venues, nor those endless streams of questions from all-too-oftentimes uninteresting and uninterested local reporters, but rather about the unique places I had spent the night after a performance. Three crystal clear memories came to mind: an African grass hut, a flatboat barge and a gypsy caravan.

1992. The kingdom of Swaziland, tucked between Mozambique and eastern South Africa. I had been touring Africa under the auspices of the United States Cultural Services for five years when I received their proposition to travel to this tiny country and share my stories, learn theirs, and, of course, come to know this part of the world so far away from us.

After a morning session, I was invited to spend the rest of the day and that night in a nature reserve and to sleep in a traditional Swazigrass hut. I was delighted! We first stopped at an outdoor museum where I got a look at traditional garb, tools, utensils, costumes and native architecture. The rest of the afternoon I spent on foot with a guide, and got a glimpse of three centuries old Bushman cliff art. Giraffes, wildebeasts, impalas and a poisonous snake I almost stepped on (!) spotted the way, and dinner was (no kidding) alligator tail stew. And then the hut…

The beehive is a practical and symbolic form in Swaziland. Unmarried women wear their hair in the shape of a flattened beehive and the traditional family housing is a four-meter tall, beehive-shaped hut. I had everything I needed inside: sleeping mat, flashlight, lots of insect repellent. But what most stayed with me was the pleasant odor of the long grass used to construct the hut. It was in itself insect repellent and almost gave the impression of sleeping out-side in an open meadow. It rained a bit that night, but I was snug and dry.The next morning as I pushed aside the woven door covering, I took a big jump back, because I was looking at a hippopotamus yawning at me from a pond a stone’s throw away. Harmless, I was later told, as I observed both it and colorful water birds over my breakfast of impala liver and fresh pressed tropical fruit juice.

If you are ever down south of Dar es Salaam to this southern African jewel of a country and have a story to tell be sure to begin it with "gwesu kwesu kela," to which your listeners will reply with a tongue click and "ngo!" And don’t forget to ask for a hut with a view..

Some years earlier the French town of Besancon south of Alsace-Lorrain with Switzerland bordering to the east, invited me to perform and included with the offer bed and breakfast in a ‘peniche,’ a long, flat French riverboat barge. Normally used for hauling all kinds of cargo (wheat, other food staples,but also machinery and the like) it is still somewhat of a fashion to buy an old barge and convert it to living space or, in this instance,a small, floating theater.

I remember it was an evening of pouring rain in the springtime when the River Doubs was swelled and tumultuous after the late winter thaw. All during the performance there was a slight sway to the stage, and one could hear a distant roaring of water as it rushed down the bloated riverbed. It gave a quite unique atmosphere.

After the the performance and dinner I was given my room key and escorted through the still-pouring rain to a second flatboat-peniche that was anchored next to the theater. The living quarters inside were wood-panelled and cozy, and the barge arranged in this way was actually quite nice. After our good-nights, I started to bed down. The bunk, unlike the stage I had performed on, was not insulated against the sound of rushing water. In fact my pillow that night rested against one of the bulkheads, separated from nature unchained by only 3 centimeters of what I hoped was high quality steel. And the waters did roar all night long, in a ferocious lullaby. It was quite invigorating actually and though I slept shallow, I slept well. The next morning, things had calmed down outside, but the waters were still high as they plummeted downstream. After continental breakfast, and greetings and queries on how I had slept, the theater director proudly told me that they had acquired the second peniche not long ago, and that it had been baptized, "The Pirate’s Bride." "Now that," I thought, "is a fitting title for a hotel for storytellers." High atop the hill that overlooks Besancon is a fortress that has now been transformed into a zoo. It was there later that morning that out of a dissipating mist, a giraffe poked its lonnnng neck.

The Little Sisters of Jesus is a tiny order of nuns who work solely with traveling peoples: from the circuses and roadside shows of Europe and America to the nomads, bedouins and gypsies of Africa and Asia. They set up camp, be it a simple tent or other temporary housing, and patiently wait to be contacted by the local population. They are not a missionary order, but feel that their calling is to aid and lend help to the people of the road. Sometimes they draw water from the well, sometimes they sell soda at a carny fair counter and sometimes they house gypsies who are en route from here to there. I met some of the sisters in a tiny farm/converted convent south of Avignon, France when I accompagnied the trip of a couple and their friends for a fifth wedding anniversary. One of the sisters of Dominique, the groom, was a nun in this order, and we stopped there to picnic before our final destination, the Mediterranean coast near Marseille; I noticed that on the property were parked two green-painted wooden traditional gypsy caravans. I had the idea to propose to the nuns that at some future date I return with my family, and in exchange for a evening of storytelling, we would spend the night in one of their wagons, hoping to meet some gypsy families at the same time. The year-end holidays rolled around in 1997, and, after a brief phone call, Sister Agnes-Marie confirmed December 30th as our rendez-vous.This tiny community is composed of a handfull of elderly nuns who still host passing gypsy families on their way to and from Spain. Unfortunately, this year the gypsies were revelling elsewhere, and so, next to a blazing fire place I ployed my yarns to few, but very attentive, ears.

Afterwards, under a brisk but starry night we slithered under our down coverlets in a charming cornice-eaved caravan or "roulette" as it is called here. After the kids’ shenanigans, we "all settled down to a long winter’s nap" as the poem goes, although the winter in this part of the country, though often windy, is actually quite clement.

About 6 A.M. I awoke to the sound of rain on the wooden roof, but fell again back to sleep until breakfast. Well, I didn’t get to exchange traveller tales this time, but the invitation was extended for another time if we’re lucky enough to catch them on one of their trans-migrations. If it is true that storytelling is a world in itself, it is also true that it is in the world. As I sat sipping my Yuletide grog in front of the fire waiting for chestnuts, I thought how lucky we are to live a profession that so often hops over the line between reality and fantasy and to sometimes mistake, pleasantly, one for the other. I was glad slipping over into the new year that the bees, pirates and gypsies of story, at least for a night, were as enchanting as we recount they are for the princes and princesses in lands so far and distant.

—published in WIP Summer 1998

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