took a driver Val found in the lobby an hour to get Kerry and Val to the Fihankra Center. They rode in silence in the backseat of an old green Beetle with lots of dents and no air-conditioning. Peering out of either side of the car windows as they sought fresh air, the two actually held hands on the backseat. Kerry had tried, but wasn’t able to get in contact with Baba Seti before they left the hotel. At first she thought how rude it would be to just show up there unannounced, but then she remembered what Val had said about her seemingly stalling and remembered that even the idea of pleasantries could have little regard in the circumstance. This was an unusual situation and that required unusual behavior.
When the driver turned onto the road leading to the compound, he turned down his jumping Cubaton retro mix that had somehow matched the bumpy ride they’d endured off-road for the last thirty minutes. The women had discovered when they’d gotten in the car that the youngish Cuban hip-hopper spoke little English. Still, when they got to the road, he turned to them and seemed like he wanted to communicate something.
“Revolucion,” he said, pumping his fist. “Revolucion. Africano. Vienes aqui?”
Kerry and Val smiled pleasantly and pumped their fists too.
The driver knew they had no clue what he’d asked them about being a part of the revolution, but they’d gotten the gist of his statement, so that was enough. “Revolucion,” he repeated, pumping his fist again.
The car made its way through two checkpoints of haggling and questions about who they were and how they’d found the compound. The driver, who Kerry and Val learned was called Yuxnier from his debating with the black men in sand-colored military uniforms each time they encircled the car, was quickly becoming annoyed and seemed understandably unnerved by the guns the guards so freely pointed at him. Still, each time he revealed who his passengers were in the backseat, the muscle quickly backed up, signaling to each other and then bowing to Kerry and Val quite graciously. One man actually genuflected and opened the back door, begging to kiss Kerry’s hand, have her touch his face, and thank her.
“I didn’t do anything,” Kerry said, confused, but also impressed with the honorable display. She looked over at Val in the car beside her and shrugged.
While the compound was near the coast, a few miles from the port city of Nuevo Mariel, the terrain was hilly and rocky, making the outright paltry land purchase of three million dollars for 100 acres possible. At the third checkpoint, two huge and dramatic boulders that sat so closely together they looked like they might have been connected at one point, marked the final entrance.
Word had already spread throughout the population of people who’d found their way to the compound for various reasons, so there was a small, but growing group of men and women still sporting their modest day work clothes and carrying baskets of food from the gardens and bags of antiquated tools used in the fields and such, gathering behind the entrance to get a look at the visitors. From the backseat of the car, they all looked old or dated. Not age-wise, but more like they’d been transported from some other time period. No one was wearing sunglasses or sunscreen. No one held a cell phone or iPad.
“What is this?” Val thought aloud as the guard explained to the driver that Kerry and Val would need to get out of the car and walk at that point.
Yuxnier turned to them for instruction.
“Wait for us,” Kerry said, looking at the crowd and wondering the same things as Val. “Wait out here.”
Yuxnier agreed with a nod and one of the women from the crowd broke off and rushed over anxiously to open Kerry’s door before a guard or Yuxnier could even get to it.
She was a little older than Kerry. Had two simple plaits with a raw part down the middle in her natural hair. While her face was dusted with dirt from working in the garden, her skin was supple and clear.
Like the guard at the other checkpoint, she genuflected deeply, bowing her neck in exultation as she welcomed Kerry.
This time, though, Kerry was less moved and more embarrassed by the unprompted acknowledgment. She grabbed the woman’s shoulder and tried to lift her up, letting on that the action was unnecessary.
“It’s okay! It’s fine,” she found herself saying to the woman. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”
Val’s door had been opened in a similar fashion—with women seeking to greet her and thank her for coming to join them at the Fihankra. One wiped her brow. Another offered to carry her bag.
“Baba Seti—do you know where he is?” Kerry asked someone once she and Val were out of the car and being led by hands through the thickening crowd. “I’m looking for Baba Seti.”
Val looked around at the land that seemed to stretch out for miles and farther than she could see. In sight were crisscrossing crops, small barns, wooden houses, and storehouses. One structure was a schoolhouse. Children stood on the steps in their simple sheath uniforms, young boys indistinguishable from girls. A woman, maybe their teacher, was standing in the middle of the group supporting a baby on her hip in a mud-cloth sling. All eyes were on Kerry and Val.
“Follow me! I can take you to him!” A woman in a beautiful, deep purple African gele that almost looked like a wedding headdress appeared in the middle of the crowd. She was regal, brown, and striking, clearly of different ranking than those around her.
She turned before Kerry and Val could agree and every direction she took led to a pathway that was quickly cleared by the eager onlookers.
Up ahead was an elegant-looking limestone building, newly built and seven stories high. Pillars with African masks carved into each bust encircled the gigantic wooden front doors that couldn’t be opened by one or two humans alone. A few yards from the entrance was a limestone obelisk with scarabs and words neither Kerry nor Val could read etched into its base.
Something else Val and Kerry simply couldn’t discern was who all of these people were. Of varying shades and shapes, they all seemed to look familiar, but still so foreign, so far from them. The two could hear people speaking in many languages; some sounded like they were straight out of Atlanta or Brooklyn, others sounded West Indian, some Middle Eastern.
Trading quizzical stares with Kerry as they traveled behind the graceful woman in the gele, Val thought of Ernest and how mad she was that she’d made him stay at the hotel with Tyrian. There was no way she’d ever be able to describe what she was seeing to him or anyone else and even if she could or tried, no one would believe her.
Once they’d reached the doors of the limestone building, people in the crowd started cheering and singing, some crying out, “Revolution!” Others simply called Kerry’s name. A woman with a baby in her arms, propped the little yellow ball with wild black hair up so she could see Kerry and waved her tiny hand toward them. It was the woman, not the baby, who gave Kerry pause, though. There was this look in her eyes. Something hopeful that shot through to a free part of Kerry’s heart. It was an immediate connection to something the woman needed or wanted or thought she could get from Kerry, something Kerry didn’t even know if she had, but in that moment, if she did, she would’ve given it right to her.
The woman in the purple head wrap was called, stopped at the wooden doors, and beckoned for Val and Kerry to enter before her. How she walked, her poise and humble gestures transferred directly to women, who seemed to hold their heads up, poke their chests out, and extend their hands from the wrists elegantly when they entered the building.
The woman turned and nodded to the enthusiastic crowd, signaling that they were to remain outside, before the wooden doors closed on some mechanical spring.
The noise of their chanting and singing was quickly dimmed, but not gone. There were a few other people in the lobby. They looked and stared, but no one approached them.
“I am called Nzingha here,” the woman said, smiling with bright and perfect teeth. Her voice was soft and calming, but she was clearly American and had a hint of the Midwest in her voice. “I’m so happy you’ve come to join us here at the Fihankra. This is our sacred building.” She directed their eyes to the carefully designed interior lobby that was akin to something someone might find in a cathedral or mosque. “It’s a religious building. Just somewhere that we gather and share our ideas.”