Walking Alone
There’s a throwaway line in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Paradise’ or ‘Desertion’ (I cant find it now), describing the jetty on an unspecified area of East Africa’s coast set at the end of the 19th century.
The main protagonists — a couple — are meeting there in the evening. Gurnah sets the scene of trysts between man and woman facing the ocean, and groups of men meeting to drink tea and play cards. Lastly, he describes the only unaccompanied woman on the jetty being a Goan.
I have never forgotten this line, despite never being able to find it again (don’t have a copy of either to hand).
Get Beatrice Ferreira’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
125 years later, I too am the unaccompanied Goan woman on the jetty on the East African coast.
I have taken this to mean that freedom has not begun with me.
There’s acres to cross, and unimaginable dimensions to bridge, until Goan — and all other — women stand as equals in society.
But I’m happy that there are potentially 100 years worth of women in my lineage who also, at times, walked alone — and in the places I walk now.
