One of the most frustrating parts about seeing cool things is that it is not always appropriate to take a picture of the cool thing that you are seeing. I know you know what I am talking about. Like the woman on the bus who looks exactly like your high school physics teacher. Or the boy in your Sociology class who is wearing capris. Or the man with the misspelled poster who was probably trying to prevent global warming. But hey, I won’t put up a fight if this guy wants to “Stop global worming,” as well.
It’s in those instances that you realize that no matter how easy it would be to whip out the Nikon and take a super quick picture, it just wouldn’t be polite. People get offended by random photographs that they don’t understand. And this is why, my friends, I am unable to provide you with a picture of Bob Marley reincarnated.
He told me himself that he was. I was trying to get to downtown Cape Town on a Saturday and he was sitting in front of me on those oily minibus seats. He turned around when I sat down in the back and said, “You’re not from South Africa, are you?”
Well, that was true, so I told him that no, I was in fact not from South Africa, and as I anticipated the Saturday afternoon traffic, I decided at least I would have someone to talk to on the long bus ride.
“I’m American,” I offered. “And where are you from?”
“I am from all over, Sister. And I was here at the beginning of mankind.”
Not many people can say they were there at the beginning of mankind, so I sort of smiled, because sure, I was supposed to respect my elders and this guy had apparently been around for awhile. But he didn’t stop there. “You may have known me in some of my earlier years. Ever heard of Bob Marley?”
Now, if there is one thing I have heard of, it is Bob Marley. And my obsession with the reggae king has only deepened while spending time in Africa. “Yeah, sure, I know the guy. You good friends with Bob?” Why were the bus seats always sticky? I tried to readjust to hear what this man had to say.
He kind of chuckled. “Nah, nah Sister. I’m a Rastafarian, so we are brothers because of that, but I’m here on this earth now as him. I mean, because you know he is dead and everything. But not really. I was born from Bob again. I’m here on this earth now as Bob was here on the earth earlier. I came back as him. But I’m a different person. Don’t call me Bob.”
He turned back around on the plastic seats and looked out the window. Like the conversation was over. But you can’t tell someone that you are Bob Marley and end the conversation there. So I tapped him on the shoulder. “If I can’t call you Bob, what can I call you?”
He turned around and kind of smiled. “John Doe.” And as John was smiling something incredibly odd happened. His face kind of wrinkled at his eyebrows and his eyes got shiny and his dreadlocks were long and stuck to his arms because it was so incredibly hot in that bus and I for the first time since our conversation, it crossed my mind that maybe this dude was Bob Marley.
We fell silent for awhile longer. He messed with his Rasta hat and I tried to get my hair off of my neck. John turned around again. “What’s your dream?”
“My dream?” Minibuses are so weird. Everyone crammed in one tiny little place with not an inch or personal space. I guess this lack of personal space had crept into my aspirations, too. But I answered. I’m not sure why but I did, “I want to be a writer,” I told him.
John nodded, obviously pleased that I had told him my dream and hadn’t questioned why he had wanted to know. There was a long humid pause; he messed with a dreadlock. “I have to tell you something,” he said.
And I will never know why John decided that he wanted to help out the white girl on the minibus that day, but this is what he told me: “You probably write now and the stuff you get paid for is probably stuff with strict guidelines. Stuff with a lot of rules.” My mind flashed to the various pieces of writing that people had wanted written and how specifically I was supposed to construct certain ideas. John continued, “But when you get the chance to write what you choose, you know, when you aren’t so young and learning and when you want to be mature, don’t write what you think people want to read. Because the people, they don’t know what they want. Write what you need to say. And that’s what the people will need to hear.”
He pulled out his wallet, obviously made of hemp with red, green, yellow stripes down the front, and dug around for a folded newspaper clipping. He handed it to me. “If what you write does not leave you as happy as I was in this place, then you are writing the wrong thing.” I unfolded the paper and found a picture of Hout Bay, a little town on the outskirts of Cape Town.
“How will I know how happy you were here?” I asked, still a little confused at what had just happened, what had just been said, and why I felt like this was some awkward scene in a nineties movie.
“Oh, Sister! You will just know,” he smiled again. And with that, John Doe skipped out of the minibus still rolling to a stop. He walked out into the hot pavement and smell of gasoline.
And at that moment, all I wanted to do was bring out my camera and take a picture of “Bob Marley” walking out into the Cape Town dirt and heat, but I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t ever do justice to how I remembered the event. Seeing a picture of a Rasta man with ripped jeans laugh lines wasn’t what I wanted to remember anyway. What I wanted to remember was that maybe Africa still has more to teach me. And that I am not going home just yet.
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