One of the side effects from my current round of chemo is an unusual tenderness in my feet, kind of the way you feel after you've run a long distance in not-very-good shoes. I was able to push through it during the majority of this trip to Europe, but by the time I arrived in Marseille yesterday it started really bothering me and by the time I reached Paris today I was walking with a noticeable limp. I managed to hobble over to the Canal Saint-Martin and have a coffee on the terrace of Chez Prune and wanted to attend a little apéro in Belleville (what does it say that once back in Paris I am invited to a party after only a few hours?) but I didn't think I was able to handle the walking required so I hopped on the old familiar 4 métro line and took it up to my old beloved Château Rouge, the rollicking and still - extraordinarily - virtually ungentrified immigrant neighborhood where I lived during my first go-round living in Paris and where I found its street market in full swing, many of those present looking like they just stepped down from the High Atlas or in from the Sahel to put in an appearance there.
I made my way through the swirl of humanity to a restaurant called simply Eat Africa, where West African music was pumping as I sat down my weary body and the friendly staff prepared me an excellent (and dirt cheap) plate of poulet yassa, the first time I had that in years and I felt at once at home and revived, among the people, as always. This has always been my Paris, in Château Rouge and Bagnolet, where I also later lived, the place where I felt most at home, the immigrant or sans papiers Paris, not the glittering tourist haunts of places like the Boulevard Saint-Germain or the Eiffel Tower.
You can have your think tanks and your fellowships and your journalism awards because, in truth, those never have meant much to me. What meant something - whether here or in Haiti or in Brazil or in Baltimore - was being among and close to the people because more than all of the above, the people - the down and outs, the nobodies, the strugglers and strivers that society steamrolls over as a matter of course even as they are the engine that keeps any country running - will come through for you every time. That's been one of the main driving forces in my writing for all these years, and I hope I have done them justice. And to paraphrase Fred Hampton, we all stay right here with the people because we love the people.
