Casa de Lively: Out of Africa

February is a busy month in Tucson. Not just for ourselves, what with birthdays, valentines and all, but the Old Pueblo in general. The month starts out with 17 days of the Gem Show, billed as the largest in the U.S., and possibly the world. Later is the Accenture Match Play golf tournament at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain. The world’s best golfers descend on Tucson for a week of high-stakes elimination golf. Then there is the Fiesta de los Vaqueros, the historic and traditional rodeo with roots dating back to 1925. These and many other smaller events pack this month with things to see and do, as well as with hordes of tourists, enthusiasts, athletes and vendors. The town is quite busy and quite full.

This past weekend we visited the African Village venue of the Gem Show. The Gem Show is huge! It’s spread out all over town with many, many venues. From the northern most outposts to the southern is over 10 miles. We normally stay clear of the areas where the vendors are because of all the out-of-towners. There are pedestrians everywhere, meandering on sidewalks, drifting aimlessly into the streets and hopelessly lost at intersections. Then there’s the traffic; it is a sea of out-of-state license plates and the closer you get to a Waffle House the worse it gets. A side note for our California readers, the Waffle House are to Denny’s what Walmart is to Target.

African Village, looking east towards the Motel 6, the high-rent district.

Located where 22^nd crosses under Interstate 10, the African Village is a dusty place with pea-gravel and dirt the consistency of talc. We parked in the $2.99 lot; yes, that’s right, $2.99, and oddly enough, they weren’t making change. The short hike over to the tents was a gauntlet of over-priced hot dog vendors and bottled water for $3 each, and the pale sunburned Mid-westerners were paying up. The economy must be improving. Once we arrived, though, we were rewarded with two acres of various African art and artifacts.

The day was beautiful and there was so much at which to look. The Lovely Gail had harbored an idea of buying twenty or so tribal masks and covering a section of wall in the hallway, so off we went looking at the half million carved masks. After about 45 minutes they all started looking the same so we began to focus on specific shapes. I had seen several two and three feet tall masks that looked like gazelle heads, they were attractive and eye catching. The Lovely Gail was drawn to masks that were colorful, long and narrow. We had in mind three or four that were ideal candidates, but then we saw our prize.

Trekking through the pea-gravel, The Lovely One: focused, determined, on a mission.

We had stopped to get a better look at several items lying on a tarp on the ground under a tent. While we examined the trove of wooden masks a young African woman engaged us in conversation. As we spoke I looked past and over her shoulder and there they were, strapped to a tent post with a bungee cord, two six feet tall antelope heads. I turned to The Lovely One and said, “What about those?”

We buy art in this manner a lot it seems. We’ll stumble across something and only one of us sees it, we jab the other and it’s like a fateful moment of discovery, two minds become one.

We asked the woman about them and she, in a language native to a place I’ll probably never see but would like to, asked her husband to show them to us. We loved them! We asked the price and it was border line on the high side. The Lovely One played hard to get and I did what I do best, I looked vacantly into space. Our ploy worked, he came down $50, then $100. Sold! After a bit of logistical maneuvering we had them home. They look great in the place we’ve put them and now all we need to do is name them.

Maybe you have an idea, I thought of Burt and Estelle but that didn’t go over too well…