297-318

||  V alise is a French word for suitcase or travelling bag. Valise is akin to the Medieval Latin word //valisia.// It is important to note that the valise is the only object kit holds on to through the ending of the book. ||  || A “haik” is a large piece of white cloth used as an outer garment by men and women in Northern Africa. || || A  position in which the hands are on the hips and the elbows are bowed outward, or bent/bowed in a more general. This position could be an image often associated with African women. African women have their arms akimbo both in African cave art, and in a particular position in Zimbabwe dance.  || ||
 * Page || Word/Phrase/Term || Explanation/Meaning ||
 * 297 || Valise
 * 300 || Haïk
 * 302 || Arms akimbo
 * 303 || Bordel || Bordel is the French word for brothel or mess and chaos. ||
 * 302 || //Saloperie// || Amar took Kit into a hotel where they met a fat woman wearing a checkered dress called kit a //saloperie,// which means junk, trash, or filth. Because the fat woman thought Kit was an Arab, she did not allow her to stay at her hotel. Racism and apartheid is an issue due to hostility by Arabs to Africans, in particular with the Arab world in parts of eastern and western Africa. ||
 * 314 || Transafricaine || In the book Transafricaine refers to the group that brings kit back to America. TransAfricaine Classic is known as a rally that goes from Paris to Dakar.
 * 318 || Avenue Galliéni || At the end of the book two men notice a streetcar filled with “native” dock workers passing the French style avenue. I thought it was interesting that they pass the Café de France “shining with mirrors and brass.” Then it hits the edge of the Arab quarter where the “streets were dimmer,” and it was “the end of the line.” It parallels to Kit’s experience in Africa, where she traveled farther and farther away from the European style Africa and more into the Arab style Africa. It is important to note that Joseph Gallieni was a French commander who was sent to Africa in 1870’s suppressing revolt both in Sudan and Madagascar. ||