seek and find

Thursday, December 4, 2008

blog schmog, haketo (sorry in bambara)

i just spent three solid weeks in village. a bit of a test of my abilities, my patience and my budget. although i
succeeded, i found that at around day 17, i was rendered useless by my plateauing language skills, my plateaued
patience level and the god forsaken heat of so called Cold Season.

Cold Season has daily highs in the 120s and evening lows in the 60s. needless to say, we're all sick and grumpy.
this is compounded by bush fires, filling the air with suit, and the big breezes coming from the Sahel, combating,
mid-air, the suit with sand. i've never been sweatier, dirtier or drier in my life.

these days i'm drinking, easily, 7 liters of water a day; trying desperately to sleep through the night - thanks to
Vickers' books, i'm having to trouble falling asleep (currently i'm knee deep in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom); and
doing home repairs like nobody's business.

now my mud huts and i have a 1.5 inch cement barrier between us, one that not only makes me visually calmer, but also
cools them off during the day, thus making my home the sanctuary it should be; my gwa or hangar was raised 3 feet
by my friend Madu and i am no longer suffering from neck strains trying to get from one hut to the other; goats
sleep in my nygen at night because it heats up during the day to produce an overnight oven and they tend to keep
the bugs out... not sure how that works, but it does; i've got lizards living in my kitchen hut and subsequently
less bugs; all and all, things are nice at home.

as you can tell, three weeks renders my imagination and memory somewhat useless as well.

i promise i'll keep better tabs of the goings on in village for my next update. pictures should be up soon too.



happy holidays.

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