A World on Fire

A shot rings out from the black powder rifile leaving a ringing in my right ear as the flames burst to life. All around me children and women dip bundles of dried grass into the fire watching them ignite. They sprint off into the darkness waving their makeshift torches wildly around their heads, unafraid of the sparks that fly to and fro scattering themselves upon the dry ground, interested only in the cleansing power of the smoke. I stand still. Awestruck. Opening my eyes wider and wider so as not to miss a moment, to drink in each movement, each cheer and shriek as we all take off down the road.

I do not run as the others do. My feet don’t find the uneven road so easily and my sandals slip and slide on my feet when they hit the soft mud that has become most of the path. They still give me a flame, and with the burning bundle in my right hand and a branch of a healing tree in my left we march onwards.

The drums are beating in the background of our torchlit dance down the street. Each beat a song, each song a meaning. I try so hard to remember but they become muddled and mixed in my brain. They talk to us. Tell us what to do, where to go, what to sing. Eventually they shout out in their earthy tones to turn around, to return to where we started. Through the dark sky the half lit torches soar into the shadowed trees. A woman takes me to the edge of the road, she counts down, and together we toss the last of the fire from our hands to the bush, leaving only the newly rejuvenated embers deep in our bellies, stoked to burn brightly again this night.

From the door of the chiefs palace they are tossing buckets of water. There is a swarm at the arvhway, weilding the branches they have collected not as weapons but as a sort of sheild. With each spray of water the beaches stretch and strain, yearning to be touched by the droplets that will bless them. Only then can the leaves be stripped down, and made into the medicine and bathwater for the small souls born in the past twelve months in this place.

Off they run again, this time in pure and utter darkness, no fire to light their way. Branches waving above their heads they visit the door way to every home, blessing it with their dampened leaves.

I have migrated to the front of a small shop to watch a video in a language I don’t understand when they next run by. Encircling me in their souful relay, droplets hitting my skin and arms, one twig tearing a small gasp in my skin. That wound will heal. I hope if scars. One last reminder of the vibrant drums and dancers which formed a circle I could not avoid being pulled to the center of.

Following the beats my feet moved in time, arms swinging, eyes gazing upwards into the cloudy night skin. I cannot help but laugh and gaze in awe of those around me. When the drum beat slows so do our feet, only to quicken again as I am pulled to the small palace where a man sits on a raised block, surrounded by elders. The chief. We tell him of my dancing, there is more laughing, not the kind which pulls your spirit down, but the kind that lifts it to the highest heavens. The kind that lets you know you’re doing something right.

I hope to learn to laugh like that forever.

P.S. photo is of my new pup, he still remains nameless but he is cute regardless

What’s in a Name

They have given me a new name. A name that slips easily from their native tongues. A name full of hope and promise for the next two years, and I fear I will constantly be racing to try and hold up my end of the unsaid promise my presence has brought. The chief decided upon it. Passed it on to me like it was another egg in the basket he had gifted me when I first arrived in this place.

Tanteeya.

I don’t know if she is replacing my current self, or if somehow my two names can learn to ebb and flow, working together, letting whichever needs to be present take the reins.

In short, it means “prosper”. But the long story, the truer story in my eyes, is about the branching vines of the squash plant. Green vines that spread out over the Earth, taking root wherever they touch, holding together the soil and blossoming to create something bountiful. I am not this squash plant. I am not the one coming to hold this town together, or to branch out and make it thrive. The plant was already here. Its vines are the trails through the brush leading to fields of corn. Its leaves are the houses with colorful laundry hanging on the bushes, trying to dry between the rains. The squashes themselves are the people who call this place home, who shout good morning through windows and from the backs of bicycles, who carry buckets of firewood on their heads and spend their days laying under the shady trees.

This village is the plant. I am just one blossom on a new branching vine, trying desperately to plant my roots.

***

And now, just as this community has given me a name, I have been tasked with giving two back. In the late afternoon, just before the sun began it’s quick descent behind the flat horizon, a man brought me to one of the tiny houses that are peppered across the landscape I can view out my window. There, lying one a mound of blankets, wearing outfits meant for someone twice their size, were a set of twins, born no more than three days before.

One after the other they were passes into my arms, protesting ever so slightly before falling back into whatever kind of peaceful slumber only those who know nothing about the world can have.

As the smallest wind blew through the open doorway, trying to cut the heat which only intensified the not-all-that-unpleasant smell of life and living which permeated every inch of the room, one of the women prepared two small sets of gold earrings. The twins were girls you see, and so even though they could not yet hold their heads high, or utter anything more than a cry, it was time for their ear lobes to shine. Just as every other woman in this town, just as those girls who came before them and those who will come after.

As we went to leave, hunched over to avoid hitting our heads on the low door frame, while trying to pick out two matching shoes from among the many scattered pairs outside, I was given a task. Just as the chief named me when I came to this place, now I was to name these two new souls who have just stepped foot on the dusty ground of this town.

I have not yet done it.

I’ll let you know when I do.

Sickness and the Stars

I walked outside the other night and saw Orion. The three bright stars making up his belt twinkled brighter than I’ve ever seen. They seemed almost to scream at me, trying to catch my attention so that I would look up and see that they had followed me all the way to the other side of the world.

The piece of my body that is made up of star dust has always seemed to pull me forward, guiding me through the nights where nothing seems to be real or make sense. I blame my mother in the most highly regarded sense, because when I was small and sick, she brought me out to the stars. She is a firm believer in starlight, just like me. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, my feverish forehead bare to the cold winter evening, we sat on the front stoop and looked up. Craning our necks to see ever last bit of light beaming down from the sky, wondering how far it had traveled and if the journey had been easy. That’s when I started learning the sky, by following my mothers outstretched finger as she named the shapes the cosmos had made completely by accident and that humans had named after their myths.

Today I have laid half-asleep on my bed for the majority of the day. I’ve been struck by the kind of sickness that I’m sure I’ll experience more often than not in this unfamiliar climate. While the knives twisted in my gut, and my stomach churned bile over and over since I had not fed it yet, my mind wanders to every corner of the Earth my feet and hands have ever touched. Remembering each green mountainside or dark grey-blue ocean lapping at my toes. Places I plan to return to time and time again once I have outstayed my welcome in my beautiful, tiny town. I hope this place eventually joins these others and that I will return to walk the dusty road again. My dry mouth cracks as I open my lips to take the smallest sip of water, trying to trick my body into thinking nothing of the cool liquid dripping down the back of my throat.

I stare up at the netting several feet above my face, I notice it is covered in the small bugs which were overpowered by the chemicals it holds in its fibers, they remind me of the stars. While they spell out no pattern, I can’t find a hunter or a mother bear amongst them, they give my tired eyes something to try to focus on besides the window calling me to step outside into the fresh air. There is a herd of cattle moving outside the same window, the small boys who control the beasts shouting short chirps at them which they obey despite weighing more than the boys several times over. The sun is beginning to fall, so I can only assume they are returning to whatever mud and clay home they rest their eyes in each evening, listening to the sounds of mice in the thatched roof that keeps it cool enough to rest well.

My body is weak and my legs are heavy from the weight of the sickness. It holds me down, pulling me back to horizontal quickly if I ever try to sit much less stand. I am tired and shaken but not discouraged. Slowly I will heal. My feet will once again stand firmly where I plant them, and I will hold my arms high above my head. It will be some sort of victory, mind over matter, proving to myself once again that I am stronger than I had once thought. Step by step, bit by bit, just as the rest of this adventure has gone. Just as the rest of my life has gone.

Tonight, I may go out and see the stars. Wrapped in several yards of fabric I’ll turn my glazed eyes towards the heaven, searching for three bright stars that have always guided me home.

Mornin’

This morning there is a woman riding through town shouting greetings from the back of her bicycle. She wears a pink head scarf that matches the long skirt she somehow avoids catching in the rusty chain that spins as she peddles. I try to picture myself as her, replacing her accent with my own (which sticks out even more when I speak Dagbani), and her scarf with a bulky helmet. While most of the community members sitting in their various gathering places have probably been up for hours, I have only just managed to pull myself out from under the bug net that encircles the small mattress that stands as the only furniture within the four neon green walls of my tiny home. It is 7:33am. Still yet to happen this morning are the sound of the goats wailing on the path outside my window that looks out across the road at the town I am supposed to be becoming a part of. The physical presence of the road standing in for the mental and emotional block I face most days. Trying to take the eleven steps (I counted late one afternoon while most of the potential onlookers were occupied by their prayers) to cross the dusty, potholed expanse first involves climbing the small mountain of anxieties my mind has conjured up about how and why I should not be where I am.

Also still yet to happen is the voices of the three small boys who play with drums and sticks in the wide expanses behind my house most mornings. As they head off to whatever battle they have conjured up to face that day, they wander past my window and shout good morning to the white madame inside who has captured their attention and most times will even respond to their assessment of the morning even if she hasn’t been awake long enough to make that decision yet. I thank whoever is watching out for me that they have realized that if they do this morning ritual before the sun is high in the sky, they won’t be treated to the response they so desire.

Eventually I may learn to wake with the rising sun that streams through my curtain-less windows, to fetch my water when the sky is still coming to life, to rise with the heart of the community. But for now, my head still hangs heavy above my shoulders as the kettle in the corner brings to life the whistling water that will turn the brown grounds I coveted all the way from America into coffee. As I sit and sip from my one metal mug, taking stock of any new aches and pains that have arisen overnight, the fan spins wildly overhead in an attempt to take an edge off the humidity which lays over everything like a heavy winter blanket. The sky is slowly darkening, the third rain storm in as many days looms just to the east, creeping slowly along, people ready their buckets alongside their houses where they know the rain collects, building up their stores for when the sky is nothing but blue.

I should do the same.

Jumping In

Drops of rain are spilling down the mesh net that keeps the bugs from flying in through the slats in my windows. I can hardly hear over the sound of the pellets hitting hard against the metal roof above my head. This is not the first rainstorm I have encountered in the short time I have been here, but it is the first early morning thunderstorm for me this year. My first thought is to go run around in the water, splash through the dark brown puddles along the dirt road that stretches from here to anywhere, but I remain inside. Rain here is not friendly in the eyes of the locals. It is not something to be played in, but instead it is a sign from God or the Gods, or whomever else you can believe in. Although I think they may secretly be dancing in their hearts for the rains have come late this year. Now is the only time in this dry region where crops can flourish and grow, producing enough food to get through a much of the dry season as possible.

The corn stalks have already grown fairly tall even without watering, but the peanuts, soy beans, and whatever else could sprout in the clay-like soil all remain small, withered slightly from the strength of the sun at midday. I feel like these plants most days. The sun is much stronger than the sun I have been living under for the past twenty-three years. Even the shortest walks outside turn my skin red on my face, arms, and neck, the only skin that I can acceptably show for the most part. Comparing the tan of my arm to my pale stomach would make you think there were somehow two different people standing in front of you. It’s only been a few months so far, so it’s hard to imagine what the difference might be when I finally stumble home.

Besides my coloring, my hair has grown longer, my face has returned to it’s middle-school texture, and somehow the smell of sweat and dirt has encrusted itself so firmly that even after a shower it still lingers. Not that any of these things really bother me anymore. I forgot how to care about my appearance on a certain level quickly after I arrived here. Today however I went through my whole make-up routine for the first time in months in order to distract myself from the eight new blisters that have sprung up on my feet from my adventure yesterday. I had set out to find food, gotten quite lost, asked a group of children for directions in a broken form of their language that they somehow understood, and promptly gotten lost again. Eventually I found both food and the way home, staggering into my tiny room just as the sun was beginning to set. It sets fast these days, about twenty minutes later and I would have been getting home in the near darkness.

Today I have not left my room except to squat over the hole that is to be my latrine for the next two years. It is cockroach infested, and has a window that I fear someone could far too easily look into, but for some reason I don’t hate it. I don’t know if I have lost the ability to feel strong emotions since being here, or if I have accepted that things could be worse. And they could be. I could still be back in America, stumbling through my days unclear of where I was heading or how I would get there. On some level I have run away from most of my problems, hoping that they wont be lying in wait for me when I return, or that at least I’ll be able to deal with them when I am the person I am at the end of this adventure.

So I guess that’s why I’m writing this today. I never set out to make a blog, commitment is something I’m not very good with, but I realized that a blog doesn’t have to be for all of you reading it. So this won’t be sturctured like you might expect, it won’t be a clear story of my time here. It will be my thoughts, my inner monologue, my vision of the world I have thrown myself into. Hopefully that will be enough for you, because it’s enough for me. So this is the beginning. I’ve skipped a lot, I’ve decided to jump into today, into now, into what is running through my head this moment. Maybe someday I’ll fill in the gaps the past few months have created, but for now I’m fine with listening to the sounds of the rain, of the goats, and of my neighbors fixing their motorbike outside, while only thinking about now.

Cheers.