There has been a lot of looking up lately. Looking and waiting, for rain. Nakpane, Djawene, and I traveled on foot into Bassar today to try and take care of some business that we never got around to doing. We did find a few calabashes of tough, Kabye, tchouck (the local beer). The Kabye ethnic group is renowned for its local beverage and differs from the other local brews in its force and tart. We sat under trees behind the post office as the storm clouds were rolling in. The back door to the post office swung open and the postmaster walked out, was handed a calabash, and downed it before walking back into his office to continue “working.” I told him he was lucky to be so close to his drinking hole and he agreed with a nod and a laugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just plopped down in his chair and fell asleep with a crowd of people waiting to be seen by him. Its kind of how things go around here.
We came into Bassar looking for something, or were supposed to have been doing something, but as the clouds rolled in all attention became focused on whether or not it would rain. They were dark and luminous and my guess was that today would be the day that the hot spell would be broken and we would have a good rain to cool things down. Nakpane and Djawene thought differently and argued with the Mama selling tchouck telling her that the rains weren’t coming and that it was only going to be more wind and dust. “It’s the funerals I tell you...no one wants to have their big bash rained on, so they do a little greegree and bam!, No rain.” “What funerals are you talking about Djawene?” uttered Nakpane, “the funeral season is over with, plus why would the same people who want the rain try to stop the rain at the same time?” “Excellent point” I said as I cradled my calabash in my right hand and thought slowly about taking another sip, a sip strong enough to send a shutter down your spine. “You’ve got it all wrong” said Mama with her beautifully boisterous vocal. “It’s those darn workers on the route that are stopping the rains from coming. The work on paving the road has gone on far too long and now they see that the rains are coming and know that if the rains fall it will really muck up there work, literally and figuratively.” “Ah haa, Yes, Yes, Yes you are right and make a good point, its those damned day workers screwing up everything!” Just as Nakpane finished this last phrase a huge gust of wind rushed through filling our mouths with dust and stinging our eyes with sand. “What did I tell you? No rain, just wind.”
Not long after the first gust a second whipped through sending us for cover and looking as though it could turn the trees we were sitting under inside out if it were any stronger. Plastic bags, buckets and tables were thrashing around in the yard and even sitting indoors we had to shield our eyes from the sand whooshing around us. I caught a glimpse of the brown, apocalyptic world outside and was a bit disappointed in my false weather prediction. Some calabashes later the winds did die down and we made it back to Bikotiba feeling beaten the whole walk from the duel combination of Kaybe tckouck and violent winds. The heat is suffocating and I still have sand in my mouth.
I had no idea my day was going to end like this when I woke up this morning around 3:30am to a silence so rare and pure that I decided not to go back to sleep, but rather stay up and enjoy it. I rarely ever know how my days are going to end when I start them, but I always hope for something to break the monotony. Today it came in the form of a wind and sand storm. Around 5:55am, as I was laying on my floor, literally feeling the heat seeping up, a man walked over to tell me that there was a meeting going on and that my presence was requested. “Great Scott!!, can’t a man get a little peace and quiet in the morning!!!? Its got to be written, practiced somewhere never to call on someone before 6:00am!!,” I thought to myself as I told him, calmly, that I’d be heading over in a bit. I sat and looked at my clock for about fifteen minutes under the principle that no one should tell me to come to a reunion the day of, before 6:00am. Huffing and puffing, angry I sat in my hut before finally giving in and opening the door to greet the day and whatever it throws at me at. If I recall correctly it was 6:11am (GMT).
Mangy dogs fighting on the paths in between houses just like they always do in the morning, little girls throwing out cauldrons full of old dish-washing water, women and men alike chewing on sticks and greeting each other with sleepy eyes and a sense like, yeah...I see you now “hows it going?” yeah...I saw you yesterday “how was that?” yeah...I’ll see you tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day “so...talk to you later.” I put in my two cents at the reunion and for brevity’s sake I will not go into the details.
I made it back to my house around 7:30. I had already planned out my big travail for the day the day before and was excited to get around to some home improvement projects I had planned out. Diogie was running around hungry so I found him some leftover food and tossed it on the floor outside of my house which he happily gobbled up and soon after passed out on the concrete tomb of the old matriarch of my family who used to live in my house before I came across the pond. It’s pretty strange. A storm (no rain) had come through a few days earlier and completely tore off the thatch on my hut so I made my work cleaning up the mess and built a big trash fire which is always fun to do in the mornings. I rearranged my “green-bean canopy,” tended to my garden nursery and climbed the tree behind my house to cut limbs with my machete and give to the four rabbits in the cage in my garden. I swept out the inside of my dusty house knowing that it will soon get just as dusty again. 8:45 was creeping up and my stomach was starting to growl. I knew from the moment I woke up what I was going to eat for the day but I was trying to prolong the hunger until my work was done so I could eat and go sleep to wait out the heat.
I took a cold bucket shower and hoped on my bike to head towards Bassar to my favorite breakfast spot. I skidded to a stop outside of a yellowish, rusty tin-roofed, mud-hut about 3 km outside of Bikotiba. Sweaty and out of breath, hungry and cussing at the gloried footpath that winds its way up a bastard of a hill I just conquered on my bike. I face this hill almost everyday, and have ridden it in every type of weather. It is funny how it has become a part of my life. I flipped my kickstand down and steadied my bike in between eight to fifteen motorcycles. It almost looks like a “Hell’s Angels” hangout at 9:00am on a Tuesday. I walk up the uneven stairs and as I duck my head to enter I hear the rhythmic sound of women pounding fufu, “thoump, thoump, thoump, thoump.” Needless to say I am probably the most unusual customer at this establishment, but also probably the most loyal, so even if there is a line of hungry, rude, Togolese men throwing around plates and demanding service, I usually get served within 5 min of sitting from a sweaty woman yelling at me in Bassar and asking me how much food I want. Cackling from the line of hungry men at the fact that I speak Basssar forces me to have certain “come backs” for their jokes. I pick a spot on a bench under the huge mango tree that is a landmark for the restaurant. I greet the other men, rarely women, sitting at the table and wash my hands in the plastic basin while one of the men at the table pours water from a plastic goblet. I didn’t know this man, but he washed my hands and also asked me to eat with him, from his plate. We weren’t acquainted in anyway, but it doesn’t matter because soon after I politely declined and told him “bon appetite” my food arrived and I invited him to eat with me, from my plate. “Daa ti gii bi saa.” A cultural formality but at the same time it wouldn’t be strange if I dug in with the invitation. I get fufu for 150cfa (35cents), wagash (fried cheese) for 150cfa, and sometimes a piece of goat meat or chicken livers and gizzards if I’m really hungry for 200cfa (45cents). I pinch off globs with my right hand and dip the fufu into a spicy, oily sauce. While I’m eating an very old, very large woman waddles over, very shirtless to say hello. She is the owner of the fufu establishment, the matriarch of the family, and sells candy on the side.
Its 10:00 and I’m full. A heavy meal in the morning usually will last until the afternoon and sometimes evening, depending on the heat. Its amazing how little you think about food when you are not bombarded with fast-food restaurants, advertisements, and other things telling you to eat, eat, and eat more. I head back down the hill, my morning almost over, and make my way to my house in Bikotiba. Its almost 11:00 when I arrive (I got hung up on the road, tchouck and greeting people). I grab my hammock and take a few swigs of hot water before heading out again, this time on foot with Diogie. He knows where we are heading and runs on ahead to the shade where the path makes a turn to the right and waits for me there. The heat is stupefying, the sun unforgiving.
My tree is a little off the beaten path. It’s a mango tree in the middle of someone’s farm with massive branches that sag, sway, and sing with the wind. The shade it provides is as close to air conditioning as you can get and I string up my hammock to wait out the heat. I see kids off in the distance chunking rocks up at a neighboring mango tree hoping to strike gold with one of the ripe mangos dangling just out of reach. I look at my tree and see that all of the mangos, save two or three have already been claimed and I am thankful that there is a chance I won’t be disturbed during my afternoon siesta. I doze in and out, meditate, and try to guess what time it is and how long I've been swaying under my tree. My guess is four or five hours, so I decide to head back into village. On the path I intercept Djawene and Nakpane. They tell me they are going into Bassar and with the storm clouds rolling in over the mountain, ask me if I’d like to join them.
