snapshots

A crowded ‘taxi brusse’ van with sun slanting in the windows and little leg room. The old man behind me has one eye and is fanning the back of my neck with his tattered plastic fan.

A cow is about to be slaughtered. They have dug a hold near its head to catch the blood and they bring the head backwards, hooking the horns into the dirt, exposing its long and wrinkly neck.

I fall into the irrigation system of the field as I walk with Mariam Jaybo. A thigh deep slowly moving channel of water. We laugh so loudly everyone tells us to give them some peace and quiet. We exchange dry clothes for wet ones and all drip home equally.

Greeting a sick old man at night. Feeling our way along the uneven path and Mariam Jaybo says “night time is scary.” Mariam Ba says moonlit nights are the worst, because if you are walking from far away, everyone can see you but you can’t see them. Really dark nights no one can see anyone else and that is much less creepy.

Mariam Jaybo shouting “wait for me to pray!” right before everyone wants to leave. She procrastinates praying like a school child with her homework.

I hired a man to announce my mosquito cream presentation to the entire village. I love hearing this guy move through the village in the dark, leaning on his can and bellowing down the dirt lanes about the field pump working tomorrow or the meeting at the mosque. He said for my announcement he would yell, “Before you’ve died of malaria go to Fatimata Saakho’s discussion…” He threw in the death angle but I approved.

I lug water and sticks and hack up fields and wash my own clothes and flip the fish in the pot. I cry over dead dogs and pour tea as it scalds my fingertips. I bounce on horse carts and forget to wear sunscreen and carry okra in a bucket on my head trying to balance without thinking about it.