(yet another) morning post

I awake just as it’s light enough to read my watch. 5:45am and the prayer call is obscenely loud- throwing waves of throat noises over bundled and horizontal bodies. I lug my sleeping stuff into my room trying to be silent but I cringe as a cot leg clangs into the door frame. No one stirs- since birth these people are expert sleepers.

I head out away from the rising sun toward the rice fields. I crunch through the dry earth utterly blissfully contentedly alone. My mind flew to America as soon as my shoes pointed toward my well worn path. I hold my skirt up to my knees and watch my white shins flashing in and out of view. I smile fleetingly at various stateside thoughts but don’t have to smile here because nobody can see me. For this moment I am not the foreign mascot nor the agreeable visitor. I have no name so I am spared the choice between Fatimata and Laura.

Back at the house coffee beans are being roasted and dust is flying from Bebe’s broom. Bebe pauses, stooped over from sweeping and we acknowledge each other as if we have a secret. Which we don’t. But perhaps us being such good friends makes us feel mischievous. It doesn’t feel kosher. Bebe 13 years old and dark as the blackened cooking pot and Laura, twice her age and almost transparent white thanks to 30SPF sunscreen applied twice a day.