a little time to think, to breathe

I’ve been here just over a week now, and I’m still in awe of this place.  As I sit on the roof and look out over the river valley, with the houses scattered among the trees and the clouds floating as they may in the sky, I feel overwhelmed and comforted at the same time.  Nick is speaking French to Bakari, our Manikekan teacher (the local language), and the children outside the compound shout back and forth to each other in Maninke; the roosters continue to crow, the goats occasionally join in, and five times a day, the call to prayer sounds at the mosque next door.  Sometimes it’s hard to believe I really am here.  I often need to remind myself to  pause every now and then, to close my eyes and take a deep breath.  My fingers feel strange on the keyboard, using up precious battery life on my computer.  We’ve been three nights now without electricity, and while I absolutely love how the stars look without the interference of the houselights, it would be nice to charge things like my computer and my phone.  But what can you do?  Things work differently than we’re used to, and everything comes with its positives and negatives.  I've found it’s best to enjoy these good things while they’re here, and leave the worrying to Papa.

Yet, as much as I try for this ideal, I would be lying to say I adhered to it all the time.  But such is life.  The lights still don’t turn on, and the plumbing doesn’t work, and we still don’t have any furniture, and I never stop sweating, and I “forgot” to do the assigned readings, and living in close quarters with a small group of people is actually really challenging, and Dougo is blown away by the fact that none of us has ever eaten beef heart, and the women in the market smile and laugh at us as we stumble over simple words like yam (koo) and banana (namasa), and we smile and laugh back as the children call “bye-bye” to us as we walk down the road to our house, and the women in the market are patient as we stumble over a mixture of French and manikakan, trying to buy food for breakfast in the morning, and the “Dutch oven” we tried to bake cookies in last night accidentally melted and caught on fire, and Banaby translated the entire lesson last Sunday in church just for me, and you can see the heat radiating from the rooftop, but the rain clouds loom in the distance promising a break, soon, very soon.  They whisper to me and taunt me and when they finally arrive, all will be still again.  Except the rush to bring the clean clothes in from the line, and to get water from the well to wash and flush the toilets with before doing so means getting absolutely drenched, and making sure homework papers are off the porch in case the wind picks up, and……  

I steal a moment to myself before lunch, here on the rooftop, to breathe, and to remember why I’m here; to look out over the trees and the river a little ways away, and the kids and chickens and goats who roam freely outside our compound.  I’m so blessed to be here.  There is so much space here, space that is how it is and does what it does, since before I came here and will continue so after I leave.  Space to think and space to explore, space to make mistakes; space to laugh and play and dance, to move my arms and my legs, as I spin in the slow circle of mummiya; space to breathe, as I set aside my expectations of others and slowly release to the coming winds my own expectations of myself.  With every breath, I slowly relax into the complicated and beautiful rhythms of this place, and as I do so, a smile slowly spreads across my face and love radiates from my heart.  I pray the winds may carry my love to you, where ever you are.