As I am currently unable to sleep due to the clatter of raindrops on my tinroof and the loud, deep grumbles of thunder rattling my cot, I'll share how I spend my days and some neat discoveries instead.
My new house in Burkina has the tell-tale blue walls of a Peace Corps home. The blue is broken up by brown, mud termite trails and hollows that go straight through to the outside where hundreds of large, industrious ants work all night scooping sand out of the wall and dump it unceremoniously onto my floor and belongings. The sound of dry mud falling grain by grain on plastic is a bit of a strange one to wake up to in the night. Equally strange are the tings of the colony of grasshoppers which have invaded my house bouncing off every possible surface, including the metal pots and pans and little gas stove that sits in my cooking room. I much prefer the hum of the grasshoppers legs, usually a dozen working in chorus on the melody. I've woken more than once with my ears ringing from the din.
I've been making my rounds around my new town, visiting everyone. I think my favorite was meeting my homologue's father one morning, who was decked out in an old faded rain coat and a knitted hat. He has to be 85 years old, and has enough wrinkles under his eyes to prove it. His eyes themselves are yellow with age and move slowly, and he looked at me slowly as if trying to figure how I had possibly come to be in his village and house. He greeted me in Jula as if he had cotton under his tonge, slow and muffled. After a short struggle with small talk, he slowly pushed himself up and hobbled over to a certain wooden beam and very intentionally pulled out what appeared to be the shaft of a feather. He wetted the end of it this with his mouth and then meticulously scraped out his right ear with it. He then commenced the same ceremony again, back in the ear, then carefully put back the feather exactly where he had gotten it. I laughed a lot. He didn't seem to mind.
I've come across two interesting bugs. The first I thought was a moving fruit. I was sure it was a migrating strawberry. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was some kind of amazing spider, all red, with a furry butt that is an exact replica of a wild strawberry with legs that can fold in like a hermit crab. Don't worry, I took pictures. The other bug discovery happened at night, in the dark. I was putting away my mat before going to bed when I saw a glowing streak on the floor. The same glow had also contaminated the underside of my rug I soon saw. On closer inspection, I realized I had accidently killed a centipede of some kind and, turns out, their guts are glowy. Gross, but cool.
I think the storm is drawing to a close. They are so violent here when they start. I saw one in Ouagadugu that seemed to turn the whole sky red with dust.
A la prochaine...
