Magical realism is a genre of literature of which I’m a big fan. These authors take normal people, places, and objects and cleverly spin them into characters, settings, and symbols in a way that leaves the reader wondering whether the writer is telling fiction or reality, a fantasy or just a fantastic event.
Here are some I found in my adventures for your reading pleasure!
-My arms and hands and thighs and neck and face ached from pulling weeds away from the roots of the millet in my association’s field, and my women had been warmly giving me grief about my lacking work skills for some minutes. I sat fuming in the shade of a shea tree, scouting the ground for its little green, sweet, and avocado-esque fruits. A little girl in a torn dress, the roses on it barely visible through the embedded dirt and grime, stood transfixed just outside the shade, staring at what appeared to be nothing. Other little girls and boys crowded over soon too, myself included. Little silver wings rose like bubbles from a hole in the ground, an endless stream floating out in a fan, one after another after another. The kids all started to reach little dirty hands out to catch them, jumping and skipping in the shimmering cloud. An old fula lady (an ethnic group whose people have paler skin and more narrow features) grabbed at one too, and caught the skinny flying insect’s silver double wings between thumb and pointerfinger, pushing them back to expose a fat rear. And then she bit it right in half and told me through the mouthful that they were termites, of course inviting me to dine. I let her enjoy the bounty on her own.
-Late at night with a big, shining crescent moon, I heard noises outside my house. I figured it was either Merlin, my cat, who would begin mewing raucously if I didn’t open the door, or a neighborhood hooligan, who could also begin mewing raucously if I didn’t open the door. I opened my screen door, letting the light from little Malian oil lamp spill outside, and my visitor stared up at me, with a croak for a greeting—a little transparent tree frog, sitting perfectly attentive and waiting for my attention on my doorstep. Or to get stepped on.
-I found a friend from a nearby town on a voyage from my village to Bobo, my final destination Ouagadugu. On arrival at the station in Bobo, however, I realized with a sinking feeling that this was not the right bus station for going to Ouaga, and sat annoyed thinking about paying for a taxcab. Not to worry, my new galant friend, 70 years old, rusty bike in tow, offered to show me the way on foot. All concern about arriving there late and missing the bus quickly dissapated as this little old man zoomed out of the station, taking me through parts of Bobo I never would have found on my own. Red dust billowed up from the feet of lanky soccer players on a battered field ; we jumped gullies of stagnant green water and plastic bags, hopping out of the way of motos darting down the barely paved roads ; four lines bore the weight of a hundred huge lengths of purple, red, orange, yellow, and blue freshly died fabrics between the limbs of mango trees ; a little hill showed us the the sun drenched city’s battered buildings and roads clogged with donkey carts and women with big bowls of cakes for sale on their heads ; faster and faster this little man flew, and all the suddenly we arrived, and he was gone .
-I rode in line down a skinny dirt path with four ladies from my association, making the short trek out to our fields to plant soy bean seeds under a sun already toasting my skin at 8 :30 in the morning. We passed the gnarled baobob wedged between the two paths, fabled, as all baobobs are, to capture the souls of harmless victims into their vast water-holding trunks. A kapok tree’s roots stood out house-high further on, looking as if years of rain had washed down them and dug out long pits and rills that descended down below the earth. A forest of eucalyptus met us next, with trunks bone white, narrow, and tall enough to touch the sky, their long leaves wispy and faded green (a former government program here in Burkina supported the mass plantation of eucalyptus, later finding out how detrimental they are to all other trees around them). We were welcomed at the field by a little creature with a human face, a child’s hands, little pointed ears and a tail, tied around the waist to a juvenile tree—a monkey, knee-high, and rearing to escape. Up the tree, down the tree, smashing down plants with little howls, eyes roaming the scene as if its humanoide friends might be in seeing-distance. My attempts to entreat him with little noises and leaves were met with cold shoulders and very obvious avoidance of eye contact, much to my dismay.
Just a little taste of my encounters ! Hope you enjoyed--
As I side note, I'll just add that I now find myself a business manager in the cosmetics industries. Sort of. The women's association I am working with and I have started making a mosquito repellent cream. It uses the leaves of very wide spread tree here called the neem tree, shea butter, and soap. It has been selling like crazy! I have been finding myself suddenly a traveling vendor, walking through the market with a big basket of little plastic bags full of the taupe colored cream, explaining its benefits in mosquito, and thus malaria, prevention, as well how lovely it is for your skin as well with shea butter! I coupled selling the cream with a presentation on Malaria at the maternity in town (where babies are born) with slightly overwhelming effects--I feared being squished under the press of mamas and babies trying all buy cream at the same time before we sold out. Everybody wins! The village is healthier, the association makes money, and people will learn that malaria comes from mosquitos, not mangos and corn like so many think (an interesting affect as these fruits veggies coincide with the beginning of rainy season which is when the mosquito population also swells). Wish me luck!
