A Sapone

What a crazy four days it has been. We’re finally here. In freakin’ Africa. Maintenant, we are lying in our new big bed under our huge new bug net in the house of our surprisingly small new family. Every few hours there is an amplified call to prayer from the nearby mosque. It sounds like a bull through a megaphone at first and then transforms into a solitary, plaintive song in some garbley brook of a language. Everything sounds beautiful here; the French, the Mooré, even the English through African mouths. I can’t wait until I can actually understand, and perhaps make some beautiful sounds myself. The earth is red and gives life to strange new life. The Beobobs are the fat ones whose seeds contain a nutrient-rich powder and whose leaves can be boiled and eaten- so I’m told.

Every day is a surreal dream, hilarious and free. Like yesterday, speaking Mooré for the first time using broken French as a go-between. The power kept going out but it didn’t matter. Then the wind burst through the windows and the rain came, thick and steaming and we ran outside to revel in the beauty, the craziness, the sheer nowness of the moment and then returned to the classroom to explore something new.

Nothing has been as awkward or as sweet as today though. We rode in a bus from the mission in Ouagadougou to Saponé, a small town due south. We gathered in an open-aired structure to meet our host families, heralded by the sounds of wood flutes and talking drums. “Ils ont le couple!” Siaka, an LCF cried to Manuel and Pascaline, our new Burkinabé mother and father. We gathered our things, loaded them into the family voiture (the only one present) and ventured forth into the real world. So many stagères, laden down with bags and helmets, some relearning how to ride a bike, patiently accompanied by their new families we passed on our way through this strange new world. Goats, pigs, chicken, geese, sheep, asses, cows with camel-like humps and thin frames all stared at us as if the likes of us had never been seen. Small children gaped and pointed, a few waving, a few yelling “Nasara!” (foreigner) as we passed through fields of drooping red-berried candelabras with crackling stalks, across red beaten lots with the vestiges of makeshift football poles casting long shadows in the glowing evening. We followed our family into a courtyard and the first thing I saw was a spider monkey tied to a tree. It hopped back and forth, trying to find the exact point furthest away from the humans. Each next step was a mystery. Where was our room? Where should we put our stuff? What time is dinner? What time is it? What the hell are these people saying to me (worse, what am I saying to them?)? But everything came. Slowly. It is still coming. There’s nothing a few hand gestures, awkward silences and laughs won’t fix.

That’s what I’m banking on, anyway.