Listening to my cd player with my headphones to focus on work on the computer, yet still dancing and singing aloud equals two crazy people in Yovokome. I can tell that Derique is a similar roommate to Nancy in that he prefers me to use my headphones rather than the radio. I know this because he is not hiding in the bedroom. Hiding in the bedroom makes him a little embarrassed when I step out of the bath. I am not as reactive as I was while writing the previous “femi-nazi” entry, but I still have some arguments to present. Modern [View Full Entry]

---

---

I don’t know if Derique is shedding more, or it I am sweeping less, but there is A LOT of dog hair in my home. Gross. He’s lucky I like him, otherwise I would kick him out. That, and he made doggie-doors for himself. He even made a doggie-door in the fence; however, he waits patiently for me to open doors for him, rather than using his own. The swallows are constructing a new home, on my porch again. If my world were perfect, I would knock down every bit of this old home except the porch, and reconstruct a nice [View Full Entry]

---

---

The Iroko in the previously-placed picture is one of my favorite trees, but moving quickly up the list of favorites is Somba, which definitely has to be in the same family as the maple tree. The leaves are very similar, and the seeds are the exact same helicopter blade. A somba tree grows quickly and is a preferred wood for pirogues, that is, canoes. “Athieme” in Mina means “le bois blanc,” or the white wood, which is the somba. Sadly, not many of the trees remain that gave my home its name, but Patrice and I spent three hours bent over, [View Full Entry]

---

---

I have thought of an amusing analogy to explain a part of my life. This just came to me, so be flexible. Imagine yourself on a lovely walk in the woods. It’s a beautiful day and everything around you is familiar. The air smells fresh, the sun dapples the ground in its usual lovely manner, and grand trees surround you. You are at peace and in harmony with your environment. Suddenly, the distinction between you and the trees is your immediate reality. You say to yourself, “oh, I am not a tree. I am different.” Yet, because you breathe the same [View Full Entry]

---

---

I feel like I can better describe my home to you now. Home turf starts, after a long trip’s end and the deposition of myself from the taxi, at the carre-four between the goudron to Lokossa and the terre-rouge to Athieme. I am greeted by about ten zemidjan men, with twenty more on reserve, who all say, “Bon Arrivee!” “Merci!” “Athieme, non?” “Oui, Athieme. 200F.” “Non, Madame/Tata, c’est 300F. L’essence est cher.” “O, ao.” Finger wag. “La vie est cher. C’est 200F.” And I s [View Full Entry]

---

---

I was sitting in class the other day with a few others, listening to Ghislain lecture about the benefits and how-to’s of a tree nursery. Goes without saying that I was not paying attention. (Funny how as annoyed as I get being forced to sit in class, I still think of going back to school, even of becoming a professor…) Anyway, as I was not paying attention, I caught a word from The Boss saying something about how a fence is necessary to keep the animals out, animals that I usually consider being kept in fences, such as sheep, goats, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Have I told you about the time a viper came to my door? That was a pretty interesting afternoon. In a non-related story, Ghislain came to my door Christmas Eve day with the head-forester-guy for the entire Mono-Couffo region, who had brought pythons in bags to be set free “en brusse” near Athieme. I closed up shop, leaving my vanilla tea to go cold, and hopped in the truck to go to the forest outside the next village over. We walked a ways in, accompanied by a couple men from the village council who told us we could set the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Happy New Year! That’s “Happy New Year” in Mina too. I partied heartily for both holidays. I spent Christmas with my family in Aplahoue. I arrived Saturday evening and left around noon Monday. Darly told me I arrived late and left early. My friends in Athieme told me I was gone too long. I went to midnight mass in Aplahoue, after having watched Zelag, Darly, Maman, and another girl kill, clean, and cook three chickens, one being a “yovococlo,” that is, a white-person chicken. White-person chickens are big, fat, lay eggs everyday, and are reputed to not tast [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today I was walking out in the African cornfield with Ghislain, in search of monkeys preparing ears of corn to eat. The combination of the smells of hot vegetation, the corn and grass taller than my head on either side of me, the rustling of the leaves and the feel of the wind on my face that also made my already sweaty t-shirt press up against me, reminded me of home. I told Ghislain that if I closed my eyes, I could see my sisters and brother and dogs with me, all out in the yard, maybe getting ready to play [View Full Entry]

---

---

The good news is that I found the town library. I borrowed a great little book of poems that I am just loving. The better news is that CLAC, the library, is in my neighborhood, on my way home. The best news is that the director of CLAC let me borrow Scrabble to play with the girls in the girls’ club. I can not decide if that “best news” is that I get to play Scrabble or that the girls’ club is so much fun. In any case, I have even more books to read. CLAC stands for Centre de [View Full Entry]

---

---