Letter to Steve & Jayne 9/28/06

It's been a while since we've talked, but I hope to hear that you guys are doing okay. Hope to hear that the dogs are doing well too!

I've written few letters recently and it's not due to loss of feelings, but more due to a lack of events that would be considered notable. My blog already has the surprise fall of my home, but more can't be really said about that until the end of October, upon which I'll find out if I'll be staying in the same village or not.

A change of venue would be nice in the regards of a fresh start & hopefully better people to work with, but the little ground work that I have accomplished here would be completely for naught if I do leave. The exciting program I'm beginning to garner interest for would die off & extinguish while trying to do the same thing in a new village may happen the same way if I had to leave a year later also. It's difficult to tell.

I already know a good # of the false types here but going to a new village, they would have to be figured out all over again. I think over all I would like to stay in my village and see some projects through, but in the end it may not be up to me.

Between the two dominant season of Burkina, I'd have to say that the rainy season's my favorite. Despite the deteriorated roads due to flooding & lack of maintenance. The fresh air & breezy nights are more comfortable by far to live in. The incredible growth of corn & millet that now towers over every home and pathway makes a regular walk into a maze of crossing lines. Changes the terrain so greatly I often misplace a courtyard or house due to it's camouflage exterior of corn & millet stalks growing up around it.

Where the ground is viable, whether it be inside or outside the courtyard, they plant crops to maximize their harvests. So often you'll see a patch of corn growing inside the fallen down walls of a house that fell last season. There are some areas in the bush that are left to fallow as they practice crop & ground rotation, but they like the US are constantly pushing the borders of sustainable living in their environment. Here the borders are that much more defined and closer to home. No good harvest, means no food for the rest of the year. It's pretty cut & dry & serious.

In my region it should be a good harvest but up north, they haven't been getting enough rain & there's fear of famine again. 2 years ago, they had a bad/or no harvest & the WHO had to come down & determine the amount of aid they would give. They determined it wasn't a famine because the cattle weren't eaten or dying yet. Thus not as much food was given. Pehl (???) people who raise the cattle, would rather allow their family to starve than to kill their cattle for food. In the end, Pehls died & so did some of their cattle. The rest lived to see this year's upcoming famine. Life on the boarders of habitable locations is like that. Feast or famine to the extremes and in time for the 6 o'clock news.

I just read a book called "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. He wrote "Guns, Germs & Steele". His second book is a study on how societies, due to several potential reasons, collapse, diminish or change to adapt to new pressures. Very interesting in it's present implications and how we can see the future of the world potentially pan out. Scary, informative, and wrought with perspectives of how to be responsible for the worlds continual sustainable existence. I enjoyed it and figured it should be sent to George Bush to wake his ass up to his self-defeating practices.

Anyway, to finish my previous though, I like the rainy season because it reminds me of the states. Everything becomes flush with life in a lush green that pops up seemingly out of nothing. A veritable desert turns into this full bodied forest and country side with flowers and insects. Animals dormant during the dry season become active and burrow up from the ground to grow, multiply & prepare for the next dormancy. - FYI, Dormir is the verb in French for "to sleep". - In the evening the clouds are full bodied mushroom anvils & elephants of color that reflect the sunset like mirrors that shed a collage of color onto the evening plants. Coloring everything a new shade. Some nights pink & purple, others yellow & orange. It's a really pretty time of day, however fleeting it is.

Unfortunately now is becoming the end of the rainy season. I can feel the raw heat that builds up during the day w/o respite of clouds or oncoming storm. The dusk is beginning to float & fly more due to the lack of moisture. The ground again, becomes hard & rock like. The stalks of corn & millet are being cut & the country is becoming open & barren of growth once more. The brown of the dirt is spreading into the leaves & stalks telling up upcoming harvest & death. This change helps tell the passing of time and reminds me I'll get to see it once more if I'm lucky. I need to enjoy it as best I can.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the little bit of Burkina as I find now I do. I should stop this marathon letter. Hopefully you'll be able to decipher all my scrawls. I'll leave you til nest time. Take care & miss you much.

Always,
Laura