Au village

I live in Africa. I have my own house, which gets lots of light and has plenty of room, and a screen door that I have to keep closed so the baby goats don’t come in. Lots of spiders and recently some mice (wooo...) so I am now looking for a cat... My concession family has 14 kids (not a hyperbole, there are two wives), goats, chickens, and ducks which makes it active and generally pretty loud. My proprietor is a farmer and so he goes to the fields most days to work, taking some kids with him. The wives, little ones, and grandmothers stay around the concession and cook, do laundry, get water etc. It’s funny watching the kids entertain themselves. No one seems to be bored, even though there aren’t toys or what I’d consider fun stuff around. They play/torture the baby goats or whatever other animals are around, cry, practice standing on their heads, throw half deflated balls, cry, play with water, run around, and try, unsuccessfully, to talk to me. They’re cute, but I have no idea what they’re saying…maybe one day? Bariba is coming petit à petit. If I haven’t opened my door yet, one of the grandmothers usually peeks in my windows and says good morning, and a kid shows up at my door every night to get my bowls and brings them back with igname pilé and sauce for dinner.
The first three months at post are considered the ‘integration period’ where we’re supposed to well…integrate. Aka, walk around, meet people, practice local language, get to know your post, find people you can work with later. The amount of time I have to fill was daunting the first couple of days, especially considering the hecticness of stage and swear in. One day at a time. I’ve made myself walk around my village a lot, which isn’t that big, and stop at every concession and say the few phrases I know in Bariba. Sometimes I can do this for a while, sometimes after 10 minutes I’m just done. Everybody, EVERYBODY knows who I am and wants to say hi, which is, you know, cool but it’s hard to have any anonymity. I’ve been going to the garden every day, also a short walk, and saying hi to whoever is there working, and to the president of the gardening group’s house. I’ve taken a couple trips to the pump (still working on remembering where it is, but pump in Bariba is pompi so I just walk around with my container and look confused and say pompi and some little kid will point), I found where the king lives, I’ve had some Bariba tutoring sessions with an elem. school teacher who lives nearby, and I’ve gone on a couple bike rides. That’s sorta life right now. Slow paced, but sprinkled with enough excitement so far to keep my spirits up. Little things have brightened some monotonous, ok I’m in Africa so now what? days, like sitting on the ground in the garden learning the Bariba words for different vegetables or having a Peuhl woman offer me some of the beignets she just bought. The Peuhl/Fulani are an ethnic group that lives around but not with the Bariba – their communities are always on the outskirts of town. They wear amazing jewelry and have face tattoos, herd cattle and make cheese, and are beautiful. Sahadaht, who is around 12 and speaks French, stopped by my house on her way to church on Sunday night and I asked if I could go and she said oui. I found out that adults go to church in the morning and the kids go in the afternoon, and that kids’ church is singing and dancing for a while, a quick prayer, and c’est fini. The church is on the outskirts of the village and is a cement building with one room and a cross in front of it. I…yeah, I danced. Not many people laughed. The songs were all in Bariba so unfortunately no one got to hear my stunning soprano. Alas. I’m in Natitingou for a meeting, hence the access to internet (and running water and electricity!!).

I hope you are all doing well and hopefully enjoying a little bit of a cool down after a ridiculous (so I hear) summer.  I'm not on my computer so I can't post pictures but hopefully next time I can put a couple up here.  a la prochaine!