(8 July 2013)
Ndey? (Ndey?)
Hm? (Hm?)
It's dark. (Dafa lindim.)
Where? (Fan?)
There. (Fale.)
Yes. (Waaw.)
Do you think the rain is coming? (Fog nga taw mungi dikka?)
Huh? (Huh?)
I said, the rain, do you think it will come? (Manee, taw bi, fog nga dina ñow?)
Rain? (Taw?)
Yes. (Waaw.)
Eh, I don't know. (Eh, xam uma di.)
But, it's so dark. (Waay, dafa lindim torup!)
Yes, it's dark. (Waaw, dafa lindim kaay.)
But only g-d can know it? (Waay yalla mo ko xam rekk?)
Yes, only g-d knows it. (Waaw, yalla mo ko xam rekk.)
Then I was silent. I just sat happily with Ndey, my cousin, or something like that. Watching this dark wall slowly impress upon our village from the East. It's bad luck, or so it seems, to try and predict weather. But it's something that is such a natural and easy point of conversation. I wanted to say that I was sure something was coming but I bit my lip and just watched, feigning ignorance. Every few minutes I would point out how the horizon was getting darker, a bit as a joke. Then, everyone began to scatter. They told me the wind was coming as if it was a surprise. I smirked a bit as I swiftly went into my house to prepare it for the unknown, hoping somewhat desperately that rain was in tow.
I had asked them about rain dances earlier, or trying to, explaining, somewhat exaggeratedly for simplicities sake, that we have rain dances where I'm from because it is also dry there (Arizona) and that rains are important. I don't think they believed me. Or maybe it's just so difficult to conceive of anywhere outside of here. Especially when you've hardly ever even left the village.
I wished I could have filmed it. Althought a wind storm or storm in general isn't that unlike other storms. The dust here makes it a different world though.
It felt like dusty air conditioning blowing through. The air just before was quite hot and humid and still. The mixing of such opposing temperatures created quite a stir, literally! The neem tree whipped around like one of those blow up dancing men outside of car washes or a new music store, dancing hard to impress you enough to enter. This tree is a solid mass of fixed carbon dioxide, strongly rooted and heavily branched. Bobbing about like a teen at a rave.
I was so excited. I absolutely love storms! Desert storms are some of the best. West African ones may be even better but I haven't seen anything top the lightning storms of AZ. But, these ones can come close.
I was running back and froth from my back yard to inside my house. Constantly rubbing the dirt out of my eyes. The coolness was irresistable. And the sights, like being under water with a brown hazy ocean ceiling.
I started to see and hear my family run back and forth out front. At first it was just the children playing in the crazy weather. Enjoying like me. Then I saw my older sisters. Something was up.
I looked out one of my windows that just looks out to the narrow path between my house and my grandmothers. Straw was everywhere.
Shit. I went outside and latched my outer corrugate leaving Gayende (my kitty) locked inside. Two huts had lost most of their grass roofs. Everyone was running back and forth with their belongings in case the rain picked up. I started to help while trying not to be too much in the way. It was drizzling on us as we moved things, but only a little bit. I was astonished. Their houses are really just as full as mine if not more! Ok, maybe it's the same. But all of their stuff was just hidden! Hidden under the straw mattress or behind the cloth curtains. All I ever knew of these homes was to have the beds, the pans (large 25L basins) and trunks of clothes, some shoes or flashlights, etc. But these houses, they were lived in. Like the clutter you find in your mom's or grandma's house from generations of use and love. It was reassuring in a way. As well as frustrating, so much to move!
Fortunately there was a new house with a new corrugate roof to evacuate to. And also fortunately, the storm was not as tremendous as I had originally hoped. That hope popped like a soggy sad balloon at the site of the mostly roofless houses that keep so many of my loved ones and their belonginings sheltered.
After we moved as much as possible, and of value, and our grandmother, I returned to my house. Like any crises, when the crisis isn't mine, I did what any good Jewish girl would do. I turned to food. I popped my family some pick me up fresh popcorn. Then made some for myself before collapsing on my floor. Surrendering to the almond m&m's and children's stories my mom sent for Words on Wheels (...I have to make sure the stories are good!).
I felt exhausted. And not because the things we were moving were extraordinarily heavy, or because I had worked particularly hard that day, but because of the weight of the poverty that is life here.
Every volunteer, just about, complains about chronic fatigue. Sure, we don't have the best beds or mattresses (actually, no mattresses, just foam or straw or both), nor do we live in the best climate or have the most supportive of diets. All excellent reasons to be tired. But I think it's a much more subtle storm that moves through all of us, at varying degrees throughout our service. An emotional heaviness that we bear, probably a lot of it subconsciously, anytime we see the kids too skinny, children and adults wearing rags, deformities, sick people without proper medicine or access to it, houses in ruins, food in scarce and or bland quantities, dirty households, crying babies, children beating each other or moms beating (disciplining) their children, people fighting, and just the visible despair that shows on their faces sometimes. It's like you can see inside their heads when their counting something or looking at food stores or clothes, just not having the money in the copious amounts they wished. Their whole spirit slumps, their face falls, but it's much more subtle than that. You can see it only if you look. Like looking gently with your peripheral vision. I think we try to not see this, or at least I did, for a long time. But I think whether you choose to see it or not, you do and it definitely has an affect that weighs on your soul. And it weighs more heavier and harder as they become your family, your community, and your people.
I'm almost certain that was the exhaustion I felt after living that minor disaster with them. It's somehow even harder when their faces are bright, their energy is high and they're never without humor. And how could it be any different? If they let it weigh them down, they'd never be able to do anything! Which, actually happens too. I hardly feel like I can do anything amidst it all sometimes, and I have an out!
All of us, at some point, and in some way, feel this weight. It's arguably why so many of us feel for Africa and her people. Because they are our fellow peoples and their lives and our western lives, are somehow not the same level of living.
But still now, after all this time, interest, action, and aid, none of us have the magic cure. But I think the solution is simple. Not easily achievable but simple. I don't think it's something that the most intelligent engineers, architects, or scientists can discover. It's that potential, buried in each and every one of us, that just needs to be seen or sparked by someone, to ignite it, and have that person finally feel free and allowed to express it, whatever it is. It's a trait even many westerners struggle with. That sense of confidence, ownership, responsibility and integrity of self. That allowance in your self to be yourself even and especially if that looks different. These are not always easy traits nor are they always natural. Society can shape us in a way that makes these even harder to access. But I think it's that simple faith in self that is going to move mountains. Nothing more or less.
I drafted this as you can see on the eighth of July. It's now the twenty seventh as I finally type it. It's raining, as I type here in the capital city. Sheets of it. It's not so windy here. Not as much as it is up country. But it's a comforting rain. A rain of promise. A rain of hope. A rain of, Inshallah, prosperity, peace, and change.
Ndey? (Ndey?)
Hm? (Hm?)
It's dark. (Dafa lindim.)
Where? (Fan?)
There. (Fale.)
Yes. (Waaw.)
Do you think the rain is coming? (Fog nga taw mungi dikka?)
Huh? (Huh?)
I said, the rain, do you think it will come? (Manee, taw bi, fog nga dina ñow?)
Rain? (Taw?)
Yes. (Waaw.)
Eh, I don't know. (Eh, xam uma di.)
But, it's so dark. (Waay, dafa lindim torup!)
Yes, it's dark. (Waaw, dafa lindim kaay.)
But only g-d can know it? (Waay yalla mo ko xam rekk?)
Yes, only g-d knows it. (Waaw, yalla mo ko xam rekk.)
Then I was silent. I just sat happily with Ndey, my cousin, or something like that. Watching this dark wall slowly impress upon our village from the East. It's bad luck, or so it seems, to try and predict weather. But it's something that is such a natural and easy point of conversation. I wanted to say that I was sure something was coming but I bit my lip and just watched, feigning ignorance. Every few minutes I would point out how the horizon was getting darker, a bit as a joke. Then, everyone began to scatter. They told me the wind was coming as if it was a surprise. I smirked a bit as I swiftly went into my house to prepare it for the unknown, hoping somewhat desperately that rain was in tow.
I had asked them about rain dances earlier, or trying to, explaining, somewhat exaggeratedly for simplicities sake, that we have rain dances where I'm from because it is also dry there (Arizona) and that rains are important. I don't think they believed me. Or maybe it's just so difficult to conceive of anywhere outside of here. Especially when you've hardly ever even left the village.
I wished I could have filmed it. Althought a wind storm or storm in general isn't that unlike other storms. The dust here makes it a different world though.
It felt like dusty air conditioning blowing through. The air just before was quite hot and humid and still. The mixing of such opposing temperatures created quite a stir, literally! The neem tree whipped around like one of those blow up dancing men outside of car washes or a new music store, dancing hard to impress you enough to enter. This tree is a solid mass of fixed carbon dioxide, strongly rooted and heavily branched. Bobbing about like a teen at a rave.
I was so excited. I absolutely love storms! Desert storms are some of the best. West African ones may be even better but I haven't seen anything top the lightning storms of AZ. But, these ones can come close.
I was running back and froth from my back yard to inside my house. Constantly rubbing the dirt out of my eyes. The coolness was irresistable. And the sights, like being under water with a brown hazy ocean ceiling.
I started to see and hear my family run back and forth out front. At first it was just the children playing in the crazy weather. Enjoying like me. Then I saw my older sisters. Something was up.
I looked out one of my windows that just looks out to the narrow path between my house and my grandmothers. Straw was everywhere.
Shit. I went outside and latched my outer corrugate leaving Gayende (my kitty) locked inside. Two huts had lost most of their grass roofs. Everyone was running back and forth with their belongings in case the rain picked up. I started to help while trying not to be too much in the way. It was drizzling on us as we moved things, but only a little bit. I was astonished. Their houses are really just as full as mine if not more! Ok, maybe it's the same. But all of their stuff was just hidden! Hidden under the straw mattress or behind the cloth curtains. All I ever knew of these homes was to have the beds, the pans (large 25L basins) and trunks of clothes, some shoes or flashlights, etc. But these houses, they were lived in. Like the clutter you find in your mom's or grandma's house from generations of use and love. It was reassuring in a way. As well as frustrating, so much to move!
Fortunately there was a new house with a new corrugate roof to evacuate to. And also fortunately, the storm was not as tremendous as I had originally hoped. That hope popped like a soggy sad balloon at the site of the mostly roofless houses that keep so many of my loved ones and their belonginings sheltered.
After we moved as much as possible, and of value, and our grandmother, I returned to my house. Like any crises, when the crisis isn't mine, I did what any good Jewish girl would do. I turned to food. I popped my family some pick me up fresh popcorn. Then made some for myself before collapsing on my floor. Surrendering to the almond m&m's and children's stories my mom sent for Words on Wheels (...I have to make sure the stories are good!).
I felt exhausted. And not because the things we were moving were extraordinarily heavy, or because I had worked particularly hard that day, but because of the weight of the poverty that is life here.
Every volunteer, just about, complains about chronic fatigue. Sure, we don't have the best beds or mattresses (actually, no mattresses, just foam or straw or both), nor do we live in the best climate or have the most supportive of diets. All excellent reasons to be tired. But I think it's a much more subtle storm that moves through all of us, at varying degrees throughout our service. An emotional heaviness that we bear, probably a lot of it subconsciously, anytime we see the kids too skinny, children and adults wearing rags, deformities, sick people without proper medicine or access to it, houses in ruins, food in scarce and or bland quantities, dirty households, crying babies, children beating each other or moms beating (disciplining) their children, people fighting, and just the visible despair that shows on their faces sometimes. It's like you can see inside their heads when their counting something or looking at food stores or clothes, just not having the money in the copious amounts they wished. Their whole spirit slumps, their face falls, but it's much more subtle than that. You can see it only if you look. Like looking gently with your peripheral vision. I think we try to not see this, or at least I did, for a long time. But I think whether you choose to see it or not, you do and it definitely has an affect that weighs on your soul. And it weighs more heavier and harder as they become your family, your community, and your people.
I'm almost certain that was the exhaustion I felt after living that minor disaster with them. It's somehow even harder when their faces are bright, their energy is high and they're never without humor. And how could it be any different? If they let it weigh them down, they'd never be able to do anything! Which, actually happens too. I hardly feel like I can do anything amidst it all sometimes, and I have an out!
All of us, at some point, and in some way, feel this weight. It's arguably why so many of us feel for Africa and her people. Because they are our fellow peoples and their lives and our western lives, are somehow not the same level of living.
But still now, after all this time, interest, action, and aid, none of us have the magic cure. But I think the solution is simple. Not easily achievable but simple. I don't think it's something that the most intelligent engineers, architects, or scientists can discover. It's that potential, buried in each and every one of us, that just needs to be seen or sparked by someone, to ignite it, and have that person finally feel free and allowed to express it, whatever it is. It's a trait even many westerners struggle with. That sense of confidence, ownership, responsibility and integrity of self. That allowance in your self to be yourself even and especially if that looks different. These are not always easy traits nor are they always natural. Society can shape us in a way that makes these even harder to access. But I think it's that simple faith in self that is going to move mountains. Nothing more or less.
I drafted this as you can see on the eighth of July. It's now the twenty seventh as I finally type it. It's raining, as I type here in the capital city. Sheets of it. It's not so windy here. Not as much as it is up country. But it's a comforting rain. A rain of promise. A rain of hope. A rain of, Inshallah, prosperity, peace, and change.
