The World Around

As corny as this may be, I’m posting it anyway:

There’s something terribly magical about this time of year here. It’s that mystique that comes with things that are at the height of their beauty… and everything around me surges with an energy, a pulse, a freshness. The mountains are green and domineering, the wind is gentle and the rains are fickle and boisterous. But then there is the land: Millet that is so tall that you feel like Alice in wonderland, and at the very top are the little plumes of grain… all that plant for that one little plume. The corn is less impressive, but still beautiful in it’s own way, especially with its bright purple-budded wild flowers that grow around the corn that add so much color and vibrancy to it all. And then there’s the funion (pronounced foo – nio), a local grass that is grown for it’s grains, which are made into a paste that is eaten with sauces. This beautiful grass whispers and sways with the slightest breeze, as if it’s telling us all just to stop and feel the motion of the earth. And then there are the grasses that have been allowed to just grow wild along the roads. These grasses, having found themselves at the end of their season, have produced special feathery crowns of violets, roses and lively yellows, as if they were celebrating the last of their days. Scattered amongst all this beauty are the endearing and wise baobab trees, with their thousands of fruit pods, their massive trunks and their roots sticking up as if providing a place to sit and enjoy it all. The mango trees, though less magestic, are doing their best to add to it all by growing new leaves of the brightest green, which is beautifully offset by their greener, more elderly leaves.

But what would all this be without the creatures of this place: Women with children tied to their backs picking the buds of funion, the pods of beans, or the ears of corn. Goats, ever wandering, ever munching on the leaves of browning corn stocks, occasionally fighting to stand on the highest reachable point amongst the roots of a baobab. Dogs wandering around, always seeming happy and free. Lizards, invisible to the eye until they decided to make a few quick and sporadic movements to their next resting spot where they become motionless and undetectable again. Cows being herded by boys as young as 3 years old, wandering from place to place as their master wishes. I’m sure they must be longing for the day when everything dies again so they might be allowed to roam again unsupervised. The other children, some of them at least, might also be heard singing and learning and playing games inside the school buildings, with their shuttered windows. There is no glass to keep the sound of their laughter hidden away.

All this… and then there’s me. I feel like an accessory to the show right now. I know that this is not where I’m supposed to be. I know that my world, much colder and better engineered lies somewhere over there on the other side of this little ball of wax. Some might say I’m lost, but I like to think I’m finding my way. After all, there is so much to learn from ourselves, from others, from the world around us. Who can tell me that those whispering blades of grass don’t know more than I do? Maybe if I just listen long enough…