Symphony of Rain, Among Other Things

Sunday, 29 Août 2010

Je sauit (spelling is wrong, it means wish) que tu prends ecouter å le pluie maintanent - c'est très belle.

Not sure if I said (wrote, rather) any of that correctly, but I wanted to say the following: I wish that you could/be able to hear/listen to the rain now - it's beautiful.

This is my first night at site and wow I don't even know what to say about it. Ma maison seemed wonderful until I started killing a good percentage more than 20 scary, big, long-legged, slick spiders. I'm not exaggerating either. I would much rather be sleeping outside on my "porch," or "private, fenced-in courtyard (lies)" :: which really is a slab of concrete with a concrete/mud concoction mix wall that is anything but private. But, alas, the rain is impeding that wish, more of a desire, but even more of a need. So, or donc (that's bien Français), I'm currently laying on my lipit-cot, which is more like a lounge chair I would sunbathe on during the summer months back at home, but a cot, none-the-less, with my headlamp on and persistently, consistently, non-negotiably sweating. Tell me if you can grasp this: it's rainy season, it's not supposed to be hot. I'm also from a state that should have prepared, if ever one could be so for this country, for the heat & humidity of the central southern region of Burkina Faso. I guess my conclusion would be: I need more windows in this damn place! Is that possible? Will my mud-brick, cement walls come crashing down? I hope it is possible - without the crumbling of walls - because the fact of the matter is I have two windows in this concrete oven with a tin-metal roof...and these windows do not allow proper ventilation, at least, this is my argument. That small bit of information leads to the conclusion of my always-stuffy, never-breezy house needing two LARGE windows: one in the room which I have dubbed the spider room (i.e. my bedroom) and one in the "one-size-fits-all" room which is everything outside of the bedroom, room.

What else? My walls are cracking and there's a weird paint (I bet voodoo) paintings of guns and churches, random phone numbers and a possible transformer on my walls. I don't have any service (resou (spelling?)) for my phone and I don't really have a way to charge it anyway. But of course, if I choose to complain through this entire entry - then I mustn't omit the fact that my latrine is filled with stagnant water due to the massive amount of rain that pours down upon us and the inability to plug up the cement box of doom I call a latrine. This provides a nice, dark, mostly quiet place for mosquitos to breed, multiply and quickly fly out into the vast unknown world of my village only to infect the people with palu (that's malaria, folks). But to add to this disaster: the two cement brick walls that should overlap so that you cannot see into the latrine while in use do not overlap. That, my good friends and few followers, means you can see straight into the place in which I do my dirty business - where my parasites win all the battles, and I fight off mosquitos and flies. I'm talking: you can see the person sitting across the courtyard of the family compound when you're inside & vice versa. That's a problem, no?

My house shall be repaired - I just have to gather the words to ask about it. And while they fix my latrine - I think I'd love it if they went ahead and just built me an outdoor douche area. I hate mine. It's dark, and doesn't drain properly and that leads me to believe it too will become a breeding ground for mosquitos which equals more palu. I'm not for that at all.

Speaking of privacy - I have none. I'm kind of wishing I requested a stand-alone house... I don't have a fenced in area like they wrote in the description of my village. I'm surrounded by men. Where are the women? It was actually really intimidating to be here by myself and no women around - it makes me feel a wee bit unsafe? Damn.

Oh - the rain has stopped. I notice a few places that need to be repaired in here too: my roof is leaking.

BoyOhBoy.
This is my new home.
My new house for two whole years.
I better enjoy this village.

Good news: I found a cat tonight!!