dry season

nov. 19

The first thought I had this morning was to look out the window opposite my bed at the sky to see what the weather was like. Then I remembered that the rainy season was over and that the sky will look the same every day for a long time now -- even until I leave Guinea and start looking out on a different landscape. Every day the sky will be ugly, barely blue, and hot. Not to be pessimistic, but it's true. Not a cloud breaks it up. Sunrise is a moment of orangish reflection, after which the blank canvas rolls down again. So the days will be ugly and hot from now until next May, the sky empty and unfeeling, begrudging not a single second of respite or a passing shadow of cloud. Change will come only when the Harmattan winds sweep down from the Sahara, bringing all the loose dust of the desert with them. I always think that Harmattan is such a beautiful word and should name something lovely, but the heavy, hazy reddish air that settles in and hovers above the land is not. But once the day is over, sunset -- the same brief orange moment as at sunrise-- and THEN the night ceiling comes over us, and it is beautiful. Maybe to make up for the ugliness of the days, the nights are dazzling-- cool, clear, and hung everywhere with stars.
And so for now we will have vicious days and gracious nights. When the rain comes again, it will be reversed: dramatic, fast-moving clouds will dominate the days and throw down merciful rain, leaving the nights to be empty, stars all hidden behind the layers of thick vapor, and very dark. It could be that life is a deal struck with the sky.

piano lessons

I always wanted piano lessons when I was a kid. (Every Good Boy Does Fine) And my grandma wanted me to have them. And she had a piano. So I'm not entirely sure why it didn't work out. Maybe because Dad held a grudge against the younger sister who used to rush to "practice" her piano lessons whenever it was time to wash dishes.
Then in fifth grade came my chance to make up for this missed opportunity and join the school band. Deep down I probably wanted to play the clarinet like all the other girls, but I didn't want to look girly or foolish among the cooler females in our class. So I decided to pick something else and landed on an unlikely instrument for our small school: the French horn. I loved its clear pure sound and the gleaming circular shape.
But then Mom had a brainstorm, and I ended up playing the trombone because we already had one. Hung onto and packed away somehow from the days when her older brothers were in school band. I guess in case anybody in the next generation should want to play the piano.

pedestrians

nov. 7

Today and nearly every time I ride my bike in Guinea, the confusion and miscommunications that result seem a good metaphor for the bigger picture:

Everyone involved starts with the best of intentions. My intention is not to hit anyone. The pedestrians' intention is to stay out of the way (i.e. not to get hit). That seems compatible enough. And yet, approached from both sides at once, it doesn't quite work. My deeply ingrained habit is to weave around them, leaving as much space as possible and only calling out when there is no space to pass. But here in Guinea, not getting hit is the pedestrian's responsibility rather than the driver's. Hearing me coming, a person on foot steps aside. Unfortunately I had already steered around her former position and so have to swerve now that she has stepped directly into my new path. So if I see that the old lady in front of me (old ladies are always the worst) does not hear me coming, I am torn between wanting to call out so as not to startle her and wanting to weave around her quietly to avoid all the useless dodging back and forth. But if she hears me at the last moment, even worse! Several times I have nearly run down old women on the path to the market. If I could only change my strategy to match the average Guinean's, we could avoid our clumsy ballet. Instead of weaving, this would require me to steer straight through on the smoothest part of the path and make obnoxious noise whenever my way was blocked, then trust the pedestrians to take care of themselves. Somehow I can't do this. Similarly, the old village women can't bring themselves to trust me to weave around them. And so most days we brake and dodge and nearly collide, but so far everyone's still in one piece.

maybe life everywhere is like this series of near-collisions, but it seems more so in guinea

the hundred-year-old man

oct. 10

It has not yet rained tonight, and so I did not re-plant my sunflowers, hoed up for the second time by the hundred-year-old man next door. I should have planted them yesterday after it poured rain.
The old man hoed up my sunflowers because he was clearing the dirt around the house of weeds. So of course i cannot be mad at him, not only because he looks to be about one hundred years old -- wrinkly and bent over and constantly dripping saliva -- but also because he did it for me. In spite of all my urgings to leave the manual labor to those of us less advanced in age and decrepitude, her persists in a strange belief that I am his "patron." That could be loosely translated as boss, but what it truly amounts to is that I am an obscurely important foreigner and a guest, so he feels obligated to do things for me. Viewed in all its manifestations, the rigid heirarchy of status here is an unfortunate system that has so far been mostly impossible to subvert. It means everything, and through no virtue of my own I have a very high status. And so we each argue that the other should not work and periodically he hoes up my flowers while I try to do yard work secretly and quietly so that he doesn't come over to help. Then he brings me oranges or peanuts and many thank-yous are said before we argue again about who is happier to know the other.

hot

reflections from journal on the subject of heat:

oct. 16

when it has been raining
it is easy to forget
how hot it is when it isn't
but today it didn't
and so i remember.

and later:

oct. 18

Today at 2:00 I fully understood the inevitability of siesta or something like it. The most thought that could possibly be formed beyond, "God it's hot," was, "Goddamn it's hot."