Food
An 8-year-old Chad D. has had a lasting impression on me. Twenty years ago, when I made a rather lucrative teenage living from babysitting, I was preparing a snack for that precocious little boy when he uttered, “they’re only weevils.” My hand was in a bag of bread preparing to make him a sandwich, but […]
“do you like mangos?” “in Sierra Leone we have different types,” Sierra Leone said. “there is one kind, sheep tongue, that—“ In interrupted him there, “sheep tongue?” I made a face, “That doesn’t sound like anything I want to put in my mouth.” “not tongue, tone. T.O.N.E.” “oh, that’s better,” I smiled. “see, in Creole […]
The clouds were thick and gray, swollen cotton balls on a tile counter, drenched sheep in a blue pasture. The sky darkened and I looked up hopeful. We haven’t seen rain in months. No smattering of drops – nothing to replenish the dwindling wells. It wasn’t the first night the sky hinted. She’d teased before. […]
Three liters of water is no small drink. Granted it wasn’t all at once but today I consumed about three liters of water. It was that hot. That dry. I walked that far under that much sun. After all, Saturday’s are my French lessons. And for the second week I went into Gbarnga to sit […]
I’m not starving to death. The bugs have not eaten me alive. My house is quite sturdy and nice. I feel like maybe I’m misrepresenting my time here without intending to. I know I have a running commentary on food and water or the lack thereof, but the severity I’m feeling is really in the […]
The ants have gone crazy. Maybe they’re thirsty. Maybe the heat has gotten to them. I’m not really sure, but this weekend I found myself drinking them as they tried to gather the sweet traces from the mouth of my water bottle – I’d been eating banana bread and they can smell even that. one […]
Our pump is out of water. Not all pumps, but the one closest to our house. And the one in front of the nursing school has bad water. The next pump I’m familiar with is on the other side of the school and I’m not- I can’t – haul water that far. Well, I suppose […]
There are no eggs. I’m still fuzzy on why but there are no eggs. Ok no is a slight exaggeration. But there is definitely an egg shortage. What usually sustains me during the course of the day, two sometimes three of the boiled buggers at a time, have all but disappeared on the compound. For […]
I’ve hit a rough patch. Hell, we’ve hit a rough patch. Well, maybe not Wry-ly who seems beyond it all, but BushDiva and I have resorted to a kind of quiet desperation around food. I’d like to blame Wry-ly’s composure on the reality that she’ll be heading home in about three weeks – but the […]
goat soup and Orion
I thought he’d forgotten. I languished beneath my mosquito net half reading a poorly written novel but mostly succumbing to the brutal heat still lingering in the late afternoon. My morning had been fruitful. My lift into town dropped me far away from the Catholic compound- barely in the city limits. On the side of […]
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