La vie en plein air

Wrote three posts the other day which will be put up in weekly installments. Next one a report/pics on the recent finished projects. Stay tuned...

It occurred to me the other day that after writing a post all about the sort of special attention that’s been bestowed upon me I forgot to explain how the attention was so easily received. You see it’s not that I’m throwing myself at others, stopping into business after business, waltzing into people’s homes, or behaving in a manner that warrants being noticed. No actually, just the opposite. All it takes to be noticed is to walk outside my front door. “Why?” because in Africa life happens on the outside.
Everyday I awake to the sound of neighbor women chatting, the roar of a moto’s engine bringing a patient to the hospital, and/or volcanic gravel (that I call soil) squishing under the weight of children’s feet as they run to fetch water. My immediate neighbors, Razack, Mabel, and Soule, are going back and forth from the house to the latrine for their morning washing. Neighborhood women are frying beignets (donuts) on their front lawns to sell; their children will then walk all over town selling them off of a platter carried on their head.
I’m on my living room couch reading by 6:30am where once again all the same sounds and smells can be heard and seen just this time through a different window. Around 7am Blanche opens her door, slides the large rock (aka our door stopper) under her door and says “Kaaaate?” Je dis “oui”. Elle dit “bien dormi” et je dis “oui, et toi”. En Afrique you always greet everyone, especially in the morning. Kids on their way to school and adults heading to the market pass in front of my house. With no school buses or cars to take them they’ll walk and converse along the way. When I step outside my door I’ll find Blanche on the porch washing clothes or dishes from the night before, patients from the clinic waiting in the open air waiting-room, and all the other women from nearby houses doing the same as Blanche. At the center of town I’ll find tiny magasin after magasin, all with stall doors wide open, half their products displayed outside, and the person managing sitting outside on a stool. If he’s male he’ll likely have one or two of his friends sitting around with him, if it’s a woman she’ll have the children too young to attend school. I’ve “checked out” a few times where a.) I was offered a beer or b.) it was a struggle for the cashier to reach the coin box because she was breastfeeding. The bars have a steady stream of customers starting around 10am all of whom sit on around an open porch. All day every day the market mommies will be selling their vegetables from roadside stands. All over town moto drivers are parked in groups idly chatting and cracking jokes with one another as they wait for their next customer. At the Total station employees stand around the pump waiting to serve you. There’s a refrigerator outside selling cold beverages but don’t bother going inside—all you’ll find is the manager’s desk with maybe a few odds and ends. The list goes on and on but what strikes me most related to this topic: that once back in America with all the windows, doors, and walls, how different life will sound.