walkings about

Some sort of switch flipped on Sunday, and I started to enjoy being here in this Tiny Little Town.

I finally made it out of the compound on foot again last night. A few of us walked around town at dusk, wading through lakes that used to be roads and along muddy paths. The rain had nearly stopped, but it still drizzled and we put up the hoods of our raincoats against water and mosquitoes. I was worried, a few times, that the water I waded through would be higher than the tops of my gumboots, and then I splashed water into them somehow and, feeling wet socks, I started worrying that maybe they were leaking. But all worries were for naught – the boots held up more than adequately.

We walked through the deepening dark, following in the exact footsteps of the guy who has been around for a few years, lest by deviating we should end up slip-sliding in the mud. EC did slip at one point, landing with her hands deep in the mud, so we stopped at a public pump, where a young boy pumped water over her hands. The water shone bright against the near dark. In front of an old building, four kids sang and hopped, scarcely stopping to call out a greeting to us. The air smelled of cooking fires. Walking single file on a path, barely able to see the feet of the person in front of me, I thought, “Now. Now I’m home.”

This morning, when the car got stuck outside the compound (yet again) and I heard that we were walking to a meeting, I went back to my room and slathered sunscreen on my arms and neck. We walked down the same paths as last night, noticeably less watery now, and then along the red dirt road. Children ran out from their yards to watch us, sometimes unsure if they should greet us until we were past. Then they would call a tentative “Malé” and we had to turn around if we wanted to answer. We cut off the road, across a mud puddle, and down a little path through a corn field. We sat in an open-air building, hearing of the plans to make it permanent with concrete walls and a tin roof, and I watched the sky clear and the corn stalks wave in the cool breeze. A truck chugged slowly past on the road beyond the hedge.

There are days when by noon it’s too hot to walk more than a few dozen meters, but the sun was gentle today, despite the cloudless sky. We walked back without too much sweating, along the narrow path between hedges, and again on the open road. Children and old women greeted us. Men called from the shade. A girl walked ahead of us in a flowing dress with a jerry can of water on her head.

I love the fact that I’m not overly tall here. In some parts of the world (*ahem*, New York), I feel very much too tall. After we passed the airstrip, we met some girls in pristine white school shirts. Two of them towered over me by a good four or five inches. I took a picture backwards of one of them with me, which caused great amusement and general merriment. In the photo, she is surprised and I look like a shrimp. Also far too pale. (Not that I’m about to slack on the sunscreen. Oh, no. I fear skin cancer far more than looking pale and shrimplike, and even with the SPF 30 today, I got a little bit pink.)

A colleague came by my desk to bring me a bottle of almost-cold water. Then he held the bag out again. “Take another,” he said. “You are tired.” I took another, grateful.

Life is good.

(Although I’m going to have to visit the latrine soon. With the heat of the day on the tin walls and roof. With the flies swarming around. Don’t ask me about life immediately upon my emergence from the latrine.

Otherwise, life is good.)