the other day, Bry's APCD (boss) Rose visited Kouka. I ran into her on the road outside the poste. Her driver pulled the white PC Land Rover over and Rose said hi. She also gave me an apple from Lome. I took it home to share with the family. they had never seen an apple before. they liked it.
Ntido's baby, Alix, is super cute. He's like 7 months old and has yet to reach that stage in his cognitive development where he realizes that white is scary. So when I walk over to him now he holds out his arms to be picked up. I am pretty sure he only does this cause he likes to play with my beard. In the mornings he grabs my glasses. Alix has almost restored my faith in reproduction. Invariably, however, David starts yowling because he wants meat, or bonbons, or peanuts, or cause he's mad cause Jidah got the yam chunk that he wanted or cause another kid took the stick he was playing with. Yowling must go on for at least 5 minutes. Petite was so fed up with the yowling the other night that he smacked him. Togolese parents do not discipline children under 5. hopefully Alix doesnt turn out like that.
Speaking of babies, Kodjo's wife gave birth to a boy last week. I named it Joseph (to go with his brother John). cause it is apparently the chic thing in Nampoch to have me name babies. . . .
I remember the first year I was here, it did not rain much in April. The first big rain we got was around the beginning of May. Then last year, it started raining in the middle of April. This year it has been raining off and on since March. Weird. Although i still sit and watch many storm clouds pass south over Bassar and Sokode.
I found a pile of bird feathers on my floor this morning. I am glad my cats cant talk cause I am afraid to ask. I will say though that, after finding chicken crap on my floor, karma sucks.
As I announced on Facebook my official COS (close of service) date is now July 18th. People have been telling me congratulations, but I feel more like I should be getting "in deepest sympathy" cards. I cannot mentally reconcile life here with life in the US. it is somewhat schizophrenic. We go down next week for COS conference. I did not go to my stage's COS conference last August because I was extending, but I think that this conference will be good.
Oh well, at least this way I'll be back in time to catch the beginning of football season.
So, the new road to Kouka is going petite a petite. The funding for it (from the Germans) is slow coming in. that and there are a lot of bridges that must be built. This has, however, not delayed the commencement of the next stage of the road project, going north out of Kouka. I guess all of its funding has already come in. Anyway, I biked down the main road to Kouka this morning for a change of scenery and seriously could not recognize where I was as I got into town. So crazy. Then two europeans on dirt bikes ripped past me like they were on some race to hell. I hope they dont kill anyone before they realize that the road they are on goes nowhere. Eventually.
 |
| little Alix |
 |
| Kapokia trees lining a road in some village near Mango |
 |
| D and myself 100 ft above the forest floor in Ghana |
No comments:
Post a Comment