rainy season.

To preface this poem, I should mention that there are two seasons in northern Madagascar: the hot, windy season and the very hot, rainy season. The last few weeks have marked the changing of seasons, with relatively cooler temperatures and a lot less rain. I welcome the end of rainy season; the roads become passable again, it's not unbearable to be out in the middle of the day, and most of all... no more leaky roof!
Here is the poem I wrote a bit ago in my village.


Because the rain completely saturated the leaf roof above my bed and caused me to curl against pre-dawn pillows

and because the roosters insist upon announcing the first light each day regardless of how hard you close your eyes against it

and because no one else in the world had woken before me
and my footprints were the first ones in the sandy path

and the low tide allowed for still-softly-falling drops to patter in their rippling pools

I was able to hear one sound this morning.

One sound building and crashing against itself:
miles away, massive blue waves creating a wall of the same sound
that is never the same.

How do we know something exists without seeing it?

front yard.

This is a panoramic view of my front yard... what I see every morning when I first wake up. On the far right is my "shower" house, then scanning left you see three chicken huts (and the mango tree where they prefer to sleep), in the background is the outhouse, and on the far left is the kitchen hut where the village chief's family cooks and eats.

This is where I live my life, where I eat all my meals sitting on woven mats, where I clean my dishes, play with children, slice vegetables, cook rice, prepare fresh fish and socialize with my fellow villagers. Yards are different in Madagascar... it is where life happens... it is an open, common space. The home is meant for sleeping and storage.

When I first moved to my village one year ago tomorrow, living my life "exposed" in the front yard was surprisingly hard for me. I was used to a certain level of private, personal space; each meal I would cook and eat alone, inside my hut. Slowly over the last year I have come to live more & more of my life in the front yard like everybody else. I moved my one chair outside. I moved my dishwashing station outside. Now I can't even eat sitting at my table (I tried the other day, it felt odd). And I rarely eat alone anymore, because the families that share my yard welcome me to eat rice with them at every meal.

I've moved into the front yard. Year one, down.