Mad 1

We were surrounded by rice fields and patches of mysterious forests reserved mostly for lovers and bird shooting with little homemade slingshots, quite the combination. A dirt road ran down, what could be called the middle, and split at the top of the hill into two paths which continued to narrow as they ascended. Throughout the hill was a jungle of houses of every size, shape, color, tribe, and stature. No pattern to their layout, no blocks to navigate yourself by, or cul-de-sac to turn around in when lost. They seemed almost hidden one behind the other, deep into the hill, a village within a village, within a village, till again you reach more rice fields on the other side. Each yard their own sanctuary, with the red dirt swept spotless. An old man napping on a woven mat under guava trees. You could set your watch, which no one wore, by the domino game behind Mama Gilbert’s yellow house. A little white Renault delivering baguettes from Soafia Boulangerie. (We often did not have power, but always baguettes). The mélange of Celine Dion, Disco Euro rejects, Paul Simon, and salege music from small crooked windows fought in the air, making the soundtrack of my life a mixture of drums, guitar, disco, techno ballads with ESL lyrics. Weather came and went as it willed with little but rainy season and dry season to predict. Every day was the same with the possibilities of everything being different. The only sure thing to count on was uncertainty.  

H.A.