Lindsay
July 14, 2004
rain

sunrise, i tie a bunch of pagne scraps and CDs and my tent to the back of my bike, kiss the waking-of-a-village goodbye, everything drips, the hills are something between reality and mist, to inhale is to drink forest, i taste flowers on my tongue, the streams are flowing, the earth is softened, corn sprouts and millet shafts roll in curved rows along every path, the sound of pounding is muffled by Wet. it is the rainy season. it is lovely. the dry sandy dust-world has emerged from her cocoon to become impossibly covered in fluorescent green fuzz.

of course, my clothes never dry, and my ankles have been devoured by mosquitoes, tsetse flies and this strange dark nettle-thornish weed, i fight a perpetual cold, our meals are humble, ten more people lay shaking in their huts with malaria every day, the rains are irregular and crops follow suit giving folks worry that this year, again, there will not be enough to eat.

some early-risers come to wrap me in prayers of Allah, soft whispered prayers layered on me like pale ribbons, i take hand after hand after hand in mine, naked kids chase me down the path until the forest closes in and it is just me and the morning. i get farewelled by a troupe of red vervet monkeys, a 12-foot long cobra, and lengths and lengths of long red road... to here.

today, at 3 in the morning i climb onto a machine that some hours later will deposit me in new york city, i dont know what else to say except that i know where i will be for at least the first part of my visit, if anyone wants to say hi, it is for sure that i dont know where a lot of you are nor how to get a hold of you there.

so tomorrow i will be at #### and then saturday onward for a little while ill be at my parents' house in buffalo ####

id love to hear from you, even thoughts of voices are making me smile...

see you soon
linz

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