I’m sitting under a tree by a homestead in Reko, next to a well. Two women are washing clothes under another tree. I’ve been walking around, trying to get to know the relationship between my satellite image based landcover classification and the real world.
Mostly, my map is wrong. The good thing is, I can understand why. I’ve interpreted the satellite image right, I just didn’t know the landscape. Now, I need to figure out how to fix it. I only have vague ideas this far. But I also have all spring to come up with something brilliant. So, I still have hope.
There are so many sounds here. Birds singing different tunes, hens clucking, roosters cuckooing, goats braying and donkeys screaming like it was the end of the world. There is also a low rattling sound that I think are the lizards. Wind in the trees. Grasshoppers. Or in the afternoon: the call to prayer from the village mosque.
And smells. Dry soil, smoke, the slightly sweet smell of drying, newly harvested millet. And sometimes: a whiff of wild thyme, or something very similar.
And the butterflies. Everywhere. Fluttering around the puddles by the well. The children, who have sat down to look at me in the shadow of the next tree, laughed at me when I chased the butterflies with my camera.
Things move slowly here. People are always doing something, but there doesn’t seem to be a rush. It’s an attitude, I think, but maybe even more the heat.
Katja Malmborg 