some kind of normalcy

I walked home from the market today. We went there by car, but then Elli needed to go back to Reko to measure her lysimeters, and I decided to walk.

Young men tried to talk to me in their mooré-heavy French, and I just smiled and walked on. I bought guavas and deep fried millet dough dumplings. I took some GPS-points in the city – the market, the bus station. As references, for my maps. I bought a cold soft drink called Africa Cola from a man who asked for my name and said I was beautiful. The coke tasted like Pepsi and had been produced in Ghana. I think I’m going to start buying that now, here, instead of the Coca Cola Company drinks that have taken over the world. The Africa Cola/Lemonade/Pineapple drinks are in such cute little bottles, too.

I’ve missed the kind of freedom that walking gives. Being able to go to places on my own. Knowing where I am. Making my own decisions about my whereabouts. My physical presence in space. We’ve been so busy working, though, that there hasn’t been any time to explore.

But now, walking home from the market, it felt like some kind of normalcy. And I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed it.

(Even though all this attention from men is getting on my nerves. It is limiting my freedom and the space in which I feel comfortable to move, and I don’t like it. It’s not like I’m particularly attractive, not here, in my big hat and dirty hair in a braid. The Burkinabe women are so much more beautiful, in their tight fitting dresses of West African fabrics and imaginative hairdos. People here are Muslims, but you wouldn’t be able to tell on the women. So why can’t these men loitering on their motorcycles on street corners just let me be? The frustration of the day.)