I did the first transect walks in the Kaya area today in a village called Zanzi. It was a small village, situated in the valleys between a chain of small mountains that suddenly just appear in the otherwise quite flat landscape when driving along the Gourcy-Kaya road.
Due to the mountains, this place was something quite different to the other villages where I’ve been. They farmed millet on the mountainsides, and it the places where the mountain fields were in fallow, they were covered in golden grass that gave the hills such soft textures. It almost felt like something Mediterranean, climbing up and down those hillsides. The Harmattan has started blowing for real now, too, so there was a constant, dry breeze.
The afternoon walks are the best. When the heat has started to subside and the light has turned soft orange. The smells come out then too: the dry earth, the harvested fields, the mint-and-thyme-smelling weeds. And we walke past two bulls, standing in a field, one licking the other’s hump. Such a nice image, of care. It made me happy.
And then there was the old man of Zanzi. Delege Abouleh. A former CVD, but now just the man who knew stuff, whom everyone turned to when there were some issues regarding the farming. He welcomed us when we came to the village, he set up a meeting with all the men that mattered, he introduced us and he waited for us after both walks, wanting to hear if I had gotten everything I needed. An incredibly sincere, warm man, I just wanted to stick around to take part in this field of positive energy that he surrounded himself in.
That, the interesting landscapes, and the amazing people, is what I am here for. What makes all the sweating and dirtiness and bad sleep and bad food and exhaustion worth it in the end. That is what I will remember, when I leave here.
Katja Malmborg 