The village

My mom asked how to access my newest blog post without flipping through all the old entries first. typing... typing... "I just can't figure it out," she typed. I sent her a hyperlink and she was grateful. It's the little things, right?

It seemed arbitrary why we pulled off the Tarmac where we did. I didn't appreciate a sign or anything terribly descriptive, but soon we were rattling along a dirt road so bumpy and unpaved and hugging the earth so closely I had to tuck my feet beneath the seat in front of me to keep still. 

We were heading for the villages. Set deep into the land, rising from the sandy earth with such subtlety- even the man-made structures, mostly huts with thatched roofs and red brick walls, felt like a natural extension from the ground below. No: electricity or second stories or cushions or walkways or glass. Mostly: door frames without doors and chairs without pillows and rooms with no furniture. Mostly: trees and chickens and chicks, and stray dogs and piles of bricks and piles of dried corn husks and piles of dirt so much dirt. No bright colors of fresh oranges or crisp denim. There was one small flaming magenta flowering tree. There was that. There was life that unfolded under the sun and moon. 

The villagers, too, almost feel as if they are born from the earth, not their young mothers. If the ground is a canvas it makes a 90 degree angle at the lower limbs and the painting extends vertically onto the human form. A layer of dirt, of orange sand, seeps under the toenails of barefoot children and cakes the creases around the eyes of the elder village headmen. The clothes, worn loosely on small shoulders and thin frames, lost their brightness owners ago. Stained with generations worth of sand and dust. Buttonless and laceless. Is there an Instagram filter for "worn in?" 

The faces. The hair is short. The eyes are warm, bright, they're strong and tell stories. The nostrils of the children often run with small beads of mucus and the babies sometimes have these throaty coughs. There are absolutely no earrings in ears or rings on ring fingers or glasses on eyes. But the smiles; the smiles are wide and honest and convey pride, hope. And taken together, together it really is something beautiful. They really are something beautiful. I feel so lucky to get to visit this world.