Another day, another no water moment

Don’t know how I forgot to mention this, but when we arrived in Foumban last night there was (you got it) no running water. My mind quickly went to “here we go again.” Can’t figure out why, for the life of me, I figured it would be on when we awoke this morning. Becky has no running water at her post, but she does have a water source. I guess that’s not as bad as having running water, and not knowing whether it will be on for that day or not; or even when they may decide to turn it back on. If there was another source for water that would not be too bad, but as far as we know, there is none.

We decided to skip breakfast; actually, I don’t think we discussed it, it just happened. Akilah and Becky did some planning for classes, which begin again on Monday. Sometime in the afternoon we went out to search for items for dinner. We walked casually along the street when all of a sudden we noticed a crowd forming around this one area. It was more like I noticed more of it; Akilah and Becky were deeply engrossed in conversation.

All I saw were machetes and a sledgehammer flying in the air. My first thought was that someone was feuding. Not exactly. Next a saw a Gendarme waving a machete type object towards the crowd to get them to disperse. Assuming it was for their safety, couldn’t he find something else to use?

Anyway, as we walked closer – this was the direction of the food vendors – I noticed the sledge hammer being rammed into someone’s front porch area (if you’d call it that) and tearing it apart. Simultaneously, someone else was putting a machete to other portions of the area. We walked by, with me kind of nervous at this point. All the children and adults in the area were either laughing or scurrying around as if it were hot news. I of course, still don’t know any portion of the languages, and am beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

So we’re casually walking along, the crowd now behind us, as I look back and see that they’ve moved to another building and began pummeling what was there. At this point I’m sensing they’re coming in our general direction. Akilah and Becky are still in conversation, so I kindly disturb by saying, “uhm, do you think we can get out of here?” Confused they’re wondering what I’m worrying about.

At this point I have very little problem convincing them that I feel very uncomfortable when I notice Gendarme standing and pushing the crowd back as men angrily break up people’s property. Now they look up to see what I was referring to, and decide, maybe we should walk against the grain and go back in the direction we came from since the crowd was going the other way.

While all of the commotion is going on, I’m mystified at how these two can continue shopping as if this is a normal everyday-type of activity. Even one of the vendors was trying to rush and see what was happening until those two walked up to purchase some greens. Hmmm, are they desensitized?

Finally, we leave go to the house, and they begin dinner. We had greens with fried plantains (or legumes and plantain if you’re in a restaurant). I had to chuckle a little bit, because at one point when they’d finished cooking, Akilah came out to ask me if I knew how they could get rid of the bitter taste of the greens. My question? “What did you put in the water?”

“Huh?” she said. Then I gave this look like, “you know, seasoning, vinegar, what?” Turns out all they did was to boil the greens, add tomatoes and onions, and called it a day. I told them that I’m not an expert at cooking them, but I do remember my family adding things like various seasonings and vinegar to assist with the flavoring; and naturally a ham this or turkey that to add salt and flavoring. Since we we’re lacto-ovo vegetarians (a term I was told of by Becky) we’ll skip the meat portion.

Dinner was served, I went to get my plate, but first made sure they were not looking and tasted the greens. Hmph, what bitterness? Everything tasted fine to me. The two of them thought I was absolutely crazy when I’d asked if the salt had been opened yet. “Oh, but we put plenty of salt in while we were cooking.” Once again, I had to school them that salt is one of the integral ingredients for greens, and merely salting the water did not suffice; especially if you have no illness that prevents you from eating more.

After dinner, the two of them did some more organizing and talking, I pretty much took that as a cue to give them some “women-time” and went into the back room to finish the last few pages of Big Girls Don’t Cry. (Which by the way if you’ve not read is very much worth reading.) Since I’d just read about seventy-five percent of the book since yesterday, figured I might as well go ahead and finish it tonight.

Need to move on to the last Octavia Butler book I have, I’ve read all her others and have been trying to savor reading this collection of short stories before being depressed about having no more of her books to read.