home again!

hey ya to all from the great plains of illinois.

the scent of being home makes my toes stretch out in delight. it feels like the end of a long day - i'm eating farmers market tomatoes like apples, wearing my dad's t-shirts, dog tired and curled up under two blankets even after turning off the AC when no one's looking. lord, i think i became a malian.

dogon country was absolutely striking - valleys of bright green millet, shocking red mountains, and gnarly thousand-year-old trees that stretch and yawn like Ents. during the jurassic period, Land Before Time 1 through 13 were filmed there. we trekked along a sweeping falaise that overlooks the Gondo plains, stopping in square-hutted Dogon villages that cling to the cliffside or perch on top.

even higher than Dogon villages are abandoned granaries of the Tellem - an ancient people who must have had wings. some of the less accessable Dogon villages have been abandoned to new sites just a hundred meters down the cliff side; the Dogon tradition is incredibly alive. we slept under the stars on roofs belonging to the dugutigis, or village chiefs, and offered Kola nuts to Dogon elders who are important in the animist tradition. we slept and woke with the sun, and i believe i ate 7 whole sheep.

my last week passed slowly but all at once as only last weeks can. i spent a lot of time with soukeina's family (and am using flower-ifically henna'd hands and feet to type this).

soukeina’s sister said, “the sun will miss you, hawa gaku. the trees of mali will miss you. even the To will miss you. i will miss you too much, hawa gaku.” aw jeez. their hearts are so sweeping and so full, they couldn't have been kinder. may god hold them in the hollow of his hand.

on my last night, i carried my mattress down to the maternity ward of the Sikoro clinic and followed the wonderful, wrinkled, hand-holding and turban-wearing and breathtakingly competent Asa Cisse, a sage femme who has delivered babies for 22 years, though she assured me that she sprinted out of the room the first time she saw a birth. i first saw a woman being sutured for a tear; and then, the birth of two babies. it's a BYO set-up - women are expected to come with old pagnes (meters of cloth) and a packet of dish detergent to keep things clean. the first woman had walked so far that she was fully dilated, and her baby was born within 2 minutes. a tiny tiny little primate gal covered in goo and so beautiful that you can’t speak. wow.

sikoro still feels like home - i can already feel i'll miss it. not to mention, of course, my mhop peeps. devon, alex, anna - i'm asking you to fashion me a shrine under the office fan, nothing too ornate, just those little raspberry-flavored zinc supplements from the '70s and bananas and a live chicken and a dusting of oatmeal oats. talk to it every once and a while. and if i die and never return, light a candle and let it burn, 'cuz light transcends time. i'm thinking about you guys.

grandma toots is coming to visit next week - i've got to pick out a hundred or so of the 7,234,234,253 pictures i took. i went to the doctor and was surprised to see i'd lost a ton of weight this summer -- no good since i was already scrawny. pretty fixable though, as once my grandma gets here i'm gonna go on a plan i'll call "South Carrot Cake." yesterday i took a glorious, soapy hot shower and have smooth legs for the first time of the summer -- it felt like shearing a sheep.

thanks so much for being with me this summer. i can't tell you how much your kind words lifted me up.

i got the Rolly on my arm and i'm pouring Chandon, and i roll the best To 'cuz I got it going on, but i couldn't mhop it like it's hot without you.

much love, and can't wait to see you.

xoxoxo hawa gaku xoxox