April Update

Happy Earth Day everyone! Well, everywhere else it is Earth Day. Here in Titao it’s more like “ the day of yellow”. We had a big dust storm roll in and it’s so cloudy that everything outside is in a yellowish red haze. It’s 9am and people are still using flashlights to get around outside because the visibility is so bad. Now, I’ve never lived on Venus but I imagine it’s something like this.

The good thing about days like this is that it gives us a small break from the heat. We’ve been hitting around 120 degrees the last few weeks and it’s been pretty miserable. Our mode de vie has involved several bucket baths a day, keep a hand fan in every room, and no trips in town unless the destination has cold water sachets. We had a brief glimmer of hope last week that our 6-month rain drought was coming to an end when all the villages in the area got a rainstorm. By the time it reached us, there were enough drops to help the dust stick to our bikes better but no real rain.

One of our students invited us to his annual family meeting in his village to discuss the affairs of the Komi family. We couldn’t make it but afterwards he gave us a debriefing. I guess the main part of the meeting was recounting the history of how the Komi family got their name. I asked for the story and after 15 minutes of recounting it, I still can’t for sure say that I know the answer. I’ll give you the highlights: a woman gave birth in a tree and there was a clay pot nearby that had four eyes. Then some kids were given a pet giraffe and the evil dad rode off on the giraffe and got decapitated. And, voila, the Komi family!

We had the annual fête de la pomme de terre a few weeks ago. There was the usual speeches and opening of the potato market where you could choose from many different piles of similar-looking potatoes. Unfortunately this year, since Easter Sunday was the day after the potato festival there was no all night dancing party, which means no Miss Pomme de Terre competition. All my campaign efforts over the last year went to waste.