Boat

I think quite a bit while I brush my teeth in the mornings. I try to get all that kind of thing out of the way early in the day, and the mindless, but otherwise crippling, activity of oral sanitation lends itself nicely to that. This one morning I was thinking how the sunrise looked exactly like the sunset. Except on the other side of the sky. You see, I was awake particularly early this one morning because I needed to get on my bike and go somewhere. To Matiti.

My mental faculties exhausted by the strains of observation, I played foot-hockey trying to keep Knut inside while I locked my door and saddled my bike. The tires hissed pleasantly over the sand and gravel roads that are punctured with post-pubescent potholes (meteoric craters, really). It's always beautiful wherever and whenever I wander in Mambolo, but this particular route is my favorite. Smoke from cook fires and sleepy greetings spilled out of the palm trees on either side of the road, and I think I remember a ravenous pack of children shaking off their morning daze to give me an uneasy feeling I was on the set of a zombie movie as they harassed me down the road. They can be quite quick.

Matiti finally reached, I waited. Something that's done quite often here, off course. No one really has clocks, or wrist watches, or anything but the sun, so time is fluid and vague. I think the presence of a cracked, square wall-clock crooked in this old man's arm the day before had connected with something very Western inside me. Maybe that's why I ended up commissioning him to build a boat for me. He was a little late this morning, but that's alright- he's cooler than the last ice age.

Let's just talk about this dude real quick- he's at least three hundred years old. The distracting, basketball sized yellowed clock he was holding held most of his attention during most of our interpretor-mediated conversation the day before, but after he gave it a look of contentment, brushed it tenderly with his hand, he said he'd build my boat. For Le60,000 and food for three days. When we shook hands to seal the deal, I was reminded of the cast iron handle of my cooking pan at home. The guy has a thanksgiving-sized helping of old-man-strength.

His seasoned, hurculean strenght was exhibited for five hours the next morning after I arrived on my bike. By the time the cotton tree crashed down into a meadow, he was covered in sweat, had utterly humiliated me by insisting I sit and not help, and besides rivulets of sweat sliding out from underneath his hat, seemed no worse the wear. Upon further inspection, the tree was gigantic. It would seem like that could've been observed while it was still vertical, but the result is that the plans for the sleek, one-man racer I had asked for were altered. Basically we're making a party barge now. I left the sound of axes carving a hull fit for five passengers behind me as I rode my bike back home, almost late to catch the lorry to bring me to Freetown where I've been the last 24 hours.

Just a snapshot of what I've been doing lately. Take care, everyone.