If it doesn't fit, change it

Today was an incredible reminder of how undeniably blessed I am. In fact, I've found that I can't think too much about all of my blessings because I feel so undeserving it gets overwhelming. But it's not because I am comparing myself with those around me-- Dear God, thank you that I have food to eat tomorrow-- or making a list of things I like at all.

A poem in progress

Nearly everything

Formerly known;

believed in, once

I saw the world.

Not anymore

white. Or black.

All just reflected

shades of gray. (Or

grey, depending

how you see it.)

I saw,

momentarily, sideways

in your eyes,

death reflecting upon 
the living

and I knew you

had seen

the world is not:

not round— not even oblong—

and certainly not flat.
Any way you look at it.

All the time

it changes shape.

And it is no wonder

anymore, 

why. So many
don't care to look
in the first place.

A month ago

Issiak and Alimata's family

I think this is what they call "progress"

A lot has happened since I wrote last; most significantly, I have been in Burkina more than a year now and I seem to have gotten over the struggle with my (very American) expectation of achievement. I have decided to do what I can with what I have where I am and let that be enough-- screw everybody’s expectations, including my own.

Just Another Saturday Night

I was eating dinner at my kitchen counter, shoveling it in as if it was the last spaghetti in the Faso, when over the pounding bass of dance music down the street I heard a soft noise outside my door.

I don’t get many visitors that aren’t local kids, always wanting things, and breaking things, and stealing my heart anyway. I was oh so ready to yell at them (it was too late to be bothering the  white lady). When I looked up I saw it wasn’t my kids, but instead a woman I know from around town standing there with her chubby baby, Noel (born, you guessed it, Christmas day). I stopped, mouth open, mid-Moore thought, and then tried not to look shocked as I went out to greet this rare grown-person visitor.

New Old Photos

Check out some of my old blog posts with new photos added :)