Back to Thyou

I came back to Thyou for a couple days. To check on the house, to make sure everything was intact. To see if it still felt like home—however temporary.

At first it was hectic. I woke up early, from my air-conditioned room in Ouaga. Barely caught a bus. Had to get off in Sabou, and since I left my bike at home, I had to do the last leg by bush taxi. They knew who I was, though. “The white guy’s going to Thyou!” they said. Put me right on the next car out. I had to cram in, as always. A kid of about ten years took a place on my lap. Twenty minute’s ride to the school, I get off. They throw my bag down from the roof and speed off.

Walking towards my house, the car’s dust settling behind, I look around…

…Much greener than when I left… It’s been raining a lot, and often.

“…Is this home?” I say to no one. No one answers. “…For now,” I tell the presently-lush surrounding.

The stick that held shut my door has come out—by an active agent or its own accord, I don’t know. It’s the same courtyard that’s always been there. The big shady tree. Weeds crowd the ground, thick like the humid air, but it’s the same.

I float my head around. It’s just as I left it. Will it stay this way? One year down and only one left. It will become someone else’s, but a part of me will always live here—like walking into the house you grew up in.

All’s the same inside. It looks lived in. My things are everywhere. Nothing feels foreign like when I first opened the door a year ago. I will continue living this way for a long way to come. Different houses, apartments. Do different things. And I will leave pieces of myself in these places. It’s good, though. Because I take pieces from here and there to fill the parts of me left behind.

It’s amazing, really, how quickly you can feel at home in a place.

I suddenly feel more comfortable here, in my space, than I did in my old room back home just two weeks before. This is my space in the world. The little nook I cut out for myself—whether or not the surroundings feel like home.

I realize, talking to a group of children who tend their grazing cows outside, that I’ve arrived on a market day. I put on pants (as opposed to shorts…) and head for the market. The sights are familiar, too. Maybe like “home.” Maybe not. Is familiarity all that makes you feel at home?

But this is comfortable. It’s not the sense of wonder at something new that drove me before. It’s not foreign. At market, I see faces I know. Students call my last name. I don’t stop to ask directions because I know where I’m going: the veggie ladies. In back. They’re happy to see me. Others, who didn’t frequent the market last year, laugh and gasp in wonder, approval, at the white guy successfully talking prices, buying food, in Moore. I know less than they think I do.

School doesn’t start for two months, so there’s no one in town and nothing to do. I spend most of the next couple days between my house and courtyard, sleeping, reading, cooking, eating. Conducting business in my latrine. I realize at some point that this might seem lonely, unbearable, secluded. But I’ve done this for a year. I’m comfortable alone as long as someone calls and speaks English with me every few days. Everyone out there’s willing to chat if I need it. And I’m enjoying the book.

The nerves connecting my fingers to my brain are telling me it hurts to play guitar. It’s been a couple weeks, and my calluses wore away. I wonder briefly what else I’ve forgotten. In a month. In a year…

I stay up late playing, ignoring the dull aches. For a minute, I stop, stand up, fill a cup with water. And I hear a dull half-whimper, half-growl. I know that voice.

Mirza charges through the open door crack. If he were a bigger dog I’d have been tackled like an ill-placed receiver. He shoves his face in my hands. His butt oscillates with the torque of his tail. We catch up.

The next day, a few students stop by to say hi. They inform me there’s been a death. The elder guy living in the house closest to the school. Later, people are celebrating (no, not mourning. This is not a sad thing) outside. It begins to rain in sheets. There is lightning. Thunder. A group of young men take shelter in the house sharing a wall with mine. When the rains tops, I come over and say hi. I know all these faces. They know me. We do not understand each other, but we know of each others existence. Its merging in and out of our own.

They offer me a seat and continue their ongoing conversation. I understand so few words, but I’m surprised that I can follow. They’re talking about someone else. He has to go to Sabou and come back. He’ll sleep there the night. We’ll see him Wednesday.

I used to think it was rude to get up and leave at times like this. But I know, and they know, that I don’t understand and this is not all that exhilarating to me. They offer a drink, ask a sympathy question in French, allow me to be on my way.

I spent much of the last year worrying that I wasn’t making enough friends here. That I should feel this way or that. That I should speak more Moore and have a larger stake in this town. But I realize that I am comfortable, and I am confident, and I’m here to teach. And I’ve made as close of friends that I can with a select few here, given the barriers. And those friendships are only, at the most pessimistic, half over.

One of my friends in the group—probably the closest I have here save the dog—turned to me while I was sitting, listening. “So…one year left, huh?” He laughed but there was longing in his eyes. “After that, we’re going to miss each other.”