blood sweat tears

been wakin up round 7 for breakfast, sour millet porridge, and workin til dinner. in between is beef jerky from grandpa and grandma and spoonfuls of peanut butter. mixin concrete and pounding out dutch bricks for well improvement. it's hard to get workers so I do a lot myself. already wore through the american construction gloves I brought. my hands bled at first and are now turning hard like old mans or malian kids. no shirt or shoes and really hot and dirty. dead by the end of the day. sleeping sound, spread out, outside. I lay half naked smoking cigs lettin the cold front wind that's been bringin in the rains roll over my body and take the heat. it sways the trees and rustles the thatch roofs, the only sound you can hear late at night. like living on the ocean maybe, just the sway of the ocean and empty night sky.

with the rains is greenness and that deep thick smell of the damp wilderness. no dust, this I like. flies rise at 5 in the morning, this I hate. start suckin face suckin toes. reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance on the heels of deciding to take a trip south of the border when I get back to the states. a timeless planless venture relying on the survival skills learned here and some spanish I hope to pick up from the mexican mother who refused us to learn it. MOM! cervezas latinas carnitas. and they're a little more chill than the people here, treat women better and aren't hung up on flash as much.

as for tears, maybe just crying kids and emotional eruptions from fellow volunteers. nothingness is hard to handle if you're head ain't right. but it's doing mine some good; figure out what's good for you, what you want to do, make decisions about the future. "oh that's nice" but sometimes it takes living in a different reality to get a hold on your own. it's easy stateside, easy to just fuck around, not care and not look forward to anything. but when you're here you realize everything you weren't doing, everything you weren't taking advantage of. everything you weren't opening yourself up to. I can't wait to get back. live for myself and outside the lines. if you can do this you can do anything and it's empowering, inspiring even. sure I could have done everything before but it wouldn't have tasted as sweet.

after committing to living for others you want to live for yourself. because that's really what it's all about. nothing grows from sacrificing yourself, not in a place like america. when everything is at your fingertips all the time it should be exploited for the individual. responsibly of course. human progress comes from individual greatness not massive movements. it's always some one or two doing something really bad or good that flips the switch. everyone else follows. so I'm laying out my future how I want it, and if I end up making something great out of it then fuck, I did it.

for now I'll hang with the lost boys and play our favorite game of pretending dinner is a smorgasbord of honey hams and candied yams, hot cocoa and cream pies. the characters in my book eat hot beef sandwiches and hot cakes with syrup, griddle steaks and black coffee. the kids wrestle me and forget I'm white, really try and take me down, try to hurt me. after dinner they follow me out to the soccer field for marathon training and count off my tenth miles. every ten tenths they scream eh! toumani!... running gets pretty boring so I look to the stars falling behind the dark silhouettes of trees and rock ridges and pretend I'm running a cosmos road laid til the end of the universe. mario kart rainbow road or pokemon snap final scenario, star child from 2001. don't ask. it's trippy though.

I could talk some about work but that's boring as shit. same old shea butter and sanitation garbage that no one here is really interested in. just wandering eyes and patronizing words. I'll focus on the few who give a fuck, that'll be good enough. and maybe get my hands dirty with some admin stuff, maybe try and make this PC thing an actual legit operation. like I might've said before, 40 years and nothing much to show. bullshit.