It happened one morning that the sunrise was not so foreign to me. The morning air, thick with unshed dew, was a familiar friend beckoning me awake. The roosters hearkening the new day brought to mind other roosters on a continent far, far away, waking my friend in Africa.
The language still belies comprehension despite my efforts, but speech has patterned itself into discernible syllables that can be weighed and measured and studied instead of the fluid stream of sound that once slipped through the fingers of my mind. And though my vocabulary is small, any human can testify that knowing a few faces in the crowd makes all the difference.
Last night Matthew, the youngest child of my host, warned me of sitting too lightly in the back of the pick up truck. Squinting with the efforts of rallying his scattered English vocabulary, he said: "I know you be good climber an good piano when you grow up, but you just come a little while ago an I don't want lost you." I nearly cried. Instead, I promised I would sit down and be careful. How can one fail to be absorbed by such a people?
In short, my colored candy shell has been digested by the acid rigors of this beautiful country, and now I am chocolate, like everybody else.
Dan
For more about me and my travels, visit my Newsletter Archive.
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